Finding new ways to improve on old recipes / dish is always exciting. Meatballs are a standard dish and everyone has a good-to recipe for this good-old-faithful meal. Here is interesting spicy meatball dish which will not fail to delight your guests.

Recommended wine: Arniston Bay Shiraz 2008. This is a full bodied wine with intense dark colour subtle smoky and pepper spice nose with strong full middle palate and good tannin structure. Good finish with hints of coffee and chocolate in the aftertaste.

The Recipe

Serves 8

Total preparation time is about  1 hour

Ingredients

• -500g lean ground beef
• -500g  ground pork
• -1 medium onion, minced
• -2 slices soft bread, crusts removed and torn into pieces
• -5 cloves garlic, minced
• -2 eggs
• -1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• -1/4 cup olive oil
• -1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• -1 tablespoon salt
• -1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan
• -3 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• -1 1/2 cups ricotta

Directions

1. -Preheat oven to 200° C. In a large bowl, combine the first 10 ingredients, 1 cup of the Parmesan, and 2 teaspoons of the pepper. Mix just to combine. Shape the mixture into 16 to 18 large meatballs (each should consist of about 3/4 cup of meat). Place on a baking pan and set aside.
2. -In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta with the remaining Parmesan and the remaining pepper; set aside.
3. -Bake the meatballs for 20 minutes in upper third of oven. Remove from oven and turn on broiler. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the ricotta mixture onto each meatball. Broil 3 to 5 minutes or until the ricotta just starts to brown.

The Wine:

Source: realsimple.com