Better Than Meatballs! The Old Italian Eggplant Trick My Mother Made Every Friday

📖 A hundred recipes my mother never wrote down, finally measured for your kitchen: Link In Comments! You tried eggplant meatballs once, and they fell apart in the pan. Half melted into green mush, the rest broke when you turned them, and the ones that survived were wet in the middle. Your recipe was not wrong. One step was missing, the one everybody skips, and it is the difference between mush and a golden, crispy meatball people swear has meat in it. Friday was meatless in my mother Filomena's house in Bensonhurst, and on Fridays, these are what my father asked for. Polpette di melanzane, the old eggplant meatballs of Naples. In this one I count down her ten rules, and every one starts with plain instructions before I explain anything. Why you peel the eggplant this time, boiling it soft, letting the steam off, day-old bread inside and dry crumbs outside, plenty of cheese and one egg, thirty minutes in the cold, the cube of cheese in the heart, the crumb coat, the right oil and the rack, and at number one, the step that decides whether they hold together. I also settle fried or baked, and sauce or no sauce. Two eggplants, yesterday's bread, an egg and a lot of cheese. Better than meatballs. So tell me where you are cooking from, and settle it: plain with lemon, or in the sauce? 00:00 Eggplant meatballs that fall apart 00:47 Who I am 02:11 What you need 02:50 Why they fall apart 03:26 10. Peel them this time 04:00 9. Boil it soft 04:38 8. Let the steam off 05:13 7. Day-old bread inside 05:56 6. The cheese and one egg 06:45 Halfway 07:10 5. Thirty minutes cold 07:41 4. The cheese heart 08:29 3. The crumb coat 09:09 2. Hot oil and a rack 09:58 1. The towel 11:06 Fried or baked? Sauce or plain? 12:02 Why nobody tells you this 12:32 One idea underneath all ten 13:09 The eggplant meatball hero 13:48 Your job this week 14:13 Next time