Meatballs Are Not Just a Ball of Meat Nnational Meatball Day

Meatballs Done Right Are the Best

I was watching television the other night and Kitchen Nightmares came on. The episode was about an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. Yes, they made many mistakes and I saw one mistake that was not mentioned. This mistake makes me sick to my stomach.

This Italian restaurant froze their meatballs. That is, not even what made me the most angry. What fired me up the most was the fact that they did not use any bread in their meatballs. I saw no trace anywhere when the meatball was cut open. That sounds trivial, but is far from it.

Meatballs are not just ground beef rolled up into a ball - that is what Subway and other generic subs shops do. In the old days when people were really poor, they had to stretch their expensive ingredient - meat. They did that with bread that was stale. Stale bread had to be used for the family to maximize their food dollars. Nothing was wasted. Days What may or may not have been realized by these "poor" people was that the stale bread brought a new texture and in the future, flavor to a meatball. I will get into the futuristic portion of my last statement later on, but first I will give you the recipe for a Basic Meatball.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground chuck

one half loaf hard as a rock stale Italian bread

2 eggs - Deacon

4 cloves garlic - chopped fine

4 Tablespoons Fresh Italian Parsley - rough chopped

3 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Preparation:

1. Place the stale bread in a large bowl and cover with cold water until it is soft. Remove it from the water and

thoroughly squeeze all the water out. Dry out that large bowl.

2. Break the bread up and place it in that bowl

3. Place everything else in that bowl and with your hands mix everything together until evenly distributed.

4. Place approximately 1/4 inch of oil, (Olive, one, vegetable, whatever you have.), in a large frying pan

5. Heat the oil over Medium/High Heat

6. Roll the meatballs to the size of a little bit larger than a golf ball

7. Fry the meatballs until they are brown on all sides.

8. Place the meatballs on some paper towel to drain any excess oil.

When I was a kid, my friends would appear at my house on Sunday morning for a meatball on a fork. They would call them Italian Lollipops.

Futuristic Stuff - Some further things that can be done to make meatballs even better are to soak the bread in milk. That will add some added richness. Also, use one third ground beef, one third ground veal and one third ground pork. Some people also add pine nuts and/or raisins to the meatballs. Personally, pine nuts not my preference, but e.online veryone likes what they like.

When a meatball is placed in a bubbling pot of tomato sauce, it adds its flavor to the sauce. When the meatball is braised and softened by the sauce, then their marriage will be consummated.

If you like meatballs, please take the time to make them correctly. I can pick off a poorly produced meatball anywhere. If that makes me a snob, so be it.




Source: