Meatballs (Polpetti)

Growing up we ate pasta with tomato sauce and in that tomato sauce it was standard to have meatballs and or some other kind of meat as well cooked in the sauce.  I usually woke up to the smell of the sauce cooking on Sunday mornings and my breakfast was to dip a hunk of bread into that pot of sauce and fish myself out a meatball.  Sunday was family meal day in my mother and fathers home, it wasn't unusual that there were ten to fifteen people around that table to feast on the Sunday dinner.  I hold that tradition today with my own family sometimes it's just the three of us!  Here's my recipe...

3lbs of  Ground Beef.....(1lb sirloin, 1lb ground round, 1lb chuck) on occasion I replace the sirloin with ground veal)
1 cup bread crumbs (seasoned is best) substitute Gluten Free
3 slices of any bread soaked in milk (and then squeezed dry) omit for gluten free
3 cloves of finely chopped FRESH garlic
3 eggs
1 cup of grated Romano cheese
3 Tbsp of finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1 Tbsp of Kosher or Sea Salt
Black pepper

In a bowl with the meat combine bread crumbs, bread, garlic, eggs, grated cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix together with your hands making sure everything gets combined well. Now take a little bit of the mixture and cook it in the microwave so that you can taste it for seasonings.

Every good cook checks for taste!! At this point, if it needs more salt or pepper add it, otherwise you are ready to roll!!

I like my meatballs to be uniform in size so I use the old time ice cream scoop..you can use what ever you have or not use anything at all. I use a jelly roll baking pan to bake my meatballs, anything you can bake in or on will work fine.

Scoop them all and then roll.  I use a bowl of water to wet my hands as I roll, it makes for a smooth meatball. They should be tightly placed together on the baking sheet. Once they are ready for the oven I put a 1/4 of an inch of water in the bottom of the pan so the meatballs cook evenly and stay moist.  Cook for approximately 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown in color.  Remove from the oven and place each meatball one by one in the pot of sauce.

Enjoy

Buon Appetito

Lucia