Mama caruso's fried meatballs (don't tell my family!)
Cutlets and meatballs
“Mama” refers to my Grandma Caruso, my Dad’s mother. My dad and the rest of his siblings used to refer to her as “Mama”, never mom or mother. My French-American mother learned to make Italian food from "Mama", her Italian mother-in-law. We ate a lot of pasta on Sundays, and my mom always made meatballs with Sunday gravy. She would start her gravy early, and while most of my friends were waking up to the smell of coffee brewing or bacon frying, we’d wake up to garlic and meatballs frying. Yes, we fry our meatballs. <br /> <br />I’ve heard that some people plop their meatballs right into the gravy raw and let them do all of their cooking there. We brown our meatballs first in a sauté pan so they get nice and crispy and tasty. The browning is where all that great flavor comes from! My mom says this also really seals in the juices. I feel if you drop them into the gravy raw, they are missing all of that extra flavor they could be getting by browning them first. The key ingredients to Mama's meatballs are: garlic, fresh Italian parsley (and lots of it), Pecorino Romano cheese, and good rustic bread. My mouth is watering already!
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