Meatballs Constructed...Meatballs Deconstructed

Hello all!! As I'm writing this blog, I have two dinners roasting away in the oven. Those will be in the next post later this week :) Tonight's blog is similar to the last blog post in that the recipes use a common ingredient. If you couldn't guess it by the title of this blog, that common ingredient is meatballs! Up first is Rachael Ray's "Veal & Pork Meatballs with Mushroom Gravy & Egg Noodles".Using the leftover meatballs, the second recipe in this post will be Rachael's "Stuffed Peppers with Broken Meatballs & Rice". First up, the meatballs, constructed.

So first up I made the meatballs. This recipe is a great go-to recipe for meatballs and would be perfect to make extra and pop them in the freezer for when you wanna make meatballs. These meatballs use a mixture of ground pork and ground veal. Where i live in NY now they have something called meatloaf mix. It's a mix of ground beef, pork, and veal. You could use that in this if you wanted. If not, you can get a pound and a quarter each of ground pork and ground veal. For my friends back in Alabama, unless you go to Whole Foods or a butcher shop, you might have a problem finding the ground veal. If so, you can totally substitute 2 1/2 lbs of ground pork. First I preheated the oven to 400 and then I put the bread in a bowl and doused with milk. A great tip is to save white bread when it starts going stale by popping it in the freezer. All you have to do then is thaw out a couple slices when you need them. Next i put the ground pork and veal in a bowl. Then I took the bread slices, squeezed the milk out of them, and crumbled the bread into crumbs in the bowl with the meat mixture. The milk soaked bread will help to bind the meatballs and keep them moist. Next i added in the beaten egg, Parmigiano-Reggiano, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg and a healthy drizzle of EVOO. At this point I mixed up the meatball mixture. You want to make sure all the ingredients are well combined, but don't over mix. Once mixed, I portioned out the meatballs. I find the easiest way to do this and get them all about the same size is to use a small ice cream scoop (which I actually never use for ice cream lol). Once all the meatballs are made you should have about 40-48 meatballs. Rachael Tip: Place the meatballs on a cooling rack over a baking sheet so that the heat gets all the way around them in the oven. I also put some foil down on the baking sheet to catch the fat as it drips. It makes for easier cleanup later. The meatballs will bake for about 18-20 minutes. While they are in the oven you can make the mushroom gravy! 

First up I added the dried porcini mushrooms into a small sauce pot and covered with about 2 cups of chicken stock. Dried mushrooms are pretty common in the regular grocery stores these days but if you can't find them, you can omit them. The downside to omitting them is that you won't get the added bonus of the mushroom stock that comes from reconstituting the mushrooms. Bring the pot to a low boil and then turn down to a simmer and let the mushrooms steep while you work on the gravy. I added the EVOO and butter to the skillet and while it melted I sliced the crimini mushrooms. Rachael Tip: NEVER run mushrooms under running water to clean them. This makes them rubbery. Instead, take a wet paper towel or kitchen towel and wipe them down. Once the butter foamed I added in the mushrooms and let them brown. Rachael Tip: DO NOT salt the mushrooms until they are deeply browned. Adding salt will draw out liquid and will slow down the browning process. Once browned I added the shallot, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and let it cook a few minutes to soften the shallots and garlic. Be careful not to let the shallots or garlic burn. These cook up very quickly and if they go too far it will turn the garlic bitter. After the shallots and garlic were softened i sprinkled in some flour and stirred for a minute or so to cook out the flour. At this point I added in the wine. The recipe calls for Marsala. Marsala and mushrooms is a marriage made in heaven. I didn't have Marsala on hand and just didn't wanna make a trip to the wine store. I did have dry sherry so I used that instead. You could also substitute a dry white wine as well. After the wine cooked out for a few minutes I removed the reconstituted porcini from the stock, chopped them and added them into the gravy. I then added in all but the last little bit of the porcini stock. Rachael Tip: When working with dried mushrooms, always reserve the last bit of stock. Grit from the dried mushrooms will settle in at the bottom of the pot and if you pour all the stock in, you'll be pouring in the grit as well. Once the gravy thickened i added in a little cream, stirred to combine and reduced the heat to low to keep the gravy warm while I made the boiled the egg noodles. Once the noodles were done, the dish was ready to plate up. I plated some of the noodles, piled the meatballs on top, and poured the mushroom gravy on top. 

This one was really great and reminded me of a classic Swedish meatball dish. The recipe for the meatballs makes two trays of meatballs. One is used in this dish and the other tray is used in the next dish. Here is the steps for the meatballs, deconstructed.

In this meal, the leftover meatballs are coarsely crumbled and combined with a rice pilaf to make a stuffing for bell peppers. The first thing to do is to prepare the peppers. You can use bell peppers of any color you choose. Rachael used Red so naturally, I did what Rachael did. By all means, if you wanna use a different color or even mix and match different ones, go for it. To prepare them, I sliced them lengthwise in half and scooped out the ribs and seeds from the peppers. Using a pairing knife, I made an "X" in the flesh of the peppers. Be careful doing this. I got in a hurry and actually sliced all the way through one of my peppers. It held up ok, but still, be careful. At this point I salted and peppered the inside of the peppers, placed them cut side down in a baking sheet, drizzled with EVOO and baked them for 20 minutes. Doing this helps to soften the peppers a bit and gives them a head start for when you add in the filling. While the peppers were in the oven, I started the filling. 

The first thing I did was make the tomato sauce. I grated the plum tomatoes on a box grated into a dish. This skins the tomatoes while you grate them and makes quick work of the whole process. Once the tomatoes were grated, I grated in the purple onion and garlic and added in the chopped fresh thyme, salt and pepper. This recipe calls for a fresno chile pepper to be grated into the sauce. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to find these in months up here. So like in the last post, I used a rounded tablespoon of the chili paste I have in the fridge. Once the sauce was made I started the rice pilaf. 

For the pilaf I added a drizzle of EVOO and some butter to my rice pot. When the butter foamed I added in about 1/2 cup of broken thin spaghetti. Something that is a little easier, and actually what the recipe calls for, is to use 1/2 cup of Orzo pasta. Orzo is rice shaped pasta and works perfectly in rice pilaf. I mistakenly bought thin spaghetti at the store a couple months ago, so rather than waste it, i'm using that for pilaf when I make. Anyway, once added to the pot I let the pasta toast until deeply golden, as you see in the picture here, and it has a nutty fragrance. Once the pasta start to brown, it will brown quickly, so keep an eye on it. Once the pasta was nice and golden I added in half the tomato sauce and the rice and stirred it a couple minutes to allow the rice to toast up a little bit. At this point I added in the chicken stock, brought it to a boil, and reduced the heat to simmer. For long grain white rice, it should take 18 minutes to cook. I always go by 18 minutes and it always comes out perfect. While the pilaf is cooking, you can crumble up the meatballs. You want the meatballs to be coarsely crumbled. If you crumble it too fine, the meat will get lost in the stuffing. Once the rice pilaf was done I added the rice mixture to the meatballs along with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. At this point I stuffed the peppers. I read one reviewer on food network.com who said that you could probably cut the filling in half. DO NOT DO THAT! My guess is this person didn't see Rachael make this and didn't see that she packs the peppers full. The filling was just enough to stuff all the peppers for me. Don't be skimpy with it. Pack them full!! Once the peppers were stuffed I topped them with the remaining tomato sauce, some more parmigiana-reggiano cheese, and and a drizzle of EVOO. 

Once they were baked I took them out of the oven and plated up two pepper halves per plate. These were so delicious. I've never been a huge stuffed pepper fan but these were great. I'll definitely be making these again. Hope you guys enjoy these recipes. Later this week, I'll be doing another post. That one will be a first for me. Tonight I made dinner and then also did a make ahead meal for Wednesday. I joined the gym yesterday and will be going for a training session Wednesday night so I needed to be able to get dinner on the table quickly after that. Rachael would be so proud to know I'm using her Week in a Day recipe and the strategy of cooking ahead for the week. Until then, Hope you guys enjoy the recipes and give them a shot. As always the recipe links will be below. Also, the link for Rachael's #9millionmeals challenge will be listed as well. If you can, please take the time to donate. $10.00 can supply 100 meals. Until next time guys, Buon Appetite!!

Recipes:

Both of these recipes were featured on Rachael Ray's Week In A Day and can be found at the links below:

Veal & Pork Meatballs w/ Mushroom Gravy & Egg Noodles:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/veal-and-pork-meatballs-with-mushroom-gravy-and-egg-noodles-recipe.html

Stuffed Peppers w/ Broken Meatballs and Rice:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/stuffed-peppers-with-broken-meatballs-and-rice-recipe.html

Donate to Rachael Ray's #9millionmeals challenge here:
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/9-million-meals/

Two Blogs For The Price Of One

Hello All! So for this blog, I'm gonna be posting about two separate dinners that utilized one protein, Braised Pork Shoulder!! For this post, I'll be talking to you about Rachael Ray's "Braised Pork Tacos" and "Pork Ragu". First up, the tacos!

First I made the pickled onions. These are simple and such a nice pop of acidity in the tacos. I combined the vinegar, sugar, salt and bay leaves in a pot and brought it up to a boiled to dissolve the sugar. While the vinegar mixture was heating, I sliced the onions and layered them in a deli container. A great container for these is those soup containers you get when you order a quart of soup from a Chinese take-out place. I always keep the soup containers and use them to store different things or even to put fresh herbs in on my countertop. Once the sugar dissolved I poured the brine over the onions and allowed them to cool for a bit. Once they stopped steaming, I put the lid on the container, gave it a good shake and put it in the fridge. Every so often until dinner was ready, I took them out and gave them a good shake.

Next, I switched on the oven to preheat to 325 degrees. You'll need to get a boneless pork shoulder between 4 & 5 pounds. My grocery store only had bone-in. I brought it home and deboned it myself. It ended up being a lot of work and I'm sure a butcher could have done it much better. What I would suggest, is if your store doesn't have boneless pork shoulder, take it to the butcher counter and ask the butcher to debone it for you. Most will do it at no additional charge or may charge a couple extra dollars to do so. For all my Birmingham friends, I know for a fact Whole Foods carries boneless pork shoulder, so that's where I would suggest going to get it. To prepare the pork, I took it out of the fridge and allowed it to sit and come to room temperature for about 30 minutes and then patted it dry. Rachael Tip: Patting the meat dry will help you to get a nice crust on the outside of the meat. Once patted dry, I seasoned liberally with kosher salt and pepper. Kosher salt gives meat a great crust, but if you don't have it and don't want to spend the extra money, whatever salt you have will work fine. Once seasoned, I added the meat to a dutch oven with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil over high heat. I actually put my burner on 9, just a little below high. I find that with the electric stove, putting it on high ends up creating too much smoke and my little builder grade exhaust hood just can't keep up with it and my smoke alarms end up going off. Putting it a little below high seems to help with the problem. If you have a gas stove, you will probably be fine. There is just something about the electric coil tops. While the pork was browning, I chopped the onion, garlic, chili pepper and oregano. Once the pork was nice and deeply browned on all sided I took it out of the pot and put it on a plate and covered it with foil. I then turned down the burner to medium-high heat and added in a couple tablespoons of EVOO. I then added in the onion, garlic, chili pepper, oregano and bay leaves. Just a quick note on the fresno chili pepper. For whatever reason, I have found it very difficult to find them anywhere up here for several months now. I have a jar of chili pepper paste that I got in the asian foods section of the grocery store. I have found that using a good rounded tablespoon of that is comparable to 1 fresno chili pepper, so if you can't find the fresh chills you can substitute the chili pepper paste. Once the veggies softened for a while I deglazed the pan with the beer. Typically, when Rachael uses a Mexican beer in a recipe, she suggests to use a Negro Modello. I don't drink beer, so typically I would just purchase 1 beer and use that. The problem there is that the grocery stores here do not allow you to purchase 1 beer. Whole Foods will, but that's a good 20 miles away from me, and I typically don't drive there. For this recipe, I decided to just get a 6 pack of beer in the bottles and use it and then I'd have it for the next time I needed it. Sadly, my store did not have Negro Modello so I instead bought a 6 pack of Dos Equis. The point is that since it's a Mexican inspired meal to use a Mexican beer. If you are a beer drinker then pick up whatever Mexican beer you enjoy drinking. Once I deglazed the pan and scraped up all the bits off the bottom of the pot, I added in the fresh squeezed orange juice, chicken stock and nestled the pork back into the pot. At this point I brought the liquid to a boil, put a lid on the pot and put it into the oven to braise for about 3 hours. 


Once the pork was tender and literally falling apart when pulled with a fork, I took the pork out of the oven, removed it from the dutch oven to my cutting board, tented with foil, and allowed to cool. While the pork cooled, I put the dutch oven over medium-high to high heat and reduced the braising liquid. You want it to reduce by about half and get pretty thick so that when the pork is added back in, it coats the meat. While the pork is cooling and the liquid is reducing, you can process your chipotle peppers in adobo. Chipotle in adobo are smoked jalapeño peppers in a vinegar and spice mixture. The problem with these is that most recipes call for 1 pepper, 2 at most. You're

then left with a can full of peppers that you have to figure out what to do with. Rachael, has just the trick. Rachael Tip: Take your remaining chipotle peppers and slice them open, seed them and add them into a blender or food processor with all the adobo sauce and process them into a puree. Once pureed, add into a plastic food storage bag and make into a little log and put it in the freezer. The next time you are cooking a recipe with chipotle in adobo, break off what you need and put the rest back in the freezer. Be sure to label it so you know what it is later on when you come across it in the freezer. This tip is really great and it's a perfect way to store the chipotle without worrying it'll go bad before you use it again. When I do use the frozen puree at a later date, I generally cut off an inch per pepper the recipe calls for. So that means if the recipe calls for 1 pepper, cut off an inch of the frozen puree. I've included a couple pictures here so you have an idea what i'm talking about. Once the meat was cool enough to handle I shredded it with two forks. When the sauce had reduced enough, I added in the chipotle pepper and lime juice, stirred to combine and then added about 2/3 of the pork into the sauce and stirred to combine that as well. The other 1/3 of the pork was placed into a plastic container and put in the fridge until I made the pork ragu later in the week! While the pork was in the oven, I shredded up some monterey jack cheese, shredded a little purple cabbage, and lastly, just before ready to serve, I heated the tortillas by placing them between damp paper towels and popping them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. You can also put them in the oven for a few minutes or blister them in a dry skillet on the stove top. 


To plate the tacos, I placed the tortillas on the plate and spooned in a little of the pork mixture. I then topped the pork with the monterey jack cheese, shredded cabbage and pickled onions. The recipe also calls for you to add either pickled jalapeños or banana pepper rings on top of the tacos. I didn't want to spend the extra money for either because I knew they would go bad before I used them again so I omitted them but they would definitely add another pop of color and a nice spicy bite to the tacos. These were good and had a great depth of flavor to them. Next up is the Pork Ragu made from the remaining pulled pork!

Typically during the week, I cook dinner on Sunday night and then again on Wednesday night. The tacos were Sunday dinner and the Pork Ragu was Wednesday's dinner. 

To kick this recipe off, I heated up a dutch over over medium-high heat. While the pot was heating I chopped up the carrot, celery, onion and garlic. Once chopped I added in the EVOO to the pan and all of the chopped veggies, the bay leaf and seasoned with salt and pepper. Once the veggies had softened, I added the tomato paste and stirred it a minute to wake it back up. Rachael Tip: Stir the tomato paste until it is fragrant. It's been in a tube for a while and needs to be woken up. Once the tomato paste was fragrant I added in the white wine and deglazed the pan, picking up the bits stuck to the bottom of the pan from softening the veggies. Once the wine had cooked out a couple minutes I added in the chicken stock, the shredded pork and a pinch of ground cloves. Once the sauce had come back up to a simmer I added in the whole milk, reduced the heat and allowed the sauce to simmer while i brought the pasta water to a boil and cooked the pasta. Rachael Tip: The milk will add fat to the sauce and allow the sauce and it's flavors to stay on your tongue longer. 

Once the pasta water came to a boil, I salted the water and dropped the pasta. For this sauce, you really need to use a wide pasta like paparadelle. If you aren't going to use a long cut pasta and are instead going to use a short cut pasta, I would suggest using a penne rigate or a rigatoni. I use an egg paparadelle for this that I get in the organic section of my supermarket. For my birmingham friends, Whole Foods carries this and it's fantastic. I cooked the pasta to al dente, drained it and put it back in the hot pot. Rachael Tip: Putting the pasta back into the hot pot will evaporate the remaining water off of the pasta. At this point I tossed the pasta with the pork ragu, plated it and topped it with chopped fresh flat leaf parsley and freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese. This one is super comforting and very nicely flavored. I hope you guys enjoy these and will give them a shot. You won't be disappointed.

Don't forget about the Rachael Ray #9millionmeals challenge. The link to donate will be posted below along with the links to the recipes featured in this blog. Until next time, Buon Appetito!!

Recipes:

Both of these recipes were featured on Rachael Ray's Week In A Day and can be found at the links below.

Braised Pork Tacos:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/braised-pork-tacos-recipe.html

Pork Ragu: 
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/pork-ragu-recipe.html

Click below to donate to the Rachael Ray #9millionmeals challenge!!
 http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/9-million-meals/