Spaghetti with Meatballs – Italian Chef shares Grandma’s Recipe

A visit to “Degusteria Italiana” where head chef Fabio Nistri show how his grandma cooked Spaghetti with meatballs
Michelin: Selected
Instagram: @degusteriaitaliana_uffizi

Ciao, I’m Fabio Nistri, the chef in the Degusteria Italiana, a small restaurant in Florence. I’m doing here today a dish that my grandma always 
used to do for me when I was young. And it’s just spaghetti with meatballs. So, really classic. For this recipe, we need ground meat, in this case beef. We need some old bread, but we’re 
going to cut it and soak it with some milk. Just the inner side. The other side we can keep
it for later for some bread crumbs We just cut in some cubes. We put it in a bowl with some milk. Let it soak. And then we start by adding a 
quarter of a garlic clove. Just cut it really fine. Add it to the ground meat, some black pepper, some salt, then Parmesan cheese. Then we take couple of basil leaves. Then an egg. And then again with the softened 
bread, squeeze it a little bit. We add to the mixture and we start to 
mix all the ingredients all together. Okay. When all the ingredients are mixed, 
we start to roll it. We take a small tray. So this quantity is more or less for three people. So we are going this time 
to prepare just for one person. Doesn’t matter if they are even or 
not. Just just a grandma recipe. So… let’s make another couple. Okay, that’s enough. Then we take our pan with some olive oil. When the olive oil is really warm, 
we just add all the meatballs. And we let them brown till they 
really have a crispy crust. Again some salt. So in the meantime we take the head of a garlic glove the head of a chili and we put it in the pan. And we add also some cooked, peeled tomatoes. We let it cook for up to 10 minutes. We just mash all the tomatoes. 
Let it cook faster and more even. Again, we add some pepper 
or some salt for the sauce. And in the meanwhile, we take our spaghetti. So, in this case, we have 
spaghetti that are not round, but they’re more squared. Let’s put in the water. Also, never forget the salt in the water. You just have the spaghetti to soak in the 
water totally so that they can cook evenly. It will take just 20 seconds… and they get softer. We also cover it so that all 
the humidity stays in the pan. We turn the spaghetti to be 
sure they don’t stick together. So then we take some other basil leaves for 
later for the plating. Just put it all together. Obviously this is my grandma’s recipe. So everybody 
in Italy will do this in many other ways. Some with some parsley, mint or basil or anything maybe 
not parmesan but pecorino cheese. So it’s every family has their own recipe. And here the spaghetti 
are not that soft, still, so maybe another 3 minutes and then we’re ready. But this sauce is 
ready. So we’re just waiting for the spaghetti. And then we can plate it. In the meanwhile, we 
can look for the garlic we put inside. Just to be sure we don’t find any garlic piece 
while eating spaghetti and also the chili. Yeah, we can leave this to a simmer for 
a minute and then it’s ready. And then we finish to cook the spaghetti inside the sauce. 
So the last 1 and 1/2 minutes we do in the in the pan so that the spaghetti can take all 
the sauce, all the tastes, the flavor. Again also the meat, in this case it’s 
beef, but you can use veal, pork, sausages, everything… Okay. So now the spaghetti are almost ready. 
So real “al dente” but we finished to cook it in the sauce. So, first thing to do is taking
a bowl to take out the meatballs to be sure they don’t overcook and 
they don’t crash with the spaghetti. So, we just keep them warm here on the side. In the meantime… Just throw the spaghetti in the sauce. As 
you can see, they are still hard. So that we can finish to cook them in the pan with 
the sauce with some water from the pot. Just try to cover them with 
the water and the sauce So, around a minute or 1 
and 1/2 minutes in the pan and then we’re ready to serve. So in this way we can control better the 
cooking point of the pasta. So we’re just going to add a little bit more water till the pasta 
has the right consistency we are looking for. We are almost ready. Heat. Heat. Okay, you’re ready. Just turn off the 
stove and we go to add the fresh basil. So without cooking it so all the flavors 
will be stronger. Some fresh olive oil. And again we’ll go with some parmesan. That will help us to get some creaminess. Okay, now we are ready for the serving. 
So take the meatballs, the spaghetti. So we are ready to plate. Then we put some extra sauce on the top. then all the meatballs and to finish again some parmesan cheese and basil leaves. So, bon apetito!