Meatballs in a tomato sauce with tripoline

I first saw this recipe in a Nigel Slater cookbook and thought it sounded good, but needed a few extra ingredients for a main meal, so added an onion, some chilli and made a tomato sauce to go with it.

Ingredients
For the meatballs
1 small onion
500g pork mince
10 anchovy fillets
½ a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
½ a lemon, zest and juice
70g breadcrumbs
6 fresh thyme stalks
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
Salt & pepper to taste

For the tomato sauce
1 dessert spoon olive oil
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
½ a small glass of red wine
400g tin of Italian chopped tomatoes

To serve
200g tripoline pasta, cooked and drained
A handful of chopped fresh basil
Grated parmesan

Method
Add all the meatball ingredients to the food processor and whizz until everything is smooth.  Leave for 20 mins or more for the flavours to develop.

Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Chop the onion finely and crush the garlic, then heat the oil in a small saucepan and add the onion and garlic. Fry until starting to brown slightly, add the red wine and boil until almost dry, then add the chopped tomatoes, bring to the boil and reduce until slightly thickened.

Heat the oven to 180°C. To cook the meatballs, shape them into 2cm round balls and fry them in a little olive oil until they are browned on each side. Place them in a heatproof dish and put them in the oven while you cook the pasta.

Once the pasta is nearly cooked, take the meatballs out of the oven and put them back in the pan, add 100ml chicken stock and the tomato sauce then boil rapidly to reduce to a thick sauce.

To server, add the pasta to a bowl, pour over the sauce and add the chopped basil, mix well to coat the pasta and put n the table with the grated parmesan.