Meatballs in Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

Sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp fresh oregano
2 tbsp fresh basil
2 tbsp fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 oz whiskey
ladle of water or pasta water

Meatballs:

2 tbsp fresh oregano
2 tbsp fresh basil
2 tbsp fresh parsley
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 c parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1 lb ground beef, veal, pork mix (often sold as "meatloaf mix")
1/3 c bread crumbs
1/4 cup milk

Directions:

Sauce:

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers.
Sauté the minced garlic until nicely browned.
Pour in the can of crushed tomatoes, bring to a simmer and then lower the heat to just maintain a simmer.
Stir in the salt, herbs, and whiskey and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning.
If the sauce gets too thick, stir in a ladle full, my ladle is about half a cup, of water. The best would be water from cooking pasta, but just a ladle of water will do fine.

Meatballs:

Preheat oven to 400ºF and and grease or line a baking tray with non stick paper.
Mix all of the ingredients for the meatballs together in a mixing bowl until everything is just combined. The more you handle the ingredients the tougher your meatballs will be, so less is more.
Form into 1" balls, or golf ball sized balls.*
Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through and lightly brown.

If you time it right, you can get these all done at roughly the same time. Add the meatballs to the sauce and serve over pasta, or ladle some sauce over pasta and place some meatballs on top, however you want to serve it. Enjoy!

*If you are going to be making a meatball sandwich like a meatball sub or meatball parm, make the balls a bit larger, you will just have to adjust your cooking time accordingly.

Meatballs

Making meatballs has always been something I was a little afraid of doing. Most people I know will tell you, "oh my mom has a great meatball recipe," and I did not want to go up against that kind of sentimentality and fail. So, I invited one of my friends, who used to be a breakfast chef, to come over and help me get my flavors just right... and I gotta say, this beats my mom's meatballs.

When I made this recipe, I focused on making it easily scalable so you can easily halve this recipe if you don't feel like making so many meatballs, or double it if you are cooking for a large party.


Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: varies depending on the size of your skillet
Makes: 55 meatballs

Ingredients:

1 cup breadcrumbs

⅔ cup milk

1 lb each ground pork, veal, beef

2 eggs, beaten

½ tsp garlic powder

1.5 tsp parsley flakes

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp dried rosemary

½ tsp dried basil leaves

1 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp dried thyme leaves

1 tbsp onion powder

½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
Olive oil

Directions:

In a bowl, combine the milk and breadcrumbs and set aside to allow the breadcrumbs to hydrate. In a large bowl, mix together the 3 ground meats and the eggs. Combine thoroughly and then add the breadcrumbs and sprinkle on the spices and parmesan cheese. Make sure everything is thoroughly mixed before shaping into golfball sized balls. It should make about 55 meatballs. Place your meatballs on a wax paper or parchment paper lined baking sheet and refrigerate for about an hour to firm them up.

When you are ready to cook, place a cast iron skillet over medium-low heat and allow it to preheat for a while. You want good, even heat for this, so I let mine preheat for about 5 to 10 minutes on heat setting 4 before I started cooking. Once your skillet is ready, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet and put in 1 batch of meatballs. (About 10 fit in my 10.25" skillet.) Cook for 2 minutes and then turn over, repeating until all sides are a nice brown, about 6 times. Once that batch is done, wipe out your skillet (because burned loose bits in the bottom will just make your following batches taste bad), add another 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and repeat until all of the meatballs are cooked.

If, while you are cooking them, you find the meatballs are falling apart when you try to turn them, stick the uncooked ones back in the fridge for a bit to firm up. I neglected that step the first time I made these, and so about halfway through I ended up with a lot of meatball bits in the bottom of my skillet and a few less meatballs.

You can use these meatballs right away in a variety of pasta dishes or store them in the fridge for a week or the freezer for a few months. Just reheat in the microwave or a simmering sauce and you are ready to go.