Several of you asked what pasta I am using. It's Sfoglini Whole Grain Reginetti. I buy them at Whole Foods, but they are also available on Amazon: amzn.to/3GNJSeg (this is an affiliate link). It's one of my favorite boxed pastas.
I watch Helen's recipes because they are literally better than everyone else out there. It's like she curates the best flavors and techniques ever. We need a virtual round of applause for the amount of effort put into this channel. 🙂
Anybody who finds their ideal hobby can curate this amount of information and memorize it easily [if it's their ideal hobby they get so excited that they start to absorb info like a sponge]. But those people are somewhat rare. Sometimes hobbies are too expensive, require too much work, give little return and go underappreciated and left to rot, that stuff. Even more rare is that they're actually a skilled professor at both teaching and mastering cooking, and that they also start a RUclips channel carefully put together, for little return, but with a loyal following. She's not memeing it up. She just loves cooking and teaching and is charismatic as all get out. Wonderful.
Dear Helen, As has been my experience with every recipe of yours I have tried, this dish is simply delicious! The sauce is tasty with mild acidity and the meatballs are mouthwateringly rich and savory. I cooked them for the full hour. I followed the directions exactly using your measurements. My only variation was refrigerating the meat mixture overnight before forming it in to balls the next morning. I just removed them from the oven and tasted one: heaven on a plate; I can’t wait to serve them later tonight. I am sincerely embarrassed that it is taking me so long to thank you for your clear and insightful instructions. I have learned so much from watching you in terms of the importance of the right equipment, measuring ingredients for consistent results and a fair amount of common sense advice. Your advice for storing stock has freed up much needed freezer space and makes keeping and using stock easy and convenient. I am well stocked with King Arthur flours, a spiral dough blade, jeweler’s scale, SAF yeast, Pomegranate molasses, and of course, a copious amount of diamond crystal salt. The result has been a series of delicious meals, easily replicated and greatly enjoyed. Your braised porcini cabbage deserves its own comment as it always receives high praise. Thank you; you are a wonderful teacher and often very funny.
Trying this for the first time-solely because you added some of the fat from frying the meatballs back into the sauce! Have never seen this in other meatball recipes. My mother’s family was from Sicily. Adding some (or all😳) the fat was just how my mother and all my aunts used to do this and, I agree, it adds flavor back into the sauce. Thanks Helen!
I really love this wonderful channel..especially the technical part...the percentage of the ingredients is awesome! I can always come back to this channel to check out the reference whenever I need. Or when I want to try a new recipe~* ❤️
Best meatballs I've ever eaten (or made)! Juicy and flavorful - even my picky grandsons liked them. Also, bravo on using Cento tomato products - closest thing I've found to actually being in Italy (and I used to live there). 😃
Apparently these were the "best meatballs you've ever made", and I totally agree! Can't wait for heros tonight with the leftovers. This is only the second recipe of yours I've tried so far, but I"m totally hooked! The Russian cutlets I made last week were outstanding. Since I'm only cooking for two I especially appreciate the ingredient percentages.
Made this recipe twice already for my family. Was a success, everyone liked it. The only change I did was using Panko instead of bread, since I had no bread on hand. This also let me avoid using a food processor because, well, I dont have one! Haha. Super juicy meatballs, tasty thick sauce. Will definitely be making more often.
Do you ever do Swedish style meatball sauce? For that, tomatoes are banished. The standard Swede's sauce is made with about half a liter of cream, a beef stock cube, and dark soy sauce for color and saltiness. Thicken w. corn starch or similar. From there you can go to many magic places by adding other flavors, but that's the base. Serve with lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber slices on boiled or mashed potatoes.
Have you ever tried replacing the bread with instant mashed potatoes flakes? It's gluten free and the taste is amazing. I use about 3/4 cup of flakes to each pound of ground meat. I was amazed at how tender and juicy they turned out.
I note that you said this tastes even better the next day. What my my mom did was to add all of the sauce to the pasta, then reduce the heat, stir and cover 30-45 minutes. Might want to undercook the pasta a bit to make it a bit more "thirsty". A lot of the sauce soaks into the pasta, the flavors all blend nicely and as to the question about tasting better the next day I couldn't tell for sure as I can't recall ever seeing leftovers as this method tends to cause gluttony.
You remind me so much of my Baba, Mum and Aunts who made Ukrainian delicacies and every other international cuisine that they cooked. You're humor and chef skills are equally appreciated!
Love your recipes. I made this today ready for heating up tonight. The balls were extremely fragile and wanted to fall apart... maybe I had too much fat or liquid, just lost 3.... cooks treat!!!!. They're very very tasty. As said previously, this mixture is very versatile. Many thanks.
Helen! Congratulations on having been featured on Will Ferrel's vlog. It must feel wonderful to have such a high profile superfan. The future's looking bright :)
Not a big fan of meatballs, but after watching this I can't wait to make them. I found your homemade pasta and bolognese sauce recipes a few years ago and they are absolutely amazing, Helen.
This mixture is proving quite versatile! Tomorrow I'm actually gonna try using it for Chebureki, and I'm sure it'll turn out delicious. Might tone down the "juicy" components a bit as to not make the dough soggy.
I like the recipe. I find it a little unusual. Definitely not Italian. But that doesn't have to be bad. I find the butter in the vegetable mixture interesting. Very clever is the extinguishing of the attached pan bottom. That's the most taste! I will try it.
Why are we still making round meatballs? I just make small meat patties, no chasing the ball in the pan anymore, and just 1 flip for browning! Thank you Helen! And Happy New Year!
I'm with you on this. ESPECIALLY for meatball subs! Why do we put round meatballs on a sandwich, when the whole point of a sandwich is to be flat and easily handled? Flat "meat patties" are superior.
@@theresamcpherson7352 I guess some people prefer the flavor or texture with less brown to grey ratio. But I think it is more likely because balls are faster to shape with the squeeze technique or some kind of rounded scooper and that meatballs are often a high volume at dinner parties etc. It just sticks as habit so then when they're not making 100+ meatballs they dont question why not try a different shape since I dont have to make 100+ My best guesses. Fun to think about meatball anthropology though
I trained with an Italian Goddess called Marcella Hazan. She always taught that the "fat must run free from the sauce" when making pasta sauces or meatball sauces etc. She said it should be more like an oil dressing than a water based gravy.
@@rileywebb4178 emulsified with what? there should be little to no liquid in a pasta sauce/ dressing. Pasta sauces without tomatoes (white Sauces as they are known in italy) are almost pure oil and if you add tomatoes to a sauce you want to get the water out of them through cooking. If you use meat in a sauce like bolognese you add salt as soon as you add the meat to get the liquid to release do it will evaporate off during cooking.
Is it possible to decompress meat bought already vacuum packed? Break up with a fork?? I get all of my meat frozen, from ButcherBox (so it is grass fed, which may raise another issue), and have found it is tough, especially the ground beef. The pork is less tough. Also, NOW I understand why I have never found a frozen pre-made burger patty I like. They are all very tough! Thank you so much for teaching us. I have learned so much!
Helen, these are the tastiest meatballs I have ever made. Recipe ingredients are the best. I had some trouble frying up the meatballs though. the first batch produced so much liquid that I had to spoon off some liquid to get the browning. Both batches kept falling apart in the skillet. Should I add some eggs?
Great tip on the panade to use buttermilk, Helen! The bit of tang is just the right amount of acidity, but I always find sugar unnecessary and unwarranted in tomato sauces. I don't know how that myth got started but it irks me to add sugar.
agreed on the sugar! i only seem to see it in american recipes. sure someone will prove me wrong though while i'm at it: add less or no sugar to your whipped cream!!
I think it depends a lot on the kind of tomato products you have available. The ones in my home country are VERY acidic and I don't think I could ever make a balanced dish there without the sugar. The ones in the country I'm currently in are way less acidic, and there is only one specific dish so far where I really feel the need to balance it with sugar.
I enjoyed seeing this video, since I just made meatballs last weekend. My method was much simpler, and probably less tasty than these. I think I'll try your method next time.
Looks great! You mentioned how the specific meat is not important so would any meat (or faux meat) that's not compressed and finely ground work? Also, what kind of pasta is that?
Hullo Helen, I know you are cringing at this question but seriously, won't purple onions work at all for caramelised onions? It is impossible to find any other type in my city. I tried your Basque Piperade recipe and it was good but I burnt it slightly in the end of caramelising the onions. Again, I used green capsicums because the other colours are very expensive to use multiples of like that, and fire-roasted them on the gas stove. You must be thinking that I am horrible at following instructions but I'm just a small townie in a third world country, trying to taste what you all do. :/
You are not horrible at following instructions, you are resourceful! We all have access to different ingredients. Purple onions (we call them "red onions" in the US) are perfectly fine to use in any of my recipes. They'll be delicious. The reason I point people to the yellow onions is that in the US they are easy to find and cheap and work so well.
@@helenrennie Thank you so much! I will try again. I also made your representation of the Stella Parks pie crust (I simply sliced the butter instead of having to press each cube), and it was the best I've ever made. I love your channel and your meticulous approach to every step. :D
Very similar to my go to meatball recipe, the only real difference is that I add a few dashes of fish sauce to up the savory factor! Don’t tell my nonna though…
I've been having a ground meat craving for weeks now, and as tomorrow is groceries day, I'm now torn between what I will _actually_ make?? Kotleti of course is very tempting, but what about meatloaf or maybe even chebureks? And now this recipe?? the choices overwhelm me (this is clearly a good problem to have)
no difference between kefir and buttermilk. milk will have slightly less flavor (less acidity), but with all that tomato sauce, I don't know if anyone will notice.
Great recipe - only thing I would advise you is to look into how unhealthy seed oils are, you used quite a lot in the video. I don't think you wouldn't get good browning by using lard or clarified butter/ghee, and it would be a healthy substitute :)
I thought it was better to salt the outside of meatballs so that it doesn't dry them out and make them firm the same way you do with hamburgers. Is that not the case with these meatballs?
meatballs are a completely different animal. Because they contain the bread product, they don't become firm and bouncy with salt mixed in. if you only salt the outside, they'll be terribly bland
I've only ever seen it used in one other place, "Refika's Kitchen". Refika is Turkish and she uses butter in her ground meat a lot, tough I'm not sure if it's a Turkish thing or a Refika's thing.
I don't have a saute pan and have considered buying one. I have found many on Amazon are reviewed having problems with the bottom of the pan not being flat or wrapping. I looked at higher priced pans and cheaper and the reviews have been consistent on this problem. Do I buy cheap pans and throw out, or is there a brand you have found that works in your kitchen? Thank you
I've had that same Cuisinart pan for more than a decade and it still looks great and cooks beautifully. A straight sided skillet is such a workhorse. You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars.
@@lisaboban Some of the expensive and cheaper pans reviewed have repeated comments of the bottom wrapping. One reviewer measured the thickness of their older pan and the newer one and found the newer pan to be much thinner. Some reviewers had experience of a small amount of oil going to the edge. They then had the choice of adding too much oil to cover the pan or return it and find one that had a flat bottom. It's why I posted the question. Thank you.
@@helenrennie I've had the same pan for years, but hardly used it, because to me , it is heavy. However, I plan to make your meatballs in the future. 😉
3 TBS of olive oil, you make me laugh right out the gate; more like 12; but that's why I watch these videos, not just listen to them. Why, why... please admit that your idea of 1TBS is more like 3TBS. Or is that the "pinch of Helen?" LOL. Love your videos, but admit it... oil in abundance.
If you are referring to the amount of oil for sweating onions, it is somewhere between 3-4 Tbsp. It's not 12. Yes, I do use oil with abundance. You don't need to measure it. This isn't baking.
Several of you asked what pasta I am using. It's Sfoglini Whole Grain Reginetti. I buy them at Whole Foods, but they are also available on Amazon: amzn.to/3GNJSeg (this is an affiliate link). It's one of my favorite boxed pastas.
I watch Helen's recipes because they are literally better than everyone else out there. It's like she curates the best flavors and techniques ever. We need a virtual round of applause for the amount of effort put into this channel. 🙂
Preach I been makinf pasta with her ultra detailed pasta videos. So thankful!!
Anybody who finds their ideal hobby can curate this amount of information and memorize it easily [if it's their ideal hobby they get so excited that they start to absorb info like a sponge].
But those people are somewhat rare. Sometimes hobbies are too expensive, require too much work, give little return and go underappreciated and left to rot, that stuff.
Even more rare is that they're actually a skilled professor at both teaching and mastering cooking, and that they also start a RUclips channel carefully put together, for little return, but with a loyal following.
She's not memeing it up. She just loves cooking and teaching and is charismatic as all get out.
Wonderful.
Helen's voice, clarity, humor, personality, depth of knowledge, unique and creative take on classic recipes...all amazing.
She has a beautiful voice, excellent diction and speaks better English than I do (and English is my only language).
"Russian Interference" had me laughing so hard. Thank you for that! Great video :-)
Dear Helen,
As has been my experience with every recipe of yours I have tried, this dish is simply delicious! The sauce is tasty with mild acidity and the meatballs are mouthwateringly rich and savory. I cooked them for the full hour. I followed the directions exactly using your measurements. My only variation was refrigerating the meat mixture overnight before forming it in to balls the next morning. I just removed them from the oven and tasted one: heaven on a plate; I can’t wait to serve them later tonight.
I am sincerely embarrassed that it is taking me so long to thank you for your clear and insightful instructions. I have learned so much from watching you in terms of the importance of the right equipment, measuring ingredients for consistent results and a fair amount of common sense advice. Your advice for storing stock has freed up much needed freezer space and makes keeping and using stock easy and convenient. I am well stocked with King Arthur flours, a spiral dough blade, jeweler’s scale, SAF yeast, Pomegranate molasses, and of course, a copious amount of diamond crystal salt.
The result has been a series of delicious meals, easily replicated and greatly enjoyed. Your braised porcini cabbage deserves its own comment as it always receives high praise. Thank you; you are a wonderful teacher and often very funny.
what a heart warming comment! thank you :)
Trying this for the first time-solely because you added some of the fat from frying the meatballs back into the sauce! Have never seen this in other meatball recipes. My mother’s family was from Sicily. Adding some (or all😳) the fat was just how my mother and all my aunts used to do this and, I agree, it adds flavor back into the sauce. Thanks Helen!
You have some of the most educational cooking videos I’ve yet to find! Will definitely be watching more of your content!
It is a good day when Helen uploads a new recipe! 🧆
Excellent instructions! You are such a good teacher~Thank you!
I really love this wonderful channel..especially the technical part...the percentage of the ingredients is awesome! I can always come back to this channel to check out the reference whenever I need. Or when I want to try a new recipe~* ❤️
Best meatballs I've ever eaten (or made)! Juicy and flavorful - even my picky grandsons liked them. Also, bravo on using Cento tomato products - closest thing I've found to actually being in Italy (and I used to live there). 😃
So glad you enjoyed them :)
I now know what I'm making the family for dinner tonight. Thanks, Helen!
Thank you Helen! This is my favorite meatballs and sauce recipe of all time!
Apparently these were the "best meatballs you've ever made", and I totally agree! Can't wait for heros tonight with the leftovers. This is only the second recipe of yours I've tried so far, but I"m totally hooked! The Russian cutlets I made last week were outstanding. Since I'm only cooking for two I especially appreciate the ingredient percentages.
so glad your meatballs came out well :)
Beautiful, so light - will never do dense meatballs again - used half Greek yogurt & milk worked great & maths worked great!!! Thank you as always
So glad they works well :)
i love how you speak
Made this recipe twice already for my family. Was a success, everyone liked it. The only change I did was using Panko instead of bread, since I had no bread on hand. This also let me avoid using a food processor because, well, I dont have one! Haha. Super juicy meatballs, tasty thick sauce. Will definitely be making more often.
Wow the brown bits poured over the meatballs and sauce is brilliant 😋😋😋
Do you ever do Swedish style meatball sauce? For that, tomatoes are banished. The standard Swede's sauce is made with about half a liter of cream, a beef stock cube, and dark soy sauce for color and saltiness. Thicken w. corn starch or similar. From there you can go to many magic places by adding other flavors, but that's the base. Serve with lingonberry jam and pickled cucumber slices on boiled or mashed potatoes.
Have you ever tried replacing the bread with instant mashed potatoes flakes? It's gluten free and the taste is amazing. I use about 3/4 cup of flakes to each pound of ground meat. I was amazed at how tender and juicy they turned out.
that sounds like a good idea. there is a German meatball that uses mashed potatoes instead of bread and I hear it's great.
That's a BRILLIAN idea!!
My mom would this instant potatoes in meatloaf but not meatballs. She would also use quick oats it all depended on what she had on hand.
I didn't have any bread but I had potato flakes! Thanks for the idea my meatballs are cooking right now!
I rally like the way you demonstrate your technique. It taught me some things.
At 8:14 Helen says you can take the fat off but, it's extremely tasty put back into the sauce and mixed with pasta. I love Helen!
Exactly my Calabrian mother’s recipe. 😍
Eu fiz essa receita e ficou simplesmente MARAVILHOSA! Obrigado novamente Helen pela aula!
Simply marvelous. Yes, got that right 😊
I note that you said this tastes even better the next day. What my my mom did was to add all of the sauce to the pasta, then reduce the heat, stir and cover 30-45 minutes.
Might want to undercook the pasta a bit to make it a bit more "thirsty".
A lot of the sauce soaks into the pasta, the flavors all blend nicely and as to the question about tasting better the next day I couldn't tell for sure as I can't recall ever seeing leftovers as this method tends to cause gluttony.
You remind me so much of my Baba, Mum and Aunts who made Ukrainian delicacies and every other international cuisine that they cooked.
You're humor and chef skills are equally appreciated!
Nicely done!
👍 Danke fürs Hochladen!
👍 Thanks for uploading!
👍 Very good and beautiful, thank you!
👍 Sehr gut und schön, danke!
Love your recipes. I made this today ready for heating up tonight. The balls were extremely fragile and wanted to fall apart... maybe I had too much fat or liquid, just lost 3.... cooks treat!!!!. They're very very tasty. As said previously, this mixture is very versatile. Many thanks.
so glad they came out well.
Made this yesterday -- delicious -- very very tender . Followed your recipe exactly except used only hamburger meat. Excellent. Thank you.
All I needed was a touch of Helen!
Thanks :)
wowowowwow you cook with a lot of love
Helen! Congratulations on having been featured on Will Ferrel's vlog. It must feel wonderful to have such a high profile superfan. The future's looking bright :)
wait what!?? can i have the link of the vlog???
Alas, Piotr, I am "mistaken" for Will Ferrell all the time! I'm more of a low profile superfan of HR!
I am so stealing this recipe.
I thought my meatballs recipe was great but this one is even better.
Merci pour cette délicieuse recette.
The percentages are very useful in scaling, thanks.
Very nice recipe chef 👍👌👏. The percentage is the best way with the best results. Thank you for your effort 🌹🤗🌞😎
I like to bake my meatballs. I find they are more tender. Beautiful recipe, as usual! Thanks Helen!
i love your channel!
My new favorite tongue-twister: Some tomatoes are sold salted, and some are sold unsalted :)
Not a big fan of meatballs, but after watching this I can't wait to make them. I found your homemade pasta and bolognese sauce recipes a few years ago and they are absolutely amazing, Helen.
Looks delicious Helen! I can’t wait to try it! Thank you
Thank you for this. I love meatballs and look forward to trying your recipe.
Dear Lord Helen, those just look to good.
I really enjoy your videos. Thanks for sharing!
"Russian interference" LOL, too good
Как всегда чудесно!
This mixture is proving quite versatile! Tomorrow I'm actually gonna try using it for Chebureki, and I'm sure it'll turn out delicious. Might tone down the "juicy" components a bit as to not make the dough soggy.
Thank you very much ma for such a beautiful recipe
I loved the recipe.I’ll try them. Thank you,and Happy New Year
Wow wish I had a kitchen
awesome
Another great video. Will try this in my 5qt braiser.
Wow that looks fabulous!
I like the recipe. I find it a little unusual. Definitely not Italian. But that doesn't have to be bad. I find the butter in the vegetable mixture interesting. Very clever is the extinguishing of the attached pan bottom. That's the most taste! I will try it.
What lovely meatballs.
Oh my. I now must make this!
Why are we still making round meatballs? I just make small meat patties, no chasing the ball in the pan anymore, and just 1 flip for browning! Thank you Helen! And Happy New Year!
I'm with you on this. ESPECIALLY for meatball subs! Why do we put round meatballs on a sandwich, when the whole point of a sandwich is to be flat and easily handled? Flat "meat patties" are superior.
Because then it's not a meatball. Meatloaf and 'meatloaf burgers' have been a thing for a while. Always preferred meatloaf burgers to subs myself.
@@SoftBreadSoft ???? Why make balls at all???
@@theresamcpherson7352 I guess some people prefer the flavor or texture with less brown to grey ratio. But I think it is more likely because balls are faster to shape with the squeeze technique or some kind of rounded scooper and that meatballs are often a high volume at dinner parties etc. It just sticks as habit so then when they're not making 100+ meatballs they dont question why not try a different shape since I dont have to make 100+
My best guesses. Fun to think about meatball anthropology though
Thank you for the wonderful video :D
Thanks for this.
Wonderful !
This looks amazing but is there any way to do this without bread or breadcrumbs?
I trained with an Italian Goddess called Marcella Hazan. She always taught that the "fat must run free from the sauce" when making pasta sauces or meatball sauces etc. She said it should be more like an oil dressing than a water based gravy.
People can like that but IMO the fat should be emulsified for so many reasons
@@rileywebb4178 emulsified with what? there should be little to no liquid in a pasta sauce/ dressing. Pasta sauces without tomatoes (white Sauces as they are known in italy) are almost pure oil and if you add tomatoes to a sauce you want to get the water out of them through cooking. If you use meat in a sauce like bolognese you add salt as soon as you add the meat to get the liquid to release do it will evaporate off during cooking.
Is it possible to decompress meat bought already vacuum packed?
Break up with a fork?? I get all of my meat frozen, from ButcherBox (so it is grass fed, which may raise another issue), and have found it is tough, especially the ground beef. The pork is less tough.
Also, NOW I understand why I have never found a frozen pre-made burger patty I like. They are all very tough! Thank you so much for teaching us. I have learned so much!
Helen, these are the tastiest meatballs I have ever made. Recipe ingredients are the best. I had some trouble frying up the meatballs though. the first batch produced so much liquid that I had to spoon off some liquid to get the browning. Both batches kept falling apart in the skillet. Should I add some eggs?
Simply splendid! Couldn't resist myself from subbing you. I have a question. Can we skip wine during the addition of tomatoes? Or any alternate?
Great tip on the panade to use buttermilk, Helen! The bit of tang is just the right amount of acidity, but I always find sugar unnecessary and unwarranted in tomato sauces. I don't know how that myth got started but it irks me to add sugar.
agreed on the sugar! i only seem to see it in american recipes. sure someone will prove me wrong though
while i'm at it: add less or no sugar to your whipped cream!!
I think it depends a lot on the kind of tomato products you have available. The ones in my home country are VERY acidic and I don't think I could ever make a balanced dish there without the sugar. The ones in the country I'm currently in are way less acidic, and there is only one specific dish so far where I really feel the need to balance it with sugar.
What is a non alcoholic replacement for white wine?
just skip it
I enjoyed seeing this video, since I just made meatballs last weekend. My method was much simpler, and probably less tasty than these. I think I'll try your method next time.
Have you tried adding powdered gelatin to the mix to have both soft and juicy meatballs?
Looks great! You mentioned how the specific meat is not important so would any meat (or faux meat) that's not compressed and finely ground work? Also, what kind of pasta is that?
I haven't tested it on faux meat. The pasta is Sfoglini Whole Grain Reginetti. It's available at my whole foods.
Hullo Helen, I know you are cringing at this question but seriously, won't purple onions work at all for caramelised onions? It is impossible to find any other type in my city.
I tried your Basque Piperade recipe and it was good but I burnt it slightly in the end of caramelising the onions. Again, I used green capsicums because the other colours are very expensive to use multiples of like that, and fire-roasted them on the gas stove.
You must be thinking that I am horrible at following instructions but I'm just a small townie in a third world country, trying to taste what you all do. :/
You are not horrible at following instructions, you are resourceful! We all have access to different ingredients. Purple onions (we call them "red onions" in the US) are perfectly fine to use in any of my recipes. They'll be delicious. The reason I point people to the yellow onions is that in the US they are easy to find and cheap and work so well.
@@helenrennie Thank you so much! I will try again. I also made your representation of the Stella Parks pie crust (I simply sliced the butter instead of having to press each cube), and it was the best I've ever made. I love your channel and your meticulous approach to every step. :D
Yes, add a little sugar to red sauce!
Very similar to my go to meatball recipe, the only real difference is that I add a few dashes of fish sauce to up the savory factor! Don’t tell my nonna though…
"With a Pinch of Helen" Is that a reference to Frank Proto's "A Pinch of Frank", or am I just reading into it?
I've been having a ground meat craving for weeks now, and as tomorrow is groceries day, I'm now torn between what I will _actually_ make?? Kotleti of course is very tempting, but what about meatloaf or maybe even chebureks? And now this recipe?? the choices overwhelm me (this is clearly a good problem to have)
* Keep up . the good work..".... the wtf did "Bill" do that was so difficult...
Why don’t you add eggs to the meatballs? I always add them
Soaking the bread in kefir sounds interesting! Is there a noticeable difference when using kefir instead of buttermilk/milk?
no difference between kefir and buttermilk. milk will have slightly less flavor (less acidity), but with all that tomato sauce, I don't know if anyone will notice.
I hope this video was recorded in the fall, because that meat label says it expired 4 months ago!
Great recipe - only thing I would advise you is to look into how unhealthy seed oils are, you used quite a lot in the video. I don't think you wouldn't get good browning by using lard or clarified butter/ghee, and it would be a healthy substitute :)
Is that the new pasta shape?
I'm in a different part of our world than Russia or America, and whenever I watch these videos I wonder what the bostinaria is?
"Boston area" :) Closed Captions can help. Click the little "CC" icon on the bottom of the screen
@@helenrennie Ah thank you. I'll google where that is.
There's a British word that describes me at this moment: chuffed!
I learned a new word :)
I thought it was better to salt the outside of meatballs so that it doesn't dry them out and make them firm the same way you do with hamburgers.
Is that not the case with these meatballs?
meatballs are a completely different animal. Because they contain the bread product, they don't become firm and bouncy with salt mixed in. if you only salt the outside, they'll be terribly bland
I think the Butter chunks mixed into the ground meat was the "pinch of Helen"
I've only ever seen it used in one other place, "Refika's Kitchen". Refika is Turkish and she uses butter in her ground meat a lot, tough I'm not sure if it's a Turkish thing or a Refika's thing.
Do they freeze well? Can I cook some of it and freeze the rest to cook later?
I haven't tried freezing, but I would cook them all and freeze after cooking.
@@helenrennie thank you, I will try that :)
@@leaselmary_sims2189 have you tried freezing? how did it work?
❤️
What kind of pasta is that!?!?
see the first comment
is there kifir in US?
yes, every store in my area sells it.
💚
I don't have a saute pan and have considered buying one. I have found many on Amazon are reviewed having problems with the bottom of the pan not being flat or wrapping. I looked at higher priced pans and cheaper and the reviews have been consistent on this problem. Do I buy cheap pans and throw out, or is there a brand you have found that works in your kitchen? Thank you
Here is the pan I am using in this video. I've had it for years and have never had any issues with warped bottom. amzn.to/33x5gWT
I've had that same Cuisinart pan for more than a decade and it still looks great and cooks beautifully. A straight sided skillet is such a workhorse. You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars.
@@helenrennie Thank you
@@lisaboban Some of the expensive and cheaper pans reviewed have repeated comments of the bottom wrapping. One reviewer measured the thickness of their older pan and the newer one and found the newer pan to be much thinner. Some reviewers had experience of a small amount of oil going to the edge. They then had the choice of adding too much oil to cover the pan or return it and find one that had a flat bottom. It's why I posted the question. Thank you.
@@helenrennie I've had the same pan for years, but hardly used it, because to me , it is heavy. However, I plan to make your meatballs in the future. 😉
*"Russian interference"* 😂
Russian interference. Helen might be too good for youtube
What kind of noodles are those
See the first pinned comment.
I'm on keto, guess I'll skip the breadcrumbs?
Russian interference in these all-American meatballs? I thought she was Estonian.
Russian interference 😂😂
Boop
LMAO “Russian interference”
3 TBS of olive oil, you make me laugh right out the gate; more like 12; but that's why I watch these videos, not just listen to them. Why, why... please admit that your idea of 1TBS is more like 3TBS. Or is that the "pinch of Helen?" LOL. Love your videos, but admit it... oil in abundance.
If you are referring to the amount of oil for sweating onions, it is somewhere between 3-4 Tbsp. It's not 12. Yes, I do use oil with abundance. You don't need to measure it. This isn't baking.