Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs for a Crowd

Every culture has their version of the meatball.   From Almondegas (Portugal and Brazil), Fleischlaberl (Austria), Ballekes (Belgium), Frikadelle (germany), Keftedes (Greece), and Bakso (Indonesia).  There are a lot of international versions, but my favorite are from Italy. In Italy meatballs are known as polpette and are generally eaten as a main course or in a soup.  In the Abruzzo region of Italy the meatballs are typically know as polpettine (aka size of marbles).
Speaking of their size...the record for the world's largest meatball was set in September 2009 when late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel set the record with a a meatball weighing in at 198.6 pounds. His record was broken a month later by a restaurant in New Hampshire.
Spaghetti and Meatballs was a dish immigrants coming from southern Italy brought to the States in the early 19th century and it's still a staple Italian dish today.
Over the years I have tried many meatball recipes some good, some bad.  Last weekend, I tried America's Test Kitchen's Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs for a Crowd.  Although it made a lot, it was absolutely delish!
America's Test Kitchen is located just outside Boston.  It is the home of Cook's Country magazine, Cook's Illustrated magazine, a PBS TV show and a public radio show.  They employee more than 3 dozen test cooks, editors and cookware specialists.  Their mission is to test recipes until they get them right.  I have tried several of their recipes from their cookbook, The New Best Recipe, as well as their website Americatestkitchens.com and I'm NEVER disappointed!  Maybe the reason for this is that each recipe is tested 30+ times by staff and then 2,000 home testers are asked to try the recipe before it goes to publication.  I just signed up to be a home tester!
This recipe was so good that I made it two times in the last week. Once for my pampered chef party (see Chef Penney below) serving the meatballs on slider rolls and last Sunday for a spaghetti and meatball dinner with my kids.  The recipe makes a lot and might need to be cut in half, unless you truly have a crowd coming or freeze the leftovers for a quick weeknight dinner. Mangia!

CLASSIC SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS FOR A CROWD                                   By America's Test Kitchen online

SERVES 12

One cup of plain yogurt thinned with ½ cup milk can be substituted for the buttermilk. Grate the onion on the large holes of a box grater. The ingredients in this recipe can be reduced by two-thirds to serve 4. For instructions on how to cook the pasta in less water, see Lots of Pasta, Less Water (related).

INGREDIENTS

• Meatballs
• 2 1/4cups (about 6 ounces) panko bread crumbs
• 1 1/2cups buttermilk (see note)
• 3large eggs , lightly beaten
• 2pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
• 1pound ground pork
• 6ounces thinly sliced prosciutto , chopped fine
• 3ounces Parmesan cheese , grated (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 6tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
• 3medium garlic cloves , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1 1/2teaspoons powdered gelatin , dissolved in 3 tablespoons cold water
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• Sauce
• 3tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2cups grated onion from 1 to 2 onions (see note)
• 6medium garlic cloves , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)
• 1/2teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1teaspoon dried oregano
• 6cups tomato juice (bottled)
• 3(28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
• 6tablespoons dry white wine
• Table salt and ground black pepper
• 3pounds spaghetti
• 1/2cup minced fresh basil leaves
• 3tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
• Granulated sugar
• Parmesan cheese , grated, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. 1. FOR THE MEATBALLS: Place wire racks in 2 foil-lined rimmed baking sheets. Adjust oven racks to lower-middle and upper-middle positions and heat oven to 450 degrees. Combine bread crumbs and buttermilk in large bowl and let sit, mashing occasionally with fork, until smooth paste forms, about 10 minutes.
2. 2. Add eggs, beef, pork, prosciutto, Parmesan, parsley, garlic, gelatin mixture, 11/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper to bread-crumb mixture. Using hands, gently mix until thoroughly combined. Lightly form about ¼ cup mixture into 2-inch round meatball (about 2 ounces); repeat with remaining mixture to form approximately 40 meatballs.
3. 3. Spray wire racks with nonstick cooking spray and place meatballs, evenly spaced, on racks; roast until browned, about 30 minutes, rotating trays from front to back and top to bottom halfway through.
4. 4. FOR THE SAUCE: While meatballs roast, heat olive oil in large Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and golden around edges, 6 to 8 minutes. Add garlic, red pepper flakes, and oregano; cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in tomato juice, crushed tomatoes, wine, 1½ teaspoons salt, and pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes.
5. 5. Remove meatballs from oven and lower oven temperature to 300 degrees. Gently add meatballs to sauce, cover pot, and place in oven. Cook until meatballs are firm and sauce has thickened, about 1 hour.
6. 6. Meanwhile, bring 10 quarts water to boil in 12-quart pot. Add pasta and 2 tablespoons salt to boiling water; cook until al dente. Drain pasta and return it to cooking pot.
7. 7. TO SERVE: Stir basil and parsley into sauce and adjust seasoning with sugar, salt, and pepper. Toss pasta with 1½ cups sauce until lightly coated. Serve pasta, passing meatballs, remaining sauce, and grated Parmesan separately.

Legal Seafood's Double-Stuffed Baked Shrimp

Legal Seafood is my all time favorite seafood restaurant.  It was founded in Cambridge, MA in 1904 as a successful fish market and later a restaurant opened in 1950.  Today there are over 30 restaurants along the East Coast as well as an online seafood market catalog.
Did you know that Legal Seafood's award winning clam chowder has been served at every Presidential Inauguration since 1981?  It was started when Ronald Reagan wished to feature foods from all 50 states and has continued since then.
Bon Appetit has said a meal at Legal Seafood is among America's top ten "tried and true" dining experience (did they know the name of my blog?).  Legal Seafood is also included in Patricia Schultz's popular guidebook "1,000 places to see before you die".
As my friends would confirm, every time I'm in Beantown I have to get my Legal fix.  Last year after a Yankee/Red Sox show down at Fenway we went to Legal's at the Prudential Center for dinner.  While waiting to be seated I realized they were selling their cookbooks.  In full Yankee gear I asked if the chef would sign it for me and he did (see below). Wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but I did laugh.

Last week I tried the baked stuffed shrimp. It was both delicious and easy to make. I used a mix of whole wheat and low fat Ritz crackers to make it healthier/lighter.  I would also suggest cooking the celery down longer than the recipe calls for (it was a bit too crunchy).  The next day I chopped up the left overs with some chopped red peppers.  Formed the mixture into cakes, dusted with some flour and sauted in a little butter for a round two recipe of shrimp and crab cakes.  Tried and True- enjoy!

Double-Stuffed Baked Shrimp
Legal Sea Foods Cookbook By Roger Berkowitz and Jane Doerfer
Serves 4
One 4 ounce package of Ritz crackers
4 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup chopped scallions (both white and green parts)
1/2 cup of celery
2-3 teaspoons of minced garlic
1- 2 tablespoons of dry white wine
1/8 teaspoon of Old Bay Seasoning
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1- 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
8 ounces backfin crabmeat picked over for shells
salt
fresh black pepper
1 large egg
16 jumbo shrimp ( about 2 pounds) peeled and cleaned

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Place crackers in plastic bag and crumble with your hands or a rolling pin.  Put them in a large mixing bowl and set aside.  In a large skillet melt 2 tablespoons of butter over med heat and cook scallions celery and garlic for 5 minutes.  Toss with crackers.  Stir in wine, Old Bay Seasoning, lemon juice, parsley and crab meat.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Mix in the egg.
Place the shrimp in a large buttered pan (I used parchment paper to cut down the butter calories).  Cover each shrimp with about 3 tablespoons of crabmeat.  Dot the crabmeat with remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.  Bake for 15 minutes and serve with lemons.

Super Bowl Crab Dip

According to CNBC, Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving for the most single day food consumption in the United States.  70 million pounds of avocados were smashed, 1.25 billion chicken wings were consumed and 3.5% of the annual total beef sold in the US was sold for this past weekend's celebrations!  Did you know that half of all Americans would rather go to a Super Bowl party than a New Year's Eve party and that 50 million American women tune in to watch?  Until about 8 years ago I tuned in only for the great commercials.  That year a friend and co-worker, Tim Tobin, challenged Heather and me to fantasy football.  I knew next to nothing about football, but Heather convinced me (yes, the same Heather who convinced me to start this blog) to create a team with her.  A night or two before the draft, we ventured out in the Upper East Side with our fantasy football magazines in hand to "prep" for the draft.  We hit the sports bars and got some key advice from the fellow patrons on strategy, but in the end we decided our game plan would be to pick the best looking players (or ones that we could successfully makeover). Playing on a theory that good looking people may get an edge on life, we hoped the same would be true on the field. We lined up the players head shots and with a bottle wine, not beer, we headed to our draft.  Our team's name was DBs short for Demon Bitches and we had hats and shirts made with our logo and we wore red pumps to finish off the look.  Tim and the others in the league cringed on how we were drafting our team especially, when we chose Jessie Palmer as our back up QB.  Getting the former Bachlelor contestant on our team was the icing on the cake!  Long season short...with a lot of dumb luck and good looks we won!! I ran to Jimmy Choo with my winnings and bought a new pair of shoes.  I came back to the office and showed them off to a lot of disgusted guys....thus the start to my love of fantasy football and the Giants!

According to the National Restaurant Association 69% of people with plans for the Super Bowl said they considered salsa spreads and dips to be an absolute must have.  I agree.  Many years ago my friend Paula Muller shared her crab dip recipe with me.  I think it was from her Aunt in Canada.  I've made it over and over and still have the envelope she wrote it on.  I brought it to my neighbor's Super Bowl party on Sunday and it was a hit again. The biggest hit of the party though was Big Blue's win!

Paula's Crab Dip
18 oz of cream cheese
1 teaspoon of milk
2 tablespoons of chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon of horseradish
1/4 teaspoon of Tabasco
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Combine all the ingredients in an oven proof dish and bake for 8 minutes pull out and mix it up and put back in the oven and cook an additional 8 minutes.  Add toasted almonds to top after it's cooked.

Tomato Soup

The first snow of the new year fell in Connecticut this past Saturday.  Stuck inside all day I decided to make my son's favorite and the quintessential American comfort food- tomato soup.
For years there have been debates if the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable?  It's the state vegetable of both New Jersey and Arkansas, but is considered the state fruit in Tennessee?!  According to the Oxford Dictionary and scientifically speaking the tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable.  The question had legal implications in the 1800's when the US had a tax on vegetables, but not on fruits.  Believe it or not, the US Supreme Court ruled (for tax reasons) that the tomato was a vegetable, because they are served with dinner and not for dessert.  To this day the tomato remains a fruit when not dealing with the IRS. Kind of a funny looking fruit if you ask me.
Campbell's Soup came out in 1897 with a condensed version of tomato soup and it's been one of their top sellers and American favorites since.
It's easy, healthy and when paired with grilled cheese dinner, is made. My tomato soup is a combination of Ina Garten and Tyler Florence's tomato soup recipes.  I have made it several times tweaking it along the way.  The recipe I follow is below...Tried and True- enjoy!

Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

2 cans of 28 ounces whole plum tomatoes drained with juices set aside

6 gloves of garlic

1 1/2 cups of chopped onions

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 quart (box) of vegetable stock

3 bay leaves

4 tablespoons of butter 

1 cup of chopped fresh basil

1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

Drain the cans of tomatoes reserving their juices

Chop onions and smash garlic cloves

Place tomatoes, onion and garlic on a cookie sheet

Pour olive oil over all of it and sprinkle with salt and pepper

Put in a 400 degree oven and roast for 30 minutes or until caramelized

In meantime put tomato juices and broth in stock pot and boil with bay leaves

Add caramelized tomatoes, onions and garlic mix into pot

Add butter to the pot

Boil and reduce heat and simmer

Remove the bay leaves and use an immersion hand blender to puree soup until smooth

Sprinkle chopped basil in soup and season with salt and pepper as necessary

Serve immediately, put in fridge for a few days or freeze for a few months!!  I promise it won't last long though...it's that good!

Caesar On the Light Side

I found Jamie Oliver's twist on the traditional Caesar salad in Food and Wine Magazine.  Perfect for post holiday dieting season. It's delicious and works! Jamie uses Greek yogurt as a healthy alternative to heavy cream and sour cream.  I used anchovy paste instead of mashing anchovy fillets.  I also didn't use all of the Parmigiana- Reggiano cheese to cut down on even more calories.  Use freshly grated cheese it makes all the difference and the taste goes further so you can use less.  I used half the dressing on one full head of romaine lettuce and saved the other half for tomorrow night's salad.  Tried and true- this will become a favorite!!

Recipe: Caesar on the Light Side

INGREDIENTS

1. 1/3 cup low-fat or nonfat Greek-style yogurt
2. 2 anchovy fillets, mashed
3. 1 garlic clove, minced
4. 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
5. 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
6. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
7. 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
8. Salt and freshly ground pepper
9. 1 large head of romaine lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces

1. In a small bowl, whisk the yogurt with the anchovies, garlic, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Whisk in the oil and half of the cheese and season with salt and pepper.
2. In a large bowl, toss the romaine with half the dressing and the remaining cheese. Serve, passing the remaining dressing at the table.

NOTES First Course to Main Course: Oliver turns this into a more substantial salad with broiled, flaked salmon or grilled chicken breast.

Buon Anno! Homemade Pasta with Bolognese Sauce for the New Year

Who doesn't love pasta?  I have wanted to tackle homemade pasta for years.  My friend Heather was kind enough to gift me the pasta KitchenAid attachment a few years ago, but I was too intimidated to use it ha! Last weekend I was fortunate enough to learn first hand from Chef Carla Callini in a private lesson with my friend Sam!  She learned from her Italian grandmother and I'd bet she could do it in her sleep.  All her recipes are in her head, so I followed her closely with a pen and pad in hand.  It seemed so easy working with Carla, but when I got home and tried to make some pasta with my kids I put too much water in the mix and it was a disaster.  I kept trying until I finally got it right this past Sunday. I don't think I will ever buy boxed pasta again.Thank you Carla- molto apprezzato!  
What's better to put on fresh pasta than Bolognese sauce? It was a perfect dish to make Sunday while watching the Giants win and advance in the playoffs.
I spent years trying different bolognese sauces. They were all good, but nothing I would blog about.  One day at work my friend Kevin Kelly raved that his sister-in-law Jeanette's sauce was the best.  I got the recipe from her and it's by far the best bolognese recipe I've come across. I have been making it for years!  

Carla's Pasta recipe:
1 cup of flour (King Arthur's 00 flour- looked in many grocery stores including Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and haven't found it, but did find it online @ amazon.com)
3/4 cup of semolina flour (Whole Foods brand is Bob's Red Mill)
Water (add spoonfuls of water until the dough came together)
1 beaten egg 
1/2 teaspoon of salt


In the KitchenAid with the dough hook attached put both flours and the egg and mix.  When the dough starts to form add water as necessary until the dough forms a ball.  Then remove, knead it (on lightly floured surface) until it's as Carla would say "smooth as a baby's butt" and satiny and elastic.  Let dough rest for a few mins with a damp towel in a draft free space.
Attach the pasta roller to the KitchenAid and roll dough into a log and cut off one inch pieces. Pinch the top of the inch piece and push through the roller on the "1" setting then repeat on "2", "3", "4" and lastly on "5". You should now have what looks like a lasagna sheet. Either hang the sheet on a pasta drying rack or put back on the floured surface. Continue the same process with the rest of the dough until you've rolled it all out into sheets. Change the KitchenAid attachment to the fettuccine cutter.  Slide the pasta sheets into the cutter and hold them as they come back out as fettuccine.  Put back on drying rack to rest while you finish with the rest of the pasta sheets.  Once you are done you are ready to boil.  Fresh pasta boils very quickly so just a few minutes and it's ready for the sauce.

Jeanette Kelly's Bolognese Sauce:
5 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons each of minced onion, carrot and celery
3/4 pound meatloaf mix (ground chuck, ground veal and ground pork)
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of whole milk
1 cup of dry white wine
1 28- ounce can of diced tomatoes with their juices
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese (for the table)
I also add chopped fresh basil and 3 cloves or minced garlic


1. Heat 3 tablespoons butter in a large, heavy bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add onion, carrot and celery and saute until softened, but not browned then add the minced garlic (about 6 minutes).  Add the ground meat and 1/2 teaspoon of salt; crumble the meat into tiny pieces with the edge of a wooden spoon. Cook, continuing to crumble the meat just until it loses its raw color but not yet browned (3 minutes).


2. Add the milk and bring to a simmer; continue to simmer until the milk evaporates and only clear fat remains (10-15 minutes).  Add the wine and bring to simmer; continue to simmer until the wine evaporates (10-15 mins).  Add the tomatoes and their juices and bring to a simmer.  Reduce the heat to low so that the sauce continues to simmer just barely, with an occasional bubble or two at the surface, until the liquid has evaporated (3 hours).  Add chopped basil and adjust the seasonings with extra salt to taste.  Keep the sauce warm.  The sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for several days or frozen for several months.  Warm over low heat before serving.


3. Bring water to a rolling boil in a large pot.  Add 1 tablespoon salt and the pasta.  Cook until al dente, drain the pasta leaving some water dripping from noodles.  Toss the sauce and remaining 2 tablespoons butter.  Serve immediately. 


** NOTE I have always doubled this recipe so I can freeze some.