Featuring Sam Immerschmitt’s “Italian Meatballs in Napolitana Sauce”

Born in Sydney and grew up in Summer Hill before my family and I moved to Putney. From a very young age I started making pancakes with my Dad which are always good, we have them for dinner rather than a desert but when we do have them as a treat I really like to put sugar on mine. Dad has taught me how to create great tasting pancakes using real ingredients and not a pancake mix from the supermarket. I love being in the kitchen with my Mum and Dad as we have a lot of fun, laughing about the silly things we do such as Dad flipping pancakes that almost hit the floor and my Mum forgetting she has something on the stove until I remind her it’s boiling over or burning.

I really like when my parents have friends over for dinner as we laugh so much, I’m only a kid but these “oldies” are always so funny. I recently visited my Auntie Bernie and Uncle Alex over the Christmas holidays. We made and had so much food that we were almost bursting, I needed the energy for the surf lessons I took while on holidays. The best part of being in the kitchen is learning some great tricks like Uncle Alex showing me how to crack an egg using only one hand and I’m really good at it now. The food I enjoy eating most is “Spaghetti Neapolitan with prawns”. When I was younger my Mum used to say everything was prawns, like Chicken Prawns, Pork Prawns, anything prawns would encourage me to eat.

My comfort food would be ham noodles and I like Jamie Oliver’s way of cooking. I think every home should have milk, eggs, butter, fresh fruit, vegetables and meat in the fridge or pantry. Soccer is in my blood and I was recently chosen for Reps, therefore healthy food is important for me to provide lots of energy, so I eat plenty of vegetables, green and red capsicum and yogurt. Once when my Auntie Bernie and I made pasta dough, we used a machine to roll and make the shapes out of the pasta dough, needing a space to hang the pasta my Auntie Bernie found her sweeping broom, cleaned it and wrapped cling wrap around it. The broom was placed between the kitchen wall benches and the island bench, we laughed as we made the pasta, it tasted great, this year we improved our technique and hung the pasta on the clothes airier to dry.

Italian Meatballs in Napolitana Sauce

Ingredients serve 8

1000 g beef mince

2 onions, finely chopped (250g)

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black ground pepper

25 fresh basil leaves finely chopped (2 tbls)

1 tbls fresh oregano leaves finely chopped

4 tbls finely chopped parsley

1 cup breadcrumbs (90g)

1 egg (50g)

Method

Preheat oven to 160ºC. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and combine well. Shape mixture into balls approx. 40 grams each. Place meatballs on a greased baking tray and bake in the oven for approx. 20 minutes. Put the meatballs in a saucepan with napolitana sauce (see recipe below) and keep warm. Serve with pasta, chopped basil leaves and shredded parmesan cheese.

Napolitana Sauce ingredients

4 tbls olive oil

2 large onions finely chopped (500g)

2 tsp minced garlic

4 tins whole peeled tomatoes (1600g)

200 g tomato paste

2 tbls freshly finely chopped oregano leaves

50 freshly finely chopped basil leaves (4 tbls)

2 tsp sea salt

½ tsp black ground pepper

2 tbls sugar

Method

Place oil, onion, garlic in a large saucepan and sauté until glassy. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, basil, salt, pepper and sugar. Stir well and simmer on low heat for approx. 35 minutes.

Note: This is a good base tomato sauce for pasta and pizza.