Italian Meatballs!

My version of this sphere of pleasure. Check the site for recipe and details.

all right today we’re doing meatballs a viewer request actually many viewer request did this uh recipe and it’s really easy as all my recipes are or at least I say they are that’s a third of a cup of plain dry breadcrumb that we are going to moisten with a half a cup of milk so give that a stir let that sit for about 20 minutes in fact while you saut your onions I’m about to show you that will turn into a nice paste that’s going to help bind the meatball and also that milk the enzymes and the acids are going to actually make for a nice tender meatball so there’s my one onion that I finally chopped and some olive oil couple tablespoons the rest of the stuff couple eggs now I like a lot of parsley if I’m you and this is the first time you’re making this use about half that so I’d use a/4 cup if I was you I’m going to use a half a cup I’m a parsley person uh that’s three or four cloves of crushed garlic that’s about a teaspoon of dry Italian herbs the classic dry Italian herb mix the Rosemary of the time the basil the oregano the margom and so forth couple tablespoons of grated Parmesan that’s optional but I like it and salt and pepper okay now salt the rule of thumb when you’re making sausage and meatball about a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half per pound of meat so that’s what I went with so it’s was about 2 teaspoons of salt pepper a little Cayenne I like half pork half beef so I got one pound of each and I’m just going to mix those together nice uh don’t be too uh aggressive here we just want to kind of mix the the beef and the pork together since we still have to mix this with the other ingredients we don’t want it over mixed overworked it would get tough so just mix those till they come together so again that’s one pound of beef one pound of pork and I use the 80 8020 80% lean to 20% fat uh you need a little fat there’s no way around it I know they sell that stuff like 95% lean now uh you can use it it just won’t be as succulent so in about 20 minutes my onions were lightly sauteed all right I added my breadcrumb and milk mixture which in the same amount of time it turned into a nice paste all right and again the onions don’t have to be cold once you sauté them as long as they’re not hot you’re fine so add that to the the one pound of beef and the one pound of pork the onion and the breadcrumb mixture and then the rest of the stuff goes in okay so we’re going to go through the two eggs I just give him a light little mixing with a fork my half a cup of parsley again that’s more than standard I would probably go with half that if this is the first time you’re making this I do like a lot of parsley uh three or four cloves of crushed garlic that’s not optional all right so if you’re not going to use the garlic don’t bother making these go make something else uh maybe cereal all right and then we’re going to add my parmesan that is optional some people can’t have cheese all right my salt pepper mixture again I gave it a shake of cayenne pepper about a half a teaspoon of black pepper and uh just over two teaspoons of salt now a lot of people traditional Italian type people they put their hand in this and they mix it up and they smash it and it gets all between their fingers and I got to admit it does feel good but your hand is hot and I don’t want to introduce any heat into this uh at this point okay so I just want to give this a mix with my spatula or my uh my wooden spoon if you have to I just want this mixing enough just till it comes together you don’t want to overwork it and you can tell you can see when it’s uh pretty much there okay which is right about there so why am I still mixing it I don’t know I should stop okay now what we’re going to do is we’re going to put plastic wrap over this and we are going to put it in the fridge see it’s really soft now I want it to firm up a little bit I think it’s easier to form so you could start making meatballs now but I think you should put it in the fridge for an hour come on you can wait you’re probably making in your sauce anyway all right hour later it’s been chilled it’s going to be easier to work with now when you roll these meatballs in your hands you can use an ice cream scoop by the way I didn’t I couldn’t find mine but if you’re going to roll them with your hands which is traditional yeah you should use wet fingers so get a nice little Ramin of cold water dip your fingers in there give those meatballs a little roll I go with just slightly larger than golf ball size now I’ve done extensive scientific studies on the perfect meatball size and uh this is the size I’ve come up with is the perfect size now why for me this is the perfect size I’m going to show you in a second I’m going to put those on a slightly oiled foil covered half sheet pan and when I was done rolling or balling if you prefer I had exactly 30 golf ball size meatballs on that sheet pan with with just enough space between them so for me for a 2 lb batch you make them that size you use it all works beautiful okay so so some kitchen ma there for you so again you make them as big as you want I don’t care but that’s my official Chef John meatball size I I don’t fry mine I bake them I put them in a very hot oven 425 for about 15 to 20 minutes just till the outside gets a nice little brown going all right and then the rest is easy add it to your favorite tomato or spaghetti sauce and let them simmer I go on low simmer it on low for about an hour and you’re ready to eat some people again controversy some people oh you got to simmer it 3 or 4 hours then they’re nice and tender well it probably works n you don’t have to simmer it only maybe 10 15 minutes fine I’m not going to argue with these people I simmer mine for about an hour sometimes a little longer on low and again if you’re not going to use a really really nice flavorful beautiful spaghetti sauce you know then your meatballs you’re it’s actually going to suck the flavor out of the meatball so I want you to use a really nice spaghetti sauce when you make your meatballs that’s what’s one of the keys and of course I’ll do that demo on the site but there we go today was just about the meatball uh for photography purposes of course I had a gr some Parmesan on and uh throw a few uh pieces of parsley on top but anyway uh that is my version of Italian meatball um very nice very tasty uh I’m not going to say that’s a spicy meatball because that would be a cliche and anyway the best thing about these The Leftovers hot meatball sandwiches come on forget about it there you go foodwishes.com I hope you’re checking it out you’ll see the recipe the story any anecdotes and the extra info you need along with the uh ingredient amounts um we haven’t been posting in a while busy setting up to site but here we go we’re back in business enjoy