Growing up in Philadelphia, chef Joey Campanaro could often be found in the kitchen of his grandmother’s house next door.
“I grew up with a big family in South Philly, which is a very blue gang and does what you have to do in a city,” says Campanaro, whose father was a firefighter and his mother worked in the school district. “It was always like ‘going to grandma’s house and hanging out.’ She usually made pasta. I loved it.”
All these years later, the recipes he learned while keeping his grandmother company are the foundation of his culinary philosophy at the New York restaurant, the Little Owl. It is also what inspired his cookbook Big Love Cooking.
“He lived through depression and was the eldest of five children,” says Campanaro, who also owns Manhattan Market Table and The Clam restaurants. “There were very difficult times, but when it comes to cooking, it was when I did things for the people I loved. And he loved doing it. ”
The book devotes an entire chapter to Sunday Supper, which kicks off with his Sunday Gravy, a recipe he calls his “North Star” cooking and which he learned from his grandmother. Of course, he also had to include his Gray Meatball Sliders, a very popular dish that was an instant classic when the Little Owl opened in 2006. Campanaro attributes the sensational response he received from customers to his total lack of pretension.
“I said, you know what? We do something fantastic that people can eat with their hands, ”he recalls.
There’s no denying that sauce-soaked meatballs also have a little more of an effect in terms of flavor and texture. Although she has received a recipe update over the years, she is still rooted in her early days of learning to cook in the kitchen of her Italian grandmother’s house.
Ready for an intensive cooking course of great love? Here’s Campanaro’s recipe for meatball sliders with sauce and some tips and tricks to make sure they come out perfectly every time.
Although Campanaro meatballs include three types of ground meat (beef, pork and veal), the chef says the result is “very light.”
“Some people [meatballs] it can be a little bricky, “says Campanaro.” At the restaurant we serve them at the beginning of the meal: they’re an appetizer. “In fact, having a starter. Every time I eat one, I’m amazed at how light it is.”
Campanaro achieves this feat by adding a little water to the mixture of meat, eggs, pecorino cheese, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper and fresh parsley. It is recommended to cool the raw meatballs before frying them; they will hold up better and be easier to maneuver in the pan. It is also essential to fry them in batches, so that meatballs the size of a golf ball do not pile up in the pan. This will ensure that they are browned properly.
But before slicing and rolling all the meatballs, first fry a small tester to make sure you have the right level of salt. There’s nothing worse than frying them all to realize you should add a little more seasoning. “My grandmother would try [the meat mixture] raw, ”he says. “And it was like, aren’t you afraid of getting sick? And it’s not, at all.
While Campanaro finds the meat trio to be the best meatballs, he says using one or two would also be “absolutely delicious.” The breadcrumbs can also be easily changed for another type, the dried herbs can easily replace the fresh place (there are only a few less) and the water, although important, also leaves some room for experimentation.
“One thing that can be fun is instead of water, if you put a little wine in the raw meat mix,” he says. Beyond that, however, I recommend following the recipe as closely as possible.
If you close your eyes and taste the Campanaro Sunday sauce, you will swear it contains pork sausage. It doesn’t. This is because the Italian Christian Street market in Philly was closed on a Sunday while her grandmother was having dinner and could not get the Italian sausage she normally cooked in the sauce.
“He loved how the sausage flavored the sauce,” Campanaro says. “And so he thought: what is Italian sausage? It’s not just ground pork, but it has fennel seeds. So, while browning the onions and garlic, it had no sausage, so he put fennel seeds in what is called sofrito ”.
He remembers being “very impressed” by his quick thinking and the taste of the sauce he hooked up with Campanaro on Sunday. “I was something I adopted from her,” she says. “Actually, I feel privileged to know that I took this little trick from a 75-year-old woman who cooks from the heart.”
To make the sauce, the chef uses the same pan in which the meatballs were cooked, first filtering the excess oil. After adding the whole canned tomatoes, stir the sauce while it cooks a bit and then pass it all through a food mill for the ideal consistency. Then simmer the sauce and meatballs together for at least four hours. The shorter the time, the more concentrated the flavor.
“You have to be very careful when you stir,” Campanaro says. “There’s a ring around the pot as the sauce shrinks and the water evaporates and sticks to the side. That’s concentrating the flavor, so you have to take it out of that pot and go back. -to put it in the sauce ”.
If you miss a piece of sauce after the fact, do what Campanaro used to do when he came to the kitchens and work as a dishwasher: “I would take a piece of bread and scrape it [those bits] out of the pot, ”he says. “The chef saw me do this one day and said,‘ What are you doing? I tell myself, ‘I don’t like throwing it away. It’s very good.'”
While Campanaro serves the Gravy Meatball Sliders as a trio at the Little Owl with little buns, that’s far from the only way he likes to eat them. “I love pasta and I love salad,” he says. “At the restaurant we make this amazing Caesar salad and you know how people want grilled chicken or grilled shrimp? What we’re going to do in Little Owl is add a meatball. “
No matter how you decide to serve them, Camanaro says there are many possibilities to overcome them. To make sure they taste the same the next day, reheat the meatballs and sauce together in a large pot over low heat for about 20 minutes or until completely heated. Then grate the pecorino cheese over each meatball and watch it melt.
“Big Love Cooking it is dedicated to the women who have helped me become the person I am today, including my grandmother and my mother, ”says Campanaro. “It simply came to our notice then. And how food and comforting food in general can inspire good decisions. ”
Little Owl Gravy Meatballs
* Makes 36 meatballs
Meatballs
INGREDIENTS
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 pound ground beef
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup pecorino cheese, finely grated
- 1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
- Sal kosher
- Black pepper, freshly ground
- 0.25 cup fresh, finely chopped Italian parsley
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 cup canola oil
Salsa
INGREDIENTS
- Sal kosher
- Black pepper, freshly ground
- 0.25 cup olive oil
- 1 Large yellow onion, with the ends trimmed, peeled and cut approximately
- 8 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 teaspoon fennel seed
- .5 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
- 8 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
- .5 teaspoons red pepper flakes (optional)
- 4 cans of 28 oz. Whole peeled tomatoes
- 1 can of 6 oz Tomato Paste
- 7 cups water
DIRECTIONS
- Remove two large baking sheets (no need to grease them, as they are there to hold the meats) and place them close together. Also, remove a large plate to hold the golden meats.
- To prepare the meatballs: In a large bowl, combine the veal, pork, veal, eggs, cold water, pecorino cheese, bread crumbs, salt, pepper and parsley. Use your hands to mix well and train well on 36 golf ball-sized meatballs, about 3 ounces each. Cut your hands and roll them back and forth to really soften them and transfer them to a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
- In the largest shallow pot you have (the one with the maximum surface to be able to comfortably brown the meat (even a large cast iron skillet will work) over medium-high heat, add the canola oil. You want the oil to be very hot but not smoking.
- Take the meatballs out of the fridge and use a large slotted spoon to add one to the pot. Does this meatball immediately start to crunch on the outside? Well. Your oil is hot enough. Continue adding the rest of the meatballs to the pot, leaving ample space between each meatball and working in batches. Lower the heat to medium and cook until dark brown and crispy on one side, 4 to 5 minutes. Turn it over and cook on the other side until brown and crispy, too, for another 4 to 5 minutes. Persuade the stubborn meatballs that want to stick to the bottom of the pot, putting a slotted spoon in it and making a gentle push. Transfer the meatballs to the large plate and set aside.
- Discard the canola oil by pouring it into a fine-mesh strainer placed on an empty tin. The strainer will catch pieces of brown meat and the oil will cool in the can before throwing it away; my grandmother and mother would save a can of tomato from their previous sauce pot. Use what is best for you.
- Set aside the strainer of pieces of meat.
- In the same empty pot over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil until it shines and add the golden pieces of meat, onion, garlic, fennel seed, 2 tablespoons kosher salt, the parsley and basil, lower the heat to half and cook. until the onions turn a little brown and everything smells amazing, about 5 minutes. If you like spicy sauce, now would be the time to add the red pepper flakes, if used.
- Open the tomato cans and pour the contents directly into the pot one by one (no need to crush the tomatoes; they will go through the food mill). Fill an empty can of tomato with 1 cup of cold water, swirl it and pour it into the second can, swirl it and throw it in the third can and add the tomato water to the pot plus 6 cups of water. You will have in front of you a pot of love with a broth and watery appearance.
- Increase the heat until it starts to boil and lower the heat to low heat.
- When the sauce is simmering, add the iaia-style tomato paste: open both the top and bottom of the can and push the top lid down to scrape it and catch the sticky paste on the sides. of the can because it can be wasted. Carefully grasp the two metal lids on the bottom so they don’t cut you (and don’t fall into the sauce). Cover the pot with the lid slightly open and simmer, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for about 30 minutes.
- Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool slightly, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, place a food mill with the smallest disk and place it on a large, shallow bowl. Using an 8-ounce spoon, begin transferring the cooled tomato sauce to the food mill and handling it in batches of 8 ounces at a time. As you pass through the food mill, it will start to look even more watery as the tomato pulp, onions and garlic are mixed and mashed together. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the food grinder so that each piece of tomato and herbs goes back into the pot. Aside.
- With tongs or a slotted spoon, carefully lower the meatballs into the now empty pot along with the juices that were collected on the plates while the meats rested. Pass the crushed tomato into the pot, covering the meatballs. Cover the pot with the lid slightly open and let the Sunday sauce cook and reduce for a minimum of 4 hours, stirring gently from time to time.
Reprinted from Big Love Cooking by Joey Campanaro courtesy of Chronicle Books, 2020.