Albóndigas con patatas bravas (Spanish meatballs with potatoes, spicy sauce and alioli)
¡Bienvenidos en España!
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In a small town in Northern Spain there is a 200-meter-long street home to over 60 tapas bars.
The town is Logroño in the Rioja wine region and it was once my home for six months.
Each tapas bar on the famous Calle Laurel specialised in one dish. Sometimes they would only make one dish period.
When it came to patatas bravas — the famous Spanish potatoes topped with a spicy sauce made from smoked paprika — there were two bars that claimed it as their specialty.
The best IMO was Bar Gargonich where for around €3.50 you would be presented with a hefty portion (for tapas at least) of crispy potatoes topped with spicy bravas sauce and alioli stuffed with so much garlic it was almost hot.
I became obsessed with patatas bravas. And I always wanted to pair it with albóndigas, Spain’s answer to meatballs. Because who doesn’t love meatballs and potatoes?
Alas, I never found a decent albóndigas on Calle Laurel so I asked my landlord-turned-friend — who happened to be a chef — for a recipe.
Today, it’s yours.
This week is two recipes in one. Albóndigas con salsa de almendras y tomate (Meatballs in almond and tomato sauce) and patatas bravas con alioli.
Patatas bravas can be made in many ways but I like to roast smallish cubed potatoes in the oven until golden and crispy, before drizzling with the bravas sauce and alioli.
I’ve seen bravas sauce be made many different ways including everything from tomatoes to peppers, but an authentically Logroñese bravas sauce is essentially a roux made from flour, olive oil and vegetable stock spiked with a ton of spicy smoked ground paprika.
The alioli, I’m going to admit now, is a cheat one because this is already a relatively involved dish, so one step less is a win in my book. However, if you want to make it from scratch then by all means do. Occasionally I’m in the mood for some whiskin’ and will go to town on making batches of the stuff.
There’s a good recipe for alioli here.
The meatballs can be made from various different ground meat (my preference is for a mix of beef and pork) and, as always when making meatballs, include bread soaked in milk. I don’t know what sort of alchemy goes on when you add bread and milk to meatballs but it makes them fluffier and lighter than you can ever achieve without.
The almond and tomato sauce uses a unique technique I’ve only ever seen in Spain where you “fry” the sauce once it’s gone through a stick blender. The original recipe involves blitzing up raw onions, tomatoes, garlic, and tomatoes but honestly, I found the raw onion taste never fully left the dish so I now fry them off before making the sauce.
The meatballs can be made in advance and reheated in the sauce when needed.
As always, the variations include many different ways to make this dish your own, from vegetarian ideas to swapping the almonds in the sauce to some variations on the meatballs.
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Albondigas con salsa de almendras y tomate
Serves 4