4 Levels of Spaghetti & Meatballs: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm Melina Stella I'm a level 1 chef my name is Lorenzo I'm a level 2 chef my name is Frank I'm level 3 the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs was last Christmas the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs is actually a Thursday because Thursday's my pasta night this is the recipe that we normally make for Sunday dinner I would consider myself an expert first I'm gonna start with the meatballs since they take a little bit longer just place that into the bowl pound of meat beef for meatballs is completely fine but me I like to add a little bit more flavor and why not add pork sausage when I make meatballs I'd like to use three different types of meat beef pork and veal right in front of me I have a grinder set up it'll grind it up it'll mechanically tenderize it let me start with a Spanish I mean I'll saute this at a pan I'm gonna add some garlic if you ever see a little green stuff take that out you will have heartburn and indigestion we are not browning these vegetables or sweating them to get did not go sugar is out and the moisture out of it half a cup of breadcrumbs I'm gonna combine this with panko in Italian bread crumbs quarter cup of milk to keep the meatballs moist sometimes people add milk to this I don't really like milk in my meatballs I'm gonna add four eggs one egg it helps keep everything together and I'm just gonna ninja one egg into the bowl and parmesan grated cheese I use pecorino romano just for the fact that it's really salty and sharp a little bit of basil you must add some salt brings out the flavour of everything if you can fresh grind the pepper it's even better and then what you do now is you're getting there with your hands oh this feels really strange my hands are clean I promise and that's it that's my Mitch now we scoop roll them into 2-inch size balls I think that's a good size boom boom boom karate chop karate chop I always get a little ninja in there bigger than the golf ball-sized so boom kaboom I like to use an ice cream scoop this not only makes things more uniform it's actually much much quicker my sauce comes from a jar alright so I'm gonna get started with my sauce which is basically an easy peasy marinara sauce what we're gonna do is start with the other half note this spinach onion just slice it up again I like garlic and then I'm actually gonna add sweetness to the sauce by using the little carrot because we're using whole peeled Tomatoes there's always this can taste to it so in order to get rid of that you add sugar the secret to my sauce is that everything's in one pot we've browned the meatballs in the pot our oil is flavored with the meatball juices basically canned tomatoes which were using tend to be a little acidic so when you put onions in there or you put basil in there a little bit of orange it makes the sauce a little sweeter don't eat a ton of garlic I put a bay leaf in but with the orange rind and my basil I like to tie it together with some butchers twine in the kitchen we call this a sachet or a bouquet garni and see ya at italiano feel to it some parmesan rind to it I like to use canned peeled crushed Tomatoes no skin I also like to use a little tomato paste tomato paste adds a little texture to your sauce makes your sauce a little thicker so now we add the tomato sauce make sure you cover all of them I also like to add seasoning at this point a little bit of black pepper and salt you got to be careful with the salt because if you put too much now the sauce is gonna cook down its gonna be a little too salty and I'm gonna add basil and oregano that's something that my mom does every time she makes meatballs and she puts it right in the sauce I really like basil so I don't mind having a little bit more the juices from the meatballs will just accentuate the taste of this sauce and the longer you cook it then we're thicker the sauce will be alright meatballs swim this not only flavors your sauce it also helps to keep the meatballs tender and now I'm gonna let this cook for about 40 minutes to 60 now we're gonna do the spaghetti my spaghetti is pretty simple I get it straight from the box I have fresh pasta today bucatini pasta why not get it as close to restaurant quality as you can box pastas really great for every day but if you really love people you make fresh pasta today we're gonna make a small batch most people would say it's really difficult but it's not hard at all nice spaghetti once I take them out of the box I crack them in half okay just so that they fit in the pan a little bit easier here we go one neste pasta two Nesta pasta and you immediately stir pasta in the water or else clump them and now that it's boiling we're gonna put the pasta in I add salt and olive oil just cuz that's what I've been told to do I don't exactly know what it does but I'm gonna say it adds flavor you never add oil to your boiling pasta somebody had said that somewhere and people believe that it's wrong the sauce will just slip and slide away it's important to salt your water not only to season the pasta but the salt actually brings the temperature of the water up quicker a dry pasta would take about 10 minutes to cook but a fresh pasta only takes two to three minutes and that's it that's our spaghetti looks good [Music] I think this looks pretty good I can see the Browning on this meatball and I'm really excited about that the cheese looks awesome this is spaghetti meatballs my way beautiful homemade pasta nice torn basil leaves gives a little sweetness delicious I'm going for it mm-hmm just a little delicioso Wow spaghetti and meatballs is a delicious and traditional dish that shows how starches and proteins come together in pasta and meatballs as well as sauce let's cover the pasta first box pastas are really delicious and they work really well for certain applications there we go typically they don't have egg added to them they're just based on a wheat based flour and water and so you get this nice dried pasta that has a real toothy quality to it it has an al dente quality so you get a bite to that pasta yeah they're perfect you won't get that with fresh supple pastas that you either buy fresh in the store or pastas that you make yourself by the addition of eggs to a wheat based flour when you add your pasta to boiling salted water just like Frank said your water should be C salty some chefs recommend that your water be just about as a line as the ocean you want to add your salt to the already boiling water otherwise it just takes too much time to heat the water up also as Lorenzo said we don't want to add olive oil to the pasta water Lwin up mostly because once you take the pasta and finish it in the sauce the oil is going to prevent it from adhering to the sauce very well the sauce will just slip and slide away when you're making meatballs typically you're gonna be adding some sort of a starch like a bread or bread crumbs you're also gonna add eggs bread crumbs are gonna act as a nice tenderizer they're gonna give us soft quality to your meatball and the eggs are gonna act as an emulsifier it's gonna hold together the bread and the meat and all of the other components into one delicious kind of emulsified meatball egg yolks contains something called phospholipids phospholipids have one part of the molecule that loves water so it's hydrophilic and one part that is hydrophobic it doesn't like water so your phospholipids act as a bridge between the water soluble and the water insoluble parts so you have really nice structure in your meatballs it's fantastic you enhance the flavor greatly by browning your meatballs first that comes about because of something called a meillard reaction you also got a really nice sensory experience because the Browning imparts a lot of flavor but it also looks much nicer if you don't brown your meatballs first they're not going to go through that Mayo reaction because you have too much water present which inhibits meillard browning so you're gonna get a gray looking meatball that's not very appealing from a sensory perspective Oh a nice meatball hoagie oh please help me alena used jar sauce my sauce comes from a jar you might find ingredients in these sauces that you don't want to have in your pasta dish things like high fructose corn syrup occasionally some sort of added starches and these things help to thicken and give sweetness to the sauce but it's not a real authentic tomato tasting sauce so make it look nice when you're making your own homemade tomato sauce you want to layer flavors as Frank did he started with garlic and onions in oil that's really important because many of the flavoring compounds are dissolved in the oil so you start off with a really nice baseline of flavor and then you add the tomatoes to it when you are using fresh tomatoes they are whole peeled tomatoes the temperature at which you cook your sauce can make a real difference if you use a slow moderate heat there are some compounds in the tomato called hemicellulose and pectin that give the tomato its soft juicy flavor but also some structure to the tomato if you used a canned tomato typically they are autoclaved at a very high temperature and the enzymes that promote this fresh quality to your sauce are deactivated just because of the high heat to remedy that canned type of taste you might want to balance out the sweetness but you don't need to add sucrose you don't need to add white sugar to your sauce you can add some natural sweetness in the form of say a carrot like Lorenzo did Frank on the other hand used an orange and this adds some complex flavors and it adds a really nice sweet quality to the tomatoes that Frank used I think it gives a really nice background flavor when you're choosing a cheese to use with your spaghetti and meatballs you have a lot of options traditionally parmesan is use Parmesan cheese is one of my favorite cheese's this is a really nice complex but slightly mild and nutty kind of flavor that goes with your spaghetti and meatballs in Frank's case he used a pecorino romano which is also delicious from a different region in Italy but it's got more of a peppery bite to it it's a lot of flavor in a smaller amount parmesan you need a lot more to get that really nice cheese flavor so you might want to use a pecorino romano with a sweeter type of tomato sauce than with a more mild type of tomato sauce in which case you might want to use the parmesan spaghetti and meatballs may seem like a really standard dish but there's a lot of changes you can make whether it be the type of pasta you choose from commercial pasta to homemade pasta jarred sauce or homemade sauce as well as grinding your own meat to make meatballs always be aware of the ingredients you use where they come from and keep in mind the delicious result that you're searching for [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 16,254,351

Rating: 4.7944956 out of 5

Keywords: meatballs, spaghetti, 4 levels, spaghetti and meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs recipe, how to make spaghetti and meatballs, making spaghetti and meatballs, 4 levels of, food scientist, meatball recipe, making meatballs, how to make meatballs, make spaghetti and meatballs, amateur chef, professional chef, homemade spaghetti and meatballs, easy spaghetti and meatballs, best spaghetti and meatballs, make meatballs, best meatballs, meatball, amateur cook, epicurious

Id: 79_IsTV8X-c

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Maya3778]

I think the amateur one looks more appetizing.

[u/AutoModerator]

NOTE: if you are linking to your own video - subreddit rules state that each time you submit a link here to your own video, you MUST utilize ONE of these two options (otherwise your post may be removed as well as lead to an account and YouTube channel ban);

• Comment sincerely and non-promotionally on two other posts here in /r/FoodVideo when you submit a link to your own video. Your comments must be more sincere than "That looks good"

• Submit a post here in /r/FoodVideo to another video that isn't yours when posting a link to one of your own

AND you must maintain a proper promotion vs non-promotion ratio

• Follow the self-promotion guideline. No more than 1/10 of your submissions in this subreddit should mention or link to things you are affiliated with

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/LegendsofthePlaids]

I love spaghetti!!!! Crazy to see the different levels

[u/Neon2107]

the amateur one looks delicious!

[u/Eliselydiag]

Love meatballs so will try this tasty recipe

[u/CocoAndVine]

Love these comparison videos... also love the series on YT where they have an expert blind taste test high quality and low quality versions of food

[u/somesortaspice]

These videos are very informative on how much knowledge the expert chef knows over the span of their experience.