I have never made boiled meatballs, I swear, nor have I ever eaten them in my life before today (that is: today while I am writing, even though you will read me in a few days 😌).

Here they are, these are our very first boiled meatballs, and they are entirely mom-made.
Which, strange but true!, has never made boiled meatballs nor, not even she, has ever eaten them before today.

The whole thing is based on a true story 😃 that I’ll tell you after the picture.

boiled meatballs with sauce

The Light and Tasty section reopens today, and just like last year, it tasked us with inaugurating the new year with, and rightly so, a post-Christmas recycling recipe.

I was very undecided about which recipe to dedicate to this issue, I already had three ready plus one in the works (lots of recycling this year!), but in the end, I decided these boiled meatballs best represented the light spirit of the section (because they’re not fried), the tasty one (because they turned out so good they disappeared in no time), and also the recycling spirit.
In fact, this year the Christmas boiled meat “went” little during Christmas lunch, it’s usually the most popular second course but this time the other second courses were more successful, and a lot of boiled meat was left over. So much so that it was our second course for another two lunches, obviously sprinkled with green sauce. Also left over.

It makes sense, you know, putting together three families always produces a certain excess of courses, even if you agree beforehand (I prepare this and you that), but you know how it is… everyone then prepares (yes, almost always) a little more, and you always realize later that “there was too much stuff”!

I confess that instinct sometimes leads me to think that these excessive food productions might be a bit out of time and – shall we say it? yes, let’s say it – even a bit unethical. I believe that the essence of Christmas should be something other than bringing three second courses and four side dishes to the table after a substantial first course (when not two) and after the appetizers, and before several desserts like panettones and pandoros, maybe stuffed, plus the indispensable traditional dried fruit sweets and other delicacies.
It is true that conviviality is also based on the variety of courses, and it is true that for older people, who in times gone by experienced Christmas differently from ours, it is difficult to modify such ingrained and consoling traditions.

But it is also true (and this is consoling for me) that at our place, everything that is left over always returns to the table in the following days, nothing is ever wasted, especially the boiled meat that we like very much even recycled, but not even those broken cappelletti lost in the broth, nor the wine left in the bottle, nor the sauce that my aunt left in our fridge. (And then recycled with great joy, so much so that it will be the guest of honor of the next recipe! 🤗)

And nothing, the epilogue of this year’s boiled meat was this:
after bringing it to the table for two days as we always do because we like it so much, with green sauce or mayonnaise (and that’s why we never made boiled meatballs), this year when on the third day mom said to me “There’s still some boiled meat, do you want it?”….
Uhhhhh Wow! 😯
There’s still some????
Uhhhm… mom, and if… mmmm… we tried making meatballs??

And so it was that my almost-octogenarian mom ventured into this new and daring production for the first time.
Achieving, but we had no doubt, an excellent result. 🤩

〰〰〰

👇 For more recycling ideas, take a look here! 👇

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Cheap
Preparation time: 20 Minutes
Portions: 15-18 meatballs depending on size
Cooking methods: Stovetop
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

It’s impossible to give you exact weights, the ones I list below are estimated. Because like every respectable grandma’s recipe, it’s all done by eye. 😉

mixed boiled meat (maybe 1-1.3 lbs)
1 potato
1 egg
breadcrumbs (a couple of handfuls)
Parmesan cheese (a couple of handfuls)
to taste nutmeg
to taste lemon zest
tomato sauce (about 1.5-2 cups)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (in the sauce)

Tools

Food Processor or Chopper

Preparation

First, cook the potato (or use a leftover potato from the Christmas lunch).
In any case, the potato is optional.

If, as tradition dictates, the boiled meat includes capon or hen, it is necessary to remove all bones and pesky small bones.
In this recipe, which is very simple in itself, this is the most precise operation, you need to be sure there are no unwanted pieces left in the meat.

Put the meat and potato in the food processor (or chopper) and operate until you get the desired consistency (I prefer it coarse, but it’s a matter of taste).
Alternatively, the meat can also be chopped with a knife.

Season as you usually season meatballs: add an egg, breadcrumbs, and grated Parmesan cheese, both by eye regulating according to the consistency of the mixture. Add a nice grating of nutmeg and lemon zest.
If the mixture is very soft, increase the amount of breadcrumbs.

To taste – and this is a variation I would make for reasons related to my low-sodium cooking (see note at the end of the recipe) – add a clove of minced garlic and some aromatic herbs, like parsley or thyme, or optionally arugula or fennel fronds.

Take small portions of the mixture and form meatballs with your hands.

Place the meatballs in a pan, without oil, and brown them on both sides.
This method of browning meatballs dry, thus without frying, is a characteristic of our home meatballs, my mom has never fried meatballs, nor have I.

When a light crust has formed on the surface, add the tomato sauce and a drizzle of oil.
For the sauce, adjust to taste depending on how much sauce you want to get, but 300 or 400 g can be fine.

Cook with the lid closed until the sauce is cooked (25-30 minutes).
The meatballs do not need long cooking as they are made with cooked meat, you can optionally pre-cook the sauce separately before adding it to the meatballs.

During cooking, gently turn the meatballs with a spatula, and ensure the sauce does not reduce too much.

Serve hot.
Even though boiled meatballs are one of the most popular recycling recipes ever, for us, they were a real novelty, a brand new recipe.
And it was really time to try it. 😃
For those who don’t know, I cook without salt, all the recipes on this blog are salt-free recipes, and they all end with some of my tips for flavoring without salt.
Today’s tip I mentioned in the instructions, but I’ll repeat it here, adding a couple of additional ideas:
● Add a clove of minced garlic and some aromatic herbs, such as parsley or thyme, or optionally arugula, fennel or fennel fronds.
● Add oregano or marjoram to the sauce.
● But a few spices can also suit our needs, such as a pinch of paprika or curry.
Sure, with spices we would stray a bit from the taste of my mom’s meatballs, so I’ll note the idea for when I make them on my own, who knows, maybe for next year’s recycling recipe! 😀

If you are interested in reducing or eliminating salt, always remember to:
● Gradually decrease salt, the palate must get used to it slowly and should not notice the progressive reduction.
● Use spices. Chili pepper, pepper, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cumin…
● Use aromatic herbs. Basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, mint…
● Use seeds. Sesame, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts…
● Use spicy vegetables or fruits. Garlic, onion, lemon, orange…
● Use my salt-free vegetable granules and gomasio.
● Prefer fresh foods.
● Avoid cooking in water, prefer cooking methods that do not disperse flavors (grill, foil, steam, microwave)
● Avoid bringing the salt shaker to the table!
● Occasionally break the rule. It’s good for your mood and helps you persevere.

If you do not want, or cannot, give up salt:
● You can still try my recipes by salting according to your habits. 🙂
Carla: Cake with salmon, zucchini, and robiola
Daniela: Panettone Crumble
Elena: Egg Dumplings in Broth
Franca: Orange Ravioli
Milena: Cereal Buns with Mixed Seeds