Spaghetti with Meatballs Recipe

Most Italians would pull a face at the thought of spaghetti with meatballs, for at best this combination (recipe) makes no sense.  Spaghetti and sauce should come together in one mouthful; and large meatballs – as well as Bolognese ragù – slip and slide off the slippery cylindrical spaghetti.

So where do spaghetti with meatballs come from and what’s the most authentic recipe out there?  The answer is Abruzzo, Italy and Carmelita Caruana’s spaghetti recipe at ThePastaChannel.  In Abruzzo, the hand made Spaghetti alla Chitarra are not cylindrical but square in cross section.   The Chitarra (Italian for guitar)  is a special kitchen tool which has strings pulled tautly across a wooden frame.  The spaghetti dough is rolled out as high as the space between the strings (about a dime and a half thick) and then cut on the Chitarra.  And the meatballs – called “Pallotte” in dialect – are tiny – no bigger than a hazel nut (filbert).  Made this way, a spaghetti with meatballs recipe works and the spaghetti, sauce and meatballs combine in a single tasty mouthful as they should.

If you can buy packaged Spaghetti alla Chitarra for this recipe, great; if not use Linguine.  Or use your own dough recipe and roll it out no thinner than the third setting on the pasta machine and cut it into ribbons using the narrower setting on the pasta machine.  But, for this spaghetti recipe, you really must keep the meatballs very small, some would say no bigger than the finger nail on your little finger.  That’s the secret for coming close to the authentic original Abruzzo recipe/dish of “Maccherone con le Pallotte”.  And this spaghetti recipe demonstrates how to get close to the original dish.

If you wish to make your own spaghetti dough for this recipe, use 4 ½ cups semolina flour, 4 eggs, 1 tbsp. olive oil, and a little warm water if the dough needs it.  Leave the dough to rest in a plastic bag for 30 minutes and after cutting the noodles place on clean cloths and leave on a natural woven basket to dry for about an hour.

For the Spaghetti Sauce recipe you need:

• a small onion and half a carrot very finely minced
• a quarter onion pierced with two sweet cloves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 x 28oz cans Italian peeled plum tomatoes
• a fresh bay leaf
• a small fresh red chili
• salt and pepper
• 3 tbsp. Evo

For special occasions, you can modify this spaghetti recipe by cooking diced lamb and crumbled pork sausage in the sauce for 2 to 3 hours.

For the Meatballs recipe you need:

• 7 oz finely ground lamb shoulder (or half lamb and half pork or veal)
• 5 oz stale bread
• milk to soak bread
• 3 ½ oz grated Pecorino Sardo or Parmigiano-Reggiano (Romano is too salty)
• 1 egg
• fresh grated nutmeg to taste
• olive oil for shallow frying
• salt and pepper

For Serving:

• Use Pecorino Sardo or Romano to grate at table

The Spaghetti Sauce recipe:

• Prepare the tomato paste by diluting it in ¼ cup of hot water.
• For this recipe especially, put the contents of the cans of tomatoes through a food mill to eliminate seeds, peel and hard bits, discarding anything left behind.
• Heat the olive oil in a wide deep skillet where you will later toss the cooked spaghetti.
• Add the minced carrot and onion and sauté till the onion is translucent.
• Add the diluted tomato paste, the sliced chili and the fresh bay leaf and fry for half a minute to darken the tomato paste as you stir and mix.
• Add the sieved tomato passata, stir to combine and season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
• Turn the heat down and leave to simmer gently, uncovered, for at least an hour – 2 or 3 hours is better.
• Be sure to add small amounts of water as the sauce reduces and thickens.
• When you are ready to serve the sauce, taste and adjust seasoning.

In summer, prepare the spaghetti sauce recipe using fresh vine ripened tomatoes.  Sauce recipe can be made ahead and frozen.

The Meatballs recipe:

• Cut crusts off the bread and discard.  Break the rest up into small pieces and soak in milk.
• Beat the egg lightly with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
• Place meat and grated cheese in a bowl.
• For this meatballs recipe especially, make sure there are no hard bits left in the softened bread and add it to the bowl.
• Tip the beaten egg in and mix everything well by hand, forcing the meatballs mixture through your knuckles over and over.
• Dipping your hand in cold water take a teaspoon full sized amount of the meatballs mix and roll into tiny meatballs. For this meatballs recipe, sizing of meatballs is important.
• Heat the olive oil in a wide shallow skillet and fry the meatballs on moderate heat for a few minutes, rolling the meatballs around so they brown evenly.
• Season meatballs to your taste.
• When the tomato sauce has been cooking for an hour, take about 1/3^rd of it and place in a small pot over low heat.
• Add the meatballs to the small pot and cook meatballs in the tomato sauce over low heat for 30 minutes.

To Serve the Spaghetti with Meatballs:

• Cook the spaghetti and when it is very al dente (critical in this recipe) scoop it up using a pasta fork or tongs and place immediately in the skillet with the plain tomato sauce set over lowest possible heat.
• Toss well to mix and if the sauce has reduced too much add a little of the pasta cooking water to loosen it.
• Transfer spaghetti to individual plates or a family style serving platter.
• Top the sauce-dressed pasta with the little meatballs in their sauce and serve at once, passing round the Pecorino Sardo and the grater so everyone can help themselves.

So, there you have it. The best and most authentic recipe for spaghetti with meatballs on the web! Enjoy!

Carmelita Caruana runs the Cook Italy Cooking School based in Bologna, Italy.  An Italian food expert and culinary consultant, her writing has been featured in major British newspapers and food magazines. Carmelita has appeared on British TV and held classes in various U.S. cities.