Ridley Wright

Those of you hiding under a rock who have no idea what a meatball is, allow me to explain. Meatballs are rolled balls of ground meat that contain ingredients ranging from breadcrumbs and eggs to dried fruit and nuts. They’re another excellent example of cucina povera, aka peasant food, and anyone can make a meatball no matter their culinary skill level. It’s a humble, easy-to-make food that’s affordable and can be adapted in various ways in terms of ingredients and how to prepare them. You can make meatballs using fish, poultry, vegetables, or various red meats like pork and beef. Traditionally, whatever meat is chosen to cook with was the leftover's meat from the night before or just the cuts of the cheap or otherwise unpopular meat to use.

Meatballs can be cooked using several methods. You can fry, bake, braise, grill, or even steam them. From Persian kofta to Swedish köttbullar, just about every country in Asia and Europe has its own version of meatballs. Even people in the Americas make meatballs! However, most western hemisphere recipes are adapted primarily from European meatball versions from what I've seen. For today’s post, we’re going to be making Italian meatballs, aka polpette, using three different cooking methods; frying, baking, and cooking them in gravy.

When the natural light hits ::chef’s kiss::

Meatballs are another one of those home-cooked comfort food meals full of nostalgia that I often talk about in my posts. I’ve watched my mother and grandparents make meatballs my entire life. Nevertheless, the only frustrating part of cooking my grandparents’ recipes is that they never know the exact measurements of anything, only the ingredients. Since they’ve been cooking these kinds of meals for so long, the recipes are practically engraved into their brains. My grandparents don’t need to measure anything; the only scale they use is in their eyes, and so, you can imagine how this doesn’t do much for me when I’m trying to relay a recipe to someone outside the family. The people need exact measurements, and so I decided to prepare the meatballs with them because there’s no better way to learn.

My grandparent’s meatballs consist of multiple types of meat; beef, pork, veal, and maybe the occasional Italian sausage crumbled and removed from its casing. I avoid using veal because it makes me sad, and if I eat pork, I do so sparingly because pigs are very intelligent animals. When I broached the topic to my Nonno, asking if we could do beef only instead, he plainly said, “No, I like it this way.” Well, alright then.

Adding different kinds of meat besides beef lends to the flavor of the meal because fat makes the meatballs juicy and gives them more of a complex taste. You don’t want to have a dry meatball, so if you don’t like using pork or veal like me, you can substitute those meats with lamb, but going straight beef is also perfectly acceptable and delicious.

The other ingredients in their meatballs are pretty standard as far as the Italian polpette goes. They use bread soaked in milk, eggs, Pecorino-Romano cheese, garlic, salt, black pepper, and parsley. Nothing fancy. As far as the gravy is concerned, my grandparents don’t add garlic to it when cooking meatballs because “If it’s meat gravy, onions. If it’s marinara, garlic.” Don’t even get me started on why. That’s just the way it is!

Some words of wisdom; do not overmix the ground meat and other ingredients because it will make the meatballs come out spongey or dense. Use your hands to gently combine everything and make sure the different kinds of meat are fully integrated with the rest of the mixture. While it does help to lightly beat the eggs before adding them in, I don’t think it’s completely necessary; it just makes the whole process of mixing a bit easier.

In Italy, meatballs aren’t really a thing on restaurant menus like they are in the “red sauce joints” stateside. Although you’ll even find meatballs on the menu in some upscale American-Italian eateries in the United States, to my understanding, they’re a dish primarily cooked at home in the motherland. I would even argue that they’re much more popular in the United States than they are in Italy, given how much American’s like to romanticize anything from Europe. Still, there’s another, more logical reason for their prevalence also.

According to the Atlantic article, “Not Your Grandmother’s Meatball" by Melissa Landrigan, there’s a specific reason the Italian polpette became omnipresent with American-Italian cooking over the years, and it all comes down to the reasonable cost of its ingredients. “It was exactly this flexibility and affordability that made the meatball so appealing to Italian-American immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the Italian immigrants who landed in the northeast United States came from the impoverished southern regions of their home country (Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Abruzzi, Molise). With very little money, it’s only natural that they turned to their most affordable recipes, so the southern Italian polpette became a staple.“

When it comes time to dump the meatballs into your gravy, do so very carefully. The same advice goes for stirring them around the pot too. If you’re too rough or forceful with the spoon, the meatballs will break apart in the gravy. Some people like to brown the meatballs before throwing them into the pot, giving them a good sear first, but I always go straight for the slow simmer and skip that step.

So, you have two options here when frying your meatballs. One, use olive oil and delicately arrange the meatballs in the skillet, or two, pour some gravy into the skillet and place them over the tomato base to simmer them. The only ways you can go wrong during this step is if you turn the heat up too high and the meatballs overcook or they burn, or if you overcrowd the skillet and they steam.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that my mother, grandparents, and Italian relatives would never serve meatballs with spaghetti or over pasta. That’s an American-Italian thing, and it’s not authentic (it still slaps, though). Meatballs are always plated separately and served on their own as a main course. However, I’m no food snob, and when I’m cooking for myself, I throw tradition to the wind. Don’t tell my grandparents, but when I cook meatballs at home or bring their leftovers back to my place, I dump them all up in my pasta, and I’m not sorry about it!

As for wine pairings, if you’re going to have a glass with dinner, I would recommend a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Pinot Noir, Barbera, or a Sangiovese (Chianti). Tomato-based sauces are acidic, so you need to pair them with a wine that has the acidity to match the meal. Buon appetito!

My god. Do you know how annoying and difficult it is to take pictures of food? I have some decent snaps, but at what cost? (my sanity)

Meatball Ingredients

2/3 lb of ground beef
2/3 lb of ground pork
2/3 lb of ground veal
3 eggs
3 large slices of bread with the crusts removed
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated (3/4 cup if you like more cheese)
1/3 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon of black pepper
2 teaspoons of salt
(optional): 3 tablespoons of olive oil if frying the meatballs

Gravy Ingredients

2 35oz cans of whole tomatoes, crushed
1 small onion, diced
~ 2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of salt
Handful of basil
Grated Pecorino-Romano for garnish
(optional): 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried oregano

Meatball Instructions

Soak the crustless bread in milk until its soggy
In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients and gently mix everything by hand until all of the components are evenly distributed
Grab a small portion of the mixture, about 2-3 tablespoons each, and lightly press down on the mix in the middle of your palms as you roll the meat into a ball in your hands
Place the formed meatballs onto a dish or parchment-lined baking sheet with a small space between them

Meatballs in Gravy Cooking Instructions

Before you start on the meatballs, heat olive oil in a pot on medium heat
Add in the onions and sautée for 5-10 minutes until golden
Pour in the crushed tomatoes and let cook for 20 minutes. Add in the basil
Carefully place the meatballs into the pot and bring to a boil
Lower the temperature to a simmer and cook for 90 minutes
Add in more fresh basil and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and plate the meatballs, saving the gravy for the pasta course

Fried Meatballs Cooking Instructions

In a skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat
Place the meatballs into the skillet, leaving a space in between them
Fry for 15-20 minutes, making sure to turn the meatballs all around to fry them equally on all sides
Remove from heat and throw them into the gravy. Take them out and plate or serve the meatballs plain over a bed of gravy or just as they are

Baked Meatballs Cooking Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Arrange the meatballs onto a parchment-lined baking sheet with a small space between them. Cook for 20-25 minutes
*If you want to cook them in the gravy, remove the meatballs after 15 minutes and add them to the pot, cooking for 20-30 minutes

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