Down East Spaghetti And Meatballs,
August 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Posted in Blog
Another perfecting ending in Maine
Dinners at the cottage begin slowly and gather momentum, usually too late after an afternoon sailing and starting with cocktails on the screened porch. There will be wine and stronger things to go with a platter of cheeses and salamis and marinated olives. You can tell when the second round of martinis has been served by the rising level of laughter degenerating into outright guffaws and knee-slapping. For years we’ve been taking our summer vacations here with our friend Shelley, who grew up in South Freeport, Maine, on the very edge of Casco Bay and manages to surround herself here with friends she grew up with. They just drop by, are invited for drinks and dinner, and sit around laughing their heads off telling old stories as well as anecdotes about the goofy things their mutual friends are up to now.
Sometimes dinner has been planned out. Other times, there will be a quick huddle around 6:15 when everyone will look at each other hoping someone will step forward with an inspired menu. Yesterday Shelley called for ideas, and something took hold of me. “How about spaghetti and meatballs?” Shelley sort of grimaced–how un-cottage-like–but everyone else cheered. Seems it doesn’t matter where you are or what time of year. Everyone loves spaghetti and meatballs.
So it fell on me to figure out how to throw together spaghetti and meatballs for 14 people. My wife made a list and ran off to the store. Here’s what we did:
I requested a pound each of ground beef, ground veal and ground pork. What my wife found at the local Shaws was two pounds of ground beef and two pounds of mild pork sausage. Meanwhile, dice about four medium onions and chop fine the cloves from a head of garlic and sweat these in olive oil in a heavy skillet, seasoned liberally with salt. While the onion and garlic are simmering, remove the crust from about two cups worth of bread, cut the bread into cubes and soak it in milk. (You don’t have to use bread crumbs in your meatballs, but they will be much more tender and delectable for it.) In a separate bowl, dump your meat. (squeeze the pork out of the casings, if using).
When the onions are good and soft, remove about one-third of them and add to the meat. Additionally, add two beaten eggs, a liberal amount of salt and freshly ground black pepper and the bread (after squeezing out the milk), and a fair fistful of chopped fresh parsely. Use your hands to mix the meat, bread, eggs, parsley and seasonings together. Set aside for a moment to add tomatoes to the remaining onion and garlic in your big skillet (or use a heavy pot). What we used were two 32-ounce cans of Italian plumb tomatoes that I emptied into a bowl and squeezed into little pieces. This is one of my favorite kitchen chores, squeezing canned plum tomatoes. If we had had a third can, I would have used that as well. But I wasn’t sure exactly how much sauce we should need so I asked my wife to get a can of prepared sauce. She brought home a big jar of Prego (it’s not bad at all, really). Add a big fistful of basil, cut into fine chiffonade. (Coincidentally, there was a tall drinking glass in the kitchen window with several basil stems putting out roots–perfect for our purposes.) Set the sauce to simmer while you continue working on the meatballs.
Shape the meat mixture into balls to your liking. Ours were on the large size, meaning somewhat smaller than tennis balls, or enough for two per person with a few left over. Line them up in baking sheets with plenty of room around each ball and place in a 425-degree oven. Now your meatballs can bake while you sauce is cooking. (If I had had more time and a bigger pot, I would have browned the meatballs in the oven, then finished cooking them in the sauce.) Time to have a cocktail while we consider our noodles…
We had exactly two and one-half pounds of spaghetti noodles on hand, which seemed about right to me. I figure a pound will feed six people. We brought a big pot of salted water to a boil and emptied the noodles into it. This allowed some cocktail sipping and conversation on the porch while others set the table and the noodles cooked. But I was not as casual as all that. I monitored the noodles fairly closely. As they approached al dente, we removed the browned meatballs from the oven and set up a serving station near the stove with warm plates. I tossed the noodles with sauce until they were just barely coated, not slippery with sauce. Then we began loading plates, first a generous portion of sauced noodles, topped with two meatballs, then a little more sauce over the meatballs, then a dressing of olive oil from a measuring cup to make the finished plate smile.
We set bowls of freshly grated parmesan on the table so guests could help themselves, and served plates of various breads and focaccia that happened to be on hand.
Oh, you should have heard the oohs and ahhs. You’d have thought we’d served tournedos with truffle sauce. Really what it is is the setting–everything seems to taste better when your view is of the sea–and all the good cheer, being with so many friends.
Or maybe it was the martinis….
I would vote for the martinis, though spaghetti and meatballs are always a grant treat!
what I meant was “grand” treat”!!!!
I made these meatballs last week on the fly with what I had on hand (meaning, no veal or pork). Tennis ball sized too! I used Polyface ground meat, breakfast sausage & eggs, Toigo’s vodka sauce and Richmond’s Cavanna Pasta’s whole wheat linguini. Deeeee-lish! Thanks for sharing.
Kim, just as you say. These are for making on the fly, with what you have on hand. NIce job incorporating all the local stuff.