With some subtle refinements after the first run of noodles a couple weeks ago, she figured out what worked best with making, rolling, cutting and drying the pasta dough. She nailed it. I can't even begin to tell you how to do it, so you'll have to ask her.
While she was creating her noodles, I was making a pass at butchering the traditional Italian family dish with my first ever attempt at a good ole 'merican meatball (or thirty). With the essentials in hand from an earlier trip to The Twilight Zone, I got to work.First, I beat up a couple eggs. No, I totally kicked their ass. After they were broken and vulnerable, I attacked again. I whipped them around - but not too much - till they were all mixed up and pedaling squares. Then, to add insult to injury I pelted the eggs with some bread crumbs, dried basil and oregano. After that, I crushed the shit out of some dried chiles with a couple pieces of marble and fired them into the mix. Oh, and I shredded a shit-ton of pecorino onto the top. After the finely shredded peco, the mess looked like some twisted awkward metaphor... It was like tarring and feathering an unborn chicken. weird.
Anyway, I swiftly dispatched the awkwardness and started folding it all together with the meat. I found that the best way to do this (well... this was my first time - I don't know if I did it right - but it sure did work for me) is to fold everything together with my hands. Squeezing, pulling, pushing, squishing; A device, just won't do. Get that shit together, people. I did add some olive oil to lube things up a bit and I think that was a good move to keep it moist.
As the bowl of meat was chillin' in the fridge (read: it needs to firm up), I diced up a bunch of garlic and a big ole shallot. The more the merrier in my opinion, but one of our dinner guests adamantly denies his in the closet love for garlic. Fine. I only used a little. I swear. I kept this stuff on deck while I heated up a little olive oil in a pan. I threw five balls into the oil on med+ heat. Aww, Hell no. I'm way too impatient and it'd take all damned night. I browned that batch and set them on a rack to drain. The next round, I dumped the remaining 25 meatballs into the pan. Much better. Roll those boys around to make sure they're nicely browned on all sides. If not, they look like shit, they taste like shit, and they make you shit. Seriously. Salmonella sucks.
Once all the balls were done I sauteed the garlic and shallots - carefully - in the same pan. If they burn, you fucked up. Period. You can't used anything in that pan if the garlic turns black. After a few minutes the shallots turned to that translucenty look and all was well. I poured in some leftover red to cool things down and then added a big ass can of tomato sauce to simmer for a few minutes. That's pretty much it for the sauce.
I poured my sauce all over the meatballs in a Pyrex dish, covered it and threw it into the oven at 375°. I'm sure any "real" chef will all tell you to keep simmering in the same pot or pan... Whatever. This is my recipe and I like to make things up as I go. Especially when I've planned poorly and my panhood is inadequate. I couldn't fit everything into what I was using so there so I had to improvise. Also, I didn't want to trigger a pandemic (thanks for the entertainment Gwyneth, but your Contagion is not welcome here), so I wanted to be absolutely sure that the meat - the pork in particular - was fully cooked.Here's the rough recipe for about 30 balls... and yes, size does matter. My balls are about the size of a 12 tooth cog:
2 eggs
1lb ground beef
1lb spicy Italian sausage w/o casing
some dried basil
some dried oregano
dried chiles or red pepper flakes to taste
a cup or so bread crumbs
1/4c olive oil
a shitload - easily a cup - of finely planed pecorino. It was light and feathery, not dense like canned Parmesan.
In the end, my charade worked out surprisingly well. Everything plated up great with some fresh basil and grated cheese. How my recipes come together so well despite my blatant disregard for the "right" way baffles me sometimes. Other times, I'll just grin and graciously accept the victory. I find it very satisfying to cook real food from scratch and I love to feed my family and friends. What's more? When cooking for ourselves, we have complete control of the nourishment that goes into our bodies and we can minimze the bullshit in our diets without much effort. That's a few checks in the win column.
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