Meatballs in Tomato Sauce · Benedetta Rossi

Put the 500 g of mince in a wide bowl, salt it lightly and break it up with a fork so it is loose rather than a solid block.

💡 Loosening the mince first means you can mix everything in with far fewer strokes later — and fewer strokes is what keeps meatballs tender.

Add the egg, the 30 g of grated cheese and a good handful of chopped parsley, and mix it through.

Pour in the 100 ml of milk and mix again — it will look alarmingly wet at this point, which is correct.

💡 The milk is the whole reason these stay soft. It hydrates the breadcrumbs into a paste that traps moisture as the meat contracts in the pan — meatballs made without it turn dense and dry.

Now add the breadcrumbs a little at a time — not all 120 g at once — kneading with your hands until the mixture holds together and no longer sticks to your palm.

💡 Stop the moment it stops sticking. Benedetta's own words are 'not too soft' — but push past that and you are eating breadcrumbs held together by meat rather than the other way round.

Roll the mixture between your palms into balls about the size of a walnut — that is Benedetta's own size reference.

💡 Wet your hands with cold water before rolling and the mixture will not cling to them. Rinse and re-wet whenever they start getting sticky.

Set them out on a tray in a single layer while you start the sauce base.

Warm a thread of olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat and add the chopped half onion and chopped carrot. Fry for 5 minutes until softened and fragrant.

💡 Chop these two finely — unlike the cacciatora, here they should melt into the sauce rather than stay as identifiable pieces.

Lay the meatballs into the pan and let them brown, turning them now and then so they colour on all sides — about 6–8 minutes in total.

💡 Do not crowd them — leave a finger's width between each. Packed tight they steam and stay grey, and grey meatballs make a thin-tasting sauce. Two batches is better than one crammed pan.

Pour in the half glass of white wine and let it bubble away for 2–3 minutes until the alcohol smell is gone.

💡 Tilt the pan gently and slide the meatballs around rather than stirring hard — they are fragile until the tomato has set them.

Pour over the 400 g of tomato passata, season the sauce with fine salt and shake the pan so everything settles.

Cover with a lid, drop the heat to low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring gently every 5 minutes or so.

💡 The lid matters: passata spits violently as it thickens, and the trapped steam is also what cooks the meatballs through to the middle without drying the outsides.

Check one: cut the largest meatball in half and look for an even colour right through, with no raw pink core.

Taste the sauce and correct the salt, then turn off the heat and let the pan rest for a few minutes.

Serve them straight from the pan with plenty of bread — in Italy the last act of this dish is the scarpetta, wiping the plate clean with a crust.