More Than Meatballs: From Arancini to Zucchini Fritters and Everything in Between

Other Books by Michele Anna Jordan

Vinaigrettes & Other Dressings

Lotsa Pasta: Over 100 Elegant and Everyday Recipes

The World Is a Kitchen

VegOut! A Guide Book to Vegetarian Friendly Restaurants in Northern California

The BLT Cookbook

San Francisco Seafood

The New Cook’s Tour of Sonoma

Pasta Classics

Salt & Pepper

California Home Cooking

Polenta

Pasta with Sauces

Ravioli & Lasagna

The Good Cook’s Book of Days: A Food Lover’s Journal

The Good Cook’s Book of Tomatoes

The Good Cook’s Book of Mustard

The Good Cook’s Book of Oil & Vinegar

A Cook’s Tour of Sonoma

Copyright © 2014 by Michele Anna Jordan

Photographs © 2014 by Liza Gershman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Cover photo credit Liza Gershman

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-580-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-866-3

Printed in China

Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.

—Lemony Snicket, The Carnivorous Carnival

for Mary Duryee

dear friend, patron, and the best home cook ever

for L. John Harris

my first publisher and editor, my friend, Garlic Guru, and Meatball Muse

&

for Andy Ross

my dear old friend and my fabulously brilliant new agent

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Meatball Primer

Chapter 2: Delicious Traditions and Contemporary Customs

The Meatball

Roasted Garlic Meatballs

Bolognese-Style Goat Meatballs

Sicilian-Inspired Balls

Barcelona Balls

Portuguese Meatballs

Greek Meatballs with Tomato Lemon Sauce & Tzatziki

Lamb & Chard Caillettes

Venison Crepinettes

Lemon Lamb Meatballs

Fresh Herb Meatballs with Fried Padrons & Aioli

Mexican Albondigas

Chorizo Meatballs

Firebombs

Korean Meatballs with Korean Barbecue Sauce

Spicy Thai Meatballs with Coconut-Peanut Sauce

Pearl Balls

Turkish Kofte, with Four Variations

Moroccan Merguez Meatballs

Ethiopian Kitfo

Vampire Balls

Chicken Kiev Meatballs

Duck Meatballs with Sweet Spices

Turkey Meatballs with Fresh Sage and Cranberry Salsa

Corned Beef Hash Balls with Dijon Mustard

Dirty Rice Boulettes with the Devil's Mustard Sauce

Chapter 3: Going Meatless

Arancini Stuffed Risotto Balls

Chickpea Balls a.k.a. Falafel

Eggplant Polpettine

Carrot Fritters

Zucchini Fritters with Basil & Mint

Spaghetti Squash Fritters

Mashed Potato Fritters

K & L Bistro’s Salt Cod Fritters

Spanish Croquettes with Jamón Serrano

Chapter 4: Context Is Everything

Queso Fundido with Chorizo Meatballs

White Bean, Garlic & Meatball Soup

John Ash’s Chicken & Shrimp Meatball Soup

Chicken Soup with Walnut Balls and Spaghetti Squash

Sopa de Fideo y Albondigas

Posole Rojo with Firebombs

Portuguese Kale Soup with Meatballs

Thai Salad with Duck Meatballs

Roasted Tomato & Eggplant Soup with Lamb Meatballs

Potato Salad with Fresh Herb Meatballs

Bread Salad with Meatballs

Meatball Tacos

A Classic Meatball Sandwich, with Variations

Polish Meatballs with Wild Mushroom Sauce

Moroccan Meatball Tagine with Parsley Couscous & Harissa

Three-Peppercorn Meatballs in Peppercorn Sauce

Hawaiian Meatballs with Cabbage, Chile Water & Grilled Pineapple

Curried Chicken Meatballs with Chutney & Yogurt Turmeric Sauce

Lamb Meatballs Dijonnaise

Marlena’s Veal & Ricotto Meatballs with Tomatoes & Piselli

Tom’s Garlic Turkey Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Gudene: Spaghetti with Stuffed Pig Skin Rolls, Meatballs & Italian Sausage

Summertime Spaghetti & Meatballs

Halloween Spaghetti & Meatballs

Appendices

Basic Recipes

Homemade Bread Crumbs

Clarified Butter (Ghee)

Roasted Garlic Butter

Roasted Garlic Purée

Tomato Concasse

Summer Tomato Sauce

The Simplest Stove Top Chicken Stock

Beef Stock

Basic Quinoa

Resources

Index

Acknowledgments

When I think back on this time, the spring of 2014, I'll laugh as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs comes into focus in my mind's eye. I can't think of a better description for the process than a spaghetti and meatball tornado. What a whirlwind it has been, and a delicious one.

I am deeply grateful to Nicole Frail and her crew at Skyhorse Publishing for their patience, their kindness, and their speed.

And huge thanks, as well, to my agent, Andy Ross, for smoothing out all the contractual and deadline stuff and for introducing me to photographer Liza Gershman. Andy, you deserve a golden meatball.

To Liza, thank you so much, you little speed demon! Liza is a truly gifted photographer, with a phenomenal eye and an ability to work at what feels like warp speed. From our very first shots together, we've had a great intuitive and creative resonance that will carry us through many projects together. But first, let's raise a glass to More Than Meatballs! We did it! And now, onward to Salt & Pepper . . .

John Harris, thank you for everything over the years, and, especially, your inspired foreword.

Many thanks to Karen Martin, Marlena Spieler, and John Ash for sharing such yummy recipes.

I offer a big mahalo to Brooke Jackson, a hula sister and a colleague, for great help during our photo shoots. And to my teacher Kumu Hula Shawna Alapai'i, my uniki sisters and all of my hula sisters, mahalo nui loa for your support and understanding.

Jordan Rosenfeld, writer and radio colleague, thank you for Have a Ball!—a phrase that makes me want to kick up my heels and dance. It was right there, hanging over the project, but you were the one who plucked it from the ether and offered it up.

To my daughters, Gina and Nicolle, my grandson Lucas, my son-in-law Tom, and my dear friends John Boland and James Carroll, thank you thank you thank you, for everything, always.

Now, let's all have a ball!

Foreword

What goes around comes around. Meatballs! And here they are again in Michele Anna Jordan’s new collection of meatball marvels, More Than Meatballs.

To be sure, these are all, despite their more than-ness, meatballs. And for good reason: try making a meatcube or a meatpyramid. Even the words look horribly wrong! No, the meatball is a gastronomic merger of form and function no less perfect than its relative, the wheel. Like I say, what goes around . . .

The only other cooked product of man’s hungry genius that rivals the meatball for salutary simplicity and earthy economy is, I believe, the omelet. Curious though, omelets work inversely to the meatball: The omelet begins life round (the egg) and leaves it flat. The meatball starts its life flat (chopped meat, poultry, fish, etc.) and ends up round.

Of course there are flat-sided meatballs: sausage and hamburger patties and the monolithic American classic—meatloaf. These meatballish entities are what one observant aficionado of this class of foods, the eminent artist, writer and restaurateur, Daniel Spoerri, has labeled the premasticated—chopped animal-based foods. The ancient Persian word for meatball—kufteh—means chopped.

Michele’s meatballs, no matter how exuberantly chopped up with vegetables, grains, spices, herbs, and liquids, always maintain their rotund integrity. Balls.

Such esoteric reflections on the symbolism and morphology of the meatball are, nevertheless, beside the point when we are hungry and a well-made meatball or a dish containing well-made meatballs is placed in front of us. Like, for example, the meatball and pasta soup from Spain, Sopa de Albondigas y Fideo, from Michele’s chapter titled (ironically) Context Is Everything. The context here refers to meatballs in soups, salads, stews, and pastas.

I agree, context is everything. But I would add further that, for the humble meatball, the larger context is universal—hunger. One does not, dares not, approach a great meatball without hunger. We are, therefore, not talking here about amuse bouche–sized mini-meatballs or avant garde molecular meatballs—rounded, gelatinized beef jus, as one might find on some trendy tasting menu in Barcelona or Copenhagen. That is not eating—that’s entertainment. But neither are we talking mega meatballs for Monsieur Gargantua. Context is everything, and Michele’s creations combine a feminine regard for both sensuality and sustenance on an appropriate scale designed for real eaters, not tasters.

Admittedly low on the trendy/foodie food chain of our day, the meatball is, at its core, more a strategy or methodology than a specific recipe, the poor man’s way of using leftover cooked meat or uncooked meat and fat scraps. At least, that’s the historical raison d’etre of the meatball. And like many humble dishes that emerged first as food of the poor, they are reinvented by new generations of aspiring cooks and eaters in search of simple, real food as an antidote to the fussy culinary fashions of the day (think Jewish pastrami or French confit). This is the rhythm of gastronomy through time, from simple to complex to simple again—a culinary circle.

Michele Anna Jordan’s homage to the meatball is, to be sure, only the latest in a long, illustrious line of meatball compilations dating back to the ancient Roman cookbook De re coquinaria (On the subject of cooking), purportedly by a Roman gourmet named Apicius. But unlike Apicius’s recipes in his chapter on minces, Michele’s approach to her subject is global, sophisticated, witty, imaginative, and au courant. Though, I should add, her rediscovery of caul fat (the digestive organ linings of cows, pigs, and sheep used, for example, as a casing for the traditional flat sausage patty in France known as the crépinette) as a perfect cover up for meatballs connects her back to ancient Apician minces wrapped in pork omentum (caul). Again, what goes around . . .

Which brings me back circuitously to another, less ancient treatment of the meatball and a very personal chapter from my days as publisher of cookbooks at Aris Books in the 1980s—the aforementioned Daniel Spoerri and his Mythology & Meatballs: A Greek Island Diary/Cookbook (Aris, 1982). This charmingly offbeat book not only introduced me to the meatball in all its global glory, but to the work of an important avant-garde European artist, writer, and proto-foodie.

Publishing Daniel Spoerri’s culinary diary from his stay on the tiny Greek island of Symi, the closest Greek island to Turkey, in the 1960s—including his A Dissertation on Keftedes (keftedes, a Greek variation on the Persian kufteh)—was one of the highlights of my publishing career. This was food writing that transcended the genre and, long before I published the Aris edition, had in its original version, part of a larger non-culinary work, influenced my own first effort at food writing, The Book of Garlic (Holt, Rinehart, 1974).

Which in turn brings me back, like a rolling stone, to Michele, whose wonderful first cookbook, A Cook’s Tour of Sonoma, we published in 1990—another highlight of my days at Aris. Ironically, one of my early foodoodle cartoons, titled global meatball, was published in a local San Francisco Bay Area food magazine that same year. Little did Michele and I know in 1990 that we would come back together again professionally around the meatball.

It appears I have a karmic relationship with the meatball! And thanks to Michele Anna Jordan and her More Than Meatballs, I now have the pleasure of returning to a culinary subject near and dear to me. It may be too early to know whether Michele’s book will launch a new meatball fad, or more likely, a meatball movement. But if it does, I will not be surprised. What goes around comes around, and when it is good, like Michele’s meatball cookbook, it stays around.

L. John Harris

Paris, 2014

Introduction

"I love meatballs," friends declared when I told them what I was working on.

And then they giggled.

Sometimes they laughed first.

There is something inherently funny about meatballs, even the word itself. Maybe it’s a memory of that old camp song. Given that most of us never got past the fourth line, let’s give the old tune its due, shall we?

On top of spaghetti,

All covered with cheese,

I lost my poor meatballs,

When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,

And on to the floor,

And then my poor meatball,

Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,

And under a bush,

And then my poor meatball,

Was nothing but mush.

The mush was as tasty

As tasty could be,

And then the next summer,

It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered,

All covered with moss,

And on it grew meatballs,

And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti,

All covered with cheese,

Hold on