Carla Makes Meatball Subs

It's like having a sausage and pepper sub--

[Carla] Exactly.

But you know--

But with fennel.

I guess you could use pepper if you hate yourself.

[Carla laughing]

[calming jazz music]

It's a BA's best, oh this is a BA's best.

Oh, I should've powdered up for the BA's Best.

This to me, well, it's sausage meatball sandwiches.

This is when you want sandwich for dinner

that's how I think about this recipe.

Sausage meatball sandwiches that are built on

pork sausages, spicy pork sausages

if you don't like spice, just use a sweet Italian.

One thing I really like about this method,

and I'm about to unzip the casing on this sausage

so you can see how to get the inside out

is that you're making meatballs but when you use

a spicy sausage as the base of the meatball,

all of the seasoning that you normally have to do

to make a meatball has already been done.

It's not the prettiest thing I ever did, but you know what?

Life isn't always pretty; neither is cooking.

Easy peasy, I mean I gotta get my hands a little bit wet.

So each one of these we each want to be about two ounces.

I'm very terrible at estimating things,

but that means we're getting three balls out of each sausage

and I'm not packing these super tight.

I'm just getting them into the classic meatballa shape.

I'm going to have twelve; it makes four sandwiches,

which means three meatballs per sandwich, I believe.

How's the math going?

I've done multiplication and division

in the first two minutes.

One of our classics, look what's happening.

[Tommy laughing]

[Tommy] [laughing] Oh, no.

Cool, so,

we can make three if this were happening to me at home,

then I would send somebody, I would make somebody run out

to get more sausages, that's what's happening right now.

[Tommy] How did this happen we had--

I don't know; I weighed them, and then I weighed them.

I need to get three balls out of every sausage,

so you should just do that, forget about measuring them.

If I were like my great grandmother, who I barely knew,

but she would feed everybody and then stand in the kitchen,

and eat the little, tiny scraps that were left over.

It's like the opposite of my actual personality,

which is to hog the best pieces, while no one--

[Tommy] I get the bottom.

[Carla laughing]

This extra one time.

When no one's around, I'm like, they'll never know

what I ate because no one else was here.

Alright, so I'm gonna set the sausage balls over there.

And then, ten cloves of garlic, already sliced

if you can get somebody to do that for you,

I highly recommend it.

There's one onion.

So it is very feasible to me that all of these ingredients

would just be in the house 'cause it's built on pantry.

There's some basil and mozzarella coming up,

so maybe you have to pick up

a couple of things on the way home.

Fennel, one of the great vegetables.

If you don't like fennel, but you like celery,

I would just make that swap.

Celery is pretty classic sauce building.

I wouldn't put a carrot in this.

I'm just not down with that.

Recently discovered that the fennel core

is perfectly palatable and should be enjoyed.

So eliminating that step.

The recipe says to cut out the core.

Sometimes you just do things for years and years and years

because recipe's tell you to do them.

And then one day, you're like,

why does it say to do that?

And then you discover that there's another way.

And that is the great thing about food and cooking

because you're constantly discovering things

you didn't know before.

This I'm gonna need a minute.

I'm gonna use half of the garlic in the sauce,

half of the garlic in our little pesto basil sauce

mixture situation that's happening later.

So I just have to remember that when I'm building the sauce.

Half of the garlic, don't put all the garlic in.

But I'm gonna start by browning off these sausages.

Twelve of them, thirteen actually [laughing].

It turns out, as it turns out.

Alright so the other ingredients in the sauce

is a can of whole tomatoes.

Little bit of olive oil to get things started,

the sausages themselves have a good amount of fat,

but just to get something going in the pan,

to get it going.

We're good to go.

They're not all gonna fit; that's the funny part.

Twelve of them are gonna fit.

That last meatball is the thirteenth angry meatball.

It doesn't fit; sorry, Tommy.

So now these are gonna brown; I'm gonna give them a minute.

This is a good amount of space in between each meatball.

I just wanna move them around

while they're cooking, get 'em brown.

You guys know that Chris is a super taster, right?

I don't--

He smell all of the flavors.

I don't think so.

I do.

I don't think so.

I do [laughing].

Not true.

You know the first sign of being smart

is thinking you're dumb, so maybe [laughing],

maybe with this, the first sign of being a super-taster is

knowing that there's so many flavors you haven't detected.

Maintaining that you're definitely

not one That's right.

That was the perfect amount of time

for my sausages to brown.

Unsurprisingly, the outer ring in the pan is hotter

than the middle because it's lining up where the

ring of fire is underneath.

So ideally, I wanna get some of my middle guys

to the outer ring.

And as they're shrinking, the irony is that

we have created space for the thirteenth meatball.

Little guy, you get to come to the party.

Anyway, Chris is a super taster.

But I've been hanging out with him

a lot lately tasting things and the things he says

sometimes and I'm just like, how does he know that?

It has made me think that I'm like,

that I've never tasted anything.

I don't actually know; I'm just like, yeah, it's good.

It tastes good to me.

I'm gonna adjust the heat a little bit.

Now that we're up to temperature and things are sizzling.

I just don't want that to burn before these guys

get evenly browned, so I turn the heat down a little bit.

Alright, I've achieved a level of browning

that I'm pleased with.

I'm gonna start taking these out.

You could use a plate.

I'm just transferring them to a little tray.

So right into that oil, I've got the garlic.

Remember only half the garlic is going in.

So that's a good amount of garlic, five cloves worth.

Plus my chopped onion and the chopped fennel.

And so this is really the foundation of the sauce.

So I'm gonna let these cook down a little bit.

They're gonna soften, become translucent,

get nice and floppy, and the end point that we're looking

for is tender, softened with a little bit of browning.

So it's gonna take somewhere between five and 10 minutes.

Alright, so I'm pretty pleased with

what I'm seeing right now.

The veg is really soft; I wanna taste it,

see if it needs salt or anything

because I'm gonna add the tomatoes,

and that's its own whole thing.

So let's see how these taste.

It's hot.

Yeah, could definitely take some salt.

Little bit spicy; you can taste the chili flake

that ended up in the oil that was left over

from browning the sausages.

Alright, now I've got these canned tomatoes.

And I'm just gonna let the sauce, like the juices,

go in first so I don't make as big of a mess.

And then just pulling these apart, and kind of crushing them

as they go into the pot.

They're gonna disintegrate more,

but if you start with a whole peeled tomato,

they're just never really gonna go anywhere

and you'll spend half the cooking time

smashing them around with a wooden spoon,

so this just gives you a head start.

Alright, so this is gonna come up to a simmer.

And then cook just to kind of get the ingredients

in this pot for these flavors to start to meld

for the sauce to thicken just a little bit

and then I'm gonna add the sausage balls back in.

I think it's really important with things like this

that are cooked in stages and have different phases

that you season along the way, through and through.

I really like the sweetness that the tomatoes

are bringing to the table.

It really tempered the way the vegetables tasted

before it had the tomato in there,

was just kind of very vegetal, kinda spicy,

and a little bit oily, not in a bad way.

But now, it's starting to come together,

the acidity and the sweetness of the tomatoes

is gonna make a really nice sauce.

So these guys are gonna go back in.

Everybody gets tucked in; have a little nappy.

This pot is gonna go in while that's happening,

I'm gonna get my heroes ready, get my basil sauce going,

and just let this hang out on the side.

We've been having a debate about this,

is this sauce a pesto or is it not?

I think it is except for the fact that it's being made

in a food processor, it has basil, fresh basil,

the rest of the garlic, it's a good amount of garlic,

like I said, the rest of the oil,

so I used some at the beginning,

and I'm just gonna blend this to a paste or to a sauce.

Paste is such an ugly word.

As it turns out, pesto is any kind of smacked around

bunch of ingredients, so I think this is a pesto.

We're gonna call it pesto.

Okay, then we gotta taste this.

Taste this without inflicting bodily harm,

so don't go sticking your finger in there with the blade.

Amazing how vegetal and garlicky it tastes

without any seasoning

Salt and pepper.

Oh, cool, that was open.

I wouldn't do this very far in advance

because the basil's gonna oxidize

and the garlic is gonna get extremely pungent,

so it's a good meanwhile for while things are simmering.

Maybe I don't wanna cut these on here.

These are the hoagie rolls,

and read the recipe before you do it,

or just watch the video because you're gonna top split

instead of going lengthwise.

For the sausage and the filling.

I'm gonna cut but not all the way to the bottom,

so this is for all my New England lobster roll people,

you know what's going on right now.

And these are just not fancy rolls,

not necessarily a bakery roll,

just want nice fresh hoagie rolls, cut them yourself.

So the sauce is for two things.

The sauce is for going inside of the rolls.

And we're gonna broil them and get 'em like softened up

and toasty and that will also take off some of the rawness

of the garlic flavor and then I don't want to use all of it.

So I'm gonna hold some back for drizzling over at the end.

So it's kind of like, it's almost like your making

garlic bread but with basil.

And it's very, like I said, this is pretty pungent,

and I'm gonna use it raw on top,

so I don't need to use a ton of it inside,

just enough to coat.

[Chris] Don't burn the buns!

Don't you dare, oh, my God!

It's fine, sort of.

They're a little toasty guys.

[Producer] We had less than two minutes, though.

I know, we were like only a minute in.

So guys, this is a really great time to pause

and just talk about broilers.

Every broiler is different;

broilers are also incredibly hot.

So we meant for about half the amount of time in the recipe,

and I gotta say, this guy really took the brunt of it,

so we're gonna swap him out,

just for the benefit everybody's enjoyment.

So now it's time to build these beautiful sandwiches.

Everybody gets three balls plus one extra.

I want all the balls to get;

all my meatballs to get a little bit of sauce.

This is gonna insulate them when they go back in the oven

to melt the cheese I'm about to put on top.

It's also gonna soften the bread up more,

and it's kind of giving you that meatball sub experience.

Alright, next up, fresh mozzarella, draping them

right over the meatballs, yum.

Okay, and then basil drizzle afterwards.

So these are going back into the broiler.

Make a note, recipe says five minutes.

I'll be checking these after two.

So back into the broiler they go.

Alright, we've been watching these like a hawk.

They're ready; they're melty, yum.

Okay, so we have great coverage on the moz,

very melty and delicious, coming over the edges.

I burnt a couple buns, what are you gonna do?

It's gonna be fine; there's plenty to go around.

And then they're all gonna get just another little drizzle

of our pesto which is gonna hit that melty mozzarella

and all the flavors are gonna open up again.

I just think this is a delicious thing to eat.

It is a delicious weeknight dinner.

It is also really fun if you're like,

I feel like this is a great

viewing party, sporting event, some kind of,

you know, your casual type of dinner.

So sausage you saw,

spicy sausage. Yeah.

And tomato-- Delicious marinara.

Tomato but like anything else happening in the marinara?

Fennel, onion, garlic.

Fennel.

Well, no I'm not gonna tell you.

[laughing] I have to guess.

I have guess the

remaining ingredients You have to figure it out.

Salt.

Not to get all DeBlase on you,

but I kinda wanna go at this with a knife and fork.

[Carla] Me too.

You know, like pull up a chair.

I know,

but at the same time I'm wearing an apron,

so whatever happens, happens.

Yeah, that's true.

But yeah, mm.

Yes, Tommy that's a word, kelunking

[Tommy] Kelunking?

I don't doubt it.

It's like spelunking, but it's when the blade

falls out of your Cuisinart bowl.

[Tommy] Or squosin.

Yeah.

[Tommy] That's my favorite Carla-ism.

It is a word at this point.

So there are certain words that they should be counted

as valid forms of communication

because everybody knows what you're talking about

when you say it, and squosin is one of those words.

Say it enough times, it seems real.