Spaghetti and Meatballs

I told Finn that someday soon we should make meatballs. He said, "Real spaghetti and meatballs?! We have never made that!". This is a much stronger response than he normally generates for food so when I was presented with a pound or so of hamburger meat (second week in a row I didn't make hamburgers, the bane of my dieting existence) and only missing ground pork and veal from this well-worn recipe, I set out to not disappoint the boy. Plus he got to help!

As usual (except for the Celebrity Cookbook entries that I will get back to soon), this recipe is written as I made it.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

1 1/3 pound 85/15 ground beef
1 pound lean ground pork
2 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press
2 eggs
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups bread crumbs
2 cups or so lukewarm water
enough olive oil to fill a couple of skillets 1/8 - 1/4 inch deep

Combine beef and pork in a large bowl. Add garlic, eggs, cheese, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. In order to ascertain "to taste" at this point, I fried a tiny bit, tasted and added more.

Blend bread crumbs into meat mixture.

Slowly add the water 1/2 cup at a time.

The mixture should be very moist but still hold its shape if rolled into meatballs. Shape into meatballs.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Fry meatballs in batches.

When the meatball is very brown and slightly crisp remove from the heat and set aside.

And this is where the recipe ends... which is fine. And here is how we finish it;

After all the meatballs are browned, add back into the skillet with either a jar of your favorite marinara sauce or an equivalent amount of your favorite homemade marinara sauce and simmer for 45 minutes. Use the resulting mixture to dress a pound of spaghetti cooked per the directions on the box and serve with lots of grated grating cheese.

If you happen to have too much meatball mixture for your liking, press it into a loaf pan and cook at 350 degrees F until you're like, "what is that smell? Oh god, I forgot the meatloaf!". Allow to cool and eat out of the pan while you're waiting for your friends to arrive.

I remembered to take a pic before it was gone!

Shrimp13