Sausage meatballs over garlic-herb orzo
Two ingredients make the meatballs. The fennel does everything else.
At a Glance
Story
Sausage is already seasoned, emulsified and fatted, so meatballs made from it need nothing but a binder. Panko and nothing else. No egg, no milk, no herbs, no onion. Every addition past that point is diluting something a butcher already got right.
Ingredients
- 4 oz orzo
- 10 oz hot Italian sausagecasings removed
- ¼ cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 fennel bulbcored and medium diced
- 2 scallionssliced, whites and greens kept apart
- 1 × 8 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
- 1 oz butter
- 2 cloves garlicfinely chopped
- 1 tbsp parsleychopped
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan
- olive oilsalt, pepper
Method
Fennel with sausage is not a new idea and there is a reason nobody has improved on it. The sherry vinegar hitting the hot pan is the step that makes the sauce taste like it simmered longer than it did.
- Salted water on to boil. Core and dice the fennel, keeping any fronds.
- Mix the sausage and panko gently and shape into 10 tightly packed balls. Brown them in a large pan over medium high, turning and shaking the pan, 5 to 7 minutes, until colored all over. They will not be cooked through.
- Orzo into the water, 8 to 10 minutes to tender. Drain and return to the pot with the butter, garlic and parsley, stirred until the butter goes.
- Fennel into the meatball pan. Season, 2 to 3 minutes. Scallion whites, another 1 to 2 minutes.
- Sherry vinegar in, and scrape the base hard while it hisses and disappears, under a minute.
- Tomato sauce. Simmer 3 to 4 minutes, until thickened and the meatballs reach 160°F.
- Orzo into bowls, meatballs and sauce over. Parmesan, scallion greens and any fennel fronds you saved.
A heel of bread to swipe the bowl. Nobody needs telling twice.
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