- Yield: 16 - 24 meatballs
- Prep Time: 1h 30 min
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
Tender Juicy Meatballs
I always loved meatballs. Not necessarily the perfectly round shape, they typically come in here in America, but the flatter German version that is often served with mashed potatoes, rich creamy gravy, and some form of vegetables. When I saw my mom making them, I always pestered her to make extras, so I could have some of them cold for snacking or a sandwich. And until today, this is probably my preferred way of eating meatballs: directly out of the fridge with a feeling of guilt and satisfaction.
There are many ways to stray from this recipe and I have in the past. But it's the basic one, I always come back to and where my journeys into the land of undiscovered meatball flavors start from. A great variation is using equal parts pork, beef, and veal in a meatball. Resulting in a little more elegant and refined result. I'm not a fan of all beef, mostly because it lacks the juicy bite the pork adds. However, you can substitute ground turkey for the meat and still get a delicious result (just don't use all white turkey, meatballs need some fat to be tasty).
The meat mixture is also great as filling for all kinds of tasty treats, most notably the original Swabian Maultaschen. My latest try was to stuff egg roll wrappers with it, roll them up, fry them and then bake at 400° F to finish cooking the meat. The result was perfect drunk finger food and didn't last for a very long time.
Ingredients
- Ground Chuck - 1 pound
- Ground Pork - 1 pound
- Kaiser Rolls - 2, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- Italian Parsley - 1/4 cup, minced
- Sweet Onion - 1, finely diced
- Garlic - 2 gloves, minced
- Butter - 2 tbsp
- Whole Milk - 1/2 - 3/4 cups
- Dijon Mustard - 1 tbsp
- Eggs - 2, large
- Salt - 1 tbsp
- Black Pepper - 2 tsp
- Hungarian Paprika - 1 tsp
- Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp
Instructions
- Cut the rolls into small cubes, about 1/2 inch size and put into a large glass or metal bowl.
- In a pan, melt the butter, add onions, gralic, a pinch of salt and pepper, and saute on low heat until translucent.
- Add the milk to the onions, heat for another minute and pour the mixture over the bread. The mixture shouldn't be soaking wet but the bread should soak up all the milk. Start with the smaller amount and work your way up. Depending on how dry your bread is, it might take an entire cup.
- Mince the parsley and add to the bread mixture, together with the salt, pepper, paprika, mustard, and nutmeg and stir to combine.
- Mix in the meats and the two eggs, make sure both are at room temperature.
- Put some plastic wrap directly onto the meat and refrigerate for 1 hour, so everything can melt together and the eggs start the binding process.
- If you're uncertain about the seasoning but don't like the idea of eating raw ground meat, take a small amount of the meat mixture and cook it in a pan to taste it. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
- Form meatballs of equal size. I typically use an ice cream scoop to make sure, they are evenly sized and thus cook at the same time.
- You can either cook the meatballs in a nonstick pan, browning on all sides, or bake them in a 400° Fahrenheit oven until done.
- I put the surplus into the freezer, neatly set on a baking sheet. Once they're frozen solid, pop them into a freezer bag or vacuum seal them with a food saver.
- Tastes great with spaghetti and marinara sauce, on a sandwich, in a salad, on its own as snack, and in many other ways.
