Holy Meatballs Batman!

Cooking a meatball usually consisted of having grease splatter and fly all over your stove.  And who can't forget the smell, which would remind you that you had meatballs....three days later!  Since none of the kitchens we have cooked in seem to produce enough air circulation for stovetop meatball cooking we usually opt for either meatloaf or spagehetti.  Until now...

Alton Brown of Good Eats came up with a great solution...baked meatballs.  This remarkably simple recipe manages to take all the mess out of meatballs while making them so incredibly tasty.  If you follow these easy steps you two can have a great meal without the reminders days later.

Recipe: Meatballs

Adapted from Alton Brown

• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
• 1 whole egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs, divided

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the pork, lamb, ground round, cheese, egg, basil, parsley, garlic powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs. Using your hands, mix all ingredients until well incorporated. Use immediately or place in refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Place the remaining 1/4 cup of bread crumbs into a small bowl. Using a scale, weigh meatballs into 1.5-ounce portions and place on a sheet pan. Using your hands, shape the meatballs into rounds, roll in the bread crumbs and place the meatballs in individual, miniature muffin tin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

The original recipe adds spinach and ground lamb into the meat mixture, but my wife doesn't like spinach and won't touch lamb so out it came.  The recipe works great without those two ingredients but feel free to add 5 oz of spinach and 1/2 lb ground lamb to the mixture if your wife approves.

Enjoy!

- Dan