“Italian” Style
Ingredients:
1.5 lbs. each, ground beef [don’t use super lean, 85/15 is good] and pork. Or it can be 2 beef to 1 pork. The traditional mixture is equal parts beef, pork, and veal. I don’t think veal adds much flavor, it’s more of a textural thing.
1 medium/small onion, minced fine
3 large cloves garlic, finely minced
2 eggs
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
A pinch of cayenne [To your taste, you know what I mean.]
A small handful pickled pepperoncine slices, finely chopped [not necessary, but I like it].
3/4 cup ricotta cheese [also unnecessary, but it adds moisture and an unctioness to the result].
1 tbs. dijon mustard
1/2 cup milk
A handful of chopped Italian parsley
3/4 cup grated/finely chopped parmesan cheese
24 saltines [8 per pound of meat] roughly crushed.
– A note on the preparation of the crackers: You can use a rolling pin to crush them. But I prefer to use a chef’s knife to chop two or more crackers at a time. You want 1/8″ chunks – NOT fine crumbs.
Procedure:
Note: If you have bacon fat on hand, use it to fry the onions and garlic. Or, you could finely chop a few slices of cooked bacon and add it to the meat mixture. The point is to give your meatballs a bit of smoked bacon flavor. Anyway, I like it.
– Fry the onion until soft. Add a puddle of oil, heat, and add the garlic. Cook until you smell the garlic. Turn off heat.
– In a large bowl: Whisk the eggs. Add salt, black pepper, cayenne, pepperoncine, mustard, milk, and ricotta. Add the pan of cooled onions and garlic. Mix. Add the saltines and parsley – combine.
– Add the meat. You don’t want to overwork it – the meatballs will be tough. I like to add big pinches of meat, and mix, etc. If added all at once you actually work the meat more trying to break it down. Plus it’s cold [your hands are the best tools to blend a meatball mixture].
– Prepare as many sheet pans that will fit in your oven. I like to use parchment paper, but foil works as a more expensive alternative to make clean up easier.
– Scoop out about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 diameter ball of meat mixture with one hand and roughly shape it round with your other hand’s fingers. [I actually have a scoop. A tablespoon will do.]
– Plop as many balls on the sheet pans as you think are a not-crowded fit and pop the pans into a preheated 400° oven.
– Cook for 12 mins. Remove the pans and turn over each meatball. Return the pans to the oven [rotate pans to different racks if you’re fussy].
– Cook another 10 mins. The finished meatball temp should be at least 160°