52 Week Challenge – Meal #16 (12/13/20)

Rao’s Classic Meatballs

Rao’s is my wife’s favorite sauce, so this is the reason for the recipe choice. During this meal making my beloved birds (Eagles) were playing in the background AND they were actually winning. BUT – I remained meatball focused. In addition, the local radio station (99.5 WJBR) was playing “mis-mis” tunes because Christmas was 12 days away.

Like all previous recipes done here, simply click on the above title for the link of what was borrowed (adapted?). As always, I’ll lay out what we followed as well as any of the changes that were made along the way.

(The dinner’s beverage of choice – of course, it’s red)

The Line-up (Ingredients)

  • 1 lb Ground Pork
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup of freshly grated parmesan
  • 1 1/2 TBSP, Chopped Parsley
  • 1/2 small garlic clove, peeled and minced
  • 2 cups Breadcrumbs
  • 2 cups Water
  • 1 cup Olive Oil
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 1 garlic clove, lightly smashed

Game Plan (Instructions)

1) Combine ground beef, veal, and pork in a large bowl. Add eggs, cheese, parsley, minced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Using your hands, blend ingredients together.

(Yup – those are my hands – I dug into that meaty mess – gross)

2) Add the bread crumbs into meat mixture and combine. Slowly add water until the mixture is quite moist.

3) Shape the meat mixture into balls (2 1/2 to 3 inch balls)

(We made some good looking balls of meat)

4) Heat the oil in a large sauté pan and saute the smashed garlic clove until lightly brown to flavor the oil, and remove with a slotted spoon and discard

5) Fry the meatballs in batches

(First batch was 6 a little too many / smaller batches!)

6) When the bottom half of the meatball is very brown and slightly crisp, turn and cook the other half

(This saved us from being burnt again & again)

7) Remove from heat and drain on paper towels

8) Lower cooked meatballs into simmering Rao’s Homemade® Marinara Sauce and then cook for another 15 minutes

9) Serve over pasta, within a hoagie roll, or all on their own.

(We threw the balls over some farfalle pasta and some extra sauce)

They were great! However, I still want to do something different with meatballs. I would like to make a softball size meatball at some point. Cut that open and it just oozes with goodness. I’ll work on that. In the meantime, this recipe certainly did the trick for homemade meatballs. Double win because the kids enjoyed them as well!

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