Spaghetti Meatballs Tomato Bell Pepper Sauce

This recipe isn’t really extraordinary, but it has a few twists that make it a little bit different.

First, the meatballs were made using veal instead of beef or pork, making a milder and softer ball. I also added some parmesan and a little bit of day old white bread in small pieces. Salt and pepper, too.

Secondly, the tomato sauce was made by combining a can of very good italian tomatoes (Datterini by „Mutti“), which are date(sized) tomatoes with a wonderful sweetness. To these tomatoes I added a jar of chicken stock without salt and two red bell peppers. I used a potato masher to mash the datterini, and smoothed the sauce in a blender once the bell peppers were done. To this mixture I added a Serrano chili, but you decide if you want that heat. All I had to do was to reduce the sauce to make it a little bit more full-bodied. Check the seasoning and put the raw meatballs into the sauce to slowly simmer until they’re done. Add a little bit of lemon zest.

Cook the spaghetti (I like to use the De Cecco brand, they use brass spouts to process their pasta, which roughens it and allows it to absorb more sauce than conventionally produced pasta.

All you have to do once everything is ready is to give it a dusting of fresh parmesan.

The dish itself is a kind of anachronism, because of the attempt to make it as italian as possible, when in reality the meatball is a thoroughly american invention 🙂

Don’t get me wrong: there are italian dishes that have small salsiccia meatballs, but the standard spaghetti and meatballs present on every italian restaurant in the USA is an american invention.

That said, there is nothing at all wrong with that, I grew up with them and like them from time to time 🙂

 

 

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