Really Good Meatballs

From the book The Basic Gourmet Entertains by Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart

Introduction

Guaranteed to be one of the most popular items on your open house menu, these meatballs are equally tasty served warm or at room temperature. You may bake (and freeze) them weeks in advance or prepare them up to two days before your party and re-warm briefly. In either case, they will deliver a lot of enjoyment for very little last-minute attention from the cook.

Ingredients

Meatballs

Sauce

Steps

1. To make meatballs, bring 2 quarts water to a boil in a 3-quart saucepan. Add rice and boil for 10 minutes. Drain in a wire sieve and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Shake as much water from rice as possible and set sieve over a bowl to drain for 5 minutes.
2. Place beef and pork in a 4-quart or larger mixing bowl. With a fork or chopstick, loosen and toss meats. Add cooked rice, onion, parsley, dill, salt, and pepper. In a small mixing bowl, beat together eggs, mustard, and anchovy paste. Pour egg mixture over meat and use a fork or chopstick to toss and mix until meat mixture seems uniform but not compacted.
3. Preheat oven to 425°F. Select two 9-by-13-inch or larger nonstick baking pans or line regular baking pans with aluminum foil to make cleanup easier. Using a spoon or small quick-release ice cream scoop, dip out mounds of meat mixture into your wet hands, 1 at a time. Roll into a round shape no larger than a golf ball and no smaller than a large grape. Arrange 1 inch apart on prepared pans. Bake in middle level of oven until lightly browned and an instant-read thermometer inserted in center of a meatball registers 160°F, 20 to 25 minutes.
4. To make sauce, in a medium bowl, mix sour cream with enough buttermilk to thin sour cream to the consistency of gravy. Add mustard, dill, and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings if desired.
5. Arrange meatballs on a platter and garnish with dill or parsley sprigs. Place sauce in a small bowl or sauceboat and serve alongside.

Notes

• Use 2 pounds ground beef if not using the pork, or substitute ground veal for the pork.
• Cooked meatballs may be refrigerated, covered, for 3 days or frozen for 3 months. Thaw frozen meatballs 24 hours in the refrigerator. Warm in a preheated 300°F oven before serving.

This content is from the book The Basic Gourmet Entertains by Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart.