Ann's Meatballs with Sauce

    

What you need to know is that you don't have to have all the ingredients, but the key to getting the meatballs light is bread soaked in hot water.  A rustic bread is best, like a sourdough or a a stale baguette, but if all you have is white bread or whole wheat or packaged hotdog rolls, if it is super soft already, just wet is for a short time and drain, don't let it get too soggy.  More in the directions!

The idea is to get a nice light binder.

As for the sauce, I think a version of my basic tomato sauce is on this blog for the eggplant lasagna, the only difference here is the addition of the meat drippings to the sauce.

Feel free to halve this recipe as you will get 15-18 meatballs with 2lbs of meat and they are large! Many people are only cooking for one two or three people these days....so...

Ann's Meatballs

Ingredients:

2 lbs Ground beef (or a mix using any of the following: ground pork, sausage, turkey, veal with the    beef). If you don't eat beef, you can make a turkey and/or chicken, just use light and dark meat.

1/3 cup fresh whole milk ricotta (or whatever you have laying around, you can use cottage cheese or cream cheese, skim ricotta or none if you can't get it).  Hey you can probably use plain yogurt!  This dairy and the bread give the meatball it's lightness

2 eggs

1/3 cup finely grated cheese. I like Locatelli (sheep) but you can use parmigiana if you prefer (cow)

Fresh chopped parsley (bought a few bunches, chopped up fine, put it in a container in the freezer and grab pinches of it when needed, keeps forever!) Dried is fine too!

3 center slices of sour dough or other crusty bread.  Any bread you are making at home these days will work too!  If using a packaged bread, you can actually soak them a little, just wet the bread let is sit a bit then drain water out before it get waterlogged and mushy.  And you will wring out the rest of the water gently when you add to meatball mixture.

Cut into small cubes and soak in hot water.

You will be grabbing the soaked bread out of the water and giving it a gentle squeeze, getting out as much water as you can, without squeezing out the holes in the crumb of the bread.  Be gentle about it, but don't put it in the mixture soaking wet either or the meatballs will fall apart!

2 tsps of fennel seeds

1 tsp of garlic salt

Fresh ground pepper and salt to taste

Directions:

Pre-Heat oven to 475.

But it all ingredients in a bowl and using your hands, mix together thoroughly.  Don't be afraid to over mix, as you want it to hold together.  Some of the bread will almost disintegrate into the meat and some won't.  It's okay.

Get a roasting pan and shape your meatballs, they should be slightly larger than golf balls.  You can use an ice cream scooper or a rounded up 1/3 cup measure's worth for each one.

Roll and set on the roasting pan, even spaced apart.

Bake for 20 minutes and then check for doneness. See note*

Start your sauce at this point!!

*note: They should be golden brown and there should be brown with a ring of bits around each one on the pan, don't let juices burn, if it does, you will have over cooked the meatballs and not have any bits to scrap up with a spatula to add depth to your sauce.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack in the pan.  Remove them from the pan gently with a metal spatula and put in a serving dish.

With the spatula, gently scrape off the brown bits, you don't need every last bit and shouldn't be scratching your roasting pan, and add to your sauce which should by this time be simmering away.

Later you can serve the meatballs naked or spoon some sauce over them or put a few in the sauce after is cooked a while to add flavor.


Ann's Tomato Sauce 

Ingredients:

2 - 28oz cans whole Italian tomatoes (If you can't get whole, get crushed, if they aren't Italian San Marzano, no big deal, any Roma style tomato in a can, just not puree)

Some fresh basil or dried is fine if you don't have fresh...a tsp of dried is fine or 6-8 leaves rolled up and finely sliced (chiffonaded) or just medium chopped if your knife skills are not up to snuff.

Large pinch red pepper flakes

2 tbsp of Sugar

2 tbsp of Kosher Salt

12 grinds of black fresh cracked black pepper

1 tsp of fish sauce (you can use soy if you don't have but then just 1/2 tsp)

1 tbsp White Vinegar

Grated Locatelli (or parmesan) to taste (use to season toward the end of cooking when it will melt into the sauce and not stick and burn on the bottom of the pan)

Olive Oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan

Butter to finish sauce at the end or a pat during cooking as the sauce starts to come together


Directions:

Find you biggest deepest sauté pan or dutch oven, that has the biggest cooking surface on it.  The bigger the surface the faster the sauce will cook.

In a bowl, dump out the tomatoes (and their juices) with a stick blender, blend down on each tomato till they are all crushed (if using crushed tomatoes you don't have to do this).  You don't want is smooth, you want to blender it and still keep it slightly chunky.

If you don't have a stick blender, use your hands and squeeze each tomato taking care not to squirt yourself and your clothes!!  You want them pretty well crushed.

Then add all ingredients except the grated cheese, oil and butter (they are for later) to the ingredients to the bowl of tomatoes.  Give a stir to blend a bit.  Let them sit, while you get your pot on the stove.

On medium high heat, generously cover the bottom of your pan or pot with olive oil.  Let it warm up and gently pour in the tomatoes.

Let them come to a simmer.  Keep cooking and stirring with a metal spatula, scraping around the edges and across the bottom of pan, to make sure it isn't sticking and to get all the good tomato bits that collect along the edge.

Once the sauce is bubbling, lower the heat to medium to a nice high simmer without it spattering all over.  Keep scraping it down.

After about 15-20 minutes ad a tablespoon of butter, whatever you have around.  Sprinkle lightly some of the grated cheese and just let both sit on top melting into the sauce.  Then go back to scraping.

By this time the meatballs should be done and cooled, so scrape off the bits in the meatball pan and add to your sauce.  You can even add one of two of them to give a more meaty flavor to the sauce.

Once the sauce has come together and it doesn't have that raw tomato taste but instead a nice buttery pomodoro taste, it's done!  Don't cook it down or your will lose all your sauce.

I don't like a dark sauce and I also prefer it on the sweet side, hence the sugar.

Also, this is a quick sauce and my favorite kind.  Only thing better is a summer fresh tomato sauce!

Check the seasoning of your sauce adding salt if needed or another sprinkle of cheese or another pat of butter never hurts.

Cook your pasta and voila!  I like to spoon the sauce over each plate of pasta and over the meatballs, so I can control how much sauce I like! That's the Italian way!