I made these meatballs by grinding up two pork blade steaks in our handy-dandy meat grinder (nice to use it for something other than ferret’s chicken gravy), and stuffed our big skillet to the gills with meatballs. The cooked meatballs went in the fridge while the sauce thickened up, and I used up some leftover ricotta pomodoro sauce from last week, and added some tomato paste as well. When we were ready to eat, I put half the meatballs back in the sauce to reheat, and made spaghetti and a batch of garlic-cheddar biscuits. We ended up eating only a quarter of the total batch of meatballs, so we had sauced leftovers, and a container of cooked meatballs in the freezer.

Sardinian Meatballs

1 lb ground pork
1/4 C dried bread crumbs or 1/2 C fresh bread crumbs
2 eggs
6 T grated pecorino cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 to 3 T olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 14-oz can tomatoes, roughly chopped
1/2 C water

In a bowl, combine the pork, bread crumbs, eggs, cheese, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and mixed together until smooth. Form the mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter.

In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and water, mix well, and then add the meatballs.

Bring the sauce to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the meatballs are cooked through and tender, about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potatoes or spaghetti. Serves 4 to 6.

Source: Joyce Goldstein, care of The Wednesday Chef