Meet the Meatballs

We had friends over yesterday to watch some football. Go Lions! (Nittany not Detroit obv.) Anyway, a good hearty appetizer was essential. I thought I would make something that is great in the Fall – especially with a cold beer: real meatballs. None of that frozen bagged stuff. These are serious.

But before we get to the meatballs, let’s make the sauce. I decided to make a very simple tomato sauce – basically a marinara. Of course, there are approximately 5 dozen different sauces you could serve with these. But let’s assume you want to be like me.

The Sauce
- 1/2 a chopped onion. No need to dirty a measuring cup. Just chop half an onion.
- 28 oz. canned tomatoes. Don’t get the ones with chiles or anything. Just normal tomatoes.
- 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.
- Clove of garlic.
- Basil. Dry or fresh

Onions swimming in oil.

You want to start by adding the onions to the oil and sauteeing for just a few minutes. You don’t want them to caramelize (turn brown). Throw in the garlic (chopped) after a few minutes too. Then you want to put in all of the tomatoes (chopped also if you didn’t buy them chopped).

Tomatoes join the party.

You could use fresh tomatoes for this, but the canned work just fine. Also you have to make some judgement calls which I cannot make for you. Do you want a chunky sauce or a smooth sauce? Do you want it thick or a bit runny? I went with a thick, chunky sauce which in hindsight may have been too thick to actually use as a dip for meatballs. If you want it thinner, don’t cook it as long. If you want it smoother, chop the tomatoes finer. This isn’t rocket science.

One note: I probably should have taken the seeds out of the tomatoes. I forgot. Nobody called me out on it because it isn’t that important. Probably more important if you are using this as a pasta sauce.

In any event, you want to cook this down pretty substantially. If you are using dry basil add it at the beginning. Fresh basil you add at the end.

Simmer it down.

After about an hour, I ended up with like 2 cups of sauce.

The sauce is done.

Ok. That’s done. Let’s talk about the meatballs. You will need:

- 2 pounds ground meat. Something lean is good. I actually used sirloin which is a bit expensive, but basically you end up with steak on a stick which is awesome. Also, you could cut this in half if you are a whimp.
- 4 slices white bread soaked in
- 1 cup of milk.
- 1/2 onion chopped. You should have 1/2 an onion lying around if you followed instructions from the sauce.
- 1 cup grated Parmesan.
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley. (optional. You could use basil if you have some left over. Parsley works nicely though.)
- Salt and pepper.

So let the bread soak up all the milk. Takes just a few minutes.

That bread was thirsty.

The next step is easy. Just mix everything together in a bowl. Use your hands. It’s fun! The only note is to wring out the bread before you add it. You don’t want all of that milk to come along to the mix. Just what the bread can hold.

After you mix for a few minutes, just roll out little one inch balls. You can see that my recipe above makes about 40 meatballs. That’s a lot.

I like to make them all at once. These are ready to go.

You can cook these a number of ways. You can bake them for about 12 minutes at 400 degrees. Turn them a few times throughout. You can cook them on the stove top in some oil turning a few times. Probably only takes 8 minutes to cook them that way.

I read from this book that you can even boil them but I didn’t want to try that. I went with the baking method.

Meet the meatballs!

This was a really great appetizer for a football game. Although I do think the sauce was maybe a bit too chunky and thick. That’s easy to adjust. And that is what’s important about cooking. It is rare that you will get everything right when trying something new. But that’s what it is about. It’s about making some small mistakes and realizing that it doesn’t ruin your meal.

Good food will stay good food even if it isn’t perfect food. Once you realize that you will be well on your way to getting some Macheesmo. If you have leftovers from this meal, that is fine. You have the ingredients to a perfect spaghetti and meatballs.

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