Meatballs Grandma's recipe

When I think at meatballs I always think to my grandmother, she used to prepare them for the sunday lunch, the most important lunch of the Italian's family. She was always prepare them early in the morning and always in the same way. She was wearing her kitchen apron to protect her clothes and gently with her hands she was creating the magic: "le polpette"!

I most remember her fried version of meatballs but she also liked to cook them in a tomato sauce, this version was amazing so I could also dip the bread in the sauce and be able to taste even more magic! You really should visit a Nonna kitchen for it! Luckly my mum was able to learn as well the right way to do it so I can still enjoy the same flavour everytime and it just bring me back to childhood! Thank you Mamma ❤️

You can use the meatballs in different way, as main, as garnish for you pasta or even in your sandwich, but please do not compare Nonna's meatballs to Subway one! It's an outrage!!

There are different way of cooking the meatballs; I usually cook them in the oven but they can also be fried if you prefer a taster version, or you can cook them in a tomato sauce , pick your choice!

INGREDIENTS

- 500gr of mince meat

- 100gr of stale bread

- milk or water as needed

- 1 egg

- 50gr of parmesan

- ½ juice of lemon

- salt as needed

- pepper as needed

- breadcrumbs as needed

- spices as you prefer

EQUIPMENTS

-bowl

PROCEDURE

Let’s start from the bread, the nice thing of the meatballs is that they will help you to use the leftover bread that became hard; so just put it a bowl with water or milk for 5 minutes until it is soaked and softened. So just work with your hands a little bit the bread to divide the crumb. Now you can add the meat and mix it together to create a perfect mix. It is time to seasoning your mix with salt, pepper and some spices at your flavour.

My personal touch from my mamma’s recipe is to add an egg to help the mixture to compact better and a pinch of lemon juice and a delicious parmesan rain. At this point I like to add some breadcrumbs as well to balance the mixture; create the right consistency and homogeneous compound.

The fun will start now!

With the dough obtained go to form spheres, taking a piece of dough and mixing it with both hands. Like this you will made Nonna and Mamma so happy!

When you obtain your meatballs you can place them on an oven tray cover with some greaseproof paper or an oil tray, be careful to put them not too closer to each other otherwise they can stack together.

You can do which ever size you like, bigger or smaller. I did the small one to use them in the pasta bake and the big one as main!

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for about 40 minutes (the cooking time will depend on the size of the meatballs!), until they are golden brown on the surface. Serve the meatballs hot!