- Prep Time: 20 min.
- Cook Time: 70 min.
- Yield: 12 meatballs, 4 servings with sauce
Soutzoukakia, also known as Smyrna Meatballs, Soutzoukakia Smyrneika, or Izmir Köfte, the latter nomenclature being Turkish, is a Greek dish of cumin-spiced oblong meatballs (more like meat koftas) in tomato sauce.
This dish was brought to Greece by native Greek refugees from Asia Minor (a part of modern-day Turkey), which is exactly how my mother’s family emigrated to Crete and the mainland.
In 1912, there was a massive exodus of native Greeks from Asia Minor. To avoid an immense genocide launched under Ottoman rule, my family, from Smyrna, grabbed whatever they could and escaped. The girls and young women disguised themselves as old ladies in order to circumvent the rampant rape that was being perpetuated!
My grandfather, sweet and loving Achileas, along with my great aunts and uncles, his siblings, left their home and all their belongings to set sail for the country of their ancestry, bringing along this delicious dish.
I still have a delicate silver chain handbag that my thea Efterpi smuggled from Turkey to Greece in her garments. She was feisty, filled with humor and jokes, beautiful, and opinionated-as-hell until her death, just weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
I have fond memories of my pappou making soutzoukakia at my grandparents’ country house, as platters of feta and watermelon graced the veranda table on scorching Athenian summer days.
Lean pork is used here. Lamb or a mixture with turkey or beef would work. To moisten the meat, I usually soak a slice of bread in milk.
This time, the saltine crackers worked perfectly. Use what is handy. That can be a fun challenge of discovery.
For the tomatoes, blanching and peeling 10 Roma tomatoes is the proper way to make the sauce. For convenience, canned tomatoes of good quality will suffice.
As always, I prefer to grind whole spices and dried herbs as needed. One coffee grinder is reserved for fine grinding, and a mortar and pestle are used for coarser grinds. The aromas and oils released are incomparable in intensity.
You will need: 1 spice grinder, or preferably a mortar and pestle set; 1 foil-covered sheet pan; and 1 large sauce pot.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of ground pork
- 2 teaspoons of black peppercorns
- 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
- 1.5 tablespoons of sea salt
- 1 large white onion, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 5 saltine crackers
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed, minced
- 1 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes
- ½ can (3 ounces) tomato paste
- 2/3 cup dry, full-bodied red wine
- 1 cup of water
- 1 tablespoon dried Greek oregano
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 bay leaf
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- Place the ground pork in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Grind the peppercorns, cumin, and fennel, preferably in a mortar, and add to the bowl. Add 1.5 teaspoons of salt and 1/3 of the chopped onion.
- To the mortar, add the whole crackers and milk. Soak until the crackers are soft and saturated. About 5 minutes. Add the milk and crackers to the meat, and mix well by hand to make uniforms.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a deep pot over medium heat. Sauté the remaining onion until soft and transparent.
- Smash the garlic with the flat edge of a chopping knife to release the allinase enzyme and all the healthy oils, then mince. Add the garlic to the pot, stir, and sauté for 1 more minute.
- Stir in the diced tomatoes, juice included, and tomato paste until smooth. Stir in the red wine, water, oregano, cinnamon stick, and bay leaf. Stir, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Form 12 cigar-shaped meat balls with palms, leaving no cracks, and place in three spaced rows of four on the foil-lined baking sheet. Cook on the middle rack of the oven for 20 minutes, turning once.
- Drain any excess fat, if any, from the meatballs and place them in the tomato sauce. Stir to coat the soutzoukakia. Cover again and simmer for the remaining 30 minutes.
- The sweetness from the tomatoes should have emerged by the end of the cooking time. Taste and adjust sugar, salt, and pepper if necessary. Also, fish out and discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaf.
- Serve the soutzoukakia with ample tomato sauce with or over Greek rice and a side of Greek salad. There are five popular rice varieties used in Greek cuisine.
- I can’t find any here, so I substitute basmati. It too is a long-grain and rather perfumed rice, but it’s not the same. I’ll look more closely when I visit Haji Baba Grocer next time.
Retsina, the pine-resin-fortified Greek wine, or a Greek beira such as Mythos or Athena will pair excellently with this meal.
Yia’ mas!
