meatballs can be made with any ground meat, beef,veal, pork ,turkey, etc. most people use a mix of say beef pork and veal.
i make mine with straight beef. the idea is to change the consistency so its not just a wod of meat. lol. so you add eggs and breadcrumbs and grated cheese to the meat, eggs thin it out the breadcrumbs/grated cheese thicken it back up , so you can form a ball without it sagging or flatening out when you cook it. once you have a good consistency, add a finely diced onion, chopped garlic(not the overly strong crap thats already chopped in oil), i use fresh oregano and basil(dry is ok but the flavor pops when using fresh) little onion powder and salt and pepper and more grated cheese(never have too much). thats a basic italian meatball. now you can add things too it. i add a little fennel seed for a different flavor, my grandmother added yellow raisins(weird but good). or anything else that is not gross.lol.
cooking them is easy cause you can do it anyway youd like. i usually make 40lbs at a time. so i use a glass 4oz monkey dish to portion them all the same size. i bake mine on sheet pans until 140 degrees(pushing medium well)in the middle , but if i only had to do a few i would brown them in a pan with hot olive oil and let them cook the rest of the way in the sauce.
yes you can boil them but dont, that fat from the beef is part of the flavor, that you will boil away. bolng will dry it out and you will not get a good seared flavor from the outside. that you would with pan frying them.
good luck. unfortunately(for me) this is what i do, any questions just ask.
oh btw about 15 years ago in my younger chef days this receipe with the fennel seed won first place in a meatball cookoff competition.
5 lbs ground beef
2 cups grated chz
1 cup breadcrumbs
6 eggs
1 lg yellow onion diced
1/4c garlic chopped
3 tbl onion powder
3 tbl oregano
3 tbl basil
3 tbl fennel seed
s &p
