Comments on: meatballs and spaghetti

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:28:37 +0000

Dang girl, cooking that marinara in the drippings is pure money. There were raves here tonight. Thanks for a good one! I got a lotion foot rub thanks to you!

By: Alessandra

Alessandra — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:15:59 +0000

Nice blog and so many interesting recipes!
I always wondered where this recipe came from.Who combined spaghetti and meatballs first? In Italy we eat spaghetti with tomato sauce and also meatballs but never together in the same dish.First and only time I had spaghetti with meatballs was when I travelled in the U.S.
Is it something brought in U.S. by the first Italian immigrants? Does anybody knows?

The Italian food cooked in the US it is normally different from the food we eat here, and I think this probably be true all over the world. I don’t think the Chinese stuff I eat here in Italy is anything close to the dishes you can eat in China!
By the way when I cook the sauce if it is marinara I put garlic cloves only. If instead I cook a sauce with basil I use onion.
My meatballs recipe is similar but I use fresh bread torn in pieces and dumped for a while in water or milk and no onion in the mix.
In Italy the marinara sauce pasta is never dressed with Parmesan….
Normally garlic or fish dishes are never accompanied by Parmesan.

By: peony1229

peony1229 — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:46:21 +0000

I love this recipe. I added garlic powder to my meatballs because I don’t know any other way. Must have garlic. Delicious and simple. I will also never use store bought bread crumbs again! Using homemade bread crumbs made a such a difference flavor wise. I shared my bounty of meatballs with some of my colleagues and they all raved!

By: Cgulotta

Cgulotta — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:00:55 +0000

As an Italian Catholic from New Orleans, I’m used to my family’s recipes. Hate to say it but I’ve been converted!! This was outstanding! I followed it to a T but made my own noodles :) i can’t believe how wonderful this sauce turned out and what a great idea to add a little parmesan to the meatballs. You never cease to amaze me Deb!! I’ll be making this regularly

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:36:24 +0000

My boyfriend and I made the sauce for dinner last weekend. Yum! We used rum instead of wine, and made mango sausage instead of meatballs. Thanks!

By: jessica

jessica — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:30:11 +0000

Oh sheesh. I just made these and couldn’t figure out why my meatballs were falling apart. I’m not an experienced chef by any stretch of the imagination (twas a mere couple of years ago I was still burning cakes made from mixes) and didn’t realize the bread with crusts removed needed to be chopped up in a food processor or something. A link to how to make fresh breadcrumbs would have been so helpful! I was thrown by your lovely photo of toasting breadcrumbs, so my meatballs have big chunks of toasted bread in them!

Still delicious, just… crumbly ;o)

By: deb

deb — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:39:57 +0000

Judy — You should fully, fully heat the pan, then add the oil, fully heat the oil, add the meat (works best if at room temperature) and not move the meatballs until they do so easily. Sooner, they’re not cooked/sealed/browned enough underneath. If you heat the pan, then the oil, the meat will only release when it is time. I struggled with sticking foods for years before using this process, I promise it helps!

By: Judy

Judy — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:07:34 +0000

I’ve been making a version of these for years and love them (no veal, up the parm, onion powder only I recall it) and I love them. My problem with the browning them oil part is huge chunks of them stick to the pan. I’ve tried fewer, no crowding, tried chilling them first, tried dredging in flour a bot – all to no avial. It’s just a presentation problem, not a flavor one, but it’s a bummer.

And Rao’s Restaurant is where Ina got her recipe from, as she notes. They make an amazing jar marinara sauce and yes, I use it. If I go from scratch, I use canned tomatoes San Marzano (canned, Cento’s is a good brand but the it’s the tomato type that’s good to remember). I’ve heard you can get the seeds and am going to try to grow them – they’re so yummy.

By: deglazethis

deglazethis — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:35:12 +0000

mmmm…… meatballs are always lovely and a teaspoon of lemon zest would brighten these suckers up nicely……

By: Alix L.

Alix L. — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:05:38 +0000

Hi Deb…thanks for the tip. I think next time I’ll just use my Calphalon fry pan that has the special non-stick coating that promises excellent browning. Not sure why I didn’t, duh. Went to two different stores looking for ground veal, no dice. So we nixed the ground veal. Went to assemble the meat and realized I forgot the bread crumbs. So had to make those from scratch. Realized my small food processor is no longer working so had to get out the big mommy one, ugh. Had my large pot for the spaghetti on the back burner, and my fry pan with the oil on the front burner. Proceeded to put the wrong burner on high and set my kitchen on fire. Toasted the microwave (5 foot flame from the stove top). Discovered my apartment doesn’t supply fire extinguishers and just barely found the baking soda. However, I did finish the meatballs even though they stuck and they were fabulous. Side note, did you know that you can find all the cobwebs in your house because soot clings to them. As well as every horizontal surface including both bathrooms….