Rigatoni With Baby Meatballs

This meal was a combined effort. Donna made her tomato sauce while I made the baby meatballs.

Baby Meatballs
Place 1 pound of ground beef in a large bowl (big enough for both hands) and crack in one egg. Add about 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs (I used Progresso Italian Flavored). Salt and pepper to taste and add any spices you want. I usee 1 teaspoon of oregano.

Then pulp one clove of garlic and finely chop 1/4 of an onion and throw that into the bowl.

Using your hands, mix and squish until all the ingredients become one with the meat. Cover the bowl with some cling film and place in the refrigerator for about 1/2 hour to allow the ingredients to congeal a bit. It makes the meat mixture easier to shape.

Then be patient and pinch off tiny bits of meat and roll into a small ball about the size of a marble. You will be surprised how many baby meatballs you end up with.

Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and place the meatballs in the pan and swirl them around until coated in the oil. Keep an eye on them as they fry so they don’t burn on any one side. They cook quickly because they are so tiny.

When the meatballs seem done (more than browned, but not dried out), remove them from the pan, onto a paper towel to absorb any excess olive oil. Then add them to the tomato sauce. Let the meatballs finish cooking in the sauce for about 1 hour.

But Wait, There’s More
To add a little zing to the sauce mixture, I crumbed one Italian sausage out of its skin and into a small frying pan. I cooked the sausage in a little red wine until cooked through. Then I drained it and added the meat to the tomato sauce as well.

After the sauce cooked for a good hour, I put some salted water on to boil. Than Donna took over again. She cooked one pound of small rigatoni until al dente. She brushed some olive oil in the bottom of a large rectangular Pyrex casserole dish. Then added some tomato sauce, poured in the drained rigatoni, coated them with the sauce and baby meatballs. Shredded an Italian cheese blend on top, sprinkled it with parmagiana and put into a 450-degree oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese.

Keep an eye on it. All of the ingredients have already been cooked, so all you are doing is melting the cheese.

Remove from the oven, let rest for a few minutes. Then scoop into pasta bowls. Put some of the extra sauce into a bowl for dipping in wonderful Italian bread.

Music to cook by: The Runaways

Read Full Post »