How to Make Italian Meatballs

How to Make Italian Meatballs Hi! I'm Chef Phil Anderson, Harris Teeter's Executive Chef. We are going to make some Italian style meatballs. We are going to start off by using one-and-a-half pounds of ground beef, two tablespoons of tomato paste, a quarter cup of Panko, three mushrooms chopped up really well, half of an onion chopped up really well, about three tablespoons of finely chopped basil and then two tablespoons of Kalamata olives, four tablespoons of grated Reggiano Parmesan, some black pepper to taste and I do about - that's about a tablespoon, and then some Extra Virgin olive oil that we are going to sauté our meatballs in. Okay, let's throw all of the stuff together. Okay, this is the tomato paste that we're putting in there and then we are going to put the mushrooms, the onions, Kalamata olives, all of this stuff is just going to go in there, basil. Now some chefs say “you never cut basil.” But you are not—you are using this for flavor not to eyeball it. So it's okay to cut it with the knife and then finally the pepper, put some. Now the mushrooms give it a lot of flavor but it also makes it very moist. So we are going to have to add a quarter cup of Panko to firm it up a little bit. Now, we are just going to mix this up. Now, you don't want to overwork your beef. So you want get it mixed up really nice, but you don't want overwork it. Now, you want to make this like ping-pong balls sized shape. Make sure you got all of those ingredients incorporated nicely, and then just take a little—put that there, maybe a little bit bigger than a ping-pong ball size. It's really important to get a tight ball because you want them to cook evenly and they will cook evenly if you have one side it's got a gapping crack in it. You notice that I didn't put any salt in this recipe. Well, you have Kalamata olives and the Reggiano Parmesan and with those two ingredients, there is plenty of sodium. So you don't need salt. Okay, there we have it. Now we are going to take these to the stove top and finish them off. Put a little olive oil into the pan. There is no need to get it hot right away. We are only going to do a few of these at a time, because you don't want to overcrowd your pan. So let's do six. Move the olive all onto the meatball. We use this to turn it. And what you're doing you are just playing with these the entire time, and moving them around. You want to keep them on the heat though. You don't want to take them off the heat because you're not going to cook them. I just want to move them—keep moving them around. Now you've got cheese in there that will burn so you don't want to keep them in one place for very long. You will cook them evenly on all the sides. Okay with that sizzle, we are starting to get warmed up. We can smell that aroma really nice, it's wafting really nicely. I am going to allow some of the onion in there. We are getting close to being done. So we just want to—just keep it moving. Now that they are pretty much cooked you can tell they are standing together a little bit easier, nice color covers the firmness. The mushroom will keep them moist. So, there you have it, the Italian All Beef Meatballs. Enjoy!