(joyful music) (meatballs sizzling) (pan clatters) (meatballs sizzling) - Hello, I'm Giuliano Hazan, and today I'm going to make a recipe of my mother, Marcella Hazan, for classic Italian meatballs, from her cookbook, "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking."

(light music) We have ground beef, have eggs, bread, onions, nutmeg, parsley.

(light music continues) I'm going to begin with the bread.

The bread needs to be soaked in milk, but we don't want the crust of the bread.

(light music continues) I'm going to put the bread in this bowl where I'm going to mix all the ingredients in, and I'm going to add the milk.

My mother, actually, in her recipe, warms up the milk in a separate pot, but then you have to wait for it to cool down.

And so, sometimes I try to take shortcuts.

And when I tried this, I discovered that it worked really well, just mushing the bread in the bowl without having to warm it up with the milk.

So I just use my hands, which is kind of fun also.

And just mash up the bread, letting it soak up that milk, until I get a nice, even mush.

And then press it down again to mash it.

And now we're ready to add the rest of the ingredients.

We have some ground beef.

I like to use the 80/20 ground beef, the one that's 80% lean.

Also, my mother never used really lean meat because if it's too lean, the meatballs will come out dry.

(light music continues) And then I have one egg.

(egg tapping) (egg cracking) And then we need to do some prep.

We need to dice our onion.

And so this is my trick for finely dicing onion with a minimal amount of pain and suffering.

You know, most of the pain and suffering comes from the fumes that the onions give off.

And the fewer cuts that you make, the fewer fumes will come out.

I cut off the top, but I leave the root attached because the root is going to hold the onion together.

And then I cut it in half right through the root like this.

(knife thumps) (light music continues) I want to make lengthwise cuts, but I don't want to just go straight down like this.

I want to go around in an arc, following the shape of the onion, making small, narrow, little wedges all the way around.

And then all I have to do is just cut crosswise as if I'm making thin, crosswise slices.

Use your knife in a slicing motion like this.

And you see, I have nice, finely diced onion with a minimal amount of cuts.

(knife thumps) There, that's good enough.

And we're going to add the onion.

(lively music) So now I'm going to roll the meatballs in some breadcrumbs.

You don't want to make them too big, maybe about an inch and a half or so in diameter.

Okay, we're ready to cook our meatballs.

And the first thing we're going to do is to brown them in some vegetable oil.

Come up maybe a quarter inch up the side of the pan.

There we go.

And we turn the heat on, and we want to get the oil nice and hot.

(lively music continues) So when my mother first came to the United States after she married my father, she discovered meatballs with pasta, with spaghetti, something that did not exist in Italy.

When we eat meatballs, we don't eat them with pasta, we eat them with some nice, crusty bread.

The best way.

(lively music continues) Now it's starting to sizzle.

I can also feel the heat coming out.

So we're going to begin by browning them.

(meatballs sizzling) And then put some tomatoes in, and put the meatballs back in.

And then they cook for approximately 45 minutes or so.

(lively music continues) So our meatballs are done.

And sometimes you'll see that there's some extra oil that comes out.

So, I usually like to skim that, so that they're not too greasy.

I use a little ladle like this.

(lively music continues) Okay.

And these are ready to eat now.

(lively music continues) My mother would put these meatballs in a thermos for me to bring to school.

And the other kids in school were making fun of me that I was bringing this strange, stuffed meat.

You know, my mother said, "Oh, well, you can go to the cafeteria."

I tried that for a day, and that was enough.

And I went back to my thermos.

And ready to dig into these.

(lively music continues) Hmm.

(lively music continues) Hmm.

They're so good.

This brings back memories.

I hope you've enjoyed watching me make these meatballs and that you'll want to make them at home as well.

(pan clatters) Thanks for watching.

(lively music ends) (no audio) (no audio)