These Meatballs With Mushroom Sauce And A Creamy Parmesan Polenta were stunning!
Oh, the Glory that is a ball of meat! There’s just something alluring about a big ball of meat on your plate. Like a sophisticated hamburger patty. Maybe. Either way, they’re great, you get to infuse the meat with some delicious flavors, and if cooked correctly, they can be almost as fulfilling and as refined as a nice steak.
I had some issues trying to get this mega-ball to retain its roundness for this Meatballs With Mushroom Sauce recipe, but alas, it ended up being some odd platonic solid on the plate. I tried to do some research online to see how others may have overcome this problem and basically found out that there isn’t much you can do to make the meatballs retain both shape and flavor when dealing with such large sizes. Some people recommend a quick boil or fry before searing them off. Honestly, I think this might just dry them up quickly during cooking. So, for shape retention, my only bit of advice would be to be as delicate with your hands as possible and gently and frequently turn the meatballs during the searing process so that they don’t rest on any one surface for too long.
But back to the Meatballs With Mushroom Sauce dish. Said meatball was accompanied by some of the best mushroom sauce in the world and a lovely (and will send you to the doctor because it’s so rich) Parmesan polenta. There was no flavor here that was out there or daring, just some tried and tested flavor combinations coming together to make a great but very (very) hearty main course. The recipe is after the jump.
Awesome Fantastic Meatballs With Mushroom Sauce And A Creamy Parmesan Polenta
Ingredients
TO MAKE THE MEATBALLS:
- 3 pounds ground beef (minced beef) - not lean meat, you’ll want lots of fat in there to keep the meatballs moist and full of flavour
- 1 medium yellow onion - chopped
- 2 cloves garlic - chopped
- 1 large egg
- 4 slices bread
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese - grated
- 1½ tablespoon rosemary
- 1 tablespoon parsley
- 1 pinch chili flakes (chilli flakes in British English) - optional
TO MAKE THE SAUCE:
- 15 large button mushrooms - half sliced and half whole
- 1 cup chicken stock (chicken broth or chicken bouillon)
- 1 tablespoon rosemary
- 1 medium green onions (scallions or green shallots)
- 1 dash cooking cream - optional
TO MAKE THE POLENTA:
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese
- 1 liter chicken stock (chicken broth or chicken bouillon) - just about 4 cups
- ¾ cup cooking cream
- ½ package butter
Instructions
TO MAKE THE MEATBALLS:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- In a large pan, heat some olive oil on medium heat. Once hot, add the onions, the parsley and the garlic, and cook off until they all soften, but as always, make sure they don’t colour. Once cooked, set aside to cool.
- Place the bread slices in a deep plate or a bowl and cover with the milk, allowing them to soften and soak the milk up (no less than 5 minutes).
- In a large bowl, combine the meat, rosemary, Parmesan, egg and the cooled-down garlic and onion mix. Squeeze the excess milk with your hands out of the bread slices and add them to the big bowl as well. Season generously with salt and pepper and combine all the ingredients together with your hands (this is really fun). Don’t overwork the meat because it may get tough, and you’re gonna want to have light, airy and almost crumbly meatballs. Once combined, shape them into as many portions as desired. Adjust for smaller (or even larger for the daring) balls.
- In the same pan, you softened the onions and garlic earlier, heating up some more olive oil, but this time on medium-high heat. Place the meatballs gently into the pan once hot, and turn gently but frequently until all sides are nicely browned and seared (I suppose this took about 10 minutes). Remember, the shorter the amount of time each ball spends on one side, the more likely it is to retain its shape. Once the balls are browned, stick them into the oven, covered, for about 18 minutes to cook through (this will give you nice medium rare to medium meatballs).
TO MAKE THE SAUCE:
- In a pan, heat some olive oil, and once hot, add the mushrooms, the shallots and the rosemary. Cook off until the mushrooms release their moisture and start to brown.
- Fish out of the pan the whole mushrooms and add to a blender. With a little stock just to loosen them, blend the mushrooms into a fine puree, it shouldn’t be too loose because you will use it to thicken the rest of the sauce.
- At the same time (so that the rest of the mushrooms don’t burn) add the brandy and cook off for a few seconds, then add half of the rest of the stock, and the mushroom puree from the blender.
- Whisk all the ingredients together into a uniform sauce, and adjust the consistency using the remaining stock (use more than one cup of stock if necessary).
- Lower the heat to barely a simmer, and let the sauce reduce for about 10 minutes, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Just before plating, feel free to add just a dash of cooking cream to bring it all together (conversely (is cream the opposite of butter?), a few cubes of butter whisked in at the last minute will do the trick as well).
TO MAKE THE POLENTA:
- Boil the stock and add the polenta to it, whisking like crazy to make sure no lumps form.
- Reduce the heat to a simmer, and stirring constantly, cook together for about 10 minutes, until the polenta is thick.
- Add the cheese, the butter and cream, stirring to bring everything together and season with salt and pepper to taste. The nice thing about polenta is that, like a risotto, it can be flavored with any ingredients you want.
- Once everything has been incorporated together and tastes good (how could it not?) you can start to plate. I opted for a dollop of the polenta, topped with the meatball and then with the sauce spooned over. This was insanely good! Hope you enjoy it!