Guidelines: Meatballs.

Rrrepost! Y'know, in case some of you want to stock up on a little something something this weekend.


Meatballs.

I mean, really, I don't need to say much more than that, do I? My recipe is loosely based on Alton Brown's (and by loosely, I mean his ratios are what I roll with); I've found the man's proportions to be pretty solid. But again, meatballs are one of those things that was born of necessity - they were created to use up scraps of meat and to bulk them to feed a crowd. So really, anything goes.

That being said, this is how I usually do:

For every 1.5 lbs. of ground meat (be it beef, pork, veal, turkey, whatever), I use:
3 eggs
1/2 c. bread crumbs (I make my own, but you can use anything from panko to just pulverized leftover bread)
Some kind of milk (I've got half and half in my fridge for coffee at all times, so I use that)
~5 oz. spinach (cooked, drained, chopped. You'll note that that's half a box of frozen spinach, of course - I've used everything from Swiss chard to kale here, too. Just cook it and chop it fine) (And when I say drained, I mean wrap that shit up in a couple of layers of paper towel and actually squeeze the liquid out. Don't be lazy.)
1/2 c. grated hard Italian cheese (Parm, Romano, whatever the fuck)
Soy sauce and Worcestershire to taste
Pepper, dried herbs and spices (parsley, thyme, sage, oregano, red pepper, whatever)
Maybe like one small onion, chopped fine and sweated
However the fuck amount of garlic you want, also chopped fine and sweated

Really, the only tricky thing here is the panade, which is when you dump the bread crumbs into the big-ass bowl you'll be mixing everything in first, then add enough milk to make a thick paste. What happens here is the fats in the milk soak into the starches of the bread crumbs, trapping them within the starch molecules so that the tasty fatty mouth feel is distributed evenly throughout the balls rather than running all over the damn place when you cook 'em. Before you add anything else, let that sit until all the milkstuff is absorbed into the breadstuff.

Then add the eggs, and with your hand, moosh everything together until it's evenly mixed. Then dump everything else in and mix it with your hands until just incorporated. I say 'just incorporated' because the more you beat the shit out of the proteins in the meat, the more springy and tough they get. So try not to mash everything around any more than you really have to.

Here comes the fun part, the one that most home cooks pass up, hoping they can just skate on the recipe and everything will turn out great. Heat up a small pan with a dab of oil, pinch off a little of your meatball mix, and cook up a little test patty.

THEN FUCKING TASTE IT TO SEE IF IT'S GOOD OR NOT.

If it is, great. If not, add more shit to it and repeat the process until the test patty tastes like how you want your meatballs to taste. Jesus, you people and your not tasting shit as you make it. If you wait until the end, how will you know it's good?

Is your mix good? Awesome. It's time to portion them out. Now, since the mix is uniform in density (because you mixed it properly, right?), you can do this step by weight or by volume. Me, I use an old 1 fl. oz. ice cream scoop I inherited from my folks, so it's both utilitarian AND nostalgic. You, use whatever you want. Doesn't really matter on size so long as they're all the same. (Don't be an asshole and try to make 6 oz. meatballs. Or if you do, stuff them with something like rice or proscuitto so you don't have raw meat on the inside and burnt-ass shit on the out.) Portion them out onto a sheet tray lined with parchment first, then once you've got everything measured, go back and roll them into balls. Trust me, it's faster this way.

Here, you can try an optional step for funsies. Remember when I said working proteins makes them tough? I like to slap the balls between my hands a little before I roll them so the exterior gets tough and holds its shape in the oven. Again, totally optional.

Once everything's all portioned out and rolled, fire up your oven to 400 degrees and bake them until they're done. For my oven and my portion scoop, that means about 25 minutes until the balls are cooked all the way through. For you, that'll vary on how good your oven is and how big you made your balls. Figure it out. Cut one open after 20 minutes, see what's up.

And that's that. Seeing as how this is a somewhat involved process, I'd recommend making around 3 lbs. of meat's worth of balls at a batch, using what you need for dinner, then freezing the rest on sheet trays until frozen, then putting them in a labeled gallon-sized Ziploc for future use. That way, you can just simmer a few in sauce until they're hot or pop them in the microwave the next time you want meatballs.

And let me tell you - meatballs on demand is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Out.

(mic drop)

On winter.

So I haven't been posting very often recently (I'm trying to make sure to post at least once a week), and there's a reason for it. Philadelphia's in the grip of one of the most ridiculously snowy winters in recent history, and this kind of weather brings a body down. Between the shoveling and the parking and the trying to get anywhere in goddamn town, the season's piling on all these tiny little stresses that wear me out until all I have the energy for at the end of the day is to flop down on the couch with a bowl of something warm and goopy.

And that's what this season does to you, right? This is the season of soups and stews, of long, slow braises. This is the time of year when we cook things that take hours, when we fill the house with the smell of meat and broth. This is the season of fat and collagen.

We eat foods that flood the mouth with flavor and linger on the taste buds, whether it's the thick gravy of a long-cooked short rib or the encompassing swell of a good soup. We want it warm and soothing, fatty and filling. We want it to make us sleepy after. We want it heavy and hot. We want our food to give us a hug.

Because when the chips are down and the world outside is cold and slick and angry, that's all we really need. A hug.

So do yourself a favor this winter. Cook something you can eat with a spoon, whether you're supposed to or not. Cook something that makes you want to lick the bowl after. Stay in and give yourself a food hug. You need it. You deserve it.

On love.

We all express love differently. Whether it's to a significant other, a friend, a family member, when we love, we show that affection through the things we do. Maybe we offer gifts, or perform acts of service. Perhaps we offer words of affirmation. (Maybe someone tells you about love languages.)

One of my favorites has always been food. Whether it was my mom making dinner for the family after a long day at work or me learning how to sear a duck breast perfectly for that special girl, I've found the act of preparing food to be intimate and expressive. Understanding what your audience wants and providing it for them. Creating something with your hands to share with another. All the skill and training in the world can only take you so far. If you cook without love, without care, it is evident in what you create.

And create is the proper term for it. Because you're not just making something to cram into someone's face hole (although that can be another expression of love), you're creating an experience. You're engaging all the senses in a way that can never be exactly replicated. You're forging a finite moment, something with a definite beginning and end that will live on only in memory. And that's beautiful to me. Because it means every time I cook, I have to try just as hard as the last time. I have to put just as much heart and soul into it as I did the day before. It's not a tennis bracelet or a flatscreen TV that can be bought and left as a constant reminder of love. It's an act, a proof of the continuation of my love for that person.

And in saying this, I include myself. Sometimes it's easy to just jam a cheesesteak in me, or throw a Stouffer's lasagna in the oven. It's easy when you live by yourself to forget to cook, to let yourself be sustained by whatever crap you pick up along the way. But sustainment isn't nourishment. For me, it's important to cook for myself. To love myself, whether I'm just melting cheese on chips or orchestrating a short rib braise in coffee and stout and a blue cheese risotto.

So if you're into food, and I'm guessing if you're reading this blog, you are, please. Take the time to cook for yourself. Take the time to love yourself as you would another. Because you're worth it.

Besides, it's good practice for when it's time to love other people.

And by love other people I mean seduce with food.

Happy Valentine's Day, guys. See you next time.

Guidelines: Chili.

I posted this around this time last year - also idea chili weather, I think. Then again, let's be honest; it's always good chili weather.

Chili's one of those dishes that have infinite permutations, from the basest of recipes to the most carefully engineered formulae (I'm looking at you, Darian). Most of the time, I play it fast and loose, adhering to its history of being whatever the fuck happened to be lying around the chuck wagon. I do love to carefully gather ingredients from time to time, building an alchemical masterpiece. But when I don't have the time or energy for it, this is how I tend to roll.


  Around 1.5 lbs. ground meat. I like to use ground sirloin (the 90/10 stuff) because the texture's nice and crumbly.  Feel free to mix it up; my last batch included six strips of bacon that were going to go south in a couple of days.
  Some worcestershire sauce. Some is a technical term.
  Some soy sauce. See above.
  An onion, diced. The size and variety of the onion should depend on whatever the balls you have lying around.
  Between 1 and 40 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and chopped. I set the limit at 40 because unless you're using the two-bowl technique, madness begins to set in after peeling your 37th clove of garlic.
  Whatever other vegetation you have lying around, diced. Bell peppers, chiles, whatever.  Knock yourself out.
  Beer. Tomatoes have flavonoids that dissolve in water, fat, and alcohol, so don't skimp.
  One 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes. Muir Glen makes a really nice fire-roasted variety, but I'll go San Marzano if I can find it. Because San Marzano tomatoes are fucking delicious.
  A splorch of molasses. Usually however much comes out before you can stop it from pouring.
  Chili powder.  Shocking, I know. I generally use chipotle here, but anything from ancho to generic'll do. Come to think of it, you could use chipotles in adobo to get that flavor, but careful. That shit is hot.
  Oregano, cumin, and paprika. Really, these are optional, but this herb and these spices in particular work really well in chili. If you have it, go smoked on the paprika. If you don't, throw out your regular paprika and get your ass to the store for some smoked.
  Whatever other spices you want. I like to use coriander and cardamom because I don't use them in much else, and I kind of want to get rid of them.
  Cocoa powder. Yeah, I said it.
  One 15.5 oz. can of beans, drained and rinsed. Red kidney, cannelini, black, pinto, whatever floats your boat.

1. In a pot big enough to hold the chili (and really, if you can't eye that kind of thing up, just go with the first pot in your set that has handles on both sides), brown the meat.  A lot of recipes say work in batches to get some nice browning, but unless I'm really trying to impress someone, I've generally found it isn't worth the time - big flavor gets built in from other steps. If working with a wooden spoon is giving you agita, try using a potato masher.
2. Dump the meat into a bowl, released juices and fat and all. Add worchestershire and soy sauces until it's tasty enough to eat with a spoon. Not a fork. A spoon.
3. Bring the pot back up to heat and sweat the onions, garlic, and spare vegetation. Note that I said sweat, not burn.  Keep 'em moving.
4. The liquid released from the onions should have been enough to dig up any brown bits left behind from the meat (if any), but just in case, hit the pot with a little beer to deglaze. If you don't know what deglaze means, bring it to a boil and scrape the bottom and sides with whatever utensil you're using until nothing's sticking anymore. It's essentially the same thing.
5. Dump in the tomatoes. Not literally, as it'll glomp out and splatter all over the place if you do it fast enough. Trust me. Bring it back up to a simmer.
6. Add the molasses, herbs, spices, whatever. Gun to my head, I'd say 2 tbsp. chili powder and 1 tbsp. of the rest to start (I just dump the spices into my cupped hand to eyeball it), then add 1 tsp. each in rotation until you get the flavor you're looking for. If you want more heat, throw in whatever you've got in the door of your fridge - Tabasco, Frank's Red Hot, and sriracha all work well.  If it gets too hot, hit it with a little more molasses to mellow it out.
7. By the time you're done with 6, everything should have simmered long enough to be soft and stick-blendable if you're into that sort of thing. If you like your chili chunky (or you don't have a stick blender), skip this step.
8. Add the meat and beans back into the pot. If there isn't enough gravy, add beer until there is. Drink whatever's left.
9. Bring to a simmer and hold for however long you feel like it. Truth is, all the flavors should meld enough to be tasty in about 20 minutes, but I just let it go until I have to go to bed so I can keep picking at it.

Note: like most (if not all) things that involve tomato, the chili will taste even better the next day. I can't tell you the exact science of it, but it has to do with the acids and glutamates inherent in that magical fruit going to town on everyone at the party.

So that's that. Cheers, guys. I'll see you next time.