Spaghetti with Meatballs

Aah, spaghetti with meatballs: an American pasta dish. One cannot go wrong with this classic American pasta. According to its history, Italian immigrants to New York invented this dish in the early 20th century. In fact, they say that you rarely see spaghetti with meatballs in Italy. You can see spaghetti and meatballs, but not with.

ok, my bad. Meatballs aren't visible in this picture. :(

Here in the Philippines, however, we do our spaghetti sauce differently. We want our pasta to be on the sweeter side, and tends to be "saucy". Foreigners might be shocked to find sliced hotdogs in the Pinoy Style spaghetti. This time, I wanted to serve my bandmates a different kind of spaghetti (well, not Pinoy Style). I tried this simple recipe. (Sorry, I didn't measure all ingredients. I referenced from many recipes)

Meatballs:

1kg ground beef
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup milk
2 eggs
minced onion and garlic
salt and pepper
grated parmesan cheese
nutmeg
oregano
parsley

Sauce:

2 cups pasta sauce
2 cans of whole tomato
1 onion, minced
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
oregano
salt and pepper

spaghetti
garlic bread


1. Make the pasta sauce first. Sauté onion and garlic until golden brown. then add the pasta sauce and tomatoes, oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Let it simmer for 15 minutes. When done, cover to keep it warm.

2. Make the meatballs. Combine the breadcrumbs and milk in a bowl and let the crumbs absorb the milk. This will help retain moisture in the meatballs. Combine all other ingredients in a large bowl. Add the breadcrumb-milk mixture. Mix with hand well and form balls. (Optional, you add add cubes of cheese inside the meatballs if you like).

3. On a hot large skillet/saucepan, sear the balls until brown on all sides. When done, add sauce over the meatballs and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Season to taste.

4. Cook pasta al dente in hot salted boiling water.

5. Arrange on a plate and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve with garlic bread.

Happy eating! Bon appétit!

Oven Baked Baby Back Ribs

One of my favourite food show would be License to Grill on AFC (Asian Food Channel), and it's hosted by Chef Rob Rainford. All his grilled-to-perfection food makes my mouth water. I really want to learn how to grill, however, we don't have a griller at home. Plus, I want to serve my friends some baby back ribs for our mini christmas party. So what's my solution? I searched the web for oven baked baby baked ribs and I stumbled upon foodwishes.blogspot.com.

This blog is by Chef John, an American chef based in California. He has tons of video recipes that's really easy to follow. I recommend you visit his blog also for more info.

Last Saturday, I tried one of Chef John's recipes, and that's Oven Baked Baby Back Ribs. You can watch and read his video/blog here. And all I can say is I was really surprised with the result! The meat is so tender, at the same time it still has that "bite" into it. The dry rub was also a great surprise. Smell can be deceiving though. Personally, I don't like the smell of that dry rub mixture. But after the baking process, and taking the first bite, oh là là! I'm in meat-lovers' heaven!

Sorry again for the photo quality. I was really hungry that time and I wanted to munch on the meat real soon

Well, my baby back ribs looks a little different than the "real" baby back ribs (picture below). As you know, I don't have any proper knowledge/training in the kitchen and I just told the butcher that I want a full slab baby back ribs, and gave me those meat (picture above). Well, it is ribs, but with meat attached to it. Sorry! I don't know what part of the pic was my meat from. Anyway, it is still de-li-cious!

From Chef John's blog

If you're craving for meat and you have a spare ribs in your freezer (not spareribs, but spare ribs. get it?) I highly recommend you to try Chef John's Oven Baked Baby Back Ribs!

Oh one little comment about the ribs that I did. It was a little dry (but flavourful) for me. I guess I won't drain all the juice out from the meat after the first step in cooking. But despite that, this ribs recipe is really, really great!

What you need:

1 kg baby back ribs (full slab)

delicious BBQ sauce

for dry rub: (makes for about 6 kilos of meat, so for 1 kg or full slab, maybe use 1/3 of the proportions)

1/4 cup salt
1/4 white sugar
1/4 brown sugar
1/2 cup ancho chili powder (I just used 1/4 cup chili powder since I ran out)
2 tbsps freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper (I omitted this and added more cayenne pepper)

1. Pre-heat oven at 250ºF (120ºC)

2. Place full rack of baby back ribs on baking pan with heavy duty foil, bone-side up

3. Remove the membrane or poke holes along

4. Generously coat the ribs with the dry rub

5. Flip over and apply dry rub to meat side. Put the meat bone-side up again

6. Cover the ribs with foil and put in oven for 2 hours

7. Let it cool for 15 minutes

8. Pour out any liquid that has accumulated

9. Turn up oven to 350ºF (180ºC)

10. Baste ribs with BBQ sauce and place back in the oven for 10 minutes uncovered

11. Repeat step 10 about 3-4 times more until done