Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Best Meatballs Ever



...ok, "Best Meatballs Ever" might be a bit of an overstatement, but these are still pretty great and not terribly difficult to make. While picking up key lime juice on Saturday for an imminent cheesecake, I stumbled across Whole Foods selling a nicely-packaged trio of ground beef, veal, and pork. I bought it thinking I'd use it to make a meatloaf, but once I'd started a batch of tomato sauce I was convinced by the beautiful and talented Cara to make meatballs intstead. Here's how I did it:

Clinton Hill Foodie Awesome Meatballs

Ingredients:

1/2 - 2/3rds lb ground beef
1/2 - 2/3rds lb ground pork
1/2 - 2/3rds lb ground veal
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup freshly grated parmigano reggiano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 cup water
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:





In a large bowl, combine the meat with the garlic, cheese, eggs, and spices.







When everything's combined well, add the bread crumbs. This is a little harder, and you'll have to break the meat up a few times to get enough moisture to get all the bread crumbs combined. Once that's all in, combine the water, a half a cup at a time.



Roll the meat into balls as big or as small as you like. Mine end up about the size of a raquetball.









Heat up the olve oil in a pan or skillet. Fry the meatballs in batches, turning regularly so that they're cooked on all sides. Once they're nicely browned everywhere, move to a paper towel to drain off some of the grease.





Drop into a pot of sauce for 10-15 minutes before serving.






So that's it. They're not very difficult to make and they're always a big hit. I threw them into the sauce I made the same day and then had a plate of linguine with fresh sauce and a meatball for dinner.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I deep fry my meatballs so they are actually round when finished. They are only in the frier for about 2 minutes, then soak/simmer in the sauce for about 2.5 hours. Even after that, they hold some of that pink color deep within them.