Quick Meatballs Over Slow-Cooked Polenta
Meatballs are not a go-to dinner for me. Sometimes I crave them, but then I think about all of the work: the tearing of the bread (yes, good meatballs have bread soaked in milk), the soaking of the bread in milk (I just said that), the grating of the Parmesan, and — worst of all — the frying in oil, glazing your whole stovetop in grease. But what if there was another way? A simpler way? A path that could get meatballs on the table in 30 minutes?
This isn’t that way. Well, it is regarding the meatballs: those go fast because you bake them. (Spoiler alert!)
The rest I took my time with just because I like to. So I made polenta the old-fashioned way: by taking stone-ground polenta (not instant), whisking it into 5 cups of boiling stock, continuing to whisk while it bubbled away until it was thick. Then I lowered the heat, covered, and stirred every 5 minutes or so for an hour until it was super thick and creamy. Then I doctored it with butter and Parmesan, as one does.
While the polenta was polenta-ing, I made a marinara sauce. This couldn’t have been easier: I sautéed four sliced cloves of garlic in olive oil (1/4 cup) until golden, added a big pinch of chili flakes, then a can of San Marzano tomatoes that I crushed by hand. I also rinsed the can out with water so there was a bit more liquid in the pot. I seasoned with salt, brought to a boil, lowered to a simmer, covered, and cooked until the tomatoes broke down.
Then all I had to do was make the meatballs. The recipe that I used was pure genius: Chris Morocco’s Tuesday Night Meatballs. Here’s how easy: preheat the oven to 425 and then, in a large bowl mix together 2 large eggs, 1 1/2 cups panko, 1/2 cup whole milk, 1 1/2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal salt, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon oregano (I used marjoram that I’m growing), 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and a grinding of pepper.
That makes a paste and then you let it sit for ten minutes. Then you take a pound of ground beef and work it in. I used my hands. Shape the meat into 8 balls and brush olive oil on to a cookie sheet. Put the balls on the sheet and pop into the oven. In fifteen minutes, the balls will be crisp and golden brown on the bottom. Flip them over with a metal spatula.
Don’t those already look amazing? Pop back into the oven for 5 to 7 minutes until they register 160 on a thermometer.
And that’s it!
Spoon some polenta into bowls, put two meatballs on top per person, then ladle the sauce on top.
It’s such a cozy dinner, even as it gets warmer outside. And you don’t have to do the slow-cooked polenta. You could just bake the meatballs in the oven, use store-bought marinara, and put ‘em on spaghetti, put ‘em in a hero, or just eat them by themselves. These balls are a winner, baby.
