Italian Meatballs
The translation is meatballs, but we don't put them in our spaghetti sauce.
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 slice of dry bread without the crust soaked in 1/2 cup milk
1 small garlic clove crushed
1/3 cup fresh grated Italian parmesan
2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 eggs
1 cup unseasoned dry bread crumbs
1/2 tsp. salt
olive oil to fry
1. Squeeze the milk from the bread and cook the bread in a small saucepan until creamy, adding a little bit of the milk at time, it should be about 1/3 cup when finished. Set it aside and let it cool.
2. In a bowl combine the meat with the parmesan, the parsley, the garlic, the salt, the bread mixture and lastly the egg.
3. Take a heaping tablespoon of the meat at a time and roll it into a ball and then flatten it down a bit. Continue until the meat is finished, approximately 20 meatballs.
4. Dip the polpette, meatballs, into the beaten egg (the remaining egg) and then coat them with the bread crumbs.
5. Heat a 1/2 inch olive oil in a large nonstick skillet. Cook the meatballs on both sides a few at a time until golden brown.
6. Remove the polpette and set them on paper towel to absorb the excess oil, sprinkle them with salt and serve.
In the North of Italy we don't make spaghetti with meatballs. For us meatballs are as I have described above. Try them!
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