Flavor Implosion Meatballs #FoodieReads

I am posting this after reading Murder and Marinara by Rosie Genova, the first in The Italian Kitchen Mysteries books.

On the Page

If you follow me regularly, you'll know that I will pretty much read anything set in Italy. This is set in an Italian-American community and was full of Italian food as it's set - mostly - in a family restaurant.

The first in a series, we meet mystery author Victoria Rienzi who is takng a break from New York to work at her family’s Italian restaurant on the Jersey shore. She wants her Nonna to teach her how to cook and ends up in the middle of solving a murder.

Given the setting, there is a lot of food on the pages.

"In front of me was a thing of beauty. A plate filled to its edges with homemade hand-cut cavatelli, blanketed in my grandmother’s fresh marinara sauce. The secret to Nonna’s sauce was the fresh tomatoes she put up every August; our pantry shelves were lined with Mason jars full of bright, red-orange pomodori, accented with basil leaves from the garden. I sniffed deeply at the rising steam from my plate, and my salivary glands wept with joy. Nonna, bring me your worst, I thought. I’ll put up with anything if you feed me like this."

There was frittata, the " Italian version of comfort food, a glorious golden omelet made with greens, cheese, herbs, and breadcrumbs." Massimo made his with arugula and fontina cheese.

Especially delicious sounding was the hand-cut tagliatelle with special walnut pesto made by her ex-boyfriend and the restaurant's chef. She wrote: "I stopped to have a plate of tagliatelle with pesto; after one bite, I knew I could fault Tim for lots of things, but his cooking wasn’t one of them. The pasta was light and eggy, but it held up to the swirl of flavors coating it—sweet basil, rich walnuts, and the sharply nutty imported parmesan. After going back for seconds, I made a mental note to do some extra bicycling this week to work off all these luscious carbs."

But what sent me to the kitchen was her Nonna's meatballs and the passage below. I did stuff mine with mozzarella cheese because we like them like that...but I named them for this...

I cut a meatball into quarters and brought the first piece to my mouth. I closed my eyes for the flavor implosion of tomato sauce, meat, basil, garlic, eggs, and cheese; it was almost enough to make me forget the reason for my visit. “Umm. Nonna, they’re amazing. Just like I remember.”

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 2 pounds ground beef

• 1 egg

• 3 to 4 cloves garlic, peeled and pressed

• ½ cup Panko bread crumbs

• ½ cup buttermilk

• ½ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

• ¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

• 2 Tablespoons fresh basil

• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

• ¾ pound fresh mozzarella cut into 16 cubes

Tomato Sauce

• 2 cups fresh tomatoes, diced

• olive oil

• 2 cup tomato sauce

• 1/2 cup diced onions

• 4 to 5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

• salt and pepper

• 4 Tablespoons thinly chiffonaded basil

• grated parmesan cheese for serving

Procedure

Meatballs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the bread crumbs and the buttermilk. Let stand for 10 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, place all of the ingredients except for the mozzarella, including the bread crumbs. Mix together until just combined - not too much or the meatballs will be tough.

Divide meat into 16 even pieces. Press the meat into a disc and place the mozzarella in the center of the disc. Gently fold the meat around the cheese and pinch the edges together to completely enclose the cheese.

Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove meatballs from the oven.

Tomato Sauce

In a large flat bottom pan, soften garlic and onions in a splash of olive oil until aromatic. Add in the fresh tomatoes and cook until they begin to lose their shape. Pour in the tomato sauce and let everything simmer until a cohesive sauce begins to form. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the

When the tomatoes begin to cook down into a cohesive sauce, season with salt and pepper.

Finishing

Stir the baked meatballs into the tomato sauce and let them simmer an additional 20 minutes. Stir in half of the basil then spoon everything into a serving bowl. Top with the remaining basil and sprinkle with cheese. Serve hot.

I am adding this to the February 2025 #FoodieReads Link-Up.