The Most Delicious Meatballs Ever

i've been told i make really great meatballs i don't disagree they're soft they're delicious they're amazing they're juicy they're incredible and they're easy so why does everyone else make such crappy meatballs i don't know maybe i know something they don't know um i don't know but if i do i'm gonna tell it to you right now [Music] we're talking meatballs italian meatballs yes that's right we love them we just have a hard time making them sometimes there's a pretty simple way to do it and i'm gonna show you this is kind of foolproof and they're delicious and amazing soft and incredible and flavorful and so good okay so what does it take it takes a onion garlic cheese bread crumbs one egg a little bit of milk a little bit of seasoning and meat there you go um we're using pure ground veal from the region no i'm just using ground beef uh you can mix a little italian sausage in it if you want you don't have to you can put a little red pepper flake in it if you want that's a spicy meatball yeah that's really really good i'm just going to show you plain meatballs and you can adjust once you learn this technique you got it so super fast super easy what we have is a third of a cup of bread crumbs these are panko bread crumbs you can use one slice of bread that works pretty well we're going to use a little bit of milk half as much milk as that but not exactly because the original recipes if you look back at like the old grandma's recipe from the old country it says a slice of bread you soak in milk pick it up and then squish it until you get all the milk out of it and then use the bread discard the milk that's the way it's supposed to be done that's the way your grandmother used to do it that's kind of no so there you go bread crumbs this is about two teaspoons of garlic right here it's minced up real nice that goes in we have one egg what's the rule one egg to a pound of meat we're using one pound of meat okay so we're putting the egg i'm gonna put the egg on the far side because i don't want it mixing with the bread crumbs just yet we have about a little bit over a tablespoon of parmesan here this is grated parmesan you can use the shredded this is shredded sorry not grated graded stuff is super fine this is the shredded stuff so it's clumpier and it makes wonderful amazing bits in there you can use the the regular stuff you can even use the tube stuff the craft green tube stuff it does actually work for this uh the meat we're going to be using is not fancy either so why get fancy there now basil seasonings just going to take two basil leaves and do a quick uh chiffonade here this reposition boom there you go and then just run through again because you want this stuff pretty small and the reason you were using fresh there is because it is so fragrant it's amazing dried um basil has a little different flavor to it so there um oregano my oregano plant died it's summer that happens um so i have to use ground this is actually greek oregano but we're going to use probably a tablespoon and a half something like that so it's about equal parts there salt and pepper a little bit of salt a lot of time pepper okay there you go next big thing that we're going to use i'm going to get this stuff out of here so you can see what i'm doing move this real fast okay this might be one of my secrets box grater and an onion grating the onion makes a huge difference because you don't need a ton of onion that is that'll work okay how do you eyeball things that's part of my problem writing this stuff down so this works out to be roughly a third of a cup i'm just going to run this through here again because some of these strains are a little long my box creator has been modified i opened the holes up so i can make hash browns with it i'm a weirdo i go around modifying box graters people say i'm not normal who cares all right so just prove a point how much exactly is here i'll measure this for you this is suddenly turning into not so fast okay so this is about a quarter cup onion there you go that works that was perfect now i'm going to grab the milk and i'm back i got milk i still have under my hand all right i'm gonna pour this in here it's about half so half would be what uh just over two and a half tablespoons or half of this i'm going to start with this here and see what that that does for me put this so you can kind of see we only want the bread crumbs damp we don't want this soaked and we don't want loose milk in the bottom if you have loose milk in the bottom you put too much milk in you just want wet grains of sand kind of thing if you're using panko it does need a just a splash you can always add more you cannot take it out and you don't want to add more bread crumbs because then your bread crumb ratio gets off that is what you're looking for that's perfect right there see that it's just a little damp hopefully you can see this trying to do this in this camera here all right once you've done that now mix it all together mix it all up there is no ketchup in this don't put ketchup in your meatballs ketchup goes in meatloaf when i make a meatloaf we're making meatballs don't make me come over there and smack you put ketchup in your meatballs you are not italian yeah if your grandmother who was italian put ketchup in the meatballs i hate to tell you she was hungarian she lied you're not italian you could also be albanian i don't know but definitely not a telling all right that's it that's our mush that's our mushy right there that's our mush that's what you want you can see the little bits of cheese kind of poking through here a little bit this is a very very big chunky uh shredded cheese so i did chop it a little bit so it's smaller if you have big long shards of parmesan cheese you can also put romano in here um stay away from anything too melty but uh either one of those worked pretty good and get rid of this this and this we clean up real fast we're gonna put the meat in i'm gonna show you how to form the meatballs hold on so here we are here's a mush here's our meat this is a pound of 80 20 ground beef nothing fancy nothing amazing uh you can use thinner meat or leaner meat this doesn't have to be 80 20. feel free to use 90 10 or even leaner that will work just fine okay this is hands hands on if you don't like the feeling of the meat sticking to your hands and the whole thing wet your hands just run them under water real fast for me okay so i'm going to do this do not squish do not mash never do this it is loose fingers so i am pulling the meat apart so that is loose you can do this with a spoon if you want to or a fork just kind of me whisk a big wooden spoon or something like that if you want to hands work fantastic you're going to get your hands in here to mix them anyways might as well get started now but if you wanted to use a spoon for this you could do not mash don't smash this you want the meat fibers to be nice and lovely just keep tossing and moving and open fingers mixing all of this until you get this to come together you're going to see the white specks in here that's normal because you have a lot of stuff cheese and onions and things like that those are not going to blend in and disappear on you and if you get anything upside just kind of work it in this is pretty well mixed so i'm going to start bringing this together into one big meatball on the side of the bowl here pretty much okay kind of squish this down a little bit compact it in there a little bit you want to kind of move the bits to the inside when you get this that's one giant meatball you pick up the little bits there you go one quick boop boop boop you're ready to form some meatballs okay now you've got dirty hands pinch off a bit if you're making spaghetti or something like that you want a meatball that's maybe about size of a golf ball something like that it's pretty much gently bringing this together so it's kind of round two hands roll now you're feeling the thing tumbling inside and doing its thing this is making it round because you're making strange weird little gesture like this you're not pushing it is just rolling between your hands and your fingers meatball that's it pinch off a bit when you get good at this when you get used to it you know when you when you put bring this together in your hand it feels like the right amount and if it doesn't bring a little more in boom we got it so we just bring it in again gently just kind of sort of bringing it together not squishing roll roll roll roll roll meatball about a meat will make about a dozen to 14 15 meatballs roughly this size um if you're making a lot more meatballs um use a much bigger bowl or one of the big like foil serving tray sort of things those uh those are great i'm using this bowl here because it'll fill up this one side here and still leave me room to do this so i've done this a thousand times i know what i'm doing oh that one's coming apart a little bit they do that that one doesn't want a country what's the matter what you made or mr meatball oh that's got a piece of cheese in it it's got a big lump of cheese right there so it doesn't want to come together if that's case push cheese meatball you get the idea i will meet you uh back here in a second once these are done so you can do the rest all right okay meatballs are done my hands are still a mess but uh there's your meatballs this camera should have a pretty nice view it looks a little tilty funny but you get the idea i got 15 meatballs out of that um they're golf ball size there you go now cooking these i'm going to show you one way to do it there's another way to do it i'll go over that while i'm cooking them but now i'm gonna wash up and let's get to cooking because that's kind of important so hold on start with a pan over medium high heat and add oil now it's important to put in about a tablespoon or two of oil but here's the thing stop right here for half a second uh put the oil stir the oil around coat the pan with it i did not do that so there are bare spots that have no oil guess what happens when you put meatballs in a pan that has bare spots and no oil it's about to stick in 30 years i've never had meatballs stick i don't know how this i've made thousands of meatballs seriously never had them stick like that so the only thing i can come up with is i didn't get the oil spread around the pan and the pan was extremely hot so they immediately seared and grabbed onto the bottom of the pan and when i went to shake the pan it was no bueno so pan about 350 370 tops and put some oil in and then swirl the oil around to coat the pan before you put the meatballs in you will avoid that little mistake there you go we're just going to fry these brown them up in the pan um since we're only doing a pound you can see we're not overcrowding the pan we have plenty of room to work the meatballs but yeah let them sit for a minute get a nice good brown spot and then move them to a spot that isn't brown and just keep rotating them around this is uh not exactly difficult work we've probably all made meatballs before this is uh how many balls are done if you're not doing them in the oven you can bake these in the oven and it's not a bad idea if you're doing more than a pound of meatballs doing the oven is a really great idea putting them on baking sheets and the oven's about 400 degrees and a meatball this size is only going to take about 15 maybe 17 minutes in the oven but what we're going to do here is we're going to just brown them they're still going to be pink in the middle you can see they already got the brown spot on there you're going to flip them probably six times to get all of the surface brown but then we're going to braise them in tomato sauce since these are going to be uh spaghetti and meatballs well these are kind of the perfect size for spaghetti meatballs uh we're going to brown braise them in the sauce for about 45 minutes to an hour they're going to finish cooking there they're going to pick up flavors from the sauce they're going to give off flavors into the sauce and it's gonna be delicious that is one of the secrets is braising the meatballs in the tomato sauce it makes them super super yummy as you can see my uh troubles with the meatballs is far from over uh once you they start to tear it's it's like one of them gets the idea and they're like rebellion we see freedom and they just start coming apart so don't let the first meatball crack and then you'll be okay but once they do they kind of get to be a pain although i've never really had it there's some curse of the camera i swear to god things i've done a thousand times as soon as i turn the camera on it's like my brain shuts off or something and i don't know how i managed to do something so stupid but i'm learning i'm getting better but yeah just coat the pan don't let it get scorching hot don't get sidetracked with trying to set up a camera angle and stuff and your meatballs should turn out perfect it's more about what's inside the meatball you can't screw this up too badly at this point once you've got the right ingredients inside of it just don't burn them and don't undercook them so those little pink spots when they sit first for a minute or so flip it onto a pink spot until there's no more pink spots then transfer it to your sauce [Music] as the meatballs cook you can see they start giving off a little bit of juice and they will start to spit a little bit and start to make a little bit of a mess again you're you know medium little more than medium heat i like to cover it with a splatter cover this is an old one that was made by paul revere apparently you can use one of the you know modern vented ones for cooking uh bacon and that sort of thing but just cover them like that it keeps it from splattering and also keep some heat in and helps cook them just a little bit more once you put the cover on like this you're really only going to cook them another two or three minutes tops before they go into the sauce after the meatballs have sat there for a little bit they are nicely browned as you can see here just mix them around find any spots there's a couple little spots here and there and you don't really want to overcook these so you do have to be somewhat careful you're not going to get every inch of the meatball completely browned and that's that's okay they'll be just fine uh the majority of his brown it's good enough you know if you want to be really really fastidious or anal as i'm being here you know use the tongs tip them up on the side but they're ready to go take their bath in the sauce pretty much so i've got the tomato sauce sitting off to the side unfortunately i'm the only cameraman and i set the camera angle up here with the gopro to show you the frying pan i did not get the pot with the sauce in it so you're about to miss me dropping these in the sauce try not to get grease in there that's kind of important let them drain a little bit uh this is a slotted uh spatula as you see uh just be careful not to get too much grease and float them in the sauce now when they're in the sauce you're gonna just simmer this for about 45 minutes to finish the cooking that's going to give the flavors off into the sauce and the sauce into the meatballs and when that's done you're done it's ready to eat and enjoy mangia and here is the final product after you've done all that hard work it's not really hard you've made a little pasta you've got your sauce and now you've got the most amazing meatballs to go with it if you want to impress your friends if you want to make your family love you if you want to feel important in life you need to make these meatballs because they really are that amazing i don't know if the picture depicts it well enough but that is the juiciest most amazing meatball you're ever gonna have and i thank you for watching and we'll see on the next one [Music]

Channel: How to Cook(e) w/Bill Cooke

Views: 295

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Id: 0v0-JiWhXlc

Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022