Garlic Girl’s Meatballs

Yesterday I had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner here with some family and friends. My friends smoked and grilled the turkey and others brought some dishes including scalloped potatoes, spiced up yams, and lots of desserts. I made stuffing (I’ll share that one another time) and pasta with meatballs. Not so much a Thanksgiving tradition, but I was in the mood to make it – and eat it! These meatballs are sort of the traditional way we make them in our family and of course it all started with my mom whose family is from Palermo, but to be honest I have no idea if this style of making meatballs is close to how they’re made there. In any case, this is the way I prepared them yesterday. Even my my mom liked them!

Garlic Girl’s Meatballs

Ingredients
3/4 pound each of ground beef and pork
about 1 c bread crumbs
1/2 onion, minced
2 tbls smashed and minced garlic
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 tbls or more fresh parsley finely chopped
a few fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1 tbls dried basil (I still like to use dried along with fresh)
a couple splashes olive oil
1 egg, beaten
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to tasted

Preparation:
In mixing bowl add onions, garlic and the bread crumbs and just mix everything together with your hands. I like to do it this way to sort of press the flavors into the bread crumbs. note: my mom and brothers soak the bread crumbs in milk, but I like meatballs on the chewy side, and skip this step.

Do the same with the remaining ingredients with the exception of the egg and the ground meat.

Now you can add the meat and again using your hands to mix everything together.

Add the egg into the mixture in the same way – it’s ok to get messy!

Start to heat a large, heavy-bottomed pan to medium heat and add some olive oil so that the bottom is nicely coated. You just want this to be nice a ready when your meatballs are formed. Don’t let it get too hot.

To form the meatballs, grab a handful of the meat and just toss it around loosely to form a sort of ball. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to rolled tightly.

Add the meatballs to the pan – don’t crowd too much. The surface will start to brown quickly so this part is a little tricky. I just use my hands to turn them frequently so that they brown evenly all around. You really can’t walk away or you’ll inevitably wind up some areas that are too done.

Once they have a nice carmelized surface that is as even as possible, I like to add a little water to the pan and then cover to make sure that the meatballs are cooked all the way through. Sometimes I even splash in a little wine. After about 15 mintues they should be done.

You can add your meatballs to your spaghetti sauce, or you can leave them as is. I like to decorate a large, family style pasta dish by putting the meatballs all around the edges of the bowl.

Serving suggestion: Of course meatballs are great with pasta tossed with a good red sauce. My favorite is a fresh marinara – here’s my recipe if you want to try it. It is so simple! A simple salad with vinegar and olive oil, some good whole grain bread swiped in olive oil, and a glass of wine will do the trick. These babies are also great in a sandwich.

Enjoy!