Smothered Meatballs and Rice | An Easy Comfort-Food Dinner

Okay, folks, look, I know you was looking at that, you know, that thumbnail and you was thinking like, you know what? I ain't done these in a long time, right? So today we finna do some southern smothered meatballs, right? We gonna put that gravy on there. We gonna lay them on a bed of rice and we gonna eat it. Now the real thing is that what I'm trying to do is break, break out of that mold. I know you guys are tired. If you anything like how, when I grew up, my mother had like about, I don't know, she had about 11 to 12 recipes that she would put together. You know what I mean? That would, it would stay in rotation and we had them just all the time, right? And that's no bueno. You know, now that I'm older, you know what I mean? She did cook, you know what I mean? But it was like, them was like special meals. These are the things that I make all the time. So I like a variety. So that's what I'm doing. Now, what I'm doing now is just opening up, you know what I mean? I got 80, 20 ground beef, and then I got some pork right here, some ground pork. That's like ground sausage. As you know, we already getting ready to do meatballs, right? So I'm gonna just set this off. I just wanna show you guys, this is what we working with. And now I wanna bring, let's talk about this. Now, you know my full ingredient list is on my website, right? And that's smokingandgrillingwithab.com. And that's W-I-T-A-B.com. Now, in the, I normally, it depends. I don't even wanna say normally, you know how when they say using Panko chips, you know what I mean? If you guys got any flavored, you know, rich crackers or even saltines or whatever you guys have, you can use that as a substitution, you know, for Panko. It's just, you know, a product that you get, you know what I mean? That'll hold everything together. And if you really wanna think about this, if we gonna go ahead and do, you know, meatballs, think about this. This ain't nothing but meatloaf and balls smothered in gravy over rice. So let's get it. All right, so these are them right there, right? Now, if you guys got the flavor rich, like I did right here, you know what I mean? You guys can use whatever flavor you want. You really, the taste and the flavor on this, cause we gonna smother them. I don't know how that's gonna work out, you know what I mean? But just the fact that we are gonna smother them, this is gonna tie, this is the actual product that's gonna tie everything in, right? So I'm gonna crush these, right? And then if you look right here, look. What we looking for is about a half a cup. Some of these bigger pieces, I'll just break them up just a little bit. Now, this was that little pack like this, these individual packs. What I'm gonna do is measure this, cause it's usually about a half a cup. What I wanna do is see if I need some more, I'll add to it. All right, so I did, I took my half a cup measurement. This is like a little bit over. So if I was trying to pack it in there, I guess one small pack like this equals about a half a cup. So that's what we have right here. Right, so now look, stay with me folks. I got my milk. We're just gonna add the milk to it, right? I'm gonna get myself a, just let me get a fork real quick. And what I'm gonna do is, I'm just gonna mix this up like this. This part is gonna be key, cause I'm gonna let this sit up for about five minutes folks. You gotta trust this process, right? So once all of this has milk in it, it's actually gonna like, kinda like get the rich to squill just a little bit. And this is what's gonna help keep the meatballs together, right? Just think about if you guys is making a meatloaf, right? So we got it all right here. All right, so after five minutes, you see how that is? It's soaked up all of the milk, right? It's gonna be real tacky. That's what you want. Now we got 80, 20, I got a pound of that. You know, in the ground beef. So I'm just gonna break this up a little bit. And then when it come to your pork, only use half of that, right? So we'll just eyeball it. Whatever it looks like that, I can feel it's got that little paper on the bottom, right? So like I said, we'll just put half, fold it, and how it breaks is how I work. Now you can do the, you know, do it evenly. You know what I mean? If you want to do one pound, one pound, I found this ratio to work best. You know what I mean? For the flavor profile that I like, you guys can do whatever it is that you want to do on your end. If I did more than that, another half pound, because all of these recipes have been made, you know, tried first and then made, right? So now this is what we're gonna do. We got to put the rest of these ingredients. Now, if I put these over here like this, I had all of this together. It was a little bit off camera. You know what I mean? So you see all of that, including this egg, that all goes in here also, right? So I'm gonna go ahead and get this out of the way. Let's get this egg in here. Right, we got that in there. And now we'll add everything else in here. I'll mince the garlic last, the W sauce. See? This is what's gonna make it flavorful. Now, load the garlic press, put the smile on my face. Now we got the minced garlic going in. I got one more clove to go, then we move forward. Now that we have them, you know, everything in here minus our pepper or our salt, I'm gonna go ahead and just start adding that to it. Listen, this is gonna serve us two purposes too. You know what I mean? When you put it in there and you, you know, you get it to transfer and it's thoroughly mixed, pepper give it a little bit of a dark, you know, look to it along with the taste, right? And then just a couple of pinches of salt and that right there should do it, folks. Right now, this is the part I like, cause you get to work with your hands. You got gloves, as long as your hands are clean, you can do it. Me, you know, I like to cook with the gloves now. You know what I mean? So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna break that yolk and start moving this in like this. You'll see that our bread crumb that we put in there, which was actually our, you know, our cracker. Look at how they're just, you'll see it. You just want to get it all mixed together. Now, listen, they say when you're doing this, like when you're making your meatloaf, you don't want to like overdo it. You know what I mean? Cause I don't make a dense meatball, right? But you still got to get everything mixed, right? You know what I mean? So I just kind of like fold it, look at it, take my fingers and spread it like this. Look at it. I want to see all of it inside of each other, right? Don't forget, we got two different types of meats. You don't want to bite one and it tastes completely like, you know, a pork sausage and the rest of them tastes like hamburger, right? That's not what you want. You want it all to be incorporated together, right? Right about now is where I probably stop, right? And you'll come up with something like this. One giant meatball. All right, so this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take some cooking oil, right? I'm gonna go ahead and put a little bit of this on my glove. All right, we'll just mix this like this. Just to help everything from, you know, keep everything from sticking, right? Now we're gonna go in here and make these balls. Now I'm gonna just take these. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna roll these around. Look, you see that? I'm not compacting it like you guys. I hope it's not looking like that. You know, we just want to get them as round. Get them like this and look at that. That's about the size you guys want to have. You see that right there? Yes. So now I'm just gonna go ahead and stage these. Now I'm gonna do another one for you, right? You want them all to be about the same size. They look good. Now looking at these right here, can you just imagine these being smothered in an onion gravy on top of some rice? And then some of y'all, I know you're gonna fight the rice. You're gonna be like, nah, A.B. I'm gonna go ahead and do mine like a, do mine with mashed potatoes. You do whatever, however you want to do it. But this right here is just a fire recipe. It changes up what we do. You know, from that same old, same old. And they easy to make. Are you guys watching this? Easy. Now I'm not gonna bore you guys. I'm gonna go ahead and make the rest of these. If you want to, you guys can use like a large, you know, ice cream scoop or something of that nature. You know what I mean? So you can get them all pretty much the same size. You know what I mean? But I've been doing this for a minute. You know what I mean? So as you can look at these and tell, look, they're all about the same size. All right. So one last time, folks, so you guys can see it. I get it. Take it. I still got the oil on my glove. I just roll this around like this. Not really packing it because we don't want it to be dense. Right? We get it like this. I do a little work, form the ball. You know what I mean? We come up with something like this. I take that and then I stage it. That one seemed to be a little bit on the bigger side, but we'll deal with it. All right. So I got a medium flame under here. I started heating up my cast iron skillet by itself. Now what I'm gonna do is just add about a tablespoon, you know, of olive oil in here. This'll be what I'll be using, you know, to keep everything moist, get it going and start the cooking process, right? Now I'll take these again, run these, make sure they're still round. We'll do them in batches. This'll probably be done in a batch of two. You know, two batches. We got three, six, nine, 11. If I make them smaller, I could have got 13 out of this for sure. All right. So now we just put it down. All right. And we just line these up. All right. So what we're doing is we're not cooking these fully. They're gonna really cook and get nice and done when they're inside of the gravy, right? So what I'm doing is I'm just flipping them over. I'm gonna get a nice little sear, get that color on there, and then we'll start, you know, turning them around and flipping them and getting all to the side. Ultimately, I don't want to see any of this right here. Right? We just want to make sure we got full cooked color on it. A little crust, and that's where we're gonna get that flavor, folks. Okay. So when you got color on all of them like this, look, I'm just gonna take them and just stay them right here on my paper plate. Remember, we're not trying to cook these all the way through. All right. That one right there kind of like trying to break. When you got meatballs that look like that, you know you in the game. Now let's go ahead and do this second batch. All right. So what I'm doing is I put my skillet on medium. Actually, I got it on low. I'm letting it cool down naturally. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and cut down, you know, some onions because these are gonna go into the gravy. Now, if you guys want to julienne yours, you can. You know what I mean? But I like to do mine like this. I like seeing that whole, this one won't be, this will be more like what you guys are traditionally used to seeing. And this will be more like how I like my, you know, a bunch of these circles. All right. I'm gonna come this way with it. I broke that one. All right. Now, there's gonna be a lot of gravy, right? So I'm gonna use most of this onion. All right. That one I can take off. Right. So now let me get in here again. Let's cut some more. Right. Now, all we're doing is making an onion gravy. All right. But I just like having these. You'll see. I raised my temperature up. Now, I'm at a full medium heat, you know, underneath the bottom, right? I got some, you know, oil that's already in here. We got some fine that's inside of the skillet. That's fine. Now, I really want you guys to pay attention to this part right here, right? Listen, we gotta go butter, onions, and then flour. Look how I got it set up. Butter, onion, flour. Then I will come back here. That will be your broth, and then the rest of your seasoning. And then that's how we gonna make this gravy, right? So I got a little heat under there. Let's go ahead and add this in here. This will be our butter. All right. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and let that work. It can continue to work. Reason I'm saying that, because what I wanna do now is I'm gonna move my flour, and I just wanna go ahead and just add, you know, my onions, because I wanna give these a good start and let you start to render down and put some of that flavor in there, right? So while that butter's still doing its thing, we got all that goodness that was in here already. Look at the color. You see how we started out white? You guys can see just how it picks up all of the good flavor that's inside of the skillet, right? Now, I done put out a couple of articles on my website. You guys gotta read them. What to make in a cast iron, what not to make in a cast iron, what's good for a cast iron. And guess what, folks? We still cooking with that all. I'm getting ready to bring that to the forefront. That's that stainless steel. You know what I mean? We just gonna get, you know, get caught up with today. Stainless steel is a great apparatus if you know how to cook with it. You know what I mean? And I'll be showing everybody that, you know, this upcoming fall. But I got some good articles on the website, folks. Right? So look, we'll just look at this right here. Some of y'all think this is a lot of onion. It's not. This will render down. We'll keep that going. Now, the website, again, I know you guys haven't heard it, but I gotta keep saying it so you guys can, you know, go there and utilize the tools that I put out there for you guys. That's Smoking and Grilling with A.B. And that's W-I-T-A-B.com. Okay, so at a medium flame, you know, taking my time, letting this work. This the fun part for me, folks. I hope you guys enjoy making gravy just as much as I do. Right? So this right here, what it looks like about eight minutes into the game. Right? So now, still eight. You know, still the low flame underneath the bottom. Now I'm finna come with my flour. We finna soak up all of that goodness. I'm gonna go ahead and just put it in here. Now, what I wanna do now is make sure that everything is nice and wet. And we gonna keep turning this over. And what we wanna do is make sure we cook that flour taste out. Right? I don't do anything with the fire underneath the bottle. What I do is I try to spread this out, use my spacer to scrape, make sure I don't have no flour. It'll become pasty. That's the word I'm looking for, pasty. Right? So we just leave it like this. I don't wanna take my onions down more. You know what I mean? Because I do wanna see some onion at the end. Right? So we leave it like this. And you see how it's cooking? Look at that. Yes. That's getting all of that flour taste out. And that flour right there is picking up everything else that's in here. All of the flavor. And then once we hit it with the broth, oh, you guys know the rest now. All right. So after like a couple of minutes, just making sure that we get all of that flour taste out, now we add. And what I do is I keep it moving. Look at the color. Right? It thickens right up. Add the rest of the time. Keep this moving. I'm gonna turn this up on high. Right? Because we wanna get a boil so I can set it down. You know, set it to a simmer. But look at this right here. Now we'll add everything else that we have. Right? This is where we flavor everything. Look at this right here. Now, once I get this in here and I let it cook for about one minute. Right? Once I have everything incorporated. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and taste. And I'm gonna make my adjustment here. Because if my gravy tastes good here, it's gonna taste even better. Once these onions, you know, melt down further and the juices from their meatballs, you know, transfer into this. But you see that right there? This is what you wanna put out. You start making this, I promise you, this will be in your rotation right off the bat. Okay, so look, I only let this simmer for about three to four minutes, to be honest with you guys. You know what I mean? Look at this right here. You see that? I know some of y'all right now see it. Oh my God. Check this out. This is what we're gonna do. Now we're getting ready to reintroduce these balls back to it. These meatballs. I'm gonna put these in here like this. And then you're gonna need to have a meat thermometer. I mean, I guess you can kind of like get it right by time. You know what I mean? But for me, I like to have that meat thermometer. I like to check them all, make sure they're at least at 160. Don't forget, it's gonna rise a little bit, right? Now I got these in here just like that. All right, and then you see that right there? We're gonna add that to it. All right, that's all of the goodness. Now I'm gonna get my spatula that's made like a spoon. And this is what I do. So now you guys get to see. If you wanna turn them over, you can. Do it however you want to. Matter of fact, let's do that. Instead of trying to scoop them all up, let's just get them all to turn around like this. You know, sometimes when I'm making a video, you know, you're trying to do too much, you overthinking and all of that. Listen, I would have been through with this. But you know, when you're trying to like teach, you gotta make sure you cover everything, you know, things of that nature. All right, let's turn this over like this, right? Now that I have it over, now I'm gonna rearrange them, take a picture, because that's what you guys see. I like to take pictures of the steps, you know, inside of my website, just to show you at each step what it would look like. We get them open like this, get them arranged like that. Let me take this picture and look at them onions, folks. Remember I said I want to have onions where I can see it. Hello. Now, if you come and look, I got them all coated. I took my picture. I got it. Now look, I'm getting ready to add, you know, a lid to this. And we gonna let this go for about, I'm gonna say 15 minutes. And after that, 15 minutes on a medium, you know, medium-low, low-medium flame. And then we'll go ahead and test it and make sure we got at least 160. 165, you know they done, right? But usually about 160, I like to take any of my beef off or no matter what I'm doing, because it's gonna rise in temperature, it'll settle, and then by the time it rests, oh my goodness. Oh, make yourself some rice or get yourself some mashed potatoes. All right, folks, look, this is done. I just checked it just a second ago. I checked it, my clock went off excuse me, at 15 minutes. Right, so when my timer went off, you know, I checked it here. I was actually at a little bit over. So it really depends on how big the meat is underneath the bottom, how much gravy you have, how big the pot is, is it completely submerged, is it halfway? It's a lot of factors, right? I was at 172 when it finally settled. So I checked that. I just put the top back on here. I'm gonna break this away from myself just so I don't catch no burn. And I'm gonna let you guys see what it looks like. Right, so if you come on in here right here, look at this right here. Look at that. Now, I'm gonna come around here and just look at this. Remember them onions? Some of you guys are probably trying to figure out why I put the onions on top. That's because I don't want them to just like completely just melt away. I like to have some onions also. So what I'm doing now is just moving these around like this just so they can get some coat, some more coating on there. Look at that. And I'm mixing this up. Mmm. As you guys can see, I got some gravy. I mean, some rice right here. All of this comes into play, folks, for something spectacular. All right, so now you see it. Super easy to make. Let me know down in that comment section below. Will you be putting this, you know, in your weekly rotation? All right, so the only thing left to do next is to take these and to just pour these in here. Now, I don't know about y'all. I love meatballs. You know what I mean? So about four of these and these will get you right. You know what I mean? So remember, you can make these smaller. Let's go for another one. We gotta get a thumbnail anyway. All right, so I'll spread these off like this. Get a little separation. Now I think I'm just gonna come and just add some gravy and onions onto it. Okay, so you guys can come in here and look. There it is right there. That's perfect. I'm finna tear into these, folks. I tasted the gravy. The gravy is spot on. You know what I mean? So listen, now it's time for us to get in here and just get us some. You know what I mean? I'm just gonna go ahead and, ah, look at that right there. Nice, super dense. You know what I mean? Nice. Let's go in here and get some of this rice. Nah, I don't need a piece that big. There we go. We got gravy, onions, meatball. Bon appetit, folks. First thing I'm gonna tell you is they fire. Second thing I'm gonna tell you is, well, I'm gonna show you. You see this rice right here? This was white rice. When you season it and do everything right, instead of using water, folks, you start using these broth. You know, and you'll season this. You know, and that butter, you'll pick up some new colors. It don't have to be that boring white. Now that there is good. So let me just try to give you guys, like, get you in the ballpark. If you like meatloaf and ever wanted to know what would meatloaf taste like if you didn't put that, you know, that sweet glaze on there, or even a cajun glaze, this right here just takes you back to old school. And the reason I referenced, and I said that this might rival, you know, my favorite, like smothered pork chops, is because it's the same style gravy on top. Lots of onions. All of that flavor inside this meatball is not, you know, it's not dense. Just everything about it is right. Oh, and not to mention the rice is fire too, folks. Now, you guys let me know down in the comment section below, what would you do to add to this, to make it your own, right? And I got it. I could have put a few other videos, but I really want to hear from you. You know what I mean? You never know, I might make a video, you know, contribute everything to you, and make it and put it out there to the world. Now, if you're new to my channel, let me just take this time to say, thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to like, smash that subscribe button, and tell everybody out there. There's a channel out here that's simplifying these recipes and taking the mystery out of cooking. And you know what I think I'm gonna start doing? I'm gonna start having my ice cold drink out here, already at the ready. With that being said, I'm out folks. Peace.