Pomodoro Sauce & Turkey Meatballs

So I have been thinking about this sauce for quite some time now. But have not attempted it since I left Denver (for those of you that worked with me, I fully assume I got this wrong) This process took two days to complete. I remember Cesare using only Pellegrino water for the sauce because if you didn't use Italian water then the sauce would not taste right. Well I used tap water and it came out great.

I read on the back of the tomatoes about how you can make pomodoro in about 6 minutes. I can't believe it,  making any sauce is like reading a good book, there has to be character development and a big finish, you cant get a big finish in 6 minutes. It takes time to develop.

For the Sauce....

You will need

1 large sweet onion
1 clove of garlic
1/2 Tbsp crushed red chilis
1 tsp cracked black pepper
2  0.66oz packages of basil
water as needed
1/4 cup Olive oil
2 28oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes (use the good ones, you know the ones that are 3-6 dollars a can)

1. So get ready to cry unless your fast, cut your onion in half and peel the skin, lay the flat side down and slice as thin as you can. Place the onion in a heavy bottomed pot.

2. Slice the garlic clove as thin as you can and add to the onions put in the olive oil, black pepper, red chilis, basil stems, a couple of pinches of salt and about a 1/4 cup water.

3. Put your burner on its lowest setting the lower the better.  You will cook these ingredients for about 3 hours until the onions have lost all of there integrity. You will have to add a little water at a time through this process and make sure that you stir it about every fifteen minutes. what you are trying to get is very well cooked onions and no color at all on them.

4. After 3 hours add your whole peeled tomatoes even put in the juice form the cans.  You will be looking to cook this for an additional 3 hours uncovered. Keep it on low and stir it about every fifteen minutes.  When the sauce is about done, the tomatoes should begin to fall apart and the sauce should begin to thicken.

5. Now pull out your blender (you know the margarita maker) you are going to want to be very careful with this because the sauce is hot, put about half of the sauce in the blender and blend until smooth following with the remainder of the sauce.

6. Let it chill overnight in your refrigerator.

7. The following day pull out your blender and put about 3/4 of the sauce in along with the basil leaves you pulled off in step 2.  Blend until the basil is chopped into the sauce. Season with a little more salt if needed.

And your sauce is ready!

For the Meatballs

1 sweet onion
1 clove of garlic
1 Tbsp Crushed Black Pepper
2 Tbsp Italian dried herb mix
2.5 Pounds of Ground Turkey (extra lean ok)
1/4 cup eggs (egg beaters works fine)
1-1.5 cups of breadcrumbs
Salt to taste


1. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees

2.  Peel and chunk the onion, peel the garlic and put in your food processor. you want the onion and garlic to be pureed pretty much smooth.

3. You can do this by hand or in your handy mixer but mix all the  ingredients together until very well combined.

4. Tasting to adjust the salt of the mix should be done by taking a putting a small amount into a patty and cooking it in a saute pan.

5. Ball them up I used a 1/2 cup to portion them out but you can use an ice cream scoop or whatever you would like just keep them all the same size.

6.  Due to the size I baked mine for 1/2 an hour.

As soon as you pull them out of the oven crank the oven to 425

7. I then placed them in a large heavy pot and poured the Pomodoro over the top brought the sauce up to a boil and placed the uncovered pot into the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Top your turkey balls with some grated Parmesan you can also serve with spaghetti if you like.