Soutzoukakia

This is a recipe from my childhood. It is greek in origin (oregano and tomatoes are main ingredients which is a bit of a giveaway). For some reason I decided to cook a dish that requires onions on a day when we had nearly run our of onions. I'll describe the dish as I would normally make it but today I used one onion for the meatballs, one onion and a load of shallots for the sauce.

• 1 onion finely chopped
• 3 slices of bread made into bread crumbs using a food processor or just 3 handfuls of breadcrumbs
• 400g beef mince (or thereabouts)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 3 onions, sliced
• 2 tins of tomatoes
• 3 tsp or oregano

Mix the chopped onion, bread crumbs, mince, egg, 1 tsp oregano and season. Make this into ellipsoids about the 6 or 7 cm long and 2 cm wide. Brown these in some olive oil in a frying pan then add the sliced onions (if there is not enough room in the pan take out the meat-ellipsoids) and gently fry them too. Add the rest of the ingredients and season generously (remember tomatoes usually need a bit more salt that you'd think). Simmer for about 15-20 mins (the same length of time it'll take you to cook some rice to go with it).

The photos do not make it look as good as it actually is.