Recipe

Classic Meatballs and Tomato Sauce from a Greenville Mainstay

An unfussy, tried-and-true crowd-pleaser from Michael Kramer’s new cookbook, Jianna
A bowl of meatballs in red sauce

Photo: ANDREW CEBULKA

“We take the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach with something as timeless as meatballs,” writes Michael Kramer in his debut cookbook, Jianna, named after the restaurant he has helmed in Greenville, South Carolina, since 2017. The book is a comprehensive collection of recipes that blend Italian traditions with Southern ingredients: Imagine a purple gin cocktail starring liquor from Durham, North Carolina, or creamy polenta with heritage grains from the South Carolina Upstate. Kramer folds memories of visiting Italy and his love for the South into recipes for comforting pastas, fresh seafood dishes, and gelato- and sorbetto-heavy desserts. 

His recipe for veal and ground pork meatballs and tomato sugo—a classic Italian base sauce—represents “Italian comfort food at its finest,” he writes.

biscuits
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Ingredients

  • Classic Meatballs and Tomato Sugo (YIELD: 32 meatballs and 12 cups of sauce)

  • For the tomato sugo

    • 2 celery stalks

    • 1 large yellow Spanish onion, diced into small pieces

    • 1 large carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces

    • 1 fennel bulb

    • 1 tbsp. thinly sliced garlic

    • 1 cup dry red wine (such as Chianti)

    • 5 28-oz. cans San Marzano plum tomatoes, pureed

    • 1 tbsp. dry oregano

    • 8 fresh basil leaves

    • Kosher salt

    • ¼ cup vegetable oil

  • For the meatballs

    • 2 oz. ricotta cheese

    • 1 whole egg

    • 1 egg yolk

    • 1 oz. whole milk

    • 1 tsp. minced garlic

    • 1 tbsp. dried oregano

    • 1½ lb. ground veal

    • 1¼ lb. ground pork

    • 3 tbsp. kosher salt

    • 1 cup panko breadcrumbs, finely ground

    • 3 oz. Parmesan cheese, grated


Preparation

  1. Make the sauce: Place celery, onion, carrots, and fennel in the bowl of a food processor and pulse lightly for 20 seconds. Heat oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add celery, onion, carrot, and fennel mixture to the pot and cook lightly for 5 to 8 minutes to caramelize. Add garlic and stir quickly so it does not burn. Add wine and reduce to dry.

  2. Add pureed tomatoes, 3½ cups water, and oregano. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 hour on low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Add fresh basil leaves. Using a hand blender, puree the sauce. Season to taste with kosher salt.

  3. Make the meatballs: Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, mix ricotta, egg and egg yolk, milk, garlic, and oregano. Set aside. Place ground veal and pork in another large bowl, add all the wet ingredients, and mix well. Add salt, panko, and Parmesan; mix well. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop individual meatballs (approximately 1½ oz. each) until the batch is finished. Hand-roll the meatballs, then place on a parchment-lined sheet tray. Transfer meatballs to the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until cooked through with an internal temperature of 160°F.

JIANNA Copyright © 2024 Michael Kramer. Photographs copyright © 2024 by Andrew Cebulka. Published in the United States by Story Farm.

 


Gabriela Gomez-Misserian, Garden & Gun’s digital producer, joined the magazine in 2021 after studying English and studio art in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. She is an oil painter and gardener, often uniting her interests to write about creatives—whether artists, naturalists, designers, or curators—across the South. Gabriela paints and lives in downtown Charleston with her golden retriever rescue, Clementine.


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