For me, the humble meatball defines comfort food. When I was a boy, my Grandfather would often show up at our house with as many as 75. In college, he would hook me up with a coffee can full of meatballs, frozen, two to a sandwich bag. Think about it. Anyway, I take my meatballs very seriously, and so when my buddy Robert offered to come over and reprise his steallar meatball preformance of last year, one thought came to mind: we're gonna make a shitload.
Even though I don't know the German Word for "shitload", do no doubt my german Skills! Let me tell you, we were slinging Deutsch like oder was?! Here's a breakdown of the ingredients, above:
1800 gramm (umrechnung: 4lbs) meat (half beef half schwein)
2 onions, diced
2 old brötchen (dunk in water and squeeze into balls about the size of the eventual bouletten
2 eggs
A liberal amount of salt and pepper – I prefer cracked white pepper for this, as it has a kind of sweet-and-sharp aroma.
Here's Wonderwife flexing some Sauerkraut from nichts. If you are lucky, she will explin the recipie in the comments. You can also start some kartoeffeln boiling at this point.
Next we have the squishing. While Robert was doing this, I shouted at him "Schindler, ist alles in ordnung?" And he laughed, much to my relief. I asked him if that was like a totally taboo phrase in these PC days. He said no, it's the kind of thing you would say to someone if you accdientally knocked them off thier bike with your car.
Now Let's form that mix into hockey pucks - thicker and smaller than your average burger. These are not italian meatballs, but you can use them in the same manner, with a nice homemade marinara. We got 21 out of the recipie. At this point you should have already consumed several Spaten Pilsner.
Now put a quarter tablespoon of butter and a spalsh of clear vegetable oil in your pan, hopefully a cast iron monster. Speaking of kitchen gear, I have never seen a man so proud to be holding a Wusthof chef's knife. Shout out to Solingen!. Half and hour later, Robert is still stoked...
Set your burner on medium high, and let the pan get nice and hot before you start frying. Seven Bouletten at a time seems to be the upper limit for a skillet, and the reason is we don’t want the pan cooling off to the point that our meaty bits fail to caramelize. 8-10 minutes a side is probably enough, but you should judge more by sight and feel than by exact timing. If you cook them too long they will dry out, so be careful.
When the Bouletten are done, take them out of the pan and place them on a platter in the oven on warm. It’s sauce time. Now, you already know my feelings on ‘organic’ produce, but I’ve got a whole different take on ‘organic’ meat. We are about to make this gravy without draining off the fat, so the quality of said fat is of the utmost importance. I don’t really care what you want to call it – hallal, kosher, free range, whatever – but animals raised without antibiotics or hormones are vastly superior in my book. It’s especially noticeable in the fat – your industrially-raised beef fat will coat your mouth with a vile waxy residue. But since I bought my stuff from the free range meat man at the Venice farmer’s market, we are good to go. First, grab a few spoonfuls of the pan drippings and add that to your sauerkraut – you will thank me later. Now, add a few tablespoons of water to the pan, about 1/8 cup of heavy cream, and a few teaspoons of flour, scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the nice tasty bits dislodged, and stir till thickened over low heat.
Once you arrange everything on the plate, it really starts to feel autumnal – like we just walked in from a day’s worth of Schwarzwaldwandern. Above all else, don’t forget the Senf – here we used the reliable Lowensenf – and no yellow mustard will do for this task. The sting of the horseradish is imperative. Try to resist the urge to chop up some herbs and sprinkle them on there for color – that’s not what this menu is about. Just lower the lights and keep the bier flowing.
If you run with culinary badasses, maybe one of your guests will show up with an apple pie, as our neighbor Elizabeth did. Although her first, it was slammin' – and we whipped up the remaining cream so we could even have it mit Schlag. You want me to tell you how? Chill your bowl and whisk in the freezer, then add 1/4 cup whipping cream, a teaspoon or two of powdered sugar, and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Then whip it, whip it good. And don’t forget, you’ve still got 14 Bouletten to finish frying.
Stay tasty. WW.
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