Homemade Meatball Recipe – Chef Pasquale 

Broken English

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A meatball is ground meat rolled into a small ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning.

Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce.

There are many types of meatballs using different types of meats and spices. The term is sometimes extended to meatless versions based on vegetables or fish; the latter are commonly known as fishballs.

The ancient Roman cookbook Apicius included many meatball-type recipes.

Early recipes included in some of the earliest known Arabic cookbooks generally feature seasoned lamb rolled into orange-sized balls and glazed with egg yolk and sometimes saffron. This method was taken to the West and is referred to as gilding. Many regional variations exist.

• In Italy, meatballs (named polpette [polˈpette], sing. polpetta) are generally eaten as a main course or in a soup. The main ingredients of an Italian meatball are beef and/or pork and sometimes poultry or sausage, salt, black pepper, chopped garlic, olive oil, Romano cheese, eggs, bread crumbs, and parsley, mixed and rolled by hand to a golf ball size. In the Abruzzo region of Italy, especially in the Province of Teramo, the meatballs are typically the size of marbles and are called polpettine.

In the United States, meatballs are commonly derived from European cuisine influence. Usually, they are served with spaghetti, on pizza, or on a sub, as in spaghetti and meatballs, meatball pizza, and meatball sandwich. In the southern United States, venison or beef is also often mixed with spices and baked into large meatballs that can be served as an entree. Another variation, called “porcupine meatballs” are basic meatballs often with rice in them.

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