WARNING: These are SO good one dear lady was requested to make these for 200 people-it was her daughter’s wedding and couldn’t say "No". It took three days. Vita Brevis, Ars Longa. The house smelled like Italy for a week. Being too good a cook comes with a price.
General observations for good meatballs:
Handle the meat gently; don’t pack it. The object is to keep them tender, yet firm enough not to fall apart. Mix your meat and seasonings with your hands, gently but thoroughly. Use an ice cream scoop to dip out each meatball; put the meatballs on a foil or paper-covered cookie sheet (to minimumize clean-up); then roll each into a round ball.No ice cream scoop? No problem, use a Tablespoon; just make those 10 meatballs about the same size. Keep nearby a bowl of water in which to dip your hands, preventing the meat from sticking to them.
Alternatively. use the Spicy Marinara Sauce found in the Pasta section instead of this one. Both are equally good, the spicy one has a bit more flavor. Do use the pan in which you fried your meatballs to fry your sauce ingredients-those crusty bits left behind from frying the meatballs harbor a good deal of flavor.
Serve with 1 pound pasta of choice.
1 pound lean ground beef, preferably chuck
1 medium onion, minced
3 or 4 toes garlic, minced
½ small green pepper (optional), minced
2 eggs
3-inch piece stale French bread, soaked in water, squeezed out well
Salt and pepper and chopped parsley
½ to 1 cup Italian bread crumbs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Olive oil for pan-frying, you do not deep-fry these. You may need to add a little from time to time
Place all ingredients except bread crumbs in a large bowl and mix gently but thoroughly. Add bread crumbs to tighten the consistency of the meat and add Parmesan cheese if desired.
Make a small patty. Fry in olive oil, and taste for seasoning. Adjust salt, pepper or bread crumbs if necessary.
Shape mixture into 10 balls. Heat olive oil in a large skillet and brown the meatballs. After browning, move meatballs to the pan in which the gravy is to be cooked. Stir the sauce carefully so as not to cut into the meatballs.
Tomato Gravy
about 1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
3 or 4 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 to ½ green bell pepper, chopped (optional)
1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
1 or 2 Tbsp sugar
Oregano and sweet basil to taste
1 (16 ounce) can canned plum tomatoes in puree with basil, slightly chopped
Salt and pepper
Chopped fresh Italian Parsley
In the same skillet in which the meatballs were fried, heat olive oil and fry onions, garlic and green pepper until soft. Scrape up browned pieces of meat while frying vegetables. Do not let the garlic burn or it will taste bitter.
Add tomato paste, sugar, oregano, basil and parsley. Fry until slightly brown, being sure not to burn the paste. Add plum tomatoes to the skillet. Mix well and let simmer a couple of minutes to evaporate some of the liquid.
Transfer this mixture to a large saucepan. Fill each empty tomato and tomato paste can twice with water; add to sauce. You may add a splash of wine when adding the water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add parsley. Cover saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer until thick or the consistency you prefer.
At this point you can put hot meatballs and sauce into a Dutch Oven together and bake, covered for 30 minutes at 300 degrees. Highly reccommended.
Variation: Brown Italian sausages or chicken pieces (wings in particular) as you would the meatballs, then place them in the pan with sauce to be cooked. Proceed as for meatballs.
To add to your confusion. The plum tomatoes in puree with basil are entirely optional. You can use a can of tomato puree or a can of diced tomatoes and a can of puree. If you want to reduce the water called for in the recipe because you used extra tomatoes feel free, it really doesn’t matter much.
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