Swedish Style Low Fat Meatballs

In honour of tomorrow nights Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo Sweden, here's a dish in that can be a big hit for those tacky but great fun Eurovision House Parties I love so much. The meatballs have a salute to Sweden, and are the perfect canape, great for drinks parties of all kind.

The meatballs are normally made with a mixture of beef and pork mince, but as theses are low fat, we are using turkey mincemeat. The meatballs are also baked not fried, thus reducing the fat further.

I'm serving these with two different dips; a low fat tomato sauce and a parsley yogurt.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 400g turkey mince
• 1 slice of wholemeal bread
• 6 tbsp of low fat milk
• 1/4 tsp of mixed spice
• 1 tsp of fennel seeds
• 1 large egg
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp of chopped flat leaf parsley

Parsley Yogurt

• 1 tsp of flat leaf parsley chopped
• 8 tbsp of low fat yogurt
• 1/4 of a garlic clove, grated
• salt and pepper
• Juice of 1/4 of a lemon

Tomato Sauce

• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 3/4 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 small fennel bulb, chopped
• 1 tsp of chilli paste
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Blitz the bread to crumbs in a food processor.
   
3. Add the crumbs to a bowl and mix with the milk
4. Add the remaining meatball ingredients and mix well to combine.
5. Using a wet tea spoon, divide out the small bite size meat balls on the baking tray.
6. Wet both hands and mould the meatballs into balls
7. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, turning half way.
8. To make the parsley sauce just combine the ingredients and place in a serving dish
9. To make the tomato sauce, add the chilli paste, onion, fennel and garlic to a frying pan, with the oil and saute on a medium heat.
10. Add the tomatoes and cook until they are broken down. Pour into a jug and blitz with a hand held blender. Return to the pan and season and heat. Place in a serving dish. (This basic tomato sauce can be used for just about anything! e.g. the remaining sauce is perfect for my pizza party)
11. To serve, scatter some rocket over a plate and place the balls on the plate and put toothpicks on each meatball. Serve with the sauces.