3poundsground beef (minced beef) - not lean meat, you’ll want lots of fat in there to keep the meatballs moist and full of flavour
1mediumyellow onion - chopped
2clovesgarlic - chopped
1largeegg
4slicesbread
1cupmilk
½cupParmesan cheese - grated
1½tablespoonrosemary
1tablespoonparsley
1pinchchili flakes (chilli flakes in British English) - optional
TO MAKE THE SAUCE:
15largebutton mushrooms - half sliced and half whole
1cupchicken stock (chicken broth or chicken bouillon)
1tablespoonrosemary
1mediumgreen onions (scallions or green shallots)
¼cupbrandy
1dashcooking cream - optional
TO MAKE THE POLENTA:
1cuppolenta - aka cornmeal
1cupParmesan cheese
1literchicken stock (chicken broth or chicken bouillon) - just about 4 cups
¾cupcooking cream
½packagebutter
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!