I’m sure that each and every one of us has had this meal at some point in our lives. Everyone’s mom knows how to make spaghetti sauce. It’s a great meal for a family, you make a big vat of the sauce and throw it in the freezer, 
it feeds a lot of people and it makes a relatively inexpensive meal. The problem is that while most people can make a version of this dish, most people don’t know how to do it correctly. Well, I’m here to rectify that situation. Please hurry along, we have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of stops to make to day so no dillydallying.
There are three components to the classic spaghetti and meatballs dinner, the spaghetti, the meatballs and the sauce. Almost everyone spends most of their time on the sauce, a lot less time on the meatballs and almost no time on the spaghetti. This is a problem. You see, since the spaghetti makes up the majority of the stuff on the plate, it should be the thing that absolutely, positively must be cooked correctly for everything to come out right.
For the purposes of this blog, I will assume that we are using store bought, dry spaghetti and not a home made, fresh version. The first thing that must be addressed is the water that the spaghetti will be boiled in. There are two old factoids that people use when cooking spaghetti. The first is that adding some olive oil to the water will keep the spaghetti from sticking. This is false. All it does is add some olive oil flavor to the finished spaghetti. Not a terrible thing, but not necessary. To keep the spaghetti from sticking, all you need to do is to stir it twice. Once about 30 seconds after the spaghetti has been thrown in the water and then once again about a minute later. The second factoid that people use is that spaghetti cooks best in water that has the same salinity as the Mediterranean Sea. This is true…well, kinda, sorta.
Some people think that by adding salt to the water, it raises the boiling temperature of the water. This is not true. The simple fact is that by adding salt to the boiling water you end up with a slightly salty flavor added to the finished spaghetti. This is a subtle but important flavor in the finished dish. In order to get the desired salinity, you need to add 4 teaspoons of kosher salt to each gallon of water used for boiling the spaghetti. I use about a gallon of water for each pound of pasta I’m cooking so that all works out very nicely.
Now, on the box of spaghetti that you’ve just dumped into the boiling water, there should be cooking instructions. For most spaghettis, the instructions will say something like boil for 9 – 11 minutes. You want to cook your pasta to the short side of this time. For whatever reason, most Americans seem to overcook their pasta. Since we will be returning this spaghetti to the heat, we will make sure that it is cooked properly before sending it to the table, even if it is a bit underdone at this point.
So after the 9 minutes, you drain your pasta. Very briefly rinse the spaghetti in cold water. When I say briefly, I mean no more than five seconds. Let it drain. While the spaghetti is draining, add a bit of the sauce back into the pot you cooked the pasta in. This is the important part. If a pasta is to be served with a sauce, finish cooking the pasta in a bit of that sauce. It will impart the flavor of the sauce into the pasta itself, thereby melding the flavors together better. So once you have some sauce in the pot, add the spaghetti back in. Add a little more sauce to the pot so that you have a nice even coating on all the spaghetti. Let it sit on medium low heat for about 2 to 3 minutes. Now your spaghetti is ready to serve. Plate the spaghetti, add a couple of meatballs and a bit of additional sauce for those that want some but don’t drown the spaghetti in the sauce. You want to be able to taste the spaghetti as well as the sauce. Of course, have plenty of grated parmesan cheese available for those that ant it.
Up to this point, we haven’t talked about anything other than the spaghetti itself. However, the other two components are important as well. The meatballs are especially important, because they bring a contrasting flavor and texture to the meal. Much like the pasta sauce, the meatballs are prepared ahead of time and frozen until ready to use. The size is not really important, but I make mine about the size of golf balls. My mom used to make these huge baseball size meatballs but they took forever to cook in the oven and were really unwieldy if I wanted to use them in a sandwich later on. Ms Cocktail and I also use turkey for our meatballs which is slightly healthier than beef and it has a fine taste.
In preparing this meal, I re-warm the meatballs in the sauce. this imparts some of the flavor of the sauce into the meatball itself. It also saves time, space, and cleanup. Instructions for a classic marinara and meatballs are below.
Meatballs
This recipe makes about 48 golf ball sized meatballs but it easily scales up or down
2 large onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbs olive oil
4 lbs ground beef or turkey
4 cups seasoned bread crumbs
4 eggs
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
4 oz grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven for 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium sauté pan. Sauté the onions and garlic until the onions are just beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. In a large bowl, combine the sautéed onions and garlic with the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Roll the mixture into golf ball sized balls and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. Let cool then freeze until ready to use.
Marinara Sauce
This is a recipe where flexibility in adjusting the seasonings at the end is very important.
3 large onions diced
6-10 cloves of garlic, minced (don't use a garlic press, you lose too much of the oils)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 lbs tomatoes peeled and diced (you can substitute 2 large 29oz cans of diced tomatoes if you don't want to do the cleaning and cutting part)
1 large 29 oz can tomato sauce
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 Tbs dried oregano
1 Tbs dried basil
1 Tbs dried parsley
1 1/2 Tbs fennel seed
2 bay leaves
In a large pot, sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent (5 to 10 minutes). Add the diced tomato, the tomato sauce and the tomato paste. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about an hour. Add the oregano, basil and parsley and cook for about 1/2 hour. Add the fennel seed and cook until the sauce is the consistency you want (approx 1 hour). Add the bay leaves and cook for 2 minutes. Check the seasonings. If too bitter, add some sugar. If too sweet, add garlic salt.
Lots of authors notes: If you want to use fresh herbs (oregano, basil, parsley) use double the amount listed. You can omit the paste but it will take longer to get to the right consistency. Chances are that if you go with canned tomatoes and no paste then you won't need to add sugar. If you use paste, then you will definitely need the sugar. With fresh tomatoes, it is a crap shoot, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It all depends on the sweetness in the tomatoes. Go light on the sugar or garlic salt to adjust the seasonings, a little goes a long way. Start with just a teaspoon and work up from there.
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