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I am sure you have noticed that the internet is getting so sophisticated that when you do a search for a piece of clothing, gadget, book or recipe, whatever you are looking for or even thinking about, starts flooding your internet pages and on every gadget, platform you use! It can be pretty annoying and, sometimes, very invasive. The reason I bring this up is because a few weeks ago we went to dinner with some friends and tried to get into the local meatball restaurant. It was packed and we moved on to another location. It got us thinking about meatballs and when we tried the restaurant sometime later we loved our meal so much we decided to try some recipes at home. One internet search later, everywhere I look there are pictures, recipes, conversations and posts about meatballs. Is it just my little internet world or are meatballs a huge trend right now?!? Luckily, we found some delicious, easy to make recipes and it was worth the search. We bought The Meatball Shop Cookbook and have tried several dishes. Our current favorite is the Spicy Pork Meatballs with the Spicy Meat Sauce. YUMMY!!! It has a kick with the red pepper flakes so if that is not for you, dial it down a bit. This is perfect for a small or large group, make them ahead, freeze them and serve them when you want. Enjoy!
We got so excited, we bought the Chicago Metallic Meatball Baker and a Stainless Steel Meat Baller. The baker is amazing, it lifts the meatballs off the pan and any grease drips to the bottom. While it is not necessary to have a meat baller, it makes the meatballs uniform in size and is so simple to use. Here is a look at the results:
Spicy Pork Meatballs
- Yield: 24 meatballs 1x
- Category: Main
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 lbs pork shoulder, ground
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 jarred hot cherry peppers, minced
- 1/4 cup hot cherry pepper pickling liquid
- 4 slices fresh white bread, minced
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450℉
- Coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with olive oil or use a Chicago Metallic Meatball Baker
- Combine pork, salt, cherry peppers and liquid, bread and eggs in a large bowl. Mix until combined by hand
- Either use a meat baller to shape mixture into balls or roll mixture into golf ball size balls (1 1/2 inches). Place next to each other in prepared baking dish or meatball baker
- Bake for 20 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 165 degrees
- Cool for 5 minutes until serving
Notes
To serve place meatballs in a dish and cover with sauce. We include toasted crusty bread and a green salad. We froze the leftover meatballs and sauce in separate containers. They were just as delicious when we thawed and re-heated.
Special Equipment: Chicago Metallic Meatball Baker and Norpro Stainless Steel Meat Baller
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Spicy Meat Sauce
- Category: Main
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 1 lb ground pork, preferably shoulder
- 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons salt – or to taste
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 26-ounce boxes of Pomi chopped tomatoes or 2 28-ounce cans whole plum tomatoes, roughly chopped with liquid
- garnish chopped parsley and grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. add onions and cook until soft. Add ground pork, red pepper flakes and salt. Cook until meat is cooked through, stir continuously.
- Add tomato paste, stir and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Add tomatoes and stir until sauce begins to boil.
- Cook for another 35 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes or so to make sure sauce doesn’t doesn’t burn bottom of pot.
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dishes: Juliska Berry & Thread
[…] it was. Interestingly enough the most purchased cook book was The Meatball Shop Cookbook (from this post) and I have to agree with all of you who purchased it, it is one of our favorite […]