What’s better than barbecue meatballs? Barbecue Meatballs in bacon gravy. Yes, there’s bacon in the gravy and red wine and mushrooms and pools of melty mozzarella. #takethatmonday! This recipe is all about comfort food, those familiar family foods that we grew up eating, in a time when cooking from scratch was nothing new. Some of the most viewed recipes on this blog involve meatballs, like these North African Chermoula meatballs or a pan of tapas-style Spanish meatballs. I have a feeling however, that barbecue meatballs with bacon gravy are going to become kind of popular around here. As you’d expect, the sauce delivers a savoury-sweet tang with just enough smoked chilli heat to warm the cockles on a cold and dreary autumn night.
This is the forth recipe in my ‘childhood favourites’ series so I simply had to include meatballs or frikkadels, as we knew it. Admittedly, these barbecue meatballs aren’t exactly the same as I remember my mum making, but I think they’re every bit as gratifying. There’s no right or wrong way to serve meatballs – with pasta, rice or mashed potatoes. In this instance though, a crusty sourdough would help enormously as a pan-mop for the marmitey sticky bits. I’m thinking a filled baguette, piled high with meatballs for seriously good dude food, along with a squidge of hot sauce and peppery rocket. Sweet potato mash or creamy polenta can swing it all the way to pure comfort food.
A quick word on the bacon gravy. If you’re going to use bacon, smoked is usually the way to go. It adds a sweet-salty-smoky depth of flavour that only bacon manages to do, but feel free to omit this to suit dietary preferences. The sauce is robust enough to hold its own. To finish, scatter with mozzarella and blister under the grill because when was adding cheese ever a bad idea?
Now if you’re serious about meatballs, like this enthusiastic crowd over at The Feedfeed, you can wade through a melange of meatball recipes from Asian to Vegetarian, Curried and quinoa’d. Be sure to check out my Creamy Swedish meatballs with portobello mushrooms and frothy cream.
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