Italian Meatballs
fromtastyerecipes.comwww.tastyerecipes.com/italian-meatballs
Beef and pork bound with a milk-soaked bread panade, browned for color and finished in tomato sauce. The panade is what keeps them tender through a simmer that would otherwise dry them out.
Ingredients
Instructions
Tear the bread into a bowl, pour the milk over, and leave it 5 minutes until it collapses into a paste. Mash it smooth with a fork. This is the panade, and it is the single reason these stay tender.
Add the ground beef, ground pork, parmesan, eggs, minced garlic, parsley, oregano, kosher salt and black pepper to the panade. Mix with your hands only until no dry streaks remain. Every extra minute of mixing makes the meatballs springier and denser.
Roll into roughly 20 meatballs, about 1.5 inches each, with a light hand — packed tight they cook up rubbery. Wet hands stop the mixture sticking.
Heat the olive oil in a wide pot over medium-high. Brown the meatballs in two batches, turning to get color on several sides, about 6 minutes a batch. They will not be cooked through — that happens in the sauce. Set them aside.
Lower the heat to medium and cook the diced onion in the same pot 5 minutes, then add the garlic for 30 seconds. The browned bits from the meatballs lift into the onion and become the base of the sauce.
Add the crushed tomatoes, dried basil, sugar and salt. The sugar is not for sweetness; it offsets the acidity of canned tomatoes. Bring to a simmer.
Return the meatballs to the pot, nestling them into the sauce. Cover partially and simmer gently 30 to 35 minutes.
Check the center of the largest meatball with a food thermometer: 160°F (71°C) is the USDA safe minimum for ground beef and pork, and it is higher than the figure for whole cuts because grinding distributes surface bacteria through the meat.
Stir the torn fresh basil through and serve over pasta with the sauce spooned over.
