Spicy meatballs are my families' favourite food. Personally they are one of my most favourite meals to prepare and serve for myself as a snack, for meals and to take to potlucks or serve as finger foods at parties. They take a little time to prepare but they store well and can be presented in so many ways.
The formula below is for a meatball cooked in its own sauce. The secret is to simmer the balls for up to two hours before serving to infuse the meat with flavour. I have served them from a chaffing dish at parties where guests eat them from toothpicks.
I love to serve them for supper over a bed of basmati rice, spooning the sauce liberally over mountains of fluffy white. They are great beside steaming egg noodles sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and poppy seeds.
I love to drop them in a bowl of spaghetti to heat up the dish on an evening when a hearty meal is called for and they can't be beat sliced and placed between pieces of 12 grain bread or left whole and made into a spicy meatball hoagie buttered with the sauce they are cooked in with cool lettuce and acidic tomatoes.
To get started put a 1 quart saucepan on the stove.
In the pan you are going to use a cooks measure (approximately) placing in the following ingredients (feel free to double the recipe for both sauce and balls if you need it): cup Catsup, cup water, cup vinegar (white), 2 tbsp brown sugar, one half of an egg sized onion (minced very fine), tsp salt, 1 tsp dry mustard powder, 1 tsp black pepper, 5 drops Tabasco sauce, 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce.
Give the mix a good stir to combine all the ingredients and put it on a low simmer. Time to get to work on the meatballs.
Everyone likes their meatballs a certain way and I am no different. I like to make my meatballs small so that they can be picked up with a toothpick and eaten in one big bite or cut with a fork to make two small bites. It does create a little more rolling, but it is worth it. The smaller balls make eating easier and serving more versatile but the smaller size also lets the sauce permeate the balls.
So first I get a plate ready and place it to one side.
Put a mixing bowl in front of you. At this point I would like to say that I only use lean ground beef.
On occasion for a treat I have mixed half and half beef and lamb or beef with pork but all beef is best for everyday eating.
Place 3/4 1 lb ground beef in your mixing bowl, shake over the raw meat 5 drops of Tabasco sauce and 1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce.
Shake over the top of your meat cup dry bread crumbs, tsp salt and 1 tsp black pepper. By placing the powders over the crumbs it helps distribute the spices evenly.
Toss the mixture into the bowl and combine well. I actually measured my meatballs last time I made them and the averaged 12 grams a piece or a little more than three per ounce of meat. That is a ball about an inch across. I pinch out the meat and roll it between my palms collecting them on the plate we set out earlier.
When the balls are all rolled (about 15 min for me) I put a little vegetable oil in a fry pan, and get it hot. I place one ball in the oil and when it starts to sizzle I know I am ready. Place all the balls at once into the pan and give them a good toss to put a thin coat of oil over them then fry them a nice golden brown. Here is the part some don't agree with.
I now rinse the balls quickly in cool water to drain off the excess oil and paraffin from the meat. I then put them back in the pan and brown then back up a bit. When you have done that (or skipped that step) put the balls in the sauce and leave them to simmer on low for at least 30 min up to two hours.
When you taste these babies you will notice a distinctive flavour and definite heat. The flavour you don't recognise comes from the mustard. The heat can be adjusted to your taste. Habenero's in the sauce makes an excellent addition (in moderation) for those football parties or a nice hot hoagie. 1 oz (3) of sauced meatballs = 7 gm of protein and 63 calories. Cheers.