Recently I’ve said that the French can make a great tasting dinner from anything, but Italians can make a great tasting dinner from nothing. With today’s recipe, that seems to be true. From the title, you can probably guess that it’s an Italian dish, and, as you’ll see, it’s made from practically nothing. Or at least from just a few staples, and perhaps something that you might otherwise toss into the trash. Well, not you, fellow scratcher; we’re sure, though, that there’s someone out there who throws away food items that might be a bit past their prime. With some creativity, those throw-away bits could make your next great meal.
As near as we can tell, Polpette Casce e Ovo translates to fake meatballs with eggs; however, we’re not linguists by any means, so we could be completely wrong. In The Italian South, the author Katie Parla translated it as bread meatballs, but, as you’ll see, either translation seems accurate. We did take some liberties with this recipe: used a different cheese, fried the “meatballs”, added more seasoning to the sauce, and perhaps others, but the basic idea is the same.
Polpette Casce e Ovo
Ingredients
For the "meatballs"
- 2 cups cubed stale bread with crusts
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ounce Parmagiano-Reggiano grated, plus more for serving
- Kosher salt
- Freshly grated black pepper
- 2-3 Tbs olive oil extra-virgin
For the sauce
- 1 Tbs olive oil extra virgin
- 1/3 cup diced onion
- 1 can (28 ounce) whole San Marzano tomatoes cores removed
- Basil to taste
- Kosher salt to taste
- Red pepper flake to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 8 ounces spaghetti
Instructions
For the "meatballs"
- In a medium bowl, combine, bread, eggs, cheese, salt, and pepper. Stir until well combined, then let stand a few minutes and stir again.
- In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. With your hands, shape the bread mixture into eight balls and fry, turning repeatedly, until browned. Remove from pan and set aside.
For the sauce
- Lower the heat to medium-low and add the onions along with additional oil, if needed. Sauté until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
- Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
- Season to taste with basil, salt, red pepper, and black pepper.
- Set the "meatballs" in the sauce and stir to coat. Continue to simmer until heated through.
- While the sauce is simmering, cook and drain pasta according to package directions.
- Divide pasta between heated bowls, top with sauce and meatballs, and additional grated Parmagiano-Reggiano.
Ingredient discussion:
Naturally, if you have a favorite sauce, use that. We just included the sauce that we used. We did find that it was nice to use a lot of bread crusts, especially those tough, chewy, bread crusts. It really added a nice texture. For the cheese, we used Parmagiano-Reggiano (the real stuff, not the wood pulpified stuff in the green can), and we used real eggs, from real backyard hens. For the olive oil, we happen to like and use the stuff from Queen Creek Olive Mill, but there are other good olive oils out there. Just be careful, because olive oil should have flavor. A lot of flavor. If your olive oil is bland, and just oily, rather than peppery, grassy, or otherwise packed with flavor, you’re probably not getting extra-virgin olive oil, no matter what the label says.
Procedure in detail:
For the “meatballs:”
Mix. In a medium bowl combine the bread, eggs, cheese, and some salt and pepper. Stir until well mixed, then let stand for a minute or two so the bread can absorb some of the egg liquid. Now stir again. Do this a few more times, watching the consistency of the mixture. It should start out with the bread pieces not sticking together, then transition to a point where you’ll be able to shape small balls that hold together.
Fry. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot, form the bread mixture into eight balls, setting each one gently in the hot oil. Let the bread balls fry until golden, then use a spatula to turn them so another side browns. Continue turning and frying until the bread balls are nice and golden all around. Remove and set them on a plate while you make the sauce.
For the sauce:
Fry onions. Using the same skillet that you used to fry the bread balls — no need to clean — add a bit more oil, if needed, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the onions, sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt, and cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until tender.
Add tomatoes. Remove any tough cores from the tomatoes as you add them to the pan. For us, the easiest way was to partly crush them with our hands right from the can. Once you have added all the tomatoes, stir, and bring to a simmer.
Season. Go simple with your sauce and just add a bit of basil, salt, red pepper flake, and black pepper. Taste as you add, and, when you’re happy with the result, stop.
Add bread balls. Set the “meatballs” into the sauce, gently so they don’t break apart, and stir to coat. As the insides of the bread balls cook, they’ll become more substantial and less likely to fall apart, but, at first, handle them gently. Let the sauce simmer while you prepare the pasta.
Cook spaghetti. We went with fresh homemade spaghetti, mainly because we wanted something that tastes great and cooks really fast, but dried pasta will be fine. Bring a large kettle of salted water to a full boil and cook your pasta according to the package directions. Drain completely.
Serve. Divide the pasta among heated bowls and top with the sauce and “meatballs.” Sprinkle a bit of grated Parmesan on top and serve. Prego.
We really thought these were great. The bread balls had a nice, somewhat chewy texture, and had a great flavor. It didn’t seem as if we were eating balls of bread simmered in sauce; instead, it tasted as if we were having mild tasting meatballs. Really. Well, pretty close, anyway. Still have to give a big grazie to Katie Parla for thinking to include this recipe in her cookbook. Five stars.
