Originally published February 24, 2012
Those of you with a keen eye may have noted the lack of one basic recipe in my Italian offerings. What is spaghetti without meatballs? This recipe for my mother’s meatballs plugs up that hole. Now, if only the hole in my heart were as easy to fill.
My sisters and I lost our mom a couple of weeks ago. She died of ovarian cancer—a terrible form of a terrible disease. We were happy that my mom made it to her 83rd birthday on February 1 and was well enough to enjoy the celebration. One week before she died—despite the fact that she was in hospice with a full-time caretaker—she got up out of bed and made a pot of sauce for her caretaker and herself! True to form…
My Sicilian mom was definitely a force to be reckoned with. Four years ago, when she couldn’t get a contractor to come out and clean the gutters on her three-decker home, she climbed up the hatch ladder to the (thankfully) flat roof. She then proceeded to use a broom to sweep out the leaves from the gutters! Of course, she waited until it was a fait accompli before she told any of us. I told her that I could just see the newspaper headline, “79-year-old woman falls from roof of 3-story house.” I told her I would have sent her a check to pay for the gutters to be cleaned, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was she wanted it done when she wanted it done—which in her case was usually yesterday. As I have often fondly said of her, “Don’t mess with a Sicilian!”
As I’ve mentioned before, my mom was a wonderful Italian cook. She didn’t own a cookbook and she never measured anything, yet I don’t remember any of her meals being anything but delicious. Once I figured out how to make her fresh Italian bread crumbs and documented it, making her meatballs became a piece of cake. If you’re in need of a good recipe for meatballs, look no further.
I love you, mom. I’ll miss you forever.
Mama Musto’s Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb. hamburger, 85% lean
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
Directions
Before you start making the meatballs, you should have made a batch of tomato sauce. I didn’t need to tell you that, did I? By the way, I always double my recipe for tomato sauce when I make meatballs.
Place the hamburger in a large bowl. Add the egg and bread crumbs. Roll up your sleeves and use your hands to mix the ingredients together. As all eggs are not created equal and since one cannot always buy a package of hamburger that is exactly one pound, you may have to add slightly more bread crumbs OR you may have to add a tiny bit of water. What you want is to be able to form a meatball without it sticking to your hands. After you’ve had a little practice, you’ll know exactly what the mixture should feel like. Making meatballs is one of the rare times that I don’t measure exactly and just go by the feel of the mixture.
Be sure to add the minimum of 3/4 of a cup of bread crumbs. Once you’ve mixed the bread crumbs in, pick up a hunk of the mixture and take a sniff—the aroma of the garlic and cheese in the bread crumbs should be very apparent.
My mother always fried her meatballs in olive oil, and I did for many years myself.
About ten years ago, I started baking them at 350o F for 15 to 20 minutes, turning them over halfway through the baking. You don’t need to have them totally browned—just top and bottom of the meatball is enough because they will finish cooking in the pan of sauce.
After you have finished baking the meatballs, add them to the sauce which should be hot and simmering on your cooktop.
Simmer them for approximately one hour. They will add a wonderful flavor to the tomato sauce as they finish cooking. Serve with your favorite pasta. OR…
Source: My dear mom, Tina Musto
