Recipe notes: Drop Meatballs

16 December 2019

Recipe from Cook's Country, February 2018

For meatballs, I have been using a recipe from way back in 2002, season 2 of the America's Test Kitchen TV show. The recipe  produces good results in just over an hour. The main problems are meatballs that tend to fall apart and a lot of dirty frying oil to discard. I had never heard of "drop meatballs" until I recently saw an episode of Cook's Country on TV which foregoes browning the meatballs and just drops them into the sauce to cook. It seemed worth trying.

First step was making the meatballs. A panade was made in a large bowl from crushed saltine crackers and milk. To this, beef (2 pounds 85% ground beef), grated Parmesan cheese garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper were added and mixed by hand. The meat mixture was portioned with a #16 scoop creating 18 meatballs. These were placed in the refrigerator while the sauce was made. Ten peeled and smashed garlic cloves were cooked in olive oil in a Dutch oven. Red pepper flakes were added (I used ¼ tsp, half what is specified in the recipe) and cooked followed by two 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes and salt. The meatballs were added to the sauce (the pot was quite crowded!) and the sauce brought to a simmer. The Dutch oven was covered and placed in a 400° oven for 40 minutes and then removed and cooled for 20 minutes. Finally, chopped fresh basil was stirred in. Total preparation time was two hours.

The meatballs and spaghetti were both good, nothing fancy but good. The sauce was a little watery. The meatballs were not as good as those that had been fried, but then they don't fall apart and there is no dirty oil to discard. The rest time after removing the sauce and meatballs from the oven was put to good use to cook the pasta and make a green salad.  With one meatball per serving this will provide us 9 meals! We expect to freeze some and we may have to supplement the sauce before the meatballs are all gone.