Air-Fryer Meatballs

The pan-fried meatball is great but it's a project: oil splatters, you need to turn each one three or four times, the kitchen smells like beef for the next day. The oven meatball is fine but they don't brown as well — they bake into pale spheres unless you crank the heat to broiler-only-level. The air fryer is the in-between that gets it exactly right: high heat from above and below, no oil management, deep browning on every surface, twelve minutes start to finish.

The mix here is the classic 50/50 beef-and-pork — beef for the flavour, pork for the fat (without which meatballs go dry). Parmesan in the mix, breadcrumbs to lighten, an egg to bind, garlic and herbs to season. Roll them small (golf-ball or smaller), give them space in the basket, and they come out browned on every face with that perfect crusty-outside, tender-inside duality.

The photo is the natural habitat: spaghetti with tomato sauce, three or four meatballs per bowl, parmesan grated over the top, a scatter of parsley. Two bowls because this is a dinner-for-two photograph; the recipe makes enough for four (or a meal-prep batch of three lunches and a dinner).