Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs...

I know, I know. I abandoned my blog again. Up to May, I can blame it on finishing up my masters; beyond that, um... dunno. In general, I seem to have taken a break from all writing this summer. Call it burn out from school. Anyway, I'm back again and I'd like to talk meatballs. I made some good ones last night and thought I'd share the recipe.

For me, the key to a good meatball is seasoning and moisture. This particular recipe recommended frying up a test meatball in the skillet before fixing the whole batch, which I thought was a great idea. If the meat is under seasoned, add a little more S&P to your meatball mix. If the meatball tastes too dry, add a little more milk! Simple as that. It's too much time to invest on a weeknight for your meatballs to turn out dry and flavorless...

Also, if you're pressed for time (as I often am), forget making homemade sauce. Nowadays, there are so many good ones out there that you can buy! Last night, I purchased two jars of Lucini's Tuscan Marinara with Roasted Garlic sauce, which run about $7.50/jar at Whole Foods. In the regular grocery store, I like the Classico Four Cheese, which is slightly more economical, somewhere around $4 I think.

Back to the meatballs. This recipe came out of Alice Waters's The Art of Simple Food, which is quickly becoming my new favorite cookbook -- $23 from Amazon.

Here's what you need for the meatballs:
1 pound ground beef*
3/4 pound ground pork**
Kosher salt
Black pepper
1 cup torn-up pieces of day-old country-style bread, crusts removed***
1/2 cup milk
1 small yellow onion, peeled
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and pounded to a paste with a pinch of salt****
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (Italian flat leaf is best, but curly will do)
A pinch of cayenne pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Serves 4

Notes on Ingredients:
*Ms. Waters specified grass-fed beef, which I had since I went to WF, but you could just use regular old ground beef if that's what you've got to work with.
**Ms. Waters specified "pork shoulder"; I just went to the meat counter and asked for the ground pork they had available.
***If you have day-old bread, that's best, but since I didn't, I just bought a loaf of Italian bread (since I was planning to serve with dinner anyway), cut off a hunk, removed the crust and cut up a bunch of small pieces.
****I used a garlic press to smash up my garlic, added a pinch of salt to it and then ran my knife back through once more to make sure it was sufficiently smashed up, but that's mainly because I was looking for an excuse to use a new kitchen gadget.

Instructions:
Place ground meats in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. (Make sure your bowl is big enough to accommodate the other ingredients.)

In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs and milk. Set aside to soften.

Using the large-holed side of a box grater, grate your onion. Mind your fingers! This treatment of the onion yields a nice puree, which adds moisture and flavor to your meatballs instead of having chunks of onion in the mixture. Add the puree to meat mixture.

Squeeze most of the milk out of your bread and place in the large mixing bowl with the meat and onion.

Add olive oil, garlic paste, oregano, parsley, cayenne, egg, Parmesan, and additional salt and pepper. Combine ingredients with your hands thoroughly (suck it up and do it!), being careful not to overwork the mixture as that will make your meatballs tough. Here comes the test part. Fry a small meatball in a skillet to taste. Adjust seasonings and milk accordingly if needed (I found that I like my mixture just as it was). Gently form the mixture into meatballs either by hand or using a small ice-cream scoop (the scoop obviously helps to get equal sizes if you care about that).

At some point during the mixture making and meatball shaping, you'll want to heat your sauce on the stove as well as a pot of water for your pasta if you're planning to serve this spaghetti and meatball style, which I did...

From here, you can cook your meatballs one of two ways. Bake the meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet in a 450 degree oven until just cooked through, about 6 minutes. Or, fry them up in a little olive oil in a cast-iron skillet (Lauren, if your reading, yet another use for your skillet!), turning occasionally for even browning.

While messier, I opted to fry mine up because I like the nice brown crust that comes from frying. (Usually, I'll deglaze the pan with some red wine after I'm finished, and add all those yummy bits to my sauce, but alas. There was no red wine in my house last night, so the bits went to waste.) Anyway, you don't need a ton of oil, just enough to coat the bottom of your pan (your meat will give off it's own grease and juice to the pan). I have a crappy electric stove top that gets unruly with temperature, so I kept my heat on a level 6 to start and adjusted as needed when the pan got screaming hot to avoid burning. If using gas, you could probably push to the higher end of medium-high for browning, just be careful because the grease will definitely splatter a bit.

I fried my meatballs in batches (about five or six at a time) -- you need enough room to move them around while flipping over. When they were browned on all sides and firm enough to pick up without falling apart, I plunked them into to my sauce that was simmering on the stove. Once all meatballs were in the sauce, I turned up my pasta water to high and threw in my spaghetti. Timing it this way allowed for my meatballs to flavor up my sauce, but more importantly ensured that my meat was cooked all the way through before serving. You'll probably want to skim off your sauce a couple times after the meatballs have been sitting in the sauce since their grease will rise to the top of your pot.

Serve with warm crusty Italian bread and a salad if you desire!

It's good to be back. More soon I promise. And, if anyone who makes meatballs often is reading this, I'd curious to know what your own recipes are. Send me a post!