Meatballs

I have been perfecting my meatball recipe for a number of years. I had a version that I had been using but after a family visit to San Francisco (North Beach) I knew it could be improved.

After reading many other recipes online and a a number of days experimenting, I created the below which my sons declared as the best meatballs ever! My oldest son has eaten 8 in one sitting!

It involves soaking some bread in milk which will look something like this:

You will then need to remove the excess milk from the bread by squeezing well.

I also combine the meat in two separate batches, the first batch is mixed really well with the other ingredients and will look like this:

and the second batch is mixed gently just to combine. This keeps the texture of the meatballs intact. It should look as follows:

I use onion and garlic granules rather than finely chopped onion and garlic as my children don’t like the texture of onions. Feel free to substitute one medium onion for 1 tbsp of onion granules and 4-5 cloves of garlic for 1 tbsp of garlic granules instead.

There are many ways to serve these meatballs. My favourites are in a tomato sauce, as a meatball sub or in a spicy tomato sauce with black beans.

The meatballs can be frozen without cooking and can be cooked in the oven from frozen at a later time. Make sure to freeze them on a tray and then move to a freezer bag so you can remove them individually later.

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Meatballs

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Servings 32 meatballs

Ingredients

• 60 g sliced bread
• 40 ml milk
• 1 tbsp onion granules
• 1 tbsp garlic granules
• 30 g parmesan cheese grated
• 1 teaspoon mixed herbs
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 2 egg yolks
• 500 g minced beef
• 500 g minced pork

Instructions

• Remove the crusts from the bread and cut into cubes. Then soak bread in the milk and squash well with your fingers to remove the excess milk.
  
• Cut the onion finely and mince the garlic, if using.
  
• Add the onion, garlic, Parmesan, herbs, salt, pepper and egg yolks and mix well.
• Add 1/3 of the minced beef and pork and mix well.
• Add the remaining beef and pork and mix gently, just enough to combine.
• Shape in balls, the size depends on your preference – I like table tennis size – and set aside.
• Cook the meatballs in the oven for 25 minutes.