Drunken Spaghetti With White Wine Marinara And Scotch-infused Meatballs Recipe

How to make it

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• Prepare your marinara
• San Marzano tomatoes are important for all Italian cooking, almost without exception, so find and use them if at all possible.
• Progresso will do in a pinch, but tomatoes marked San Marzano have the very best flavor for red sauce applications.
• Puree the tomatoes on low speed until they are just incorporated
• Pour the puree into a saucepan.
• Do not turn it on yet.
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• finely chop the 1/2 red onion and three garlic cloves.
• Set aside the other garlic and onion for the meatballs.
• Put these in a frying pan and add two tablespoons of olive oil.
• Stir on medium heat and allow the garlic and onions to sweat.
• Once they begin to sweat, after maybe three or four minutes, add in about a 1/2 cup of your chardonnay.
• Add the sprigs of thyme, rosemary and basil to the sauce.
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• Stir your onions and garlic with wine until they become translucent and smell delicious. About another four or five minutes.
• Then add them to your sauce and herbs, along with another two tablespoons of olive oil and salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
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• next the meatballs.
• chop the parsley. You should end up with about 2 tablespoons worth.
• Chop the basil and oregano, about a tablespoon each.
• chop the remaining half of the onion, and the two cloves of garlic.
• In a big mixing bowl, add the herbs, onion and garlic you have chopped up to these other ingredients: the egg, the bread crumbs, about 2 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan ( I added more), about a teaspoon of salt and freshly ground black pepper (more to taste if you desire), along with the scotch, and 1/2 of the water (about 1/2 cup of water).
• Whisk until you have a slurry .
• add your pound of sirloin.
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• You need to mix all this up., meatballs are best when you don't over-knead them, just like meatloaf.
• this is an intentionally sticky recipe, so if your meatball mixture feels a bit more wet than you would expect, that is part of the yumminess of this dish. The meatballs will be extremely tender and fluffy.
• Now then, roll these up into big meatballs. - these are manly, near-baseball sized meatballs. Put them in a shallow pan for steaming. Pour the remaining 1/2 cup of water
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• Stir the sauce to incorporate the spices, onions and garlic, and cover.
• Turn on medium heat to simmer.
• Once simmering, turn it down to lower heat.
• Turn the meatballs to medium heat also.
• This water will steam them as they cook alongside your sauce for 35 minutes.
• Keep stirring the sauce, leave the meatballs alone.
• About 15 minutes before your sauce and meatballs are complete, add the remaining chardonnay to a spaghetti pot with strainer.
• About this time add your can of tomato paste to your marinara.
• This thickens the marinara and gives it a richer, more intense flavor. Make sure to stir it in thoroughly.
• Once your wine has a rolling boil, add your pasta to it.
• The pasta will soak up the flavor of the chardonnay and give it an incredible taste you will not believe (even if it does smell kinda funny while cooking).
• boil your pasta until it is al dente,
• The wine may boil down before the pasta is al dente and if this happens you will want to add a cup or two of water to finish the job.
• When your sauce is done cooking, remove the sprigs of herbs.
• Your meatballs will have swelled up and become luscious and will smell absolutely unbelievable.
• Drain your pasta. Do not rinse. The starch is like gold.
• Plate the drunken spaghetti with white wine marinara and scotch-infused meatballs on a beautiful platter and garnish with more chopped parsley and freshly grated parmesan