Meatballs

One of the first foods I ever learned how to cook was meatballs.  I remember being in one of the first apartments my parents lived in, standing on my tippy toes and just clearing the top of the pot with my line of vision.  I carefully plopped in meatball after meatball as my mom handed them to me.  I stared, fascinated, into the pot as the sauce popped and bubbled around the meatballs.  It must have been the Italian in me finally finding its way out and onto a plate!

Later, I learned the story about the first time my mom made meatballs after she and my dad got married.  To this day it is one of my favorite stories about my mom!  My dad's mom is from Italy, and moved to the states at a VERY young age, so needless to say dinners at his house growing up were full of lots of authentic dishes.  When he and my mom married, my mom admittedly only knew how to cook eggs.  So, when my mom called my grandmom for advice, my grandmom told her what to put in them and then to just cook them.  This meant, to my mom, to boil them!  Without saying, they didn't turn out very well!

I eventually took the helm, and was left to my own devices when it came to cooking meatballs.  After some trial...and horrible error...I came up with a recipe that I stick to.  Some of the ingredients are not what you would expect, but trust me when I say it works!  I'll explain why it works down in the recipe, but let's just say that these are NOT your mom's meatballs!

Meatballs
Yields 24 large meatballs

To Prepare the Meatballs
1. Mince 1 small onion, and add it to a large bowl.

2. Mince 4 cloves of garlic and add it to a bowl.  If you are using pre-minced garlic, add 1 heaping tablespoon!
3. Add 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon to the bowl.  Cinnamon is normally reserved for sweeter dishes, but it does a great job of adding a little heat and spice to savory recipes!
4. Add 1 teaspoon of nutmeg to the bowl.  Again, nutmeg is normally added to sweets and pies, but it compliments red sauce and tomatoes EXTREMELY well!  Tonight I grated my own nutmeg (thanks to my brother bringing some whole nutmeg home a few months ago), but the jarred spice works just as nicely!  If you are going to grate your own nutmeg, simply run the whole spice down the smallest grater holes you have at your disposal.  Despite the nutmeg's tough exterior and texture, it actually grates very nicely!

A whole nutmeg!

What the inside looks like after a little grating!

5. Add 1 teaspoon of black pepper to the bowl.
6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the bowl.

7. Add 2 tablespoons of white truffle oil to the bowl.  This is definitely a splurge ingredient I normally do not keep around, but I had bought it a few weeks ago for a dinner party I was throwing.  The white truffle oil reminds me of an extremely garlic and parmesan smelling/tasting ingredient.  Truffles are actually a fungus that is widely found in Southern Europe.  Technically speaking, they are a mushroom!

Expensive...but delicious!

After all of the seasoning ingredients are added!

8. Mix in approximately 2 pounds of ground beef.  You can exchange the beef out for turkey or chicken! 
9. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
10. Make the meatballs by rolling them into 1 - 1 1/2 inch balls.  Place them on a cookie sheet or glass casserole dish.  Remember: your meatballs will shrink after cooking...so make them just a little bigger than you want the end result to be!

11. Bake them until they are brown and firm.  I like baking them so they lose a lot of their fat and oils!

12. Add them to the pasta sauce of your choosing! I like to let my meatballs simmer in sauce for a little bit so the flavors come together well.  They hold up very well in a crock pot of sauce!  Tonight I am serving mine over angel hair pasta, but they are great as a sandwich too!  As far as sauces go, I will only make my own on the weekends, so during the week I like to use Prego's Heart Smart Traditional. 

On a side note, I do NOT add egg to any of my ground meat dishes.  Egg, even though it helps bind ground meats together, will actually dry out your meatballs, meatloaf, etc!  In the end, your meat should bind well on its own...I'd rather eat a slightly broken meatball as opposed to a dry one!