Leftover Meatballs

This is such an old time style recipe, truly back in the day nothing went to waste. Over my many years, as I look back now, no matter what job I had, somehow food was always present. Mostly in conversation, an occasional  share of a family secret recipe and of course through eating. In my 20 + years of nursing and talking with my elder clients, I learned all sorts of things that I continue to this day, to draw from in my creations.

This particular meal came after I did a recipe for the shed cookbook. I used short ribs but this works for almost any leftover meat from roast chicken to roast veal. You can vary the flavors to you liking, you can serve them with pasta (as shown), as a lunch with just sauce or make them smaller as in a appetizer. Also, consider stuffing them with cheese.

1 lb of leftover cooked meat, short ribs is what is shown (beef, chicken, turkey, pork or veal)
2 tbsp Wintergrass fat back (about a 2" chunk)*
1 egg (Sweetgrass, JFF, MVD or The Farm)
1/2 c bread crumbs
1tsp of each dried thyme, marjoram and oregano**
flour
1 egg (Sweetgrass, JFF, MVD or The Farm), lightly beaten
sauce of choice***

You can use a food processor to make this quicker and easy if you like, or it is a great way to polish up your chopping skills. Finely chop the leftover meat and fat back, you want this to look like ground meat basically (NOTE: if you use the FP, pulse the meat so that you do not let the meat become to paste like, also is better to chop chilled meat). Place in a large bowl.

Add in 1 egg, bread crumbs and herbs. Mix together until it holds together when squeezed in your hand. Form into desired size meat balls and place on a platter. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. You need to plates:place some flour on one plate season with s/p and on the second lightly beat the egg.

Roll a meat ball in the egg coating well, but let any excess drain off. Then roll in flour, shake off excess. Repeat until all meat balls are coated, placing back on platter. Carefully add meat balls to hot pan and brown 1-2 minutes on each side. Place in sauce and heat through for about 20 minutes, giving a gentle stir occasionally.


*fatback I leave a chunk in my freezer, then just chop off what I need. No need to defrost, use a good sharp knife.

**Herbs: you can follow through with the same herbs you used when you first cooked the meat. Or change it up, sometimes I make with sausage herbs and spices and make patties instead of balls and serve with breakfast.

*** You can make a basic tomato sauce or use a cream sauce like in Swedish meat ball style. Really the possibilities are endless.