making stuff

I think it’s time, about a year into this project to be clear about one of the intentions we have with the blog. Cub, my biweekly editor (one of many of Cub’s roles at Rainbow, in my life), knows that I usually avoid legibility. But I want to tell you that one reason we write about cooking is that we want to write about making, in a way that we can possibly do together if you’re interested, and it’s important that it’s something you consume. We can be hostile toward what we don’t understand, so while cooking cannot help you read a tech sheet it can help develop a sympathetic ear when listening to a winemaker’s process. Because you too navigate choices, working with raw materials that are ideally of the highest quality but not always. Cooked dishes shifting with the slow touch of experience. And while you can make meatballs 20 times in a year, it would take a winemaker 20 years to make wine 20 times. Certainly an oversimplification but still a useful one I think.

Meatballs were the first food where I started making those considerations, trying to imagine my process more sensually (this blog post from last year also touches on that). It was in 2018, my old boss Ethan Pikas texted me the recipe I use most often. Except I’ve never used the same ingredients he does because my pantry is different so it’s like Pikas karaoke. Also his recipes feel extremely tailored to his sensibility which will never be my sensibility. Even if I did use the same ingredients my food will not taste like his. I think that’s related to what we call gesture around here (“[gesture] encompasses the movements of the body as well as the mind”). Again another lesson for when you hear about mentorship and traces of influence.

Aside from ingredients (flavors) there is the technique. How you prepare. Once I was making breadcrumbs for the recipe and was having a hard time getting them to a uniform smallness. So I thought what if they were chunky? What is that like? I imagined the small crumbs melting and binding and the large ones announcing the work they were doing. Like how Ina Garten suggests to put lemon slices on a lemon cake, so everyone knows what to expect. Sometimes I want to get the studded effect from a nut or currant. Shifting the feeling texturally and the flavor.

Once you’ve made your mix you get to choose what shape and size they will take. There are spheres, torpedoes, sort of flattened balls as well. My dad likes to make huge meatballs to put on top of spaghetti. We didn’t grow up with this dish and there is something nice about the hyper-American, personal meatloaf decision. Mine are typically the “meat/protein” on the table along with some vegetables on the side so are sort of a medium size. I also like them served on top of a chunky romaine salad for the classic dish “meatball salad”. As you cut into the meatball you cut into the lettuce for something hot and cold and soft and crunchy. After Cub’s blog last week I thought of a more conceptual orb dish where your gnocchi and your meatballs are the same size; arranged on a plate or low bowl with a shower of cheese. I also imagine them as little polpettini sitting back in the spaghetti, so you can stab one with your fork while wrapping the spaghetti around the rest.

For this recipe, what I hope is a site of experimentation and play, I’m going to just give the ratios and let you go. Because they can be seared and braised in tomato sauce or baked in the oven, poached in broth, turned into the patties and fried. It calls for half lamb half pork though I’ve also used beef and veal. You want the weight to be the same so the proportions of the rest of the ingredients are correct. The key to making the meatballs is imagining the result of your actions whether for yourself or others. Like, if you’re trying to evenly mix crushed red pepper into a meatball would it maybe be nicer to distribute all over the surface of the contents of your bowl rather than dump it? Should you use pine nuts, if you do should you toast them? Should you soak the breadcrumbs in the kefir or yogurt before mixing them in or are you gonna skip it and see what happens? Did you make the breadcrumbs or use panko? How hot do I want the pan when the meatballs go in, which shape caramelizes best, do I keep the fat when I add the sauce? What do I want people to feel? I don’t think I can tell you those things. The thing I do recommend is refrigerating them before cooking because it helps the meatballs retain the chosen shape.

Meatballs inspired by Ethan Pikas

makes maybe more than you need but you can halve the recipe or freeze the leftovers (cooked or raw). Cooked they can break down into a nice sauce for later, raw you can experiment with the same base but different shapes and sizes.

Lamb 455g

Pork 455g

Salt 22g

Parsley 15g

Parmesan 80g

Kefir or watered down yogurt 80g

Pine nuts 52g (optional)

Eggs 100g

Garlic 20g

Crushed pepper 6g

Dried oregano 8g

Bread crumbs 35g

Mix just till bound

70g ea (Ethan’s suggestion)