Marilyn’s sweet and sour meatballs

jewish style

Meat or Vegetarian

This is another one of those 1960’s recipes that combines scratch cooking with a few convenience foods in the ingredients list. I’ve tried making these with homemade marinara and homemade jellied cranberry sauce. There’s no advantage to doing that taste-wise, so honestly, why bother?

Marilyn would never have imagined that these could be made for vegetarians, with no loss of flavor. The invention of ground beef substitutes, such as Impossible™ and Beyond™, have made so many beloved traditional dishes accessible to us all. To make them vegetarian, just swap out the ground beef. All the amounts and techniques remain the same.

A sauce made entirely from a jar of marinara and a can of cranberry sauce? Sounds weird. But it’s bizarrely good. Sweet and Sour Meatballs are a traditional dish in American Jewish kitchens, usually reserved for holidays and special occasions. Everyone seems to have their own twist on the recipe. Several of my friends’ mothers made them, and although the particulars varied, they all included a jar of Heinz chili sauce. I didn’t like them nearly as much as my mother’s. She was the only one I knew who made them exactly this way.

These meatballs get their flavor from soaking up the sauce. For that reason, they’re best made small—no bigger than 1½”. Take that big Italian meatball, sitting in the center of a big bowl of spaghetti, and put it out of your mind!

When serving them as an entrée, my mother made these meatballs about 1 ½” in diameter, with a side of rice or buttered egg noodles to sop up the yummy sauce. But when serving them as an hors d’oeuvre or for a buffet, she made them “cocktail size,” about ¾”. They were then served with frilly toothpicks or threaded onto pretty little skewers in twos.

I highly recommend making these the day before and storing them in the fridge, in their sauce. That’s when they’re at their best.

 Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef (or ground beef substitute)

• 1 egg, separated

• ½ cup seasoned breadcrumbs

• 1 teaspoon salt

• Ice cold water

• Black pepper to taste

• Garlic powder to taste

• Onion powder to taste

• 1—13 oz jar marinara sauce

• 1—13 oz can jellied cranberry sauce

 Method:

• Beat the egg white until glossy and gentle peaks form. Set it aside.

• In a large bowl, using your hands, combine the ground beef with the egg yolk, the breadcrumbs, and the salt.

  It’s important to do this with your hands. A good massage will break down the fibers in the meat to produce soft, tender meatballs. You’ll also need your hands to assess the consistency, so that you know how much water to add.

• Start adding ice water, about ¼ cup at a time, working it in to the meat. This, and the whipped egg white, will make your meatballs light as a feather. It’s really all about feel. You’ll feel the meat mixture getting softer as you incorporate the water. You’ll probably need more than you think. The trick is to make the meat soft, but not so soft that it won’t hold together, so as you’re working, keep making practice meatballs to see how it behaves. If you’ve accidentally added a bit too much water, don’t panic. Just add a little more of the breadcrumbs.

• Next, add a few shakes each of onion powder and garlic powder. Using the powdered ingredients here actually works better than fresh garlic and onion would. How much to use? Don’t go overboard, but don’t be stingy. If you don’t have an aversion to raw meat, you can do as I do and put a tiny bit on the tip of my tongue to check for balance of flavors.

• Finally, gently work the whipped egg white into the meat mixture. 

• Pour the marinara sauce into a Dutch oven or large pot. Then, open the can of cranberry sauce and add it to the marinara in chunks. Once on the stove, the cranberry sauce will melt and blend in with the marinara.

• Turn the heat on low and start making the meatballs, one by one, and gently dropping them into the pot. Wet your hands as you work, to keep the meat from sticking to your hands. At first, you’ll be able to keep them separate in one layer, but after a while you’ll have to put them on top of each other. Try to stagger them like bricks at this point. Don’t try to move them or stir the pot, or they’ll fall apart. Also, don’t worry if they’re not all covered in the sauce. It will all sort itself out in the cooking.

• Cover the pot and cook the meatballs at a very slow simmer. After about 20 minutes, the meatballs should have firmed up enough to gently stir them. Simmer them, covered, for a total of 1 hour, stirring often to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. If the sauce seems to be cooking out or over-thickening, stir in a little water.

• Once done, uncover the pot and remove the pot from the stove. Allow them to cool down before storing them, in their sauce, in the fridge. Reheat them gently on the stovetop when you’re ready to serve them.