Rachael Ray

I once had a plan for an all-meatball restaurant. It was going to have nothing but meatballs on the menu — Italian meatballs, Swedish meatballs, Japanese chicken meatballs, Szechuan “lion’s head” meatballs, Vietnamese purple meatballs. And, best of all, the restaurant would have been shaped like a meatball. That got me most excited of all. That tells you how my mind works.

This plan, like so many others, never came close to fruition; I rarely even bring it up at cocktail parties any more. But two other guys had the same idea and just opened a meatball restaurant on the lower east side. The meatballs at The Meatball Shop are uniformly excellent, except for the ones that aren’t made of meat. But why would they be any good? The best are spicy pork meatballs which you can get in a parmesan cream sauce. Boo Yeah! And even the Subway meatball sandwich is now inexplicably good. Coming on the heels of the meatball contest I just judged, not to mention the one I competed in, and I think we are in the midst of a meatball renaissance. And why not? Meatballs are pretty easy to make, they feed people in bunches, they’re nearly impossible to screw up, and even the worst ones are still good.

Rachael is the queen of meatballs, of course. She’s done every imaginable kind at one time or another, from the most basic back-of-the-breadcrumb-box recipe possible, to this postmodern masterpiece, a piece of conceptual art worthy of the Whitney. And what’s more,they’re all good. But at the end of the day, Rachael is Sicilian, so I’m sure that the meatball closest to her heart is the one she learned how to make from in her girlhood, forming them in her tiny hands after her mom’s example. And, happily, this recipe is hidden away in the site, where I have located it. This isn’t a quick or easy one, but the meatball it produces is the highest of its kind, and I am going to try to make it, once I get a bag of hamburger meat from my butcher. (I like to use a richer blend than the ground sirloin she recommends in the recipe. Meatballs should be maximally juicy, I’m sorry. I suspect that in her heart of hearts she knows this too. But she doesn’t want to make you fat.)

Anyway, here’s the recipe. It’s very similar to the one created by the Frankie’s Spuntino guys here in New York, which won the meatball contest I judged. But, of course, it’s better.

Sicilian Meatballs

* 4-5 slices of bread, torn up
* 3/4 cup milk
* 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), plus extra for drizzling, divided
* 2 cans San Marzano plum tomatoes (28 ounces)
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 2 pounds ground sirloin
* 4 cloves garlic, chopped
* 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
* 1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
* 1 teaspoon allspice
* A pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
* 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and chopped
* 1/4 cup currants
* 1 egg
* 1 pint ricotta cheese
* 1/2 cup basil leaves, torn

For the salad:

* 3 hearts of romaine lettuce
* 1/2 medium red onion, sliced
* 1 orange, zested and sliced
* 1 lemon, juiced

Preparation

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Pre-heat the oven to 425ºF.

In a small bowl, place torn up bread and pour milk over it; set aside to soak.

Drizzle a good amount of EVOO into a roasting pan, then pour in the two cans of tomatoes and crush them up with your hands or a potato masher. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and set aside while you prepare the meatballs.

In a large bowl, combine ground sirloin, garlic, parsley, grated Parmigiano Reggiano, allspice, red pepper flakes, pine nuts, currants and the egg and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Squeeze out excess milk from the soaking bread (it should be loose and in small pieces), add it to the meat mixture and mix everything with your hands to combine.

Form 12 baseball-size balls, each about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and place them on top of the mashed tomatoes in the roasting pan. Transfer to the oven and roast until the meatballs are brown and cooked through, about 30 minutes.

While the meatballs are cooking, chop and slice the hearts of romaine, red onion and orange and toss together in a large bowl with lemon juice, orange zest, about a tablespoon of EVOO, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Remove the meatballs from the oven. Serve with some ricotta cheese mixed with lots of black pepper and the torn basil alongside and along with the salad.

This is one of many “Yum-o!” recipes - it’s good and good for you. To find out more about Yum-o!, Rachael’s nonprofit organization, go to www.yum-o.org.

Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, as he will tell you immediately upon meeting you. His most recent book, The Hamburger: A History (2008) is available in paperback. Listen to his “The Mr. Cutlets Show” radio program at Heritage Radio Network, or via iTunes. He writes a weekly column on food and dining for Time.