Old Nonnie’s Italian Meatballs with Raisins and Pignoli

I love meatballs, any kind of meatballs made with any kind of meat from any cuisine. Big flavor in a tiny meaty package. Old Nonnie’s fried Italian meatball recipe with raisins and pignoli (pine nuts) from my mother’s grandmother are among my favorite.

Working on this meatball recipe transports me back to childhood ala Anton Ego to whatever kitchen Old Nonnie was working in. Her teeny, raspy-voiced self would be puttering around in a house dress (not to be confused with a nightgown), stockings, shoes and jewelry, talking nonstop about this or that or WHO (my favorite subject and I didn’t care who the who was… Nonnie was my personal Rona Barrett). All the while, that tiny wisp of a human would be putting out enough food for the hordes. Did the grands help? Sure, Mom and Aunt Dot would be toting and fetching and whatever else Nonnie needed, but the bulk of the food production was all Nonnie. She’d shoo a person out in a second if they got in her way. She was small but mighty in so many ways.

When I called Mom to ask about this meatball recipe, she said that she never wrote it down. She told me that she and Aunt Ellie (mom’s college roommate and my father’s sister-in-law) went to visit Old Nonnie in Florida on a college break and Nonnie tried to teach them all of the recipes (this one included) but they were more interested in tanning slathered with olive oil and iodone than rolling polpette and making gnocchi. She sighed, saying we spend youth sure it won’t end.

While Mom didn’t have the meatball recipe, she did remember enough detail that I was able to cobble together a food memory recipe that works for me. Nonnie would add tons of raisins because she loved them; I will not because I do not. Feel free to go that route. Nonnie always fried her meatballs in olive oil; she never baked them. Nonnie didn’t add her meatballs to the sauce until right before she served them because she wanted to keep the crispy edges. With those details, I sallied forth …

Next visit to see her, I’ll make Mom a batch and see what she says. I’m pretty sure there will be a raisin discrepancy but I am a-okay with that. For the recipe, skip to the bottom. For details on the process, do the slow roll down.

Meatball Recipe Hows, Whys & Wherefores

Meat

• From the chats I’ve had with Mom, Nonnie used all beef in these meatballs so I use all beef to maintain the family recipe.
• I use 80/20 (80% meat and 20% fat) which yields a softer texture. You can certainly use a leaner beef if that’s all that’s available or that’s what you like.
• A beef/pork/veal mix would probably also be nice.

Bread

• Nonnie would have used whatever bread was on hand so that’s what I’ve done.
• I use homemade white sandwich bread including the crust.
• Cut off the crust if that’s your druther; I don’t think these rustic meatballs will show a difference.
• In a pinch, use 1 cup of unseasoned Panko in place of fresh bread (that’s half the 2 cups fresh bread cubes).
• I would not use flavored breadcrumbs, “Italian” breadcrumbs or finely ground plain commercial dry breadcrumbs. The meatball texture may tend toward dense and/or oddly flavored if you do. If any of these are all you have – in the spirit of how the Nonnies cooked – start with half-cup and only add more if the meat mixture won’t stay together.

Cheese

• Locatelli Pecorino Romano is my cheese choice for all Italian meatballs. I grew up with it; Mom and the Nonnies use(d) and I’ve yet to find a better cheese for the purpose.
• The stuff in the green can is not 100% cheese. There may be cheese in it but there’s also cellulose (aka wood pulp). Grating a hunk of cheese – in my book – gets you the best flavor and texture.
• Parmigiano-Reggiano would be a very expensive – though delicious – alternative. I save this for finish floofs. Or eating in tiny hunks with a glass of red …

Raisins

This was my meatball recipe bugaboo. I have to start by saying that I dislike raisins with some intensity. As a kid – and possibly beyond – I would cry, literally, if someone offered me a cookie and it had raisins in it. I would either spend more time than it was worth picking them out. Every. Single. One. Or get in trouble for doing that and get my treat taken away. Or, if my knickers were in that much of a wad, just turn it down and be done with things … more often than not my go-to response. So with that in mind …

• I began with the lightest raisin – Golden – and the flavor was completely overwhelmed; there was almost no discernible sweetness.
• I doubled the amount of Golden raisins and still got very little flavor though did stick with that quantity (that’s a quarter cup of raisins per pound of ground beef if you’re scaling).
• I called my mother (duh) and she confirmed that Nonnie always used regular brown raisins since that’s what was available. Tada! They added the flavor I was looking for.

Pignoli (Pine Nuts)

• Use Italian pignoli. They are dearly priced (to be kindly about it) but are preferable to the cheaper variety harvested in China. There’s also the issue of pine mouth which isn’t a concern with the Italian variety unless you consume your body weight in them.
• Toast the pine nuts before adding into the meatballs mixture to get the most flavor out of the half cup you will need.

Frying vs. Baking

I generally bake meatballs because I hate the smell of frying in my little house, the mess from spattering can be epic, and the added oil to recipes is something I’d prefer to bypass. However, when I was working on this recipe, I got the flavor almost there but something was missing and I could not for the life of me figure it out. So I called Bunny. We went through my ingredients and she said they all sounded right. Then she asked what oil I was using for frying. Frying? says I. I bake them. [Bunny silence] Convection bake them, I added. [More Bunny silence meaning she was trying to think up a nice way to ask what the hell I was thinking.]

I let her out of her misery by asking if she thinks frying would help. Well, yessss, Elizabeth. Nonnie would never … Nonnie would always fry them. [Positive spin save like a champ.] And she fried them in olive oil! That wizened old rebel that she was.

I was instructed to fry them in olive oil but be careful of the heat because olive oil does not do well at high heat frying. So, in the wretched 103F heat of midday, I fried three batches of meatballs in cast iron over medium-low to medium heat and … Nonnie Nirvana! The crisped edges of raisin that were sizzled in the oil got caramelized and intensely earthy-sweet. The beef got, well beefier. The pignoli crisped and nuttier.

So fry them. TIme and place people. Time and place. Sometimes you’ve just got to do it. And you will be rewarded.

Serving & Storing

• Nonnie always served her meatballs simmered in tomato sauce (some call it gravy) and served over spaghetti. You can find my basic tomato sauce recipe with my Italian Meatballs & Sauce.
• I prefer my sauced meatballs either in sandwich form on a soft Italian roll with melty provolone picante or over polenta with grated Locatelli or this is where you splurge on the Parmigiano Reggiano.
• If you are making this meatball recipe ahead, go all the way through frying and cooling and then once at room temp, place into a covered container to refrigerate for a day or two or into freezer bags (vacuum-sealed are the best) and toss in the freezer.
• If frozen, thaw in the refrigerator overnight and then put in sauce at a low simmer until heated through. This is great for crowd-feeding since you can double or triple batch and heat in the same scaled up amount of sauce in a pan or crockpot on low stirring every once in a while.

I’ve answered most of the questions I could think of about Old Nonnie’s meatball recipe in the section above. If something’s not clear or you need additional info, please post in the comments below or give me a shout on Instagram @piecrustandpasta #piecrustandpasta and I’ll answer. I’d love to know if you make these; posting a pic would just make my day!

Mangia bene, Babes!