Chicken Meatballs with Vegetable Ragout
The first time I used the Thermomix to steam meat was for the Vietnamese meatball recipe on the Thermomix Recipe Community. I’ve used this as inspiration for this Italian-style meatball dish. I like to keep my red meat intake to once or twice a week, so I’ve used chicken breast here. Instead of breadcrumbs, I’ve used finely chopped mushrooms. The ragout is a rich sauce designed to provide the vegetable content for the dish.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Meatballs
6 mushrooms, halved
½ red onion, peeled and quartered
1 clove garlic
600g chicken breast, cut into 3cm pieces
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried parsley
Salt and pepper to season
Ragout
1 red onion, peeled and quartered
½ red onion, peeled and diced into 1.5-2cm pieces
2 cloves garlic
20g olive oil
2 x 400g cans diced tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp dried parsley
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp Thermomix vegetable stock concentrate
Salt and pepper to season
3 zucchini, cut into 1.5cm pieces
1 medium eggplant, cut into 2cm pieces
Instructions
1. Chop onion and garlic in the Thermomix for 3 seconds/Speed 5
2. Chop mushrooms in the Thermomix for 8 seconds/Speed 3
3. Scrape down the sides of the Thermomix bowl, add chicken breast, paprika, parsley, salt and pepper to the bowl and mince by closing the lid, with MC on, and holding Turbo for 1 second; repeat 3 times
4. Make the meatballs by rolling the meat mixture between the palms of your hand and forming into balls about 3cm wide
5. Put meatballs in the Varoma on both bottom and top trays; leaving about 1cm gaps between them. Set aside
6. To make the sauce, clean the Thermomix bowl and then chop the whole onion and garlic in the Thermomix for 3 seconds/Speed 5
7. Scrape down sides, add oil and sauté with the measuring cup (MC) off for 3 minutes/100C/Speed 1
8. Add 1 can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, stock, herbs, salt and pepper into the Thermomix and cook for 10 minutes/100C/Speed 2 with MC half off
9. Purée sauce for 20 seconds – slowly going from Speed 1 to Speed 7
10. Add the ½ onion, zucchini, eggplant and can of diced tomatoes into the Thermomix, close lid and put the Varoma on top. The bowl may be quite full, but will shrink as the eggplant cooks
11. Cook for 20 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Speed soft
Serving Suggestions
Serve with 1 cup of couscous cooked to package instructions
Variations
Make the ragout without the meatballs and serve as a chunky vegetable sauce with pasta. Just follow steps 6 to 11 and in step 10, put the MC half on instead of putting the Varoma on top
Meatballs before cooking
if we have to eat 
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