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Directions
For the meat, you can use meatloaf mix (veal, beef, and pork) or ground beef. Don't go leaner than 85/15 with ground beef. You need some fat.
Dice the onion as fine as you can. Put the meat in the bottom of a bowl. Put all ingredients except the bread, milk, and pepper on top of the meat.
Soak the stale bread in the milk and put the wet slices in the bowl. Grind on black pepper. I like a generous amount and usually use more than stated.
Use your hands to combine all the ingredients. The meat should be well mixed. Unlike burgers, you want the texture to be fine, not coarse.
Roll the meat into balls. It will make about 20 good-sized meatballs.
Either fry them in a frying pan with some olive oil or put them in a roasting pan with a thin layer of olive oil at 350 for about 30 minutes. Drain them on paper towels for a minute and put them in marinara sauce and simmer them for a couple of hours. The meatballs will give the marinara a great flavor.
You can certainly eat them right away, but make sure they are cooked through. They don't need to be if you are boiling them in the sauce. I bake them, BTW. It's easier and much less messy. If I was not boiling them in the sauce I would turn them a couple of times as they cook so they get crust on all sides. It doesn't really matter when they are going to cook in the sauce.
The key ingredient in this recipie comes from a guy I knew's Italian grandmother. It's the stale pieces of white bread soaked in milk. It just gives the mix a fantastic texture. |
