Spaghetti & Meatballs – Chef at Home (Full Episode) | Cooking Show with Chef Michael Smith

Michael is inspired by the flavours of Italy as he makes meatballs and a menu of Italian favourites. He whips up a speedy tomato sauce, chocolate chip biscotti, and fennel arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette and Parmesan crisps. For dessert he makes affogato: espresso poured over ice cream.

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[Music]
I love having many flavors of the world
flow through my kitchen Thailand India
Morocco but more often than not I turn
to Italy for
inspiration let me share a secret
recipe discover an ingredient that fires
your imagination
choose other flavors to
match find the best way to cook
them my secret recipe cooking without a
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recipe there’s just something about the
Flavors of Italy that I’m craving today
simple rustic easy to prep prepare easy
to eat sounds like dinner to me I picked
this ground beef up the other day
figuring I’d make hamburgers or or
meatloaf but now with Italy for
inspiration I’ve got a better idea
meatballs with tomato sauce and
spaghetti a guaranteed
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hit at their simplest meatballs are
really just balls of ground beef
simmered in tomato sauce but but they’re
not just small round hamburgers if they
were they toughen and dry out so the key
to a great meatball is to lighten up the
meat and make it taste better and the
best way to do that is to add two
different types of ingredients those
that add flavor and those that add
moisture a jar of breadcrumbs isn’t
normally the first thing you’d think of
when it comes to adding moisture but
these are actually one of the secret
ingredients in a great meatball because
these can hold moisture
here’s one source of that moisture milk
but you can’t just pour it straight in I
learned that the hard way the first time
I ever made meatballs on my own my mom
used to make them all the time and she
always said it’s the milk that makes my
meatball so moist so naturally I just
poured some straight into the meat and
naturally it just leaked straight out of
the meat a quick phone call home and I
had it all figured out
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turns out the key is to let the
breadcrumbs absorb and carry the
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milk one lb of ground beef half a cup of
breadcrumbs half a cup of milk stir the
milk and the breadcrumbs together make
sort of a sticky
paste here’s another source of moisture
and
flavor instead of cooking the onion and
then adding it to the mixture you can GR
gr it in raw and add lots of moisture
and of course the sharp onion
flavor there’s only a drop or two of
moisture here but there’s about a gallon
worth of
Flavor now here’s something that won’t
really add moisture or flavor but it
will help to hold all that onion
moisture some good old old fashioned egg
glue now you could just toss this
straight in without the shell of course
but take a second and get rid of the
white it’s the yolk that has the power
of the glue and the yolk adds richness
the white well it just kind of toughens
up in the mix
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this won’t toughen up though once the
breadcrumbs absorb the milk and get
mixed into the meat they actually
tenderized The Works that was my mom’s
secret now here’s one of mine I like to
sneak in a little bit of French nutmeg a
pinch of junice qua and a lot of
flavor this isn’t just my secret there’s
lot lots of great Italian restaurants
out there that sneak a little bit of
nutmeg into their famous
meatballs and just some simple flat leaf
Italian parsley there’s lots of flavor
here
too here’s some more classic flavor you
can’t go wrong with a bit of
Parmesan about half a cup or
so and last but not least
salt and
pepper now for the fun part but try not
to over mix them you really only need to
make sure that everything is combined
and feel free to make them any size you
want
oh you can smell the flavor in
here when there’s this much flavor in
the mix though I like a big meatball so
I usually make eight that’s two for
everybody and two extras for the cook
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Happ
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that are big
meatballs my family loves the Flavors of
Italy it’s the biggest meatballs I’ve
ever
seen and I love how easy they are to get
on the table so for dinner tonight I’m
adding some of my mom’s flavors and some
of my own spin with some Italian
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Classics like meatballs ground beef
moistened with my mom’s milk soaked
breadcrumbs flavored with grated onion
minced garlic parsley and a pinch of my
secret nutmeg all held together by a
simple egg yolk and now they’re
simmering away in a simple tomato
sauce I’m sure I’ll have no trouble
convincing Gabe to empty his bowl
tonight and when he does there just
might be a little treat waiting for him
how about some Italian
cookies in Italy the biscotti rain
Supreme biscotti cookie dough is
actually a lot like cookie dough You
Begin by basically beating butter and
sugar together one cup of
sugar and a half stick of
butter one of the neat things about
biscotti is how many different ways you
can flavor them and there’s lots of
choices in your pantry nuts for instance
any nut works and so do the baking
spices Ging G cinnamon cloves all spice
cardamom star Andes all great choices
and so our orange and lemon peel lots of
true Citrus flavor there but if you’re
living with a 4-year-old food critic
your decision is already made for you
you can’t go wrong with chocolate chips
and
cocoa lots of deep dark rich chocy
flavor here
two
spoonfuls and two cups of allpurpose
flour and a teaspoon or so of baking
powder whisking the dry ingredients
together now really helps to distribute
them evenly throughout the final dough
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big splash of flavor
enhancer
vanilla there’s no such thing as
stirring in too much
vanilla wet ingredients dry ingredients
they only need to be stirred just long
enough enough to
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combine and as soon as everything stirs
together start pouring in the chocolate
chips about a cup or so as much as the
dough can handle and they just need to
be stirred together as well
bucati are actually baked Twice first in
a sort of low form like this and after
this is baked through it’s actually
sliced into individual cookies which are
baked a second time and that’s the key
to their Crispy Crunchy
texture if you do a lot of baking you’ve
probably seen 350 on your dial once or
twice you might appreciate one of these
non-stick baking mats too nothing sticks
to these things there sure are a lot of
gizmos and gadgets out there for
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baking since cooking was invented Cooks
have collected tools and sometimes even
used
them it’s easy to be seduced by the
greatest thing since the red slicer but
ask yourself do I really need a roast
lifter or is this just a new dust
collector have you ever had to cut a pie
into seven pieces well with this and an
engineering degree you’re all set
accurate measuring is important though
and so is the latest in UFO design which
can come in handy if you need to poach
an egg or if you need a centerpiece for
your next garage
sale but if you’re an avid Baker these
silicon line non-stick mats are quite
useful they can go from the hottest oven
to the coldest freezer and nothing will
stick to them not even the mess in fact
silicon is one of the hottest Trends in
kitchens today how about an easy to use
Easy to clean pastry
brush and speaking of easy to clean of
all the things that you can plug into
your kitchen this is the handiest an
immersion blender it’s way better than
an oldfashioned blender because this
will make anything smooth including
cleanup all you have to do is Plug and
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Play there’s a lot of flavor in here
right now but in a sense the first bake
is really just to encourage everything
to hold together because there’s a
hidden texture in here waiting to be
released so now for the classic shape of
a biscotti it’s time to cut this into
individual cookies and you’ll find that
a serrated knife works best for this
because it allows you to saw without
crushing nice and thick but still a bit
soft inside not that far off from bread
dough actually that’s why the second
baking is so key for biscotti it dries
these out it makes them crisp and
crunchy take a second and turn your oven
down and
Notch so let’s see chocolate chips and
biscotti nutmeg and meatballs what else
can I stir into an Italian classic
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around here we love the Flavors of
Italy they taste great they’re easy to
get on the table and they’re easy to
play with
too like adding a pinch of French nutmeg
to a classic Italian meatball ground
beef moistened with milk soaked
breadcrumbs flavored with grated onion
minced garlic and parsley all held
together by a simple egg yolk for
biscotti twice baked cookies made from
butter sugar egg vanilla flour baking
powder and today cocoa powder and
chocolate
chips there’s nothing like a bowl full
of authentic Italian flavors especially
if you’ve stirred some of your own ideas
in
and that goes for the pasta bowl and the
salad
bowl fennel
arugala haran it’s easy to inspire a
salad with the Flavors of
Italy arugula has an unmistakable
peppery nutty sort of flavor which means
it goes well with fennel which also has
a strong flavor a sort of crisp licorice
like flavor and it’s easy to get this
into a
salad green and white this is a good
start but for this salad to be truly
Italian inspired it needs the third
color of the Italian
fle some bright red tomato and you can
use any kind of tomato these are
sundried tomatoes
now all these strong Italian flavors are
going to need a dressing full of strong
Italian flavor
too for a while there you couldn’t open
a restaurant menu or turn the corner in
your Supermarket without bumping into a
bottle of this balsamic vinegar it was
pretty trendy there a few years back and
I still use it all the time because well
I love the taste of a thousand years of
tradition distilled into a little bottle
of
vinegar A good rule of thumb for any
dressing is to start with one big splash
of the vinegar then add two big splashes
of oil and in this case the only real
choice is extra virgin olive oil a
little bit of mustard helps the oil in
the vinegar combined into a smooth
dressing and a touch of honey
Touch of salt and
pepper and a little bit of elbow
grease that’s it balsamic vinegared it’s
pretty simple actually let’s see now
parmesan now if you like you can simply
shave parmesan cheese right into the
salad with a vegetable peeler but if
you’ve got a few extra minutes and you
want to Jazz it up a bit try making some
fros Parmesan
crisps and you can always add a little
bit of extra flavor to it as
well you can stir dried oregano and
dried basil into just about anything and
give it a good Italian Flavor Boost but
my favorite Italian spice by far is
fennel seed
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Italian food is so common around here
that sometimes we forget it’s Italian at
all probably because it’s so easy to
make and it’s so easy to enjoy I mean
what could be simpler than spaghetti and
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meatballs when you’re cooking pasta it’s
not a good idea to add any oil to the
water because when you drain the works
you end up coating each little piece of
pasta with some oil and that prevents
the sauce from sticking to it for that
same reason it’s not a good idea to
rinse the pasta either there’s a little
bit of starch on each piece and that
helps the sauce adhere and when you’ve
got a sauce like this you want it to
adhere and these meatballs turned out
really good boy there’s a lot of flavor
in these too
meatballs are all about moisture and
flavor and these are full of both grated
onions ground beef garlic a touch of my
secret nutmeg actually there’s a lot of
Italian restaurants out there that use a
little bit of French nutmeg and my mom’s
trick she would always soak breadcrumbs
and milk and then work that into the
mixture that adds lots of moisture and
it adds a nice tender texture
too I’ve got just the topping for the
salad parmesan crisp the Ians call this
Freo and really all it is is grated
Parmesan cheese baked off in the oven
until it’s golden brown and in this case
I added a little bit of fennel seed for
flavor I can’t wait to hear Gabe say
pass the Freo
Daddy I can’t wait till he says past the
biscotti too now these were invented for
dipping they’re perfect for dipping they
soak up whatever they’re dipped into in
fact in Italy it’s classic to dip them
into espresso
it’s also classic to make one of the
all-time simplest treats afag which
means I’m drowning ice cream drowning an
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espresso and this is custom made for
dipping biscotti
into you know it never ceases to amaze
me how some of the very very best dishes
out there are some of the simplest but
I’ll wait my turn I’ve got some
spaghetti and meatballs to look after
first you know you don’t have to stamp
your passport to enjoy the Simplicity of
Italian flavors you can start a little
culinary expedition in your own kitchen
any day of the
week you like some salad arugula fennel
Tomatoes also vegr and a whole lot of
love this are the biggest meatballs I’ve
ever seen can you taste the nutmeg and
the meatballs mhm here’s two uh juicy
tasty meatballs
cheers who wants a treat I do this one
is called ice cream with a twice baked
chocolate chip
cookie it’s amazing how something so
simple can taste so
good for