Since you asked, Martina. I think we originally got this recipe from someone that Mom worked with in Florida. I remember eating it for the first time while I was reading Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, and for that reason they are always linked together in my head! Brains are weird! Anyway... I'm not going to post all the recipe since it is basically the sauce that makes it unique. Use whatever recipe you use for meatballs (meat, breadcrumbs, onion, egg, salt, etc.) and make them into small meatballs. The smallness is part of what makes them cool - although we hardly ever take the time to make tiny meatballs anymore.
The sauce -
1 bottle Heinz Chile sauce (if there is a W brand chile sauce, I don't want to know. I can only assume it would taste TERRIBLE and not be good for the recipe)
1 can jellied cranberry sauce (not whole - although I have made that mistake before and it is not tragic)
some brown sugar - say a couple of goodsize spoonfulls
half a chile sauce bottle's worth of water.
I usually heat up the cranberry sauce and the chile sauce together in an electric frying pan (or whatever you call those things that have lids and plug in) - mushing up the cranberry sauce with a fork. I am not such a micromanager that I would insist on this method - I magnanimously grant permission for you to mush up the cranberry sauce any way you see fit. hee hee. After that is combined pretty well I add the sugar and stir it in, and then the water. Give it another good stir then add the meatballs! cook on medium heat until the meatballs are done (about a half hour? I'm not sure on that.. it might be longer) You can cook it on a lower temperature for a longer time and get a nice thick sauce.
We usually have it over rice with home made cole slaw (or green vegetable) and corn bread. Yum!
I've had a variation on these that was grape jelly and salsa that wasn't bad. I can only imagine grape jelly and ketchup is horrible. I like the cranberry sauce because it adds that extra layer of tart but rich flavor. Dang. Now I am hungry (again!) and it is totally too late to eat!
4 comments:
I thought lemon juice went in this. Hmmm. I could be cracked!
hmmm. I don't think so. I'll double check. The bbq sauce we make has lemon juice but not the meatball sauce. I'll look, but I think you are cracked!
Just for those who want to know - 1. No lemon juice. 2. When I make the meat balls I never use salt, but do use a lot of pepper. So it goes like this, hamberger, finely chopped onion, bread crumbs (of at least 2 slices of bread) 2 eggs, lots of pepper. Mix and make the meat balls.
We made this tonight. It came out really good. We had some fresh cranberries that were on the verge of going bad that my mom had cooked with a bit of sugar, so we used that and it was a little tangier than yours usually are, but still good. Also, if you are feeling too lazy to make meatballs/just want to save a little time, Trader Joe's turkey meatballs (or also their vegetarian "meat"balls - we eat them a lot) work really well. I found a new cornbread recipe that we made with them, which I will post. It was really easy - modified from a mix, but really good as well.
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