What’s better than food in ball form? Nothing. That’s what. And among meats, what’s better than pork? Again, nothing. Obvi. Unless it’s really good beef. Or lamb. Or goat rocks pretty hard. Or chicken even, if it’s done right. But I wrote pork first, so let’s stick with that.
I made these balls using a modified version of my mom’s classic beef meatball recipe. I ground two pounds of pork shoulder in our (figuratively) sweet meat grinder (you don’t necessarily need a meat grinder; you could chop the meat into one inch chunks and use a food processor for about 8-10 pulses), and added a couple slices of bacon to act a as a fatty binder. I added a couple slices of bread, a couple eggs, a few cloves of garlic, some parmesan, and plenty of salt and pepper. I mixed it all up, formed the balls, placed them on a well oiled baking sheet, and baked them for about 20 minutes at 425.
For the sauce I went a little unconventional. I didn’t want the usual tomato sauce, so I chopped an onion, a couple carrots, a couple cloves of garlic, and a half pound of mushrooms in the food processor. I sauteed the mixture in some olive oil, then threw in about a half cup each of white wine and chicken stock.
The interplay between the smokey balls and the mushroom sauce really worked for me. My only complaint was that they tasted a little like hot dogs. But really, what’s wrong with hot dogs? Nothing, that’s what.
I’ve got to stop asking so many rhetorical questions. Shouldn’t I?
y’all should work on your light balancing… just sayin’.
also, PORK!
There’s no time to balance light when there are bacony pork meatballs to eat.
[...] about equal. You can make meatballs with just beef (like my mom does), or a combination of pork and bacon, or lamb, or whatever meat you have on hand. Meatballs are a way of using up extra meat, so [...]