Ingredients

4 slices bacon, diced

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 lbs ground pork

salt & pepper

2 cloves garlic, sliced

6 oz. fresh shiitake mushrooms, diced

1/2 C white wine

4 cups diced fresh tomatoes or 28 oz can diced tomatoes, strained

1/4 C parsley, roughly chopped

parmesan cheese

Instructions

Cook bacon in a heavy stockpot over medium heat, stirring frequently, until starting to crisp up.

Add the onion, celery, and carrot; mix well.

Add the pork, season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until meat is evenly browned. Remove from heat.

Add the garlic, mushrooms, wine, and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer gently until mushrooms are cooked and liquid is reduced by half then sprinkle in half the parsley.

Serve over pasta and finish with remaining parsley and grated parmesan cheese.

Comments (3)

Daniel:
Oct 01, 2020 at 05:43 AM

Just wondering - did you ever manage to make the 'proper' meatballs-like version of this recipe?
I tried last night and realised it was pretty much impossible! Because the sofrito+pork mixture was too dry to shape. Does the pork need to be raw to be able to shape into the balls?

And the amount of tomato passata mentioned in the recipe can't possibly provide as much tomato sauce as shown in the photo in the book.

So definitely a strange recipe - any ideas?!

I actually ended up making something almost identical to your recipe here, in an attempt to throw together what I had already made and could not successfully form into the actual recipe!
Pammie:
Oct 03, 2020 at 01:21 PM

Ditto! Recipe just cannot be right but it’s a great Ravi when you add more liquid. We love this book book but this can’t be right.
Jack McCann:
Oct 03, 2020 at 02:30 PM

For those wondering, the questions above relate to the original recipe in Silver Spoon -- it calls for cooking the pork and then shaping into meatballs AFTER cooking.

I checked with Betsy who is one who always 'follows a recipe' the first time (I just read a recipe and make something up most of the time) -- anyhow, she doesn't think she ever tried to actually make 'meatballs' as described in the book.

We don't think it is possible to make a 'meatball' the way it is described. One might get the texture just right to make clumps, but without eggs or breading AND using 'browned pork', we agree there isn't a way to make anything resembling what we think of as a 'meatball'.

Betsy's comment was "That's probably why we made it a variation and did the recipe the way we did for this article". Great simple ingredients and tasty, but in that case, we think a whiff for an otherwise fantastic cookbook.

PS - our book doesn't show an image for this recipe, so I can't comment about the amount of sauce shown.

Hope that helps?