2 slices day-old white bread, crumbled
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon butter
1 small onion, minced
2/3 pound ground beef
1/3 pound finely ground pork (I use Co-op's meatloaf mix)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup chicken broth (I used powdered chicken bouillon to save a can of stock)
3-4 tablespoons all-purpose flour mixed with ½ c of water
1 ½ - 2 cups beef broth, or as needed
¾ c cream
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2 Place the bread crumbs into a small bowl, and mix in the cream. Allow to stand until crumbs absorb the cream, about 10 minutes. While the bread is soaking, melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the onion until it turns light brown, about 10 minutes. Place onion into a mixing bowl; mix with the ground beef, ground pork, egg, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Lightly mix in the bread crumbs and cream.
3 Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Make about 1 1/2 tablespoon of the meat mixture per meatball, and form into balls. Place the meatballs into the skillet, and cook just until the outsides are brown, about 5 minutes, turning the meatballs often. Insides of the meatballs will still be pink. Place browned meatballs into a baking dish, pour in chicken broth, and cover with foil.
4 Bake in the preheated oven until the meatballs are tender, about 40 minutes. Remove meatballs to a serving dish.
5 To make brown gravy, pour pan drippings into a saucepan over medium heat. Add beef broth. Whisk the flour and water in until smooth, to total about 2 1/2 cups of liquid. Bring the gravy to a simmer, whisking constantly until thick, about 5 minutes. Just before serving, whisk in the cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve the gravy with the meatballs, over wide egg noodles.
MB mods January 2018:
- used ~1/4 cup or less of panko breadcrumbs soaked in the cream. Be careful of adding too much, it turns to cement.
- did the whole thing in the 12" cast iron pan, didn't need to transfer to baking dish. Removed meatballs and used same pan for gravy. yummm
- was cooking something else in the oven that needed higher heat, so did 400° for 20 minutes and they still got done.
- be sure to turn the meatballs an uncountably infinite number of times so that they brown evenly.
-adapted from All Recipes.com