Spadea’s homemade meatballs — In gravy?

It all started with jarred tomatoes from our good friends John and Tracy.

They've got a farm in North Jersey and have served up some of the best homemade food we've ever had. Every year there are two farm products we look forward to the most, the tomatoes and hot peppers. Both are jarred after picking and sealed so when it's snowing you can open a jar of fresh produce as if it's the middle of summer.

Over the weekend I found myself with Sunday afternoon off and decided it was a perfect day for Sunday gravy. OK — Jodi has won the battle and we do call it sauce, but growing up in South Jersey, it was gravy at my great-grandmother's house.

As some Italian chefs have explained, it's sauce until you add the meat — then it's acceptable to call it gravy. Either way, the sauce is simple to make and the meatballs take it to the next level.

Start with some beef tallow in a large saucepan. Then add chopped onions, a chopped carrot and a chopped red pepper. Once they start to cook and you can start to see through the onions, add a dollop of nduja, which is a spreadable chili pepper salame. Add three anchovies. The anchovies and salame will melt into the tallow. Add salt, pepper and a little oregano.

Once all the veggies are softened, move to one side of the pot and add a little more tallow to the open space. In that space, add a few cloves of chopped or minced garlic. After about 30 seconds, deglaze the mix with white wine. Only use a wine you will also drink! Then add the tomatoes and bring to a low boil.

The sauce should simmer on very low heat for several hours. Add salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes to taste.

Another delicious trick is to add in pieces of the rind from a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It will be a perfect bite when you find it later!

The meatballs

Start with two pounds of ground beef and add two eggs to the beef in a glass bowl with bread crumbs. I use Panko Japanese bread crumbs (no seed oil!)

Add in some chopped sweet onions, chopped parsley (Italian or regular), salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. The last ingredient is shredded parm-reg cheese, I added a teaspoon of some really good extra virgin olive oil as well!

Mix with your hands but don't overmix. Ball them up and set them on a plate. Then heat beef tallow in a pan and fry the meatballs until they are all brown on each side. Then into the simmering sauce.

Perfect. Enjoy.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own.

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