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- The meatballs are good like Ikea good.
Is there Parmesan in this?
And lemon and little fennel?
- Are you sure you're not Italian, Liz?
Maybe from the north?
That's where the vampires used to live.
- [Andy] Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish.
With this week, we're taking a look
at the Rossitano Meatballs from 30 Rock.
Now Frank Rossitano is Sicilian,
so it makes sense
that some interesting things are gonna show up
in his mama's meatballs,
least of which is lemon.
"Great Andy, you threw the Lemon, you happy?"
So one of the first big questions
I had about meatballs was
is it worth grinding your own meat?
Obviously, it's gonna give you better control
over flavor, fat content, and quality,
but I've never done it
and there are very few recipes that do.
So I'm grinding up equal parts beef chuck
and pork and veal shoulder
and then ultimately I'm using one pound of each meat's,
pre-ground grocery store equivalent.
Same panade, same seasoning,
same method for all intents and purposes.
Now before tasting anything,
the first difference showed up post fry.
The store ground meat,
which has been more thoroughly ground,
better held it's shape
while the home ground stuff kind of cracked.
At first that might seem like a bad thing,
but they still held their shape
and I think cracked in the first place due
to their higher moisture content
and more tender texture.
That being said, they were almost identical otherwise.
As long as you start with high quality meat,
you're gonna end up with a high quality ball.
And just as important as the meat is the panade.
Traditionally, a mixture of stale bread
or breadcrumbs and milk.
Now your meat might obviously be important,
but the panade is what brings the moisture
and flavor to the ball.
So I'm gonna try to absolutely max out this mixture
on fat and flavor.
Starting with four pieces of white
crustless sandwich bread,
about 120 grams worth
to which I'm gonna add one cup of buttermilk
plus a quarter cup shot of heavy cream tub,
the dairy fat content.
Now give this a thorough mixing to make sure
that all the bread is fully saturated.
You want this to be practically a paste
otherwise you're gonna have hunks
of bread in your balls.
So that's moisture.
Now what about flavor?
We're gonna start with a little bit of onion,
just a little bit though.
We don't want big chunks in there that are gonna steam
and turn our meat balls into meat loaf.
Now, in spite of what I just said,
I've roughly chopped the onion
and I'm gonna saute it
until it's lightly caramelized, about five minutes.
At which point I'm gonna kill the heat
and add three cloves of roughly chopped garlic
and about 50 grams or a third of cup of pine nuts.
Sicilian meatballs notably
containing pine nuts and currants,
which are now lightly toasted
thanks to the residual heat of the pan.
Now into a food processor goes a hundred grams
of diced pancetta,
half cup of packed fresh parsley,
our cooled onion mixture,
and about a 30 grams or a quarter cup of currants.
Normally in Sicilian Meatballs,
these and the pine nuts would be left whole,
but I don't think that sounds very good.
I'm also adding a half teaspoon of anchovy paste,
a heaping teaspoon of Calabrian chilies,
both optional, and finally 50 grams
of freshly grated butter Michelob Reggiano cheese
and I'm also gonna add 50 grams
of Pecorino Romano.
Now this whole mixture,
I'm gonna process into a sort of rough pesto.
It's not completely smooth.
There is a definite texture,
but there's no big crunchy chunks of anything.
So this should bring an absolutely
ridiculous amount of flavor and fat
to our moisture making mixture.
Adding that plus two teaspoons of kosher salt,
a few twists of freshly grand black pepper,
a teaspoon of dried oregano,
and a whole egg for structure.
But again, the name of the game here is fat.
So I'm also gonna add a lone egg yolk,
which will hopefully bring a little extra richness.
Now along with Parm,
Liz detected fennel in the meatballs
along with her namesake lemon,
which as you can see, I wasn't kidding,
that was my last lemon.
And now that I'm back from the grocery store,
I can add one teaspoon of freshly cracked fennel
and the zest of one lemon.
Now we're gonna mix all this stuff
into our panade until it's completely smooth
because once we add the meat,
we don't want to overwork it.
I'm adding one pound each,
store ground beef, veal, and pork.
And now comes the delicate balance
of working the mixture, just the right amount.
You want the meats and the panade
evenly distributed together
so you don't have big channels of plain beef
or flavor goo running through your meatballs,
but not a modicum more than that.
Otherwise you're gonna end up with tight, tough balls.
Now before we form them into that self same structure,
we wanna grab a little patty of our meatball farce,
fry it up and taste it for seasoning.
And if my body language here is any indication,
I'm very very excited about these meatballs.
And with that,
it's time to finally form our farce into spheres,
which we're gonna do with wetted hands,
prevent meaty finger syndrome.
First, I'm gonna form
what I think is my ideal size ball.
I got this whole tray on a scale
so I can measure each out to the same weight.
These guys clock in at 125 grams each.
You can go bigger or smaller as you desire.
Now I'm gonna roast them
in a 425 degree Fahrenheit convection oven.
I cranked on the broiler right
at the end for a little extra color
until the meatballs register 150 degrees Fahrenheit
at their thickest point,
which might sound a little low,
but we're gonna finish cooking them in the sauce.
So I'm constructing a very basic tomato sauce
in my very biggest fry pan.
If you wanna see how to make a basic tomato sauce,
click link in the upper right hand corner right now.
But I'm keeping it simple and short cooked
because I like a bright contrast
between my sauce and my balls.
Yes, I am having a lot of fun saying that.
I'm cooking it in such a wide pan.
Pour some more water, evaporates,
and the sauce concentrates more quickly,
but also so that when it comes time to drop
in our still very tender half cooked balls
we don't have to play meatball shuffle
trying to get them all submerged in the sauce.
Yeah, this guy can go right in the center.
That's still symmetrical, right?
I'm spooning sauce over top
and simmering the sky for like 10 minutes max.
We want the balls to gently
come up to 165 Fahrenheit and no further.
Serve it up with little sauce
and freshly grated cheese and scattered herbs.
Now I want a good clean cross section,
so I'm gonna use my very sharpest Babish knife,
now available at Sam's Club, which is cool.
So we can take a look at our meatball structure,
looks pretty smooth and consistent, not too tight.
And these things are juicy in a way
that I can only show you like this.
We loaded them up with so many different fats and flavors.
And while I only took loose inspiration from the show,
I'm really glad I did
because these things are my meatball masterclass,
two times over members of the Clean Plate Club
and should I do it?
Yeah, okay.
Lick to Plate Club.
That's a first, gross.
Thanks to Native for sponsoring today's episode.
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(bright music)