Soutzoukakia
Greek beef meatballs from Smyrna, rolled long like little cigars, browned and then braised in a cumin and tomato sauce. The bread inside is soaked in red wine rather than water, which is the whole difference.
Standard Smyrna method, beef only, from the Greek home-cooking tradition
Ingredients
Written for a 28 cm pan
Units
Temperature
Servings
Meatballs
- 700 g ground beef, about 15 percent fat rounded
- 80 g stale white bread, crusts off, soaked in the red wine and squeezed out rounded
- 80 ml dry red wine, for soaking the bread, and it goes in with it rounded
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste rounded
- 7 g ground cumin, yes, that much; it is the signature of the dish rounded
- 10 g fine salt rounded
- 3 g black pepper rounded
- 15 g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped rounded
- 30 ml olive oil, for browning rounded
Sauce
- 700 g passata rounded
- 1 onion, finely diced rounded
- 30 ml olive oil rounded
- 1 cinnamon stick, one, and take it out at the end rounded
- 10 g granulated sugar, against the acidity of the tomato rounded
- 5 g fine salt rounded
Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.
Method
- Soak the bread in the wine, not in water. Tear the crustless bread into a bowl, pour the red wine over, leave 5 minutes, then squeeze it lightly. Keep whatever wine is left in the bowl and add it to the meat. This is the thing that makes soutzoukakia taste like soutzoukakia rather than like meatballs.
- Mix and rest. Beef, soaked bread, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper and parsley. Knead 3 to 4 minutes until it holds together, then cover and rest 30 minutes in the fridge.
- Roll them long. Wet hands, about 60 g each, rolled into cigars roughly 8 cm long and 3 cm thick with rounded ends. Not spheres. The shape is part of the dish and it also gives you more surface to brown.
- Brown, do not cook through. Olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. Brown them on all sides, turning carefully, about 5 minutes total. Lift them out. They finish in the sauce, and browning them fully here means dry meatballs later.
- Build the sauce in the same pan. Add the second lot of oil and the onion and cook gently 6 to 8 minutes until soft and sweet, scraping the browned bits off the base. Add the passata, cinnamon stick, sugar and salt.
- Braise. Return the soutzoukakia, spoon sauce over them, and simmer uncovered on low for 25 to 30 minutes, turning them once halfway. The sauce should reduce to a coating and darken to brick red.
- Fish out the cinnamon stick. Rest 10 minutes off the heat before serving, over rice or with potatoes, with more parsley.
Notes
- Cumin is not optional and is not subtle here. Smyrna cooking is warm-spiced, and 7 g for 700 g of beef is correct even though it looks like a lot. Under-cuminned soutzoukakia are just meatballs in tomato sauce.
- One cinnamon stick, whole. Ground cinnamon turns the sauce sweet and slightly gritty. A stick gives a background warmth you notice only when it is missing.
- Rolled long for a reason. More crust per meatball, and they sit in a single layer in the pan more efficiently than spheres do.
- Better the next day. The sauce keeps 3 days in the fridge and improves overnight. They freeze for 3 months in the sauce.
- Do not crowd the pan. Brown in two batches if you need to. A crowded pan drops in temperature and the meatballs grey rather than crust.
Ingredient substitutions
- Beef only here. Greek recipes often use a beef and pork mix, and some use lamb. Pure beef is leaner, so keep the fat at around 15 percent rather than going lower.
- Passata is the smooth sieved tomato this wants. Tinned chopped tomatoes work but need 10 minutes longer and a quick crush with the spoon.
Sources consulted
Good with
Sources consulted
From Christoph Mayer