I love to cook. I've made some great meals in my time and most of the really great ones involved some meat or seafood. Ribeye, scallops, tuna or even chicken or pork. But this vegetarian meatball recipe is in my top 10 for sure. I sourced the crux of the recipe via the video I link to below. I modified some of the ingredients, but it's basically the same.

Ingredients for 16 small meatballs with my changes from video:

1.5 pound white mushrooms, chopped into very small pieces

2 tbsp olive oil

pinch of salt to sauté mushrooms

1 tbsp butter

1/2 cup minced shallots (video uses onion)

4 minced garlic cloves

1/2 cup instant oatmeal

1/2 cup (oat bran) video calls for bread crumbs

packed 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (video says parsley)

handful of shredded cheddar and provolone cheese (video uses Parmigiano-Reggiano -which is certainly more traditional. I just didn't have any on hand and it really just acts as a binder/salt agent)

1 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper and cayenne to taste as well as paprika.

pinch of dried oregano

2 eggs

3 cups of your favorite pasta sauce.

*Let mixture sit overnight in fridge. Bake meatballs for 12-15 at 450 degrees F., then simmer in sauce for 30-60 minutes before serving.

Here is a video that helped me along: Meatball Video

Here are some pics:

First thing you do is chop up a whole bunch of mushrooms

Then you sauté the mushrooms till they brown. Then add in the shallots till they brown slightly. Then you turn off the heat and add garlic and stir it in. Then take contents and put it in a mixing bowl. Add the oatmeal, salt, pepper, oat bran and an egg and mix together. Add oregano, cayenne, paprika and another egg. Mix together and it should look something like this:

Keep this mixture in the fridge overnight. The next day make them in to balls and place them in the oven at 450 for 15 minutes. They should come out looking like this:

Then place them in your pasta sauce and let them sauté for at least a half hour. I let mine sauté for 45 minutes. It looked like this:

Here is a shot of the completed meatballs:

What kid doesn't love spaghetti and meatballs?

Oh, and a nice red with some tannins to cut through that sauce is recommended:

ENJOY!

humanodon:

This looks pretty good. What kind of paprika did you use?

Here is a sauce recipe (which is kind of a pain in the butt, because red sauce is a pain in the butt to make):

You will need :

1/2 a yellow onion (grated)

1 carrot (grated)

1 stalk celery (finely minced. First cut into fine strips and then cut against the grain)

3 - 6 cloves of garlic (at least two crushed and one grated with a microplane or a zester if you like a lot of garlic flavor)

Some tomato paste (the kind in a tube is better than the cans, but canned is cool too)

3 large, dried bay (laurel) leaves

1 or 2 basil plants worth of fresh basil leaves (chiffonaded) and their stalks (finely chopped)

Some parsley

Some fresh thyme or oregano

Salt & Pepper

Olive Oil

A little unsalted butter

A little honey

Lemon (and its zest, if you like)

Some paprika (I like smoked)

A couple chili peppers (dried or fresh)

Some red wine

A rind from a hard, aged cheese like Parmigiano-Reggiano or Peccorino Romano, whatever you've got

3 lbs or 1.5 kg fresh, ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded (to do this, blanch and then shock in ice-water) but not chopped.

Saute onion, carrot, celery and basil stalks in olive oil and butter with the bay leaves and a pinch of salt until the carrot, celery and basil stalks are soft, med-low heat. Add garlic, chili peppers and paprika and cook a few minutes longer, adding more oil or butter as needed. Add about 1.5 tbsp tomato paste and a little honey, to take away the sourness and make sure everything is coated in it. Add one or two glasses of wine and scrape the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce a little. Add the tomatoes and salt generously. Throw in the cheese rind. If you want to get fancy, this is a good time to add roasted red peppers. Allow to simmer for . . . well, drink the rest of the wine at least, stirring often and scraping the sides down, tasting each time. When the tomatoes have broken down to your liking, add the chiffonaded herbs and the lemon zest and remove from the heat and add some olive oil and some black pepper. Ideally, allow the sauce to cool completely and allow it to rest at least overnight. If the sauce is salty when it's cool, add some lemon juice and/or some honey. If it is too spicy, add some honey or sugar. If it tastes burnt, throw it away. Or eat it, bitterly.

Anyway, that's how I make sauce. Yeah, it comes out a little different each time, but I like the results I get.

Edit: Also, fish out the bay leaves and the cheese rind and discard them.

Edit 2: The proportions of the onion, carrot and celery should be roughly the same, but more carrot and onion than celery.


posted 3927 days ago