This beautiful Procidan recipe for polpette (meatballs) were an absolute delight to eat during our recent trip to Italy. You can easily make these vegan by changing the mince to soya and substituting the egg with a little flour and maybe a splash of water to bind them. They work so well in the slow cooker and the key here is to simmer very gently for as long as you can so the sauce is melting in your mouth and the meatballs are soft- I did mine over 15 hours. If you can manage 5-6 hours then you will still get a lovely result.

Makes 8 - serves 3-4.

You’ll need:

For the polpette:

500g mince or veggie/vegan substitute

1 egg - or a little flour and water if vegan

1 large clove of garlic, grated.

A large handful of parsley, finely chopped. (mine was out of the garden)

A large handful of breadcrumbs.

Salt and pepper.

For the sauce:

1 onion, very finely chopped

1 tin of plum tomatoes (I used Epicure Organic)

Salt and pepper

A slosh of olive oil (I used La Espanola Organic as that is what was in the cupboard:)

Torn basil leaves - as many as you like!

How to:

Mix the meatball recipe with your hands until you can form balls - I made 9 altogether, they were about 5cm in diameter but it doesn’t really matter on size :)

Fry off the onion very slowly in the oil on a fairly low temperature.

Add the onion to the slow cooker with everything else from the sauce except half the basil.

Mash the tomatoes until smooth or put into a blender first. Stir well and pop the meatballs in.

Cook for a minimum of 5 hours on low, turning them over if you can, but don’t worry too much if you can’t just give them a stir 5 mins before serving as the tops of the meatballs can sometimes be a bit dry (they soon soak up the sauce though!).

Before serving, stir in the rest of the basil leaves.

Serve with spaghetti, or mash potato, or veggies, or whatever you like.

Enjoy!