Vegetarian meatballs with cream and mustard sauce

Today I come with two surprises! The first is that we welcome Juana, whom many of you will know from her beautiful blog La cocina de Babel. And with her comes another surprise: this delicious recipe for vegetable meatballs with a cream and mustard sauce that you'll love. I won't say more, the photo speaks for itself...

I love when autumn arrives and I get back to cooking. If during the summer my preparations become basic to an unimaginable extent and I barely handle the ingredients, in autumn (and I think you too) it's time to return to more elaborate dishes that give us that homey warmth.

The recipe I bring you is from one of my favorite authors, Donna Hay. I truly admire her recipes: not only are they delicious and simple to make, but they never fail, and that's something I can't say about all the recipes from famous authors that I've cooked and tried over the years.

This recipe is very versatile and you'll see that you can modify it each time depending on the ingredients you have. In my case I rarely make it exactly the same, and in fact the recipe I present today is not exactly the same as Donna Hay's original, but I assure you it won't disappoint.

These delicious meatballs are perfect for celebrating a meat-free day, but they're still a very complete meal since among their ingredients they contain beans and rice, which makes them a very satisfying dish that will only need a piece of fresh bread to dip into the delicious and delicate cream sauce, and if you want to add a fresh touch, a green salad.

And without further ado, here are these lovely, sexy, and delicate friends!

De Buyer French Collection iron skillet

Ingredients

• 150gr portobello mushrooms
• 400 gramos cooked and drained beans
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 150gr cooked brown rice
• 1 small egg
• 75gr whole wheat flour
• 1 spring onion cut into thin slices
• 2 extra cloves garlic, crushed
• 500ml liquid cream
• 1 heaped tablespoon of Dijon mustard Edmond Fallot
• 25gr crushed pistachios
• Trilloliva olive oil

Preparation

1. Put the portobellos together with the beans into a food processor and blend until both are well combined and form a paste.
2. Place the bean and portobello mixture in a bowl and add the thyme, garlic, rice, egg, flour, salt and pepper. Knead the entire Set until everything is well combined and let it rest for one hour in the refrigerator so the mixture firms up and is easier to handle.
3. Dampen your hands with a little olive oil and form meatballs. You can make them large by hand as I did, or smaller (you can use meatball tongs), which makes them much easier to handle and fry afterwards.
4. Heat about two centimeters of oil in the French De Buyer pan and fry the meatballs in batches, turning them until they look nicely browned. Once ready, let them drain on paper towels and set aside.
5. In the same pan, remove almost all the oil and add the spring onion and garlic. After a few minutes add the cream, mustard, salt and pepper and cook over very low heat for about four minutes, making sure it doesn't come to a boil.
6. Once the sauce is ready, return the meatballs to the pan, stirring carefully so they soak up the sauce, and garnish with the chopped pistachio.