Meatballs, are one of my hands-down favorite foods to eat. The problem is, I hate tomato sauce and there is only one person who makes meatballs without tomato sauce and that's my mom. And asking my mother for a recipe typically goes like this: "Mama, what's in your meatballs?" "You need three meats and not too much bread." "Okay, what about proportions?" "Oh leave me alone, I just mix what I have". Maybe that's why I didn't learn to cook until I was 25.
So I set out to create my perfect meatball. This took time and many prototypes, some of which we promised not to speak of while quickly dialing Mr. Wonton. Until one weekend, while still under the influence of Spain and all its culinary greatness that I looked at my 79 lbs of contrabanded chorizo sausage and the world started to make sense.
Beef and Chorizo Meatballs
For the Meatballs
1 lb of beef
3/4 lb of soft chorizo sausage, casings removed
1/2 cup day old bread, torn into small pieces and soaked in milk
2 tbs chopped parsley
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 onion grated
1 cup of cooked white rice
1 egg
1/2 tsp of sweet paprika
1/2 tsp of hot paprika
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
2 tsp of kosher salt
1/2 tsp of pepper
Directions
1. Remove casing from the chorizo sausage and break up the sausages using hands or a fork to resemble ground meat.
2. Place the sausage meat, ground beef, bread crumbs, cooked rice, garlic, onion, parsley, Parmesan, salt, pepper, nutmeg, hot and sweet paprika, egg, and 3/4 cup warm water in a bowl. Combine very lightly with a fork.
3. Using your hands, lightly form the mixture into 2-inch meatballs.
4. Pour equal amounts of canola oil and olive oil into a large skillet to a depth of 1/4-inch. Heat the oil over medium high heat. When ripples start to form form, very carefully, in batches, place the meatballs in the oil. Lower the heat to medium-low and brown them well on all sides, turning carefully. This should take about 10 minutes for each batch. Don't crowd the meatballs. Remove the meatballs to a plate covered with paper towels to drain excess oil. Discard the oil and wipe out the pan.
You could stop reading this post and make your own amazing sauce, use your favorite home-made or (gasp) store bought sauce. Or you could continue with what became the weirdest but strangely tastiest meatball sauces I ever made:
Going back to conversation with mom, "so what's in the sauce?"
Mom - just water
Confused Julia - water?
Mom - you know, water, onions
Very confused Julia - so what gives it flavor?
Mom - oh yeah, ketchup
HUH???
So here's what I did: I sauteed an onion and 4 cloves of crushed and chopped garlic in olive oil, when soft 5-10 minutes, added 1/2 cup of wine, deglazing the pan and scraping up all the brown bits of goodness, then I stirred in 1/2 cup of Ketchup with enough water to give it a saucy consistency, yes KETCHUP and WATER, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, salt and pepper and let it cook a bit over low heat. Not very sophisticated, but guess what it was a damn good sauce!!!!
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