Tender hedgehogs in tomato sauce is a delicious meat dish that is equally good for adults and children.
The combination of rice and meat make it complete in protein and carbohydrate content. You can eat hedgehogs separately, and with a side dish.
Hedgehogs in tomato sauce - general principles of preparation
Pure dried meat fillet for delicious soft hedgehogs in tomato sauce should be chopped as finely as possible. It would be nice to pass the minced meat through a meat grinder a second time so that it becomes more tender. You can take any meat, and beef, and pork, and lamb, and rabbit, and even chicken are suitable.
A mandatory component of any hedgehogs is white rice. The peculiarity of the dish, unlike meatballs, is that rice must be raw. It must be washed thoroughly either under running cold water or changing the water several times in a bowl. You can even soak for an hour and a half, so that the grains swell and boil easier.
Sometimes, when it comes to feeding a child, you can additionally put vegetables in the stuffing. For example, if a baby is enthusiastic about carrots, cabbage, onions or zucchini, twist the vegetables and mix with the rice and meat base.
Tomato sauce for this dish is prepared, as a rule, from ready-made tomato paste. You can take ketchup, but it is less useful and does not give the desired taste. Sometimes pasta can be replaced with canned tomatoes in its own juice or take fresh tomatoes. The skin of tomatoes in this case must be removed.
You can cook the hedgehogs in tomato sauce on the stove, in the oven, slow cooker. The main thing is that there is a lot of sauce: it will impregnate the meat, filling it with wonderful tomato juiciness, and let the rice cook well.
Hedgehogs in tomato sauce in a pan
Delicious meat hedgehogs according to this recipe need to be cooked simply in a pan. Choose dishes with high sides so that the sauce does not splash when boiling. Instead of minced pork, any other or mixed from several types of meat is suitable.
Ingredients:
• a pound of minced meat from pork pulp;
• half a glass of rice;
• one onion;
• one egg;
• two tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• salt and pepper to your taste;
• medium carrots;
• A glass of tomato juice;
• a tablespoon of tomato paste;
• a tablespoon of flour;
• glass of water;
• a third cup of sour cream.
Cooking method:
Chop the onion.
Rinse the rice until clear water.
Cut carrots into thin strips.
Heat the oil, toss the onion cubes and fry until transparent.
Drive the egg into the minced meat, put the fried onions, salt, season with pepper to taste and knead a uniform sticky meat dough.
Fry the carrots in the same pan where the onions were fried.
Pour tomato juice in a bowl, add sour cream and tomato paste, salt to taste, add spices if you want to add a spicy flavor to the sauce.
Place flour in hot water, pour into sauce, mix well.
From the meat dough, form hedgehogs and send them to the pan to the fried carrots.
Pour the hedgehogs with tomato sauce, turn on the fire and wait for it to boil.
Be sure to ensure that the sauce covers all meat balls as a whole. If there is not enough liquid, add water.
As soon as the sauce boils, reduce the heat to a minimum and simmer the hedgehogs until tender. This one will take half an hour, not more.
Hedgehogs in tomato sauce in the oven
It is convenient to cook hedgehogs in the oven. Their taste will be different from those that you cook on the stove. In addition, the dish will be less high-calorie and more useful, since you don’t have to fry in oil. In addition, the egg is not used in the recipe.
Ingredients:
• seven hundred grams of mixed minced meat;
• an incomplete glass of rice;
• medium carrots;
• a small onion;
• large juicy tomato;
• glass of water;
• a tablespoon of tomato paste;
• salt and spices to taste;
• half a teaspoon of pepper.
Cooking method:
Dry washed rice.
Grate carrots.
Chopped peeled onion as finely as possible.
Pour the tomato over boiling water, make cuts and remove the skin.
Grate the tomato.
Put vegetables and rice in minced meat, salt, sprinkle the mass with pepper and knead.
Fold the balls into a baking dish.
Dilute the whole amount of tomato paste with water, salt to taste, add pepper, dried herbs and spices, if you want to get some special shade of taste.
Pour the hedgehogs over the sauce and put in the oven for 50 minutes.
Hedgehogs in tomato sauce in a slow cooker
Using a slow cooker, you can cook meat hedgehogs in tomato sauce so that they are tender. Bulgarian pepper gives the dish special aroma and taste.
Ingredients:
• about six hundred grams of minced meat, best mixed;
• one multi-glass of rice;
• medium carrots;
• large onion;
• large bell pepper;
• half a glass of tomato paste;
• two tablespoons of sour cream;
• a tablespoon of vegetable oil;
• salt;
• three teaspoons of flour;
• half a liter of water.
Cooking method:
Rinse white rice so that the water becomes clear.
Mix the prepared minced meat and rice to make a homogeneous mass.
Grate the onion or gently cut into very small cubes.
Grate the carrots coarsely or cut into small strips.
Peel the bell peppers, cut into thin strips.
On a frying program, heat the oil, toss the carrots and onion puree, fry for 7 minutes, without latching the lid.
Put in a slow cooker strips of pepper.
Form hedgehogs and lay them on top of a layer of vegetables.
Dilute flour in half a glass of water so that there are no lumps.
Prepare a sauce of flour, water, tomato paste, sour cream.
Pour the hedgehogs, snap on the lid of the multicooker and cook the hedgehogs in tomato sauce on a stew mode for about an hour.
Hedgehogs in tomato and pearl barley sauce
An interesting version of the dish will turn out if instead of rice put pearl barley in hedgehogs. Taste, of course, will change, but hedgehogs will still be very tasty. In addition, barley is very useful, and it is worthwhile to find out how it can be used in food.
Ingredients:
• a pound of minced pork and beef;
• a glass of boiled pearl barley;
• two eggs;
• large onion;
• half a glass of tomato paste;
• one and a half glasses of water;
• small carrots;
• three tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• salt;
• spices to taste;
some fresh or dried greens (optional).
Cooking method:
Boil the barley and allow it to cool slightly.
Grate the carrots on a fine grater.
Cut dill and parsley.
Chop a smaller onion with a sharp knife.
Combine minced meat with cereals and eggs, season with salt and spices, knead the meat "dough".
Add hedgehogs the size of a large walnut.
Heat oil in a pan and fry balls on both sides.
Separately, fry the onions and carrots and put on top of the meat balls.
Dilute the tomato paste with water, salt to your taste, add spices and pepper.
Pour the sauce into the pan.
Stew hedgehogs for about forty minutes.
Five minutes before ready to sprinkle hedgehogs with chopped herbs.
Hedgehogs in tomato sauce with potatoes and rice
If you want the hedgehogs to be not just tender, but tender, try to cook them according to this unusual recipe. Together with rice in minced meat you will need to add mashed potatoes. It is grated raw potatoes that will give the dish an unusual consistency.
Ingredients:
• three hundred grams of ground beef;
• two hundred grams of fatty minced pork;
• an incomplete glass of rice;
• three large potatoes;
• four medium-sized carrots;
• four onions;
• three eggs;
• an incomplete glass of tomato paste;
• one and a half liters of water;
• salt;
• spices to taste;
• two tablespoons of white flour;
• vegetable oil for the pan.
Cooking method:
Rinse grains under running water, pour cold water (no more than a glass), bring to a boil and simmer for about ten minutes at a slow boil.
Drain the rice in a colander, rinse again.
Finely grate two peeled carrots - they will go to minced meat.
Grate the two remaining carrots larger or cut into strips for a vegetable pillow.
Finely chop the half of the onions for minced meat, cut the second half into rings.
Pure the peeled raw potatoes with a grater or blender.
Mix minced meat with rice, carrot and mashed potatoes, finely chopped onions, eggs, season with spices and salt, mix well.
Fry onion rings and carrots in hot oil for five minutes.
Put frying on a baking sheet or in a baking dish.
Form hedgehogs from minced meat and lay them on top of the vegetable "cushion".
Dilute flour in a glass of cold water so that there are no flour lumps.
Pour the remaining water into the stewpan, bring to a boil and put the tomato paste.
Stir, salt to taste and add flour water.
Pour the sauce into the baking dish.
Cook the hedgehogs in an oven preheated to 230 ° C until cooked. Typically, after forty minutes, tender meat balls are ready.
Hedgehogs in tomato and cabbage sauce
To combine vegetables, rice and meat in one dish, you can serve unusual meat balls - with cabbage. The aroma of these hedgehogs in tomato sauce is spicy, piquant. Very tasty for those who love cabbage.
Ingredients:
• a pound of mixed minced meat;
• seven hundred grams of fresh cabbage;
• a third of a glass of rice;
• two medium carrots;
• a raw egg;
• large onion;
• liter of tomato juice;
• half a glass of water;
• salt and pepper to your taste.
Cooking method:
Chop cabbage very finely, mash with your hands so that the juice goes.
Rice rinse in five waters.
Cut the carrots into strips.
Onion with a sharp knife is very thinly and finely cut into cubes.
Prepare the basis for hedgehogs by mixing meat with rice, cabbage, onion cubes, and an egg.
Stuffing salt and sprinkle with pepper.
Fry the carrots in a pan in vegetable oil.
Blind the hedgehogs and send them to the pan to the carrots.
Pour water into tomato juice and mix.
Pour the hedgehogs over the sauce and cook in a pan for 40 minutes at a slow boil.
Hedgehogs in Tomato Sauce - Tips and Tricks
- Rice for this dish is long grain. Round varieties boil so much that they will not be felt.
- Pouring rice into the meat, make sure that there is no water. Watery minced meat is poorly sculpted, and the taste of the dish will become worse.
- If you cook hedgehogs with pearl barley, then this cereal would be nice to pour water for several hours before cooking. Then drain the first water and cook the cereal in the second water: so barley will be friable and tasty. For one part of pearl barley, you need to take two and a half parts of water.
- To meat "dough" is not sticky to the hands, they must be periodically moistened in cold water.
- Serve hedgehogs in tomato sauce with mashed potatoes or zucchini, pasta or gray cereals.
