I recently had a “meatball sandwich” from an establishment that shall remain nameless. My friend got one too, and we were both a little confused when our sandwiches came out with lettuce, tomato, and onion on them.
What??
Is this a Bay Area thing? This has happened to me here before, and I don’t get it.
Hot meatballs and marinara sauce + cold, bland toppings… does not compute.
To top it all off, the food from said establishment left us both with stomach aches all afternoon.
It goes without saying that I needed to make this right, so a few days later I cooked up my own meatball sandwiches.
We definitely have some of the usual suspects here, although I used goat cheese where I normally use parmesan. And the meat mixture is beef and pork sausage; apparently I needed some really fattening meatballs to get over the previously mentioned atrocity.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind when making meatballs (and I could make a lot of jokes here, but I’ll spare you) is to not overwork your meat! I know you’re worried that it won’t get mixed properly, and that’s why I always thoroughly mix everything but the meat first. That way you’re combining the meat with one homogeneous mixture instead of 10 different ingredients.
These meatballs are baked because dammit, it’s just easier that way. You still get a nice outer crunch, they all cook evenly, and you don’t have to tend to them at all. While they bake, a simple sauce (with even more goat cheese) gets made and they’re ready to go at the same time. At that point you could always leave them in the sauce on very low heat to keep warm until you’re ready to eat!
I mean really, as Ina would say, how easy is thaaaat?