Mamma's Meatballs



The following two recipes, Polpette al Pomodoro (Meatballs in Tomato Sauce) and Salsa di Pomodoro (Mamma Agata’s Tomato Sauce), are from Chiara Lima’s beautifully prepared book, Mamma Agata, Simple and Genuine. The two recipes will serves four people. www.mammaagata.com

Meatballs
7 oz bread (stale)
½ cup milk
½ cup water
½ lb ground beef
½ lb ground pork
3½ tablespoons grated Parmigiano cheese
1 finely grated garlic clove
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
3 eggs
2 tablespoons or ¼ cup dried currants
2 tablespoons or ¼ cup pine nuts
7 tablespoons flour (fine “00”)
1 quart peanut or vegetable oil for frying (NOTE: Do not use olive oil)
1 quart of Mamma Agata’s Tomato Sauce
Remove the crust from the bread and discard. Soak the bread in milk and water for five minutes to soften the bread before mixing it with the ground beef and pork. Stir the mixture well and squeeze out the excess milk and water with your hands. Place the moist bread on a plate and set aside.

Combine the following ingredients with your hands in a large mixing bowl: ground beef and pork; moist bread, Parmigiano cheese, garlic, parsley, eggs, currants and pine nuts.

Mamma Agata’s Secret: Only a little garlic is needed to make the meatballs perfect. If you use too much, you will only taste the garlic. Also, Mamma Agata prefers NOT to use a garlic press, but instead to grate or finely chop the garlic.

Place flour on a clean plate. After combining all ingredients, create a lemon size ball with the mixture, then roll it in the flour. Afterwards, place it on a clean plate and repeat the process for remaining meat mixture.

Fry the meat in a 10” pan containing 3 to 4 inches of hot oil. (Important: Don’t overfill the pan with meat. It will impact the temperature.) The oil is ready for frying when the meat floats to the top of the oil and the oil bubbles. Important point: the meatballs must float, not sink. If they sink, you will have to get the oil hotter.

Tomato Sauce
1 quart of vine-riped Roma tomatoes (puréed)
10 fresh cherry tomatoes
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of fresh garlic
3 fresh basil leaves
Mamma Agata’s Secret: The Roma tomatoes should be vine-ripened sweet. Sweet tomatoes are the key ingredient in many Italian dishes. If the tomatoes are not ripe and sweet, Mamma Agata recommends that you add a spoonful of sugar to the sauce.

Add the olive oil, garlic and basil to a large saucepan. NOTE: when you add these ingredients to the pan, do it all at once. The three ingredients should be at room temperature before cooking them together.

Heat the ingredients over a high flame to release the natural oils contained in the fresh garlic; this will greatly enhance the flavor of the tomato sauce. Be careful not to allow the garlic to burn or the oil to smoke. If this happens, you must throw it out and begin again. The garlic and oil should only be on the hot flame for one to two minutes before proceeding to the next step.

When the temperature of the oil begins to rise, add the tomato purée and fresh vine-ripened cherry tomatoes to the pan. Do this carefully to avoid burning yourself. You should hear the liguid sizzle when added to the hot pan.

Cook the sauce, first over a high flame until the sauce begins to boil. Afterwards, lower the flame and let it simmer for about thirty minutes.

Mamma Agata’s Secret: As soon as you add the Roma tomato purée to the pan, add the 10 vine-ripened cherry tomatoes as well. This will enhance the flavor of your sauce. You will be amazed how wonderful the sauce will taste in the end.

This sauce can be used for all your favorite tomato-based recipes.