Recipe
Polpette di pollo with courgette and rice
Somewhere in Europe tonight there is a nineteen-year-old called Matteo, three weeks into his first year away from home, standing in a shared kitchen with his phone wedged between ear and shoulder, asking his mother how much breadcrumb goes into the meatballs.
Quanto basta, she says. As much as is enough.
Matteo asks, reasonably, enough for what. His mother, who has made these perhaps four thousand times and has never in her life measured anything, repeats eh, quanto basta, slightly louder, on the widely held Italian assumption that volume is a form of explanation. Matteo puts in a generous handful. It is too much. The meatballs come out with the density and general demeanour of a squash ball. He eats them anyway, because he is nineteen and it is 21:40 and there is nothing else.
This recipe exists to spare you that phone call. The quantities are written down, in grams, like a coward, and they work.
Chicken mince is the cheap secret here. It costs less than beef, it sits lighter at a desk than a beef meatball does at three in the afternoon, and it takes on whatever you put with it, which in this case is grated courgette. The courgette is not in there to be healthy. It is in there because it holds water, and water is the only thing standing between a chicken meatball and gravel. Grate it, salt it, wring it out in your hands over the sink, and fold it through. That one step is the entire difference between these and Matteo's.
They finish by simmering in a plain tomato sauce, which does the reheating work for you: anything that sits in sauce comes back from a microwave in good condition, and anything that sits dry does not. Rice alongside, or bread, or straight from the box cold the next day while standing in front of the open fridge, which is not officially recommended and is how most of them get eaten.
- Prep 20 min
- Cook 25 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Grate the courgette, toss it with a good pinch of salt, leave it 5 minutes, then squeeze it hard in your hands over the sink. You want it noticeably drier, not bone dry.
7 min
- 2
Mix the mince, courgette, breadcrumbs, egg, parmigiano, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper with your hands until it just comes together. Do not work it any longer than that.
5 min
- 3
Roll into 12 balls the size of a walnut, wetting your hands if the mix sticks.
5 min
- 4
Brown them in the oil in a wide pan over medium heat, turning until coloured all over. They do not need to cook through here.
6 min
- 5
Pour in the passata plus half a jar of water, season, and simmer gently, uncovered, until the sauce has thickened and the polpette are cooked through. Tear in the basil at the end.
18 min
- 6
Meanwhile cook the rice in plenty of salted water, drain, and serve underneath.
12 min
Variations
Turkey mince works identically and is often cheaper. Swap the courgette for 100 g of ricotta for a softer, richer polpetta (then skip the squeezing). A pinch of chilli and a tablespoon of capers in the sauce sharpens the whole thing up. For a Neapolitan Sunday version, use the sauce afterwards to dress pasta and eat the polpette as a second course, which is what the sauce was invented for. They freeze raw on a tray, then bagged, and go straight into the sauce from frozen with 8 minutes extra.