Macaroni with a spicy tomato sauce and seitan meatballs

Ingredients for macaroni with a spicy tomato sauce and seitan meatballs

Ingredients for the tomato sauce:

• 1 leek
• 2 carrots
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small dried chilli
• 500 ml red wine
• 500 ml yeast-free vegetable stock
• 2 tins of peeled tomatoes (about 400 g)
• 4 tbsp tomato purée
• 150 ml olive oil (Amanprana Verde Salud)
• A pinch of fleur de sel (Amanprana)
• A pinch of pepper
• 4 dried bay leaves

Ingredients for the seitan meatballs:

• 1 Veggie Protein Bloc – Spelt
• 1 small onion
• 1 small fresh chilli
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs

Preparation of macaroni with a spicy tomato sauce and seitan meatballs

1. Start by peeling the onion and garlic and washing the vegetables. Finely crush the garlic and chop the vegetables into uniform pieces.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot and lightly sauté the garlic.
3. Add the remaining vegetables and the tomato purée and simmer gently for 5 to 8 minutes.
4. Deglaze with red wine, add the vegetable stock and simmer briefly.
5. Add the tomatoes and bay leaves.
6. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting and simmer for about two hours.

Making the seitan meatballs:

1. Chop the seitan, onion, garlic and chilli into chunks and pass through a mincer to obtain a finely-minced pulp.
2. If you don’t have a mincer, you can use a blender.
3. Add a tablespoon of cornflour and a tablespoon of breadcrumbs to the minced mixture and knead well to combine.
4. If the mixture starts to get too dry, add a few drops of water and continue to knead.
5. Cover the mince and leave to rest for 20 minutes.
6. With damp hands, form the mince into balls of a uniform size, and deep-fry the balls in Amanprana coconut oil until golden brown.
7. When the balls are golden brown, place them on kitchen paper until the excess oil has dripped off, then add to the sauce.
8. Allow the sauce to continue cooking.
9. Ten minutes before the end of the cooking time, remove the tomatoes and cube finely or purée, then return to the pan.
10. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and cook the macaroni until al dente.
11. Serve the meatball sauce hot over the macaroni.

Tip of Stefano:

Meatballs and tomato sauce, the perfect combination

The combination of meatballs and tomato sauce is indeed a classic. In this recipe it’s delicious with macaroni, but you can of course serve it with any kind of pasta. Remember the famous spaghetti-and-meatballs scene in the film Lady and the Tramp? Why is this combination so perfect? The flavours fit together perfectly, like pieces of a jigsaw. Naturally, you can give this classic dish a completely different twist, to suit your own taste. Put some extra garlic or basil in the sauce or add a dash of cream. You can give it your own personal touch. This recipe replaces the traditional meatballs made from beef mince with vegetarian meatballs made from seitan.