Tomato Mascarpone Meatballs

Ingredients

• 500 g pork mince
• 250 ml chicken stock
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 800 g chopped tomatoes
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 30 g parmesan, grated
• 300 g orecchiette
• 125 g mascarpone
• 15 g basil, torn
• 1 carrot, coarsely grated

Method

1. Tip the pork mince, parmesan and oregano into a bowl. Season generously with salt and black pepper. Squash everything together with your hands until evenly combined and slightly tacky, then roll into 12 walnut-sized meatballs.
2. Use your widest deep pan: add the olive oil and bring it to a medium-high heat. Brown the meatballs in two batches; crowd them in all at once and the pan drops in temperature, water seeps out, and you'll have grey steamed meatballs instead of a deep mahogany crust. Turn them carefully every couple of minutes, 6 to 8 minutes total, then lift onto a plate. Leave the brown stuck bits in the pan.
3. Drop the onion and grated carrot into the pan and cook for 5 minutes, stirring now and then, until softened and starting to catch gold at the edges. Stir in the garlic and tomato purée and cook for 1 minute until fragrant; watch the garlic, 60 seconds is the limit. The purée should darken a shade and smell rich and savoury.
4. Pour in the chopped tomatoes and the chicken stock. Scrape up any fond from the base of the pan, season, and bring to a gentle simmer.
5. Tip in the orecchiette and return the meatballs along with any resting juices. Cover and cook for 12 to 14 minutes, stirring once or twice so the pasta doesn't catch on the base, until the orecchiette is tender and the meatballs are cooked through. The starch from the pasta will thicken the sauce as it goes; no separate pasta water needed here, the sauce is doing both jobs.
6. Stir in the mascarpone off the heat until the sauce turns soft, rosy and glossy and clings to every ridge of the pasta.
7. Scatter over the torn basil and take the pan straight to the table while the sauce is glossy.