Recipe the First - Meatballs

My sister-in-law, Caitlyn, asked me for recipes to a variety of things. Note the use of past tense, which indicates only that a thing happened prior to right now, without conveying the magnitude of temporal distance.

She asked some nine months ago. I'm lame.

So, at long last, here's the first: meatballs.

First, some context:

• I don't measure anything. This is the means by which I assert my masculinity in the kitchen.


• It comes out a little different every time.


• Texture and feel are my guide.


• I like garlic more than most.

Preparation

Here's what you need:

• A lot of garlic. Get garlic cloves, don't use dried, powdered stuff. I tend to use 8 to 10 cloves, depending on the size. Chop 'em finely or put 'em through a garlic press before you get started.


• Sauce: if I were more of a foodie, I would make my own, but I'm not and I don't. I tend to prefer Trader Joe's arabiata sauce, or its roasted garlic marinara. Classico's basic tomato/basil sauce is okay, as is its roasted red pepper sauce.


• Ground turkey: I tend to prefer the basic ground (not lean ground) Empire kosher turkey; industrial kosher is pretty similar in preparation to industrial organic, but costs less.


• Veggies: up to you, but my preference tends to be for a couple red peppers, a zucchini, and sliced mushrooms (either basic white or portabello will do), and a decent-sized onion.
  
  
  
  • Dice the onion
  
  
  • Chop the pepper into slices
  
  
  • I like to cut the zucchini lengthwise into two long, skinny halves, and then slice them up into half-moons
  
  
  
  


• Salt and (freshly ground, preferably) black pepper.


• Olive oil


• An egg


• Bread crumbs


• Pasta


• A good-sized frying pan; I recommend iron, if available.


• Another good-sized pan of whatever make you've got. I'll refer to this as the less-nice pan.


• A big-ass bowl


• A cleanser that contains bleach

Additionally, you will want one of the following:

• Oregano


• Basil (fresh if you can get it)


• Lemon juice (paired with basil in one of the alternatives below)

Getting the Meatballs Ready

Into the big-ass bowl, plop:

• The ground turkey


• Half the chopped-up garlic (unless you're doing the "fancy alternative" below, in which case save the garlic for the fanciness)


• Olive oil: a good pour, probably amounting to about a quarter cup. Don't be stingy with the fat. This is good fat, and most of it comes out into the water anyway.


• Salt: a pile. You obviously don't want to oversalt, but shake more on that you might be inclined to.


• Black pepper: a pile. Too much can overpower, but like the salt you want to put plenty in there. Incidentally, if you're using a grinder, the chances of putting too much in are a lot lower than if you're using pre-ground pepper.


• Bread crumbs: at least equal in volume to the turkey itself, but in fact probably more, perhaps like 20-30% more. This is something you get a sense for from repeated cooking attempts.


• The egg. Sans shell, preferably, unless you enjoy a crunch surprise.

Choose one of these flavoring alternatives and do it:

• Yia-yia's way: add oregano (probably equivalent to a couple tablespoon's worth) and a plop of sauce. Greek oregano if you've got it.


• Simple alternative: add basil (to taste, but I put in quite a bit) and a plop of sauce.


• Fancier alternative:
  
  
  
  1. Put olive oil in a pan and get it quite hot.
  
  
  2. Put in half the garlic; stir rapidly until it whitens, then quickly...
  
  
  3. Put in half the onion; stir rapidly again, turn the heat down to medium after 20 seconds or so
  
  
  4. Stir for a few minutes until the onion gets translucent. Don't let it burn.
  
  
  5. Put the resulting stuff oil/garlic/onion slop into the big-ass bowl
  
  
  6. Pour in some lemon juice, perhaps amounting to two or three tablespoons (make sure this is getting poured into the breadcrumbs, and not directly into the oil, so you don't get spattered)
  
  
  7. Give the stuff a minute to cool alongside its previously refrigerated big-ass bowl brethren
  
  
  
  

Roll up your sleeves, put your less-nice pan right next to your big-ass bowl on the counter. Mix up the ingredients by hand, massaging the turkey gently into a wonderfully fowl glop in which everything seems to be evenly mixed. If it's really shiny and slippery, add more breadcrumbs. If it feels almost grainy and seems to come apart pretty easily, add more oil. It should not feel overly oily but should hold together without effort.

Grab little handfuls and roll 'em into balls, putting 'em into the less-nice pan. Use whatever size you like, though I tend to make 'em probably a 1.25 to 1.5 inches in diameter.

Fill the less-nice pan with water until the meatballs are perhaps two-thirds submerged.

Put the less-nice pan on a burner, put it on high until you get a boil, then back off to medium; cover the pan if you've got a big-enough cover (not essential, but helpful if available). Use a spatula to flip the meatballs every five or ten minutes; treat them as if they were burgers, meaning flip them by scraping the spatula on the pan underneath them, because they could stick to the pan and you want to keep the meatballs intact.

While that's going, you can move on to the other things and be confident that by the time everything else is ready, the meatballs will be ready too.

Veggies and Sauce

Get the pasta water going. Put plenty of olive oil and salt in the water. I assume you can handle the pasta from here.

In the good (iron, right?) pan, pour a good bunch of olive oil. Remember not to cheap out on the yummalicious fattiness. Get it way hot.

Put in the rest of the garlic, stir quickly letting it whiten but not burn. Then put in the onion (whatever's left of it, depending on your flavoring choice). Stir quickly, reduce the heat after 30 seconds or so (to medium or med/hot), keep stirring. You want the onion to go translucent and ideally do not allow the garlic to burn.

Once the onion is translucent and you're getting hungry from the smell, toss in the other veggies. Stir 'em around and let the zucchinis be your guide for readiness: I like to keep them frying at a pretty high temperature (stirring all the while, of course) until the majority of zucchinis have gone mostly soft (they'll start to appear as if they are soaking through or something, which indicates that their softening and cooking through).

At that point, pour in the sauce. When you start getting bubbling in the sauce, turn the heat down and shoot for a simmer.

Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes, stirring periodically. If you've got fresh basil, wash it and shred it while you're waiting.

Turn the meatballs off and plop them into the sauce/veggies. Add basil now if that's what you're using for seasoning.

Let things go for a couple minutes more, until you're confident that the sauce is evenly hot and (if used) the basil's been in for a few. Turn it off.

You're done. Chow down.