Is there any better comfort food than meatballs? I think not.
Every Sunday when we went to eat at my paternal grandparents’ house, Nonna always made meatballs.
I’ve always been a great meat eater and sauce lover. You can therefore understand my predilection for this recipe which, despite advancing age, remains one of my favorites. When I was a child, I was curious that all the adults fought over the stewed onion. Now that I’m older, I understand them!

Granny Violetta’s meatballs

  • Preparation time: 40 minutes
  • Ingredients for 20 medium-sized meatballs
  • Difficulty: Easy recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 250 grams or 9 oz of ground beef
  • 250 grams or 9 oz of ground pork
  • 150 grams or ½ cup of stale bread crumbs
  • 1 egg
  • Chopped parsley to taste
  • 50 grams or ¼ cup of grated pecorino
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Flour to taste
  • Extra virgin olive oil to taste
  • 500 grams or 2 jars of peeled tomatoes
  • 1 white onion
  • Peanut oil to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Cut the stale bread into cubes and soak it in a mixing bowl with warm water for at least five minutes. Drain it and squeeze well.
  3. In a large mixing bowl with the bread, add the ground meat, the egg, the parmesan, and the chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper and gently toss the mixture – break up the meat with your fingertips until the ingredients are evenly mixed.
  4. Pass the peeled tomatoes through a vegetable mill, then sift them in a chinois making a seedless purée.
  5. Using greased hands, shape the mixture into evenly sized meatballs, about 1 1/4-inches each (or about 40g). Compact them well with your hands and lightly flour them.
  6. In a saucepan with extra virgin olive oil, pour in the tomato puree, add the whole onion, and start cooking the sauce for a few minutes.
  7. In a skillet with seed oil, cook the meatballs over high heat until they reach a nice hazelnut color. Then, rotate to the opposite side and cook that side until golden brown. Drain them on absorbent paper and then add them to the sauce. Continue cooking the stew for about ten minutes.
  8. Salt and pepper the sauce if necessary before serving.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • Ground meat is better mixed because it is more flavorful. Moreover, the fattier the meat you use, the more tender your meatballs.
  • I don’t find good tomato sauces at reasonable prices on the market, so I prefer to buy peeled tomatoes and then pass them through a vegetable mill by myself. This process takes no more than five minutes.
  • To have a non-acidic sauce, in addition to a good tomato puree, the secret is to cook it very little. So, a maximum of ten minutes is enough for good quality peeled tomatoes.
  • If you’re on a diet, you can insert the meatballs directly into the sauce without frying them first and obviously without passing them through the flour.
  •  In Italy, we do not serve pasta with meatballs – this is a typical American style.

 Granny Violetta with Grampa Gigi