Mama Maroni That's A Tasty Meatball!

Bobby Flay had another Throwdown that interested me. It was about meatballs. While I've had a pretty good recipe for a number of years from a friend of mine that loves to cook. I've always wished the meatballs were a bit more tender. The commercial for the meatball throwdown talked about tender meatballs. I had to watch.

My experience from past Throwdowns was the winning recipe if not Bobby's would not be on the Food Network website. I could understand that. It's their livelihood. Therefore, I record the show, so I can take copious notes. In an effort to get the winning recipe as close as I can. Just for giggles I decided to see if the winning recipe Grandma Maroni's Meatballs was on the Food Network site. To my great surprise it was.

Grandma Maroni's Meatballs

Ingredients
1 pound ground chuck
4 ounces dried bread crumbs
4 large eggs
4 ounces whole milk
6 ounces grated Romano
3 ounces grated Spanish onion
2 ounces finely diced fresh garlic
2 ounces finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
2 ounces finely chopped fresh basil leaves

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet with olive oil cooking spray.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly in large bowl. If mixture seems a little loose add more bread crumbs.

Roll meatballs loosely about the size of a golf ball and place on baking sheet. Place into preheated oven for approximately 35 to 40 minutes. Serves 8-10 Enjoy!

It is slightly different than the notes I took from the show. Some ingredients Mike Maroni told the viewer some I guessed on. Here is the recipe I made.

Lynne's Throwdown Meatballs

1 pound ground chuck

4 large eggs

4 ounces Pecorino Romano

1/2 cup dried bread crumbs

4 T finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

3 cloves minced garlic

1/2 cup grated onion

Mix by hand. Make meatballs 1 1/2 ounces about the size of an egg. Bake in a hot oven (425 degrees F).

All ingredients ready for mixing.

How it looked after hand mixing. A great challenge for me as I hate to get my hands sticky and gooey, but combining in a mixer makes the meatballs tough. I've tried it. Worth getting your hands dirty for a good meatball!

I love to use my cookie scoops when I need to measure out a ball of something. Mike Maroni said each meatball should be about 1 1/2 ounce. Being a stickler for good meatballs I weighed each one since there weren't going to be many.

I measured the meatballs out onto my Silpat. I normally bake them on a Silpat, because in the past I use a very lean burger. This recipe using a ground chuck made me change my mind to something with a lip to catch any dripping.

This silicone pan has a lip and I needed it! There was a lot of fat to catch after baking.

I made the meatballs using the above notes/recipe and they were fabulous. The only thing I'd change is they were a bit loose. They didn't fall a part, but they were a bit mushy in the mouth. I would bump up the bread crumbs to 1 cup next time. The recipe made 23 meatballs. The meatballs just melted in your mouth they were so tender and flavorful. I've found that Romano cheese is a must. I've used Parmesan in the past as I usually have it on hand, but the Romano has a stronger flavor that really gives the meatballs a delicious flavor.

The sauce I use is one my cooking friend also gave me. It's very basic and fast. I can make this sauce in the time it takes me to prepare dried pasta. I haven't bought bottle sauce in years.

DeAnn's Tomato Basil Sauce

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 large onion, finely chopped

2 cloves minced garlic

4 tablespoons minced fresh basil, about 1 handful

4 cups canned crushed tomatoes

Saute' onion, garlic and basil in olive oil until onion is soft. Add tomato sauce and simmer about 30 minutes. Sauce freezes nicely.

I brought the sauce to a good simmer for about 30 minutes.

The meatballs were done by now and I dropped them into the sauce.

I was surprised at how close my sauce was to Maroni's Sauce.

Maroni's Sauce

6 ounces good olive oil, not extra-virgin
12 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 large or 2 medium Spanish onions, finely diced
2 (28-ounce) cans imported crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white or black pepper
1 large handful julienned fresh basil leaves

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add oil. Once heated add the finely sliced garlic and onions to the pan. Cook over medium heat until soft and slightly brown. Next add the canned crushed tomatoes, salt and pepper and stir. Allow the sauce to come to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the julienned basil.

The end result with my 2 recipes for sauce and meatballs were perfection! Delightful tender savory meatballs and a light yet flavorful sauce to accompany them... a meal fit for company, but we ate it all ourselves.

Adventures with Arepas

Last Sunday I decided to make arepas. I saw a Throwdown with Bobby Flay with Arepas. Maribel and Aristides Barrios, NYC restaurateurs who hail from Venezuela were challenged. The food looked SO good and interesting. Arepas are Venezuela's national bread. They are eaten at all meals and throughout the day. These small corncakes are sold in restaurants called areperías, where they are stuffed with all manner of fillings. Arepas are the basically the Venezuelan version of the sandwich. Many different filling can be used, but the gals on Throwdown said the best and most traditional filling is Pabellón. It's their best seller. So, that's what I wanted to make.

Bobby Flay lost the throwdown, so I didn't want to use his recipes on the Food Network. Using notes from the gals that WON the arepa throwdown I went on a search of the internet for recipes that were similar. This was going to be quite a project, but I knew it would be fun and delicious. I'm never scared away by hard work in the kitchen. First I needed ingredients. Ran to the local grocery store Saturday evening and bought just about everything. The produce gal couldn't find a plantain I knew what they looked like despite my complete inexperience with them and I found them. They didn't have the special corn flour I needed. Decided to make a trip to the Mexican grocer in the morning. They had exactly what I needed... precooked white corn meal P.A.N.

According to Maribel and Aristides to make a simple traditionally served Arepa one needs a Venezuelan stew called Pabellón, black beans, fried plantains, arepas, and cojita cheese. I had a lot of cooking ahead of me. I got the boneless chuck roast cooking similar to how I would cook pork for carnitas. Browned roast, then add onion, celery, salt, pepper and enough water to cover everything. I simmered it for 2 hours. While this was simmering I got the presoaked black beans (the reason I went to the store the night before wanted to soak the beans) to cooking with a little browned salt pork and onions. They too simmered for 2 hours.

Once the beef was cooked and shredded, with dog and my daughter hanging around for bites, I could do the final cooking. I followed the Pabellón recipe I found on line with a few changes from the notes from Maribel and Aristides I got off of the Throwdown show. The changes I used, a 3 pound boneless chuck roast, red AND green peppers, 1 can of tomato paste instead of tomatoes and 1 1/2 tsp of ground cumin. I needed about 3 cups of my broth from cooking the meat to moisten it up just right. I did make one mistake in that the peppers and onions should have been finely chopped. My kids would have preferred it from an aesthetic point of view (you know kids it may taste good, but doesn't look good). It looked great to my husband and I and it didn't effect the taste at all. It was SO good. I'll definitely be making this stew again.

After the stew was made I started frying the plantains and frying the arepas (corncakes). Plantains were pretty straight forward. I sliced them like the gals said on throwdown. I must say that the plantains scared me a little. I've never tried them before. I read that you want to get one that is yellow with black speckles or completely black for maximum sweetness. Completely black at the store wasn't an option. Once peeled they are much firmer than a regular banana and had an odd peach hue. After frying I tried one. They have sort of a fried sweet potato flavor and texture if you've ever had tempura sweet potato you'll know exactly what they are like.

The arepas I followed the recipe . Later that day I tried making the arepas the way the Maribel and Aristides had said. The difference being the online recipe used boiling water. It took a very long time for it to cool, so I could shape the arepas for cooking. The gals used lukewarm water and the dough turned out very soft and difficult to shape. I'll need to work on them to maybe find a happy medium between boiling water and lukewarm water. The one exception to the recipe is I only fried them on the griddle as the arepa gals said. The recipe asked them to be baked also.
OK I've got Pabellón, cooked black beans, fried plantain, arepas and grated cojita cheese. Now to assemble. I split the arepa all the way through layered on 2 fried plantain slices, a spoonful of Pabellón, a spoonful of black beans and then a sprinkle of cheese. I then leaned over the plate and took a big bite. WOW it was good and very messy. Maribel and Aristides from the throwdown have their own arepa restaurant in New York and they said people ask for forks. They really raised their noses at this notion as they are to be eaten with one's hands. I am a utensil person. I wanted a fork SO badly, but I didn't want these ladies snickering at me for using a fork. I kept adjusting my grip and the corncake until all was gone. I found out that one recipe of corncakes wasn't enough. It made 8. That's why I made 2 recipes with 2 different methods. I had to make another batch they were SO good.

I found the "What's 4 Eats: International Recipes & Cooking Around the World" website to be a great reference for my adventure into the world of deliciousness. I've placed links all above for the recipes I used. Once everything was cooked it was a very fast and easy meal. We had leftovers for lunch and it seemed even better the 2nd and 3rd day. Then it was all gone. I think I'd like to make this again and have family over. It would be a fun meal to share.