The Recipe with Kenji and Deb - Meatballs (Italian-American)

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

If humanity’s gotten you down lately, just keep in mind that our species can’t be that bad… we did invent the meatball after all. This ingenious invention stretches an expensive ingredient by mixing it with pantry staples into a dish that can feed many more people than on its own, while being truly delicious in its own right. Think about it: when meatballs are what’s for dinner, or you see meatballs on the menu at a restaurant, don’t you automatically think, ooh meatballs? It’s practically a reflex by this point of human evolution, someone really ought to study this.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

So, Deb, there are meatballs from all over the world. There are meatballs from ancient Rome, there are meatballs from Persia, and there are meatballs from China, and they're usually a way to use up meat and extend like sort of like the grisly bits of meat that are not nice to cook or roast. You grind them up and then you add some kind of filler like in Shanghai you would add glass noodles and make, you know, like lion's meatballs. But Deb, are we talking specifically like Italian meatballs, right? Italian-American? That's what I was thinking.

We should have other episodes on other meatballs. Yes, because there are so many great meatballs around the globe. There's a planet of meatballs, and I'd like to try them all. A universe of meatballs. A universe. I bet when we make first contact with extraterrestrial life, we will find that they've already developed some form of meatball. From PRX's Radiotopia, this is The Recipe with Kenji and Deb. Where we help you discover your own perfect recipes.

Kenji is the author of The Food Lab and The Walk and a columnist for The New York Times. Deb is the creator of Smitten Kitchen and the author of three best-selling cookbooks. We've both been professional recipe developers for nearly two decades, and we've got the same basic goal, to make recipes that work for you and make you excited to get in the kitchen. But we've got very different approaches. And on this show, we'll cook and talk about each other's recipes, comparing notes

to see what we can learn from each other. This week, we are talking about Italian American meatballs. That's coming up on The Recipe with Kenji and Deb. So in case you guys haven't guessed yet, today we're going to be talking about meatballs. But not meatballs around the globe. We're going to talk about Italian American meatballs. Palpati. Palpati.

The big ones that sit on top of a pile of spaghetti. Or we could talk about all the other things they're good on because I have some theories. I have some opinions, just one or two. Before we get into sort of all the things you can do with meatballs, Italian American meatballs, I thought we'd talk about what goes into meatballs. Can you tell me about your recipe first,

your basic meatball recipe? Perhaps predictable at this point. I have many recipes for meatballs. And that is because I think I actually like meatballs more than meat, which makes no sense. Oh, yeah. But I even as a kid, I just never liked it when meat got like dry or tough or overcooked. Obviously if you're cooking it perfectly that will never happen,

but I was very particular about the texture of meat and I always preferred meatballs. They were more flavorful and more moist and they're kind of, I'm not that you can't overcook them, of course you can, but like they're a little bit more forgiving of if they go over a little bit because they've got extra moisture and like breading and stuff built in. Especially if you've made the mixture right, if you followed like a good recipe, you get the ratio of all the things right, then they're real hard to mess up. And in a way they sort of are meat perfected in a similar way to sausages.

And we should talk about the difference between sausage and meatballs at some point, but they're meat that has the ideal ratio of sort of meat to fat. They're meat that has flavorings added to it so that every single part of every bite is seasoned. And they're meat that has ingredients added that prevent it from getting tough

and prevent it from drying out. I mean, I guess it's similar to meatloaf and sausage in that sense. It's real hard to mess it up if you start with a good sort of base. What meats do you use, Deb? I usually use a mix of beef and pork, but I'll use all beef too.

I don't usually use veal just because, I don't know, I don't feel great about using it, but I usually use a mix of beef and veal and I definitely look for something with a little bit of fat in it, like I'm not looking for lean meat. Kenji, do you grind your own meat? You know, I have ground my own meat and I find that, you know, grinding your own meat can be useful, especially if you want something that's more flavorful. You know, like at the supermarket when you buy ground beef, it can sometimes be a single cut. You know, if it says ground chuck, it'll be just chuck. If

it says ground sirloin, it'll be just sirloin. But if you're just buying sort of your, you know, your 85% lean ground beef, it could be a mix of a bunch of different things. So the flavor can be a little bit unpredictable. And so if you really want to sort of emphasize the flavor, you can grind your own meat. That said, in a meatball, I feel it's much more, the flavor of the meat itself often is getting masked by, well, in an Italian American meatball, it's probably getting masked by garlic, by Parmesan, by black pepper,

by whatever spices you're putting in there. So I think the individual flavor of the meat doesn't matter that much. And so, no, when I'm making meatballs, it's also because meatballs, to me, are an easy thing. They're supposed to be real simple. And so I will buy meat for that. And like you, I will typically use a mix of beef and pork.

The beef is there mainly for the sort of flavor, you know, the kind of more robust flavor and texture, whereas the pork adds kind of a softness to it and it adds fat to it. And veal, if I can find veal, I might use it. The difference between veal and beef is that veal is going to be much more tender, but it's also much higher in connective tissue. So veal, the muscles have yet to develop because they're baby cows, yeah, which means that they've spent less time being tortured.

So it's nicer to eat veal. That's a spin. Young animals in general have much softer connective tissue. So rather than like real tough cartilage and ligaments, they're going to have much more sort of soft and sort of gelatinous connective tissue that translates into a higher gelatin content. So, you know, it's the reason why veal bones are used for making demigloss,

like a real rich stock, because all of that collagen from the connective tissue converts into gelatin and veal is real high in collagen. In the case of meatballs, what veal adds is that gelatin that's going to help bind excess moisture, you know, so instead of moisture coming out of the meatballs as they cook, it gets bound in there and it makes them stay sort of softer and more flavorful the way, like a soup dumpling filling. And yet you can make such good meatballs without it.

I've even made great meatballs with ground turkey, which is not usually my favorite meat, but I've done 50% beef, 50%. I've also done my, I've actually done both of my main spaghetti meatball recipes with ground beef. I look for a mix of dark and light meat turkey, but something that's not too lean, but it works great. Because there's so much other stuff going on.

I don't know. Do you do a panade or do you do- I do. Or breadcrumbs? Because I kind of do a faux panade where I just take the breadcrumbs and then mix them with whatever's wet. Sometimes I'll give them five minutes to soak, just to get that kind of- Yeah. It's a similar effect. But why don't you explain what a panadas is?

A panadas is where you take bread and you soak it in milk, or you could soak it in water also, I suppose. But generally for a meatball, you would soak it in milk. I sometimes use buttermilk, just because I like that sort of extra, if I have buttermilk around, I'll use buttermilk because I like that tang that it adds. But you soak the bread in milk and then you kind of squish it around with your hands until it forms a paste, like a paste of milk and bread, and that becomes your main binder in a meatball. And it does a couple things. First of all, as you're kind of working the meat mixture, as you're folding all the ingredients together,

it prevents the meat from binding to itself. So the way, if you're making a sausage, you take meat and salt and seasonings, and you want the meat to kind of bind to itself so that it gets that kind of springy, bouncy texture, whereas a meatball, you want it to stay real tender and not bouncy at all. You want to be able to kind of bind to itself so that it gets that kind of springy bouncy texture right whereas a meatball you want it to stay real tender and not bouncy at all like you want to be able to kind of cut through it with a fork without feeling it spring back right and so adding a

panade keeps the meat from sort of binding to itself and it keeps the meatball tender as opposed to bouncy as you start to mix it I mean it also obviously it also adds moisture it extends the meat mixture so that you can make more without you know with the same amount of and it also obviously it also adds moisture, it extends the meat mixture so that you can make more without, you know, with the same amount of meat. It also absorbs some moisture as it's cooking so that the meatball stays more moist. Yeah, it's a panade is a real essential part of a meatball, I would say. Like what you do, I also make a sort of faux panade sometimes. If I don't have bread around, I will, I'll use like panko or I'll use other kinds of bread crumbs and I'll just add them to my milk mixture. Usually I'll add an egg in there as well. The other thing I will, I'll use like panko or I'll use other kinds of bread crumbs and I'll just add them to my milk mixture. Usually I'll add an egg in there as well.

The other thing I do is I'll usually sprinkle some gelatin over my pinot mixture as well. You do that with your meatloaf too, right? I do that with meatloaf also, yeah. Like I don't generally buy veal, like you, I don't buy veal, mainly just because it's not really widely available, but adding some powder gelatin and sprinkling it over the milk mixture, letting it hydrate, and then mixing that into the pinot serves a lot of the same function that veal would in a traditional meatball recipe.

So the next thing I would obviously add is an egg. I either use one egg or two eggs per pound of meat, depending on the recipe I'm using. I've done both with my recipes for different reasons. But I've also made meatballs without egg altogether. I've made more of a Vietnamese one, and it had cornstarch in it. And it didn't have the breadcrumbs, and it didn't have... It wasstarch in it and it didn't have the breadcrumbs and it didn't have it was

With ground pork and it didn't have an egg and I'm always amazed at how tender they are and it must be the cornstarch working It's magic the cornstarch. Yeah, but when the fattiness of the pork you're talking about like the little meatballs that you would boil In a bowl of pho or like something like that or even just fry This was like I think it was like a meatball banh mi sandwich that I made once. I don't remember where the recipe was from. I think it's called like xiao mai, the banh mi style meatballs, which are real tender ones. They're so tender.

Cause there's also Vietnamese meatballs that are made with like almost like a pure, like you would put it in a food processor and really sort of puree the meat with seasonings. And those come out kind of like bouncy, almost like a sausage-y texture, like a fish cake texture. But that's different from the ones that go into a banh mi. Yeah.

Yeah, in that case, I guess it would be the cornstarch, you're just really gently handling it, you know, so you're not really working up, working that protein. I feel like we always get that in recipes where it tells you not to overwork it or the meatballs will get tough. But I can't say that I pay that a lot of mind. I usually mix things with a fork. I usually start with, as I said, the breadcrumbs mixture and then I'll add maybe the egg or I also add milk or water to mine, I mean, which hydrates the whole thing. Might add the seasoning. Basically everything to the bottom of the bowl except

for the meat. Maybe I'll give it five minutes to rest and absorb if I've got the time. And then I just throw the ground meat on top and I start mixing with a fork just until everything looks distributed throughout. But is it really going to get tough when you overwork it? This isn't like gluten in bread. Well, I mean, meat and gluten in bread are real similar in terms of, yeah, you know, they're both sort of these protein networks that the more you work them, the more entangled they become. That said, a meatball is much more like a really heavily enriched bread dough, you know, like more like a brioche, which no matter how hard you knead it is not going to get as tough as like a, it's not going to get as much structure as like a pizza dough or like a rusticche, which no matter how hard you need it, is not gonna get as tough as like a, is not gonna get as much structure as like a pizza dough

or like a rustic country loaf where you're really developing gluten because all that fat, in the case of bread dough, it's like the fat gets in the way of the proteins interlocking and connecting. And so it stays more tender, like a brioche just stays more tender because there's so much fat in it.

And in the case of a meatball, no matter how much you work it, like all the extra, the pinot and the egg and everything else that you're adding in there is going to sort of prevent the meat from interlocking. It's like, it's like if you, if you throw like a bunch of toddlers in a gym and you're playing a game of blob tag, you know, that game where, where one person tags someone else and then they form an amoeba and then eventually all the kids are one giant amoeba. That's like a pinot free meatball. But then if you did

the same thing where you threw the kids into like a foam pit and the foam was like up to their waists, it's a lot harder for them to sort of interlock with each other, you know? So Deb, what is your seasonings of choice in a meatball? For my Italian American meatballs, which is like literally not what I call them, but I like emphasizing that they're from one culture and not another. I like to use, I'll use minced garlic

and then I actually use onion powder. I don't like any bits, like vegetable bits. I know you could grate the onion too, but it has a little bit of a raw flavor. So I use onion powder instead of minced or even cooked onions, because I don't want to go through that trouble to like cook onions just to soften them for the meatball.

So I'll use minced fresh garlic, onion powder, and then I usually add a little bit of pecorino or Parmesan. I don't have to, but I really like it in there for extra flavor. And I like to add a little bit of minced parsley just to make it prettier. I like the green flecks in there. What I also like is because I will mix the crumbs, the milk, egg, everything in the bottom of the bowl, everything but the meat,

and adding the parsley then, as I mix it through with a fork with the meat, I can see if it's well distributed, because I've got the green flecks, when the green flecks are well distributed. So the parsley is your sort of, is your indicator. It's my indicator light that things are properly mixed. Got it, got it.

I just used straight up blue food coloring. Mm, that must be popular with the kids. How about you, what are the seasonings and flavorings that you use? Pretty similar. So I don't do onions typically, any kind of onions, either granulated or raw or cooked. I definitely don't like putting raw onions into meatballs.

I might put onions into a different style of meatball, like a Swedish meatball will have onions in it. Yeah, that I might mince and then I've cooked them a little bit first. But not for like an Italian American meatball. I use garlic, fresh garlic. Sometimes I use a combination of fresh garlic and granulated garlic

because I find they give different flavors. Fresh garlic is a little more pungent and granulated has that kind of sweetness. The dried version is just like a worse version of the fresh one. It's like dried parsley, it just tastes like bad fresh parsley or sometimes it tastes like nothing. Whereas I find with certain ingredients, so mainly garlic, maybe ginger also,

that the granulated or powdered or dried form of it is not just like a bad substitute for the real thing. It's actually like just a different flavor profile. So in some cases I use one versus the other. In other cases, I like using both. So like if I'm making like a ranch dressing, I like to use fresh garlic and granulated garlic. Or if I'm making garlic toast, I like to use fresh garlic and granulated garlic. Interesting.

It's funny, I think of that with, in baking with vanilla bean and vanilla extract, like I like recipes with both in them. I think they do different things where the seed is more of a, it's like a subtle more fragrant thing and the vanilla extract is more of a flavor. But this is just, yeah, I think it's nice to have a little bit of both.

So I do a mix of granulated and fresh garlic, or sometimes just fresh garlic. Like you, I do parsley, unless my son is eating the meatball. My three-year-old, he does not like the green bits. But sometimes he's okay with it, sometimes he's not. And then I do a lot of Parmesan. So I'll do generally for like a pound of meat, I'll do about like maybe 60 to 75. So for 500 grams of meat,

I'll do like 60 to 75 grams of Parmesan. So that's like 12 to 15% of the weight. That's a lot, wow. Yeah, I think that's what I do. I use like a tablespoon, I think. For me, I think Parmesan is like my main flavor. No, for 500 grams, I do 50 grams of parmesan 50 grams is a Freshly grated parmesan was for me is more like I get it like more like three quarters of a cup

Wow, are you microplaning it? Are you getting that ball of fluff that weighs nothing? Yeah, well it weighs 50 grams per three quarters of a cup actually Okay, I'd like to see you see that image. I would lose my mind It's like there's I will never find out what a fluff of what microplane we use. It's just not worth it. And then for other flavors, it's just going to be salt, sometimes black pepper, not always, and then buttermilk. Regular milk works fine, but I really like to use buttermilk if I have it

because I like sort of that little bit of tanginess that it gives the meatball. I want to try it because I think really often that we put like a lot of seasoning in food when we really want acidity. And I think that tang would be really nice to kind of give you a more well-rounded. So my thing is we just described all of these ingredients

that we put into these meatballs to make them tender, to make them flavorful, to make them well-seasoned. And you've got your Parmesan and your garlic. I mean, this is like an amazing thing that on its own, it tastes good as it is. It's almost like tempting not to put it with something else, but we can get into that later with all the ways that we serve it.

But you just, you have such a perfect ball specimen that is flavorful and buoyant and moist and hard to overcook and hard to mess up. And then we drown it in stuff, but it's so good on its own. Yeah, but it's also good in sauce. It's very good in sauce. So how do you mix them? Do you mix I told you I mix it with a fork

But I know a lot of people just like to mix it with their hands and I feel like you're a hands-on kind of cook So, how do you mix your meatballs? I definitely mix my hand and I feel like this is an activity that's good for kids also You know getting in there when squishing around with your hands I know you're the kind of person who does not like getting meat under your fingernails But no, I'm definitely a hands-on cook. Yeah. How do you make your balls? I love the scooper. I have way too many. Yeah.

I could have said you probably have a cookie scoop, an ice cream scoop, the kind of the, with the little thumb switch that, that has like the little bail that goes out from underneath. Yes. Cause you said I probably have a, the problem is that I have about 12 of them. I have way too many of them. And so it's just so easy to make them even. I told you I can't stand it when things get overcooked.

So by keeping them really even, I also don't have to touch it as much. That's so funny. Because I was gonna say, when I make meatballs with my kids, we make our meatballs in a variety of sizes. Like we'll make some big ones, we'll make some real tiny ones,

we'll make some medium sized ones, specifically because it's way more fun to eat them that way. And then that way, when you have them, like in the sauce on a plate or on the meatballs, then if you decide you want some more balls, you can choose whether you want a lot more ball or just a little more ball. Okay, I see what you did there,

but did the little ones get overcooked? No, I mean, I think like we talked about earlier, because there's so much stuff going on inside a meatball, it's actually relatively hard to really overcook them. And so I suppose in some senses, like yeah, the little ones are maybe a little bit tougher and drier than the big ones, but I think the trade-off is worth it for the fun factor.

For the fun of going fishing for the little meatballs. By the way, I form my meatballs with wet hands. I do wet hands too. Like I have a little bowl of water. I've tried to do it with oiled hands, but I feel like it's just, it doesn't work as well. Really wet hands. I do wet hands too. I've tried to do it with oiled hands but I feel like it's just it doesn't work as well. Really wet hands work much better. Wet hands also allows you like if you start to get little bits of meat on your hands you just dip them in the bowl run them off the sink. No definitely wet hands is the way to go. It's definitely easy. Yeah so I scoop it into the

hand and then roll it around. I just don't like scooping into the bowl with my hand because I have issues. With the cookie scoop or with ice cream scoop you dip that in water before you put it in the bowl and that also keeps the meat mixture from sticking to the inside of the scoop. I should try that. I don't usually have trouble getting the meatballs out, but I have to think about this.

Do I do, I don't know that I do that. I'm gonna find out next time I make meatballs. What size are your balls? Depends on the mood. So I could use anything from like a super mini, like a one tablespoon or maybe one and a half tablespoons, sort of a small standard cookie scoop to a three tablespoons scoop. One and a half tablespoon for you is that a small ball or a medium-sized

ball? Like our smallest balls will be like a two teaspoons sized ball like it'll be a like a large marble. I would say for a large marble size I actually just use a one tablespoon measure and I would probably dip that in water yet. I did that for my chicken meatball and noodle soup that I ran after we did our chicken noodle soup episode because I couldn't stop thinking in water. I did that for my chicken meatball and noodle soup that I ran after we did our chicken noodle soup episode because I couldn't stop thinking about it. But I like that for super tiny meatballs for soup. For soup meatballs, I actually generally pipe them.

I was going to ask you. I'll put the meatball mixer into a bag and then squeeze them out and cut them off straight into the soup. But they're not perfectly round. They kind of puff up a little bit. No, but yeah, they're not going to be perfectly round, but they're more gnocchi-shaped. OK.

Do you ever do the the you know, like the real big like, you know, like buka de beppo like softball style I like it meatballs. I like it. You like I've also done in the opposite way. I've done meat Meatloaf as meatballs and I like that. I like the individual size But like a nice big one where instead of having many many balls you just have one large ball. It's fun. You just have to get the cooking time right and also hope that they don't flatten too much. Yeah, god there are so many dirty jokes to be made in this episode that we're just not going to make. I know and you're like really you're really behaving today. I'm just like wow. So we talked about all the sizes of meatballs. Once you've formed and shaped the meatballs,

do you rest them before you cook them? No, I don't. Is that a thing? I didn't even know that was a thing. Well, I tend to make meatball mixtures that are very moist. This is very tough because I do not want to speak badly about food that I grew up with because I don't think that's fair. But growing up, I remember having much more like firm, dry meatballs.

My mother didn't like a lot of filler in them. She thought it was cheapening and like, like not a good meatball that way. So, but I tend to like them much more moist and I love filler. So because of that, the mixture is often very soft. And so certainly if I'm doing it with turkey or chicken, certainly the chicken meatballs that I made for that chicken meatball and noodle soup,

I will, if I can just while I'm preparing other things, put it in the fridge for a bit just to help it set up a little bit. But it's very rarely necessary for beef or pork. Yeah, I generally don't. I will start cooking them immediately. And speaking of cooking them, that's what we're going to be talking about next, coming up on The Recipe with Kenji, when we're talking about how to cook meatballs, you've got a few ways, right? You've got frying, pan-frying. Right. Pan-frying, shallow-frying, deep-frying, roasting. Shallow-frying, deep-frying. Simmering, braising. You've got frying pan frying right pan frying shallow frying deep fry shallow frying deep frying Simmering braising you've got poaching in some sort of liquid yet steaming

You can cook balls any way you want like virtually any cooking process can be applied to all trying to imagine a steamed meatball And I'm not sure how I feel about that the Shanghai style lion's head meatballs, which are steamed and poached in broth They're the kind from Shanghai that have meat and like glass noodles in them. But when we're talking about Italian American meatballs, I think generally there are three processes that you generally do. I think the most traditional way to do it is to fry them,

at least in an Italian American household, this would be to fry them, then simmer them in sauce, right? So you fry them first to brown them. Is that how you do yours? I, it really depends on the size of the meatball. If I'm doing like a smaller meatball or if I'm doing a variety of sizes, I will generally fry. And I usually like to sort of fry in enough oil that it comes maybe like halfway

up the meatball when all the balls are in a pan, you know? Yeah. Because I want that even browning all around. I really find it difficult to, to fry meatballs in a, in like a thin layer of oil, you know, unless you're okay making meat cubes, you know, like wombat poop shaped meatballs. Hexagons, rhombuses. Yeah, or meat cylinders.

But if you're doing balls, you need them to be kind of suspended in enough oil that they actually brown evenly on all sides, and that way you brown them once, the oil comes halfway up, you flip them over, you brown the second side, and then you transfer them to your sauce. If your meatballs are bigger though, over, you brown the second side, and then you transfer them to your sauce. If your meatballs are bigger though, I'll do them in the oven,

and I'll put them on a tray. It's a lot easier to do them in the oven, right? Especially like I'll do them in the toaster oven, like a convection oven, countertop. Or if you've got like an air fryer, I think that's a much easier way, because nobody likes to actually fry on their stove top. Whatever vessel you're using,

it's still a bit of a pain no matter what. I used to do the shallow frying. I would put a nice puddle of oil and not halfway up, but I also didn't want all the leftover oil to deal with. It's not like the kind of clean oil that would be easy to reuse, like maybe from french fries or something. No, it's like goopy gunky oil

that comes out with bits of meat bits in it. It's so splattery. It's so messy. It's so hard. Even if you're trying to wait till you get the heat right, so they're cooked enough that they release from the pan, it's just such a mess. And you've got bits everywhere.

And I think for some people, those fried bits and those crispy edges are really everything, but I always feel like they go soft in the sauce anyway, so it's diminishing returns. And I started cooking them one of two other ways, but I got, the main way I cook them these days is in the oven, and I'll either put them in a really high heat, or I'll put them onto the pan.

And you can actually just do this for like 10 minutes. They may not be 100% cooked through, although some of them are, but you can do it just to set the shape. So when you put it, you get the nicer shape, and then when you put it in the sauce, it holds up and you can finish cooking it. You kind of wanna finish cooking them in the the sauce anyways so the flavors of the meatball

and like the juices get in there. They get that harmony. Well you know what I like to do with my meatballs is I'll save some of the meatball mixture and then I'll fry it in my Dutch oven or my four quart braiser. I'll fry a bit of the meatball or I'll take a couple of the meatballs you know and kind of mash them up and just fry them and then add my sauce to that, so that there's actually some of the brown meatball mixture flavor incorporated into the sauce. But the other thing that happened

when I started baking the meatballs, or roasting them for a bit before, this is if I'm making, it's worked into my perfect meatballs and spaghetti recipe that's in Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and it's also on the website, is that the whole process of making spaghetti and meatballs became a lot faster,

because you've got one pot boiling the pasta, then you've got the sauce simmering on the stove while the meatballs are cooking. By the time you put this all together, I make a quick tomato sauce on the stove from canned tomatoes. It's basically, and I have timed it so many times, and every time I'm like, it can't be right,

I've made it beginning to end spaghetti and meatballs with everything from scratch in 40 minutes. Like it's just because they roast fast. The sauce takes 15 minutes. You poach them together for another five or 10. I mean, pasta doesn't take long to cook. That's like with prep, it takes that long, even forming the meatballs.

So everything got a lot faster. I think we've talked about this before because sometimes you're choosing between speed and number of pans. Like I can make this go faster by doing one pot. No, I can make this easier by making it one pot, but it won't be quicker. I can make it quicker by using more pot.

You're also sometimes choosing convenience, whether it's number of pans or speed over flavor, right? Because there are some things that are better if you put in some more time and effort, right? I'll never find out. I don't think spaghetti meatballs is one of them, because there is this sort of like romantic idea that if you let your meatballs simmer in the sauce all day,

they're gonna get extra tender, or they're gonna make the sauce more flavorful, but it's actually not the case. Meatballs are actually, they are overcookable in the same way that like a steak or a chicken breast is overcookable, right? Meatballs are tender to begin with, and they don't benefit from spending longer

simmering in the sauce. I think they're thinking of like a bolognese, or it's like, oh, we should do a bolognese episode. Even that doesn't benefit from simmering all day, like the meat dries out and turns out kind of gritty. Not all day, no, I think you, by three hours, I feel like you're in a good place and it's diminishing returns after that,

which is also similar to... There are very few things that are better when they literally cook all day. Interesting. Very few things. And with meatballs, it's really like, you just wanna cook them through, like a sausage, right? It's like 10 to 15 minutes and they're fine.

Do you check one? No, meatballs is one of those things where I feel like, they're forgiving, so it's like, you can cook them like a minimum of like, five to 10 minutes just so they're cooked through. But then after that, they are gonna be, I don't transfer them out of the pot, like I just bring the whole pot over to the table, right? And so they're kind of sitting in this hot sauce anyway.

And so over the course of dinner, like the next half hour, they're gonna continue just kind of sitting there poaching, you know? So I know, I'll just assume that once the first one is done, you know, once it's been long enough that it's done, that it's gonna be fine. Like I don't have to try and hit like some real perfect,

ideal sweet spot. It's a meal of convenience for me. Because I generally find that meatballs are cooked a lot faster than people think they are. And I always get questions about it in my recipe when I say these will cook in seven minutes or, you know, again, it depends on size. Sometimes I'll pop one out just to cut it in half

and confirm that I'm not crazy that it cooks that fast. I've definitely done the frying. And I think deep frying is really smart. And I've definitely done a lot of roasting or baking or even briefly broiling the meatballs. You don't get as much of an edge on it, but you get that set shape. And I think the lack of splatter

and everything else to clean up is so nice. Plus I might put them on foil. And then I just, even if they're not, just try to tip all those juices and that come out of the meatballs anyway, so flavor the sauce. However, one of the most popular meatball recipes on my site and probably the most popular,

is I have this recipe for everyday meatballs, and you actually just make the sauce, and you drop the meatballs in raw. And you just drop the meatballs straight in. And I think I had done it, I was a new mom, and I was like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to even think about it. And they have a life of their own.

Basically, you're gonna not stir them. You do not touch them. And you've done it literally every day since then. I have made them every day. That's why they're called everyday meatballs. I've got a pot pan going right now. And I think it's just the ease of them. You're not gonna have a perfectly neat shape,

but I do find that they stay more round than the ones that I pan fry. And they just have such a nice texture and they're definitely really tender. I think there is something to be said, because in Western culture, particularly in the US, we tend to value brown and crispy. We want all our food to be deeply brown and really crispy,

whereas in a lot of other cultures, other textures are prized. There's slippery and tender and moist, and things that we don't think about as much in the US. You've been to motorino, right? I love their meatballs, although they've changed the recipe a couple of times, but we always get them. I know that, but so they're meatballs.

I know they, I know, I think they have ground mortadella in them, but anyhow, but they're real, real tender, right? So they're not on spaghetti. They're just, they're just these big meatballs that are done in the oven with some sauce, but they're extremely tender and they don't really have any sort of browning or crisping on the outside at all. But it's that tenderness, I think, that makes them really special.

Yeah, they were always really good. They must put something, I thought they put some sort of fatty pork in it. Always tastes like they're pretty heavy on the pecorino. Like it has a really nice flavor. Pretty heavy on the pecorino, really nice, bright, simple tomato sauce. I like a really simple sauce with meatballs.

I usually just do crushed or pureed tomatoes. I mean, if you start with a whole, if you start with a whole one, I feel like you have to chop it down more. And I'm not looking for a very chunky sauce because I want it to cling. If I'm making it with spaghetti, I want it to also cling to the meatballs

and the chunkier sauces don't do that as much. But I usually just do a couple cloves of garlic, olive oil, pinch of pepper flakes, maybe some dried oregano, cook it for 30 seconds, one minute, and then you just add the can. It splashes everywhere, because I never learned. Yep. It makes it huge, because it's like oil and liquid.

Is there some food science to this oil and liquid thing that I keep getting splattered? Well, yeah, it's because the oil is heated way past the boiling point of the water. So as soon as water hits it, there's little droplets of water that end up sort of underneath that oil, but they very rapidly convert to steam and that's a kind of violent process because it's so hot and rapid. And so that's what splatters the, that's what makes the oil splatter out.

That's why I always wear a white sweater when I make tomato sauce like this. Yes, when you make tomato sauce. White sweater's perfect. Do you do a simple sauce too? So it depends on how I'm serving it. If I'm doing like a spaghetti and meatballs, and I'm making like a separate sort of marinara sauce that I'm going to simmer the meatballs in. Then yeah, then what I do is I'll often take, like I said, I'll take some of that meatball mixture. I'll brown it along with some garlic and oregano and a pinch of pepper flakes

and then add tomato to it. But sometimes I'll also do like a can, you know, like a jar of Rios is fine for me. That's right. You like Rios. I forgot. If I'm going to be serving like just the meatballs on their own, which is I think how I do it more often. I'll do like maybe some pasta on the side, but I'll do just the meatballs on their own. When I do that, I like to do it sort of the motorino way, which is a real simple sauce. So I'll take a can of whole peeled tomato, like good quality whole peeled tomatoes, open it up, add a big pinch of salt to it, like drizzle in some olive oil. And then I take a hand blender and I just kind of pulse it in the can and then that's it.

Like that's the whole sauce and I heat it up and that's it. You agree it doesn't cling to the meatballs well if it's too chunky, right? It does not cling to meatballs well if it's too chunky. Yeah. I want my meatballs to be in chunks and my sauce to be pulpy. And it also, if you are doing spaghetti, I feel like spaghetti requires a thinner or smoother sauce or the chunks don't really incorporate. So we've got sauce texture,

we have frying, baking, poaching, steaming, shallow and deep frying. Have we missed any cooking methods? Sous vide? Have you sous vide meatballs? That sounds terrible. It's hard to sous vide a meatball because they squish in the bag, you know? You would have a meat tube. Yeah, yeah, you'd probably have to fry them first. I mean, I'm sure there are people who love their sous vide devices and just want to sous vide everything, who fry their meatballs first and then sous vide it and then take it out of the bag and simmer it and sauce and claim that it's the best meatball they've ever had,

even though I'm sure it's not. I feel like it would make something already tender too tender. And also, it would be like a slice and bake log of meatball, which is, I don't know. Yeah, we have meat loaves, we have meatballs, why don't we have meat logs? I was thinking if you had a, like, if it ended up with this sous vide log and then you had to sort of slice it. Oh, I see, I see, I see. But I just feel like it wouldn't look right.

You definitely couldn't sing the old Smokey song, like it would not roll off the table and onto the floor. It would not roll off the table, no. All right, so what's your favorite for the Italian American meatballs? Are you team spaghetti? Are you team polenta? Are you team meatball sub?

This is my favorite. I do this with the everyday meatballs a lot. Garlic bread might be a theme in this Mitten kitchen because it's a really nice way to entice kids. But you take the everyday meatball. Again, this is not the most shapely meatball. It's gotten a little misshapen in the pot, but it's very easy to make.

And you take a little square of garlic bread and you squish it onto there. And then you put a little more cheese on. And then you squish it with another piece of garlic bread. So you're making like a meatball parm sub, but on garlic. Exactly, just like a little square. Which is how I think you should do it anyway, yeah.

It's the perfect meatball bite. I use this with, usually I'll do this with smaller meatballs and like a smaller square, so it's not overwhelming to eat. But I also really like a meatball sub, how about you? I'm okay with meatball subs. I think they end up squishing out frequently. I like all forms, like all those things you mentioned, I like all of them.

My least favorite would probably be spaghetti, but I feel like I'm a, like when it comes to, I'm a swinger, you know, like I can go all different ways. I'm not faithful to anyone. I would take polenta over spaghetti. You also forgot to mention just meatballs on their own, just like meatballs with tomato sauce and like a good shave in a Pecorino or Parmesan on top.

I think that's great. That's the motorino way? Yeah, yeah, yeah, or like a little dollop of ricotta on the side, like I think that's real good. Spaghetti and meatballs is probably my least favorite form of meatballs. I'm also not a huge fan of meatballs on pizza, which is like a thing that pizza shops do sometimes.

Not a huge fan of it. But have you made my baked ziti with meatballs? The one with the teeny tiny meatballs made in your four quart brazier? Yes, I've made that a few times for like a play date kind of thing. Like a play date, but they're staying over for dinner. I feel like it's like an all-purpose kids meal

where you get the baked CD thing and you get the meatballs, and I think it's sort of fun. So I've made that several times. You know, lasagna Napolitana, the other famous lasagna from Italy, the less famous lasagna from Italy, so like not a lasagna Bolognese. Little meatballs.

Napolitana has like basically like the equivalent of a Sunday gravy. You know, it has meatballs, it has like pork ribs, equivalent of like a Sunday gravy, you know, it has meatballs, it has like pork ribs, it has like all different cuts of meat, little tiny meatballs and sliced hard boiled eggs and that's all layered into a lasagna. So close to good. But minus the eggs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I ask you a question Deb and I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this already.

SpaghettiOs with meatballs. Have you had those, the teeny tiny meatballs and the spaghettiOs? My best friend across the street growing up used to have them for dinner like her mom would buy them and I was so jealous. I'm actually surprised. I think I've done copycat recipes of it, but I've probably never published one.

So maybe I should get on that. That one you really wanna do more like the piping bag size of meatball. Like it's really, and you really need a very smooth mixture. Like almost- And a very sweet sauce also. So did you get to eat that growing up, SpaghettiO? I got to eat it growing up, but it's also like, if I'm by myself and I'm cooking just

for myself, it's like not a guilty pleasure because I don't feel guilty about it, but it's like one of those things where it's like, ah, I'm going to get a can of SpaghettiOs today and just open it up and pour it into a bowl and microwave it and eat it. And it feels great. I bet my kids would like that. Maybe I shouldn't continue this generational suffering since I was denied it. Like, maybe I should let my kids have it. So Deb, we've talked about all the various ways of cooking meatballs. Now the one we haven't talked about is do meatballs waffle?

Right. Do they? I would definitely waffle a meatball. Spaghetti and meatballs waffles. You can take leftover spaghetti or leftover pasta and stick that in a waffle machine, waffle maker, and it comes out nice and crispy. You could probably squish a meatball directly into it and it'd be good. I think it would be amazing and perfect for a sandwich.

I think it would. On your garlic for a sandwich. I think it would. On your garlic bread. Yes. Could you taco meatballs? Yes, absolutely. Can you fry it in butter in a pan? Yes. Yes.

I mean, there are better oils for it, but I'm sure it would be delicious. Do meatballs leftover? Absolutely. Meatballs make great leftovers. If you're doing spaghetti and meatballs though, I really like to keep the meatballs in the sauce separately because you know, the spaghetti's just gonna absorb all the sauce and get kind of gluey

and not as good. I much rather heat them up together, having them separate. What I would do is I would fry the spaghetti in butter in a pan to give it some texture again and then I would separately microwave the meatballs and sauce. Do meatballs come out of kids clothes easily? No, they're like the worst thing to come out of clothes. No. They're literally the worst. You put them in a container to give them to like send them in a lunchbox and that lunchbox is permanently red.

Exactly. You've got the orange containers. Like your non-stainable spatula is going to be permanently red. You've got no hope for clothes. None. None whatsoever. I mean, I'm sure there's a solution, but I'm not that good of a laundress. So no.

Yeah. Meatball suit. You have one designated meatball suit for each kid. Just be a New Yorker and wear black all the time. It works for me. Right. Nobody's going to know. So that's our Italian American meatball episode with extra gravy.

Is there any other recipe or food you want us to chat about? Any comments or questions about this week's dish? Tell us at therecipepodcast.com or at Kenji and Deb, or call us and leave us a message at 202-709-7607. The recipe is created and co-hosted by Deb Perlman and Kenji Lopez-Alt. Our producers are Jocelyn Gonzalez, Perry Gregory, and Pedro Raffaello Rosado of PRX Productions. Edwin Ochoa is the project manager. The executive producer for Radiotopia is Audrey Mardovich, and Yori Losorto is director of

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