Pasta and Meatballs

• porții: 8 servings
• timp activ: 30 min
• timp total: 2 hours

Ingrediente

Weekday Sauce

2 kg Italian peeled plum tomatoes or Italian passata

5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

Small bunch of fresh Basil

Chili flakes (optional)

2 tbps Nduja paste (optional)

4 tbps olive oil

Salt and pepper

Meatballs

1.5 kg ground mix of beef and pork chuck (80% lean, 20% fat)

50 ml reserved tomato puree

50 ml cream or 30 ml milk

3 eggs

Large handful of chopped parsley

60 g breadcrumbs

40g Pecorino Romano cheese

4 cloves of garlic grated

1 medium onion grated

Salt and pepper

Olive oil, if frying the meatballs

Instrucțiuni

How to Make Weekday Sauce

Slice the garlic thin. Puree the tomatoes in a food mill or by pulsing in a blender on low.

Use a heavy bottom pan like a dutch oven and over medium heat, add the olive oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan, then immediately add the garlic and basil to the cold oil and slowly bring up to temperature to infuse the oil with the garlic and basil. The oil is the vehicle to transfer all that flavor to the tomatoes. Just before the garlic and basil start to brown, add the nduja until it breaks down (1-2 mins), then add the pureed tomatoes. Set this up for a gentle simmer. We want the meatballs to slowly cook in the sauce.

How to Make the Meatballs

Now make the meatballs. In a big bowl, add the ground beef, and next to that, in a smaller bowl add all the other ingredients. This is going to create a thick slurry. Before adding the slurry, season the meat generously with salt and pepper, then start to add the slurry a little at a time, incorporating it into the meat thoroughly. The idea is that this is going to hold and transfer moisture and intense flavor into the ground beef so they are moist and flavorful and not dry and bland. But I want to add the slurry a little at a time to make sure I don’t add too much and make the texture too soft and to the point that they won’t hold their shape and may result in them falling apart in the sauce. You want to get as much of the slurry into the meat while still being able to form balls that will hold their shape. If you have extra slurry leftover, that's okay, I’d rather have some extra rather than not enough flavor. I generally use my nose to tell if the flavor is right. The meatballs should smell garlicky, herby, you should smell the salty cheese and the spicy pepper. That should tell you the meatballs will taste good.

Once the meatballs are shaped, bring them over to the stove to start frying them and then get them in the sauce. To fry, use a large, wide bottom pan and add a healthy amount of olive oil and get that up to a frying temp. Then brown the meatballs as best you can over medium heat and then add them into the sauce. You can drain them first if you want so you’re not adding too much fat to the tomatoes, but that fat will flavor the sauce and it will emulsify into the tomatoes so you don’t really need to worry about it being “oily”.

Cook that sauce for about at least 30 minutes and up to about 2 hours. Anything after that and the meatballs might start to fall apart. Take the meatballs and the sauce up to where you want, then you can cook and serve it with pasta, but I prefer to serve it on a big slice of toasted Italian bread that acts as a plate for the meatballs topped with parmesan cheese and fresh basil.

Note

You can use beef only for the meatballs, if desired.

Meatballs can be air fryed for 18-20 mins at 200° C.