Meatballs and Tomato Sauce

Today I made dinner for my family: spaghetti and meatballs.  I've made a lot of pasta recipes before, but never for a simple tomato sauce and never with meatballs.  When I decided to make tomato sauce and meatballs, my mom pulled out a couple of cookbooks for me to look through from the Italian Club my grandparents attend.  I found a simple-looking tomato sauce recipe in one cookbook and a meatball recipe in the other cookbook.  First I mixed the ingredients for the meatballs, and then I assembled the ingredients for the sauce.  I browned the meatballs in olive oil and removed them from the pot before adding the onions and garlic to sauté.  At my mother's suggestion, I sopped up some of the extra grease with a paper towel and deglazed the pan with the amount of red wine called for in the sauce recipe.  Then I added all the other sauce ingredients, mashed up the whole canned tomatoes with a potato masher, and brought the sauce to a bubble before adding the meatballs back in.  After letting the meatballs simmer for 30 minutes, I turned off the stove, put the lid on the pot, and left to attend a group fitness class at the gym with my family.  When we returned home, I put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta and rewarmed the meatballs and sauce over low heat.  Since I had left the lid off the pot while it was simmering for half an hour, the sauce had gotten really thick.  Luckily, I had saved the tomato juice from the cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes, so I just poured some of it into the pot as the sauce rewarmed.  After I boiled and drained the pasta, I transferred the meatballs to a platter and mixed the pasta into the sauce.  To serve, we piled spaghetti and sauce on our plates, perched our meatballs on top, and generously showered everything with Pecorino Romano cheese.

FLAVOR:  Absolutely delicious!  I loved the sauce.  When I was little, I despised tomato sauce, but I have since grown to enjoy it more, and this sauce was one of the best I have tasted (besides my Nanna's, of course!).  It was not spicy or overly herb-y, just warm and mellow.  The meatballs were great, too.  Nothing fancy--just classic, well-seasoned, savory meatballs.


TEXTURE/APPEARANCE:  The meatballs were tender and moist, and looked nice nestled in a pile of tomato-coated pasta, especially because of their beautifully browned exteriors.


WOULD I MAKE THIS RECIPE AGAIN?  Most definitely!  Everyone loved both the sauce and the meatballs.  I got more than one request for me to make it again, and to double the recipe.  We had no leftovers at all--a sure sign of a good meal.


OTHER COMMENTS/NOTES:  I used spaghetti rigate, which is spaghetti with ridges, because it holds more sauce than regular spaghetti.  Two large cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes, drained, yielded about the three cups of tomatoes called for in the recipe.  If (or more likely, when) I make this again, I will be sure to double the recipes.


FAMILY MEMBER REVIEWS:
Gabriel:   "Five stars!"
Anne Marie:  "The sauce was very good.  I wished there were more meatballs!" *laughter*
Elizabeth:  I felt like it was a very comforting, staple-type dish.  There weren't any crazy, stand-out flavors; everything blended well.  The meatballs were tender.
Mommy:  I liked that the meatballs were browned and then the sauce was cooked in the same pot, so you got all the yummy caramelized bits.
Daddy:  The sauce was tasty and balanced.  The meatballs were tender and flavorful.


Polpettine (Meatballs)
adapted from Preserving Our Italian Heritage 


1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 egg
1/4 cup Romano cheese
salt/pepper
1 tbsp. parsley, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 slice of bread, toasted and softened in milk


Mix all ingredients thoroughly.  Shape into small balls about 2" in diameter and brown in olive oil.  Drop into simmering tomato sauce.  Cook slowly 20-25 minutes, stir carefully.


 Marinara Sauce
adapted from Our Italian Heritage Continues into the 21st Century


1/2 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup olive oil [I used the drippings left from browning the meatballs in olive oil]
1/4 cup red wine
3 cups canned Italian tomatoes, drained [I used two large cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes; I think they were 28 oz. each]
1 tsp. dried oregano
5 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 tsp. salt
black pepper, freshly ground


Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil (or meatball drippings) for 5 minutes.  Drain off excess grease if desired.  Deglaze the pan with red wine, scraping up the browned bits.  Add remaining ingredients and break up the tomatoes (I used a potato masher and it worked beautifully).  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, drop in the meatballs, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.