Spaghetti and Meatballs from $1 to $100: 5 Levels

[00:02] an ineitable Italian American classic. But what happens when we try to make spaghetti meatballs with very little money at all? And what happens when we money than we should? I can think of only one way to find out, and I think

[00:15] only one way to find out, and I think you know what it is.

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[01:16] domain. It seems unfair that this spaghetti is priced per serving while the others are priced by total cost. Is that just how poverty works? >> I don't think that's how poverty works. I think that's how capitalism works.

[01:30] yes, that's how poverty works. The two are one and the same. Dollar. How do we make spaghetti and meatballs for a dollar? Well, first things first, probably can't use meat. There's no way we [music] can not go

[01:46] over a dollar per serving using actual beef or pork or even chicken. [music] So, what can make an analog to beef? Well, the obvious answer is to go vegetarian. [music] If you're asking me, I think we should use lentils. Lentils

[02:00] surrogate. They definitely don't have much in the way of flavor or texture, so we're going to need to try and fix that. But, they're very nutritious and they will stand [music] in for beef or pork in the meatball scenario. First thing we

[02:13] not just going to cook them in boiling water cuz this is an opportunity to add flavor even at such a low price point. What we have here, bullion. Not very expensive. [music] And this beef bullion is going to go a

[02:27] long way in helping these taste a little bit like meatballs. Now I'm going to add bit like meatballs. Now I'm going to add our rinsed lentils. I should have. These the point where they're quite tender but not falling apart cuz we need to be able

[02:40] a little bit but not turn them into a mash. All right, our lentils are nice and cooled off. All right, so we got to mash these up before adding adding anything else, I think. So now we're going to add some usual meatball

[02:53] suspects. I'm going to add a little bit of this lentil cooking liquid back just cuz it is perfectly good beef flavor. And then I'm going to make a pinade. I'm going to take about a half a cup of Italian style breadcrumbs. These guys

[03:07] are preseasoned, so we don't have to use as much dry seasonings from the spice rack. Keep that dollar [music] down. To that, I'm going to add a little splash of milk. This is going to help keep these otherwise very dry meatballs at

[03:19] least a little moist. I'm also going to add my egg right in here. And some flavor bonus points. Let's throw some shaker parmesan. Putting 1/4 cups worth in there. Salt FGP. It's probably half teaspoon of oregano. Likewise with

[03:33] parsley. And we want it to be a thick but not too thick paste. Let's add this to lentils. And voila, we got ourselves some sort [music] of meatball mix. So I'm going to roll these guys up. Then we're going to pan fry them. Sauce up.

[03:46] going to have something resembling spaghetti meatballs for less than a dollar a serving. While those are frying up, let's talk pasta. For a dollar a serving, we obviously need to go to the very cheapest pasta. Usually that is

[03:58] spelled ranzone. There's a couple reasons I don't like using this or buria or any of the, you know, bargain pastas. And that's because of its texture. Well, flavor and texture. I think it has worse flavor, but on top of that, as you can

[04:12] see, it is a rather smooth and shiny texture. This translates to less sauce it's going to look gross and [music] naked. Okay, we've got some great brown

[04:24] crust on most sides of our [music] lent balls. So, now we're just going to go balls. So, now we're just going to go ahead and Let these guys simmer just for a wee bit. Let's be real. This is dollar

[04:38] spaghetti meatballs. What are we doing? I mostly just cuz I want to do it. It's It's bad pasta anyway. I might as well have some fun.

[04:51] kid. Now, while it's cooking, I'm going to add some sugar to this sauce cuz it's way too harsh. Probably a tablespoon's worth to start to see how it goes. I'm probably adding one teaspoon [music]

[05:04] each. Oregano, garlic powder, onion powder. That mixed in there. Now, we have to diversify it. Ski is about minute shy of being done. That's right where I want it to be. I'm going to scoop up a

[05:18] big old cup of this nice starchy pasta water. Now I'm going to strain this stuff. Bring it right back onto the burner. We're going to add some of our sauce to the pasta. Probably a cup's worth of sauce. I'm going to add about

[05:31] 1/4 cup of our pasta cooking water. And we are going to continue to cook that we are going to continue to cook that for just a minute or so. All right, piscet is done. Snapped in half just the way I did it when I was a kid. [music]

[05:44] Felt really, really good. Even though I doubt I'm ever going to do it again. And we budgeted for two balls per ball banger. What? We We budgeted for two balls per serving. Always room for a little extra shake of the bottled

[05:59] parm. And there you have it. Spaghetti and meatballs with a very significant serving. Let's get a look at that cross-section. Looks like a meatball

[06:11] with seeds in it, but it does look like a meatball. Let's try this guy out. Surprisingly better than I thought it was going to be. It's definitely a little mushy, a little dry, but it has a meaty [music] bite to it and a solid

[06:24] flavor. Like, we put meatball trappings [music] in there and it tastes like a meatball. This is a passable spaghetti meatballs for less than a buck per bowl. you can do things like that in this world. Not for long. Enjoy it while it

[06:38] lasts. So, for this first batch, we had to do per serving because it's batch of spaghetti and meatballs of any kind for a dollar. The pasta alone costs a buck 50. [music] So, this was less than a dollar per serving. Moving

[06:52] spaghetti meatballs we can make for that total budget. But for now, a buck for this bowl, [music] that's a buck by any man's bowl for a dollar.

[07:04] priced. and reasonable things don't perform terribly well on YouTube. Why are you including it? >> I don't know. Honestly, I have no idea. Uh conceptual symmetry, um levels,

[07:20] um accomplishable recipes for those at home. There, I got there. I got there. It's because this is a good one to Well, is it? Let's find a good one to Well, is it? Let's find out if it's a good one for you to make

[07:34] can we make for $10? And luckily, [music] this budget gets us into very basic solid spaghetti meatballs territory. We can use actual meat. So, this is about [music] a little less than four bucks worth of ground beef. It

[07:48] might even be cheaper where you guys are at because we're in New York City and expensive. Pretty much same deal. We got one egg. We got/4 cup of breadrumbs. And I already poured in the breadcrumbs cuz I'm a stupid man. Uh, so just don't

[08:04] parmesan because this is significantly cheaper than the real stuff. Half teaspoon of dried garlic, half teaspoon oregano. Uh, throw some parsley in there, half teaspoon of onion powder, 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt, some FGP. So

[08:20] make the pinade properly, I'm going to try to make up for it by beating all the liquids together before Look, I still make a made [music] a pinade. I have nothing to feel bad about. And now work it into the meat. Basically just want to

[08:35] see any more streaks of the pinade [music] because all that really is is big chunk of that in the middle of your balls [music] or your meatballs. There it is. Very, very simple meatball mix. Let's fry them up. Oil's hot. I'm not

[08:52] and [music] crisp. I'm going to do it over moderateish heat. Like I'm not going to blast these to [music] sear them. that can make the muscle fibers it could help. It could make the meatball crack. So, I'm kind of slow

[09:07] Now, I'm going to finish simmering [music] these in the sauce. Uh, we're doing PGO cuz it is an inexpensive bottled sauce. Going to add this to the meatballs. Let them finish cooking. And now, unlike

[09:20] the lentil meatballs, these meatballs are going to help flavor that sauce cuz PGO sauce right out of the jar, not great. But after it's [music] simmered it, those meatballs, they're going to expel a lot of juices, a lot of fat.

[09:33] [music] make it taste better. Meatballs have been cooking about 20 minutes. I don't want them to get metallic [music] or tinny. So, I'm going to remove them from the situation. Bring them to a second location. All right. So, we got

[09:46] the [music] spaghetti and the sauce right here. Speaking of spaghetti, what kind of spaghetti are we going to use? Well, the step up from Ranzani, but Well, the step up from Ranzani, but yeah, Barilla. Uh, usually 20 cents

[09:59] it or not. It does seem like it has a slightly softer texture [music] on the outside. We're going to stick with good oldfashioned blue box, the other one. Soon as the spaghetti hits the pot, we're moving it around this time both to

[10:13] down in the pot so that it cooks evenly. [music] When you you don't want to have the spaghetti sticking out like that all over the place. I'm going to set a timer dness and we're going to finish it in the sauce. Just like last time, we have

[10:25] room in the budget for some extra richness in the form of a/ tablespoon of unsalted butter and little drizzle of olive oil. Some finishing with fat. It softens [music] the harsh edges of the sauce. If you are using jarred pasta

[10:39] [music] upgrade it. This isn't some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Could use a pinch of salt, taste of pepper. Okay, spaghetti going down. Flatten out

[10:51] a little spot for my balls. That's who's added on top. And there we have it. $10 meatballs. Ones that have actual meat in them. So, that's an upgrade. Let's see how it all came together.

[11:08] dente. The sauce has these really strong acidic fruit notes that are getting at the [music] end. Parmesan cheese for sure, but definitely the butter and the olive olive oil and the meatballs. This whole thing tastes picture perfect for

[11:22] hometown where you grew up [music] with the red gingham t tablecloths. That's perfectly great, especially if it's nostalgic for you. [music] There's a business. So, that's what $10 does. But what can 25 Jive Alive Thrive and

[11:39] Beehive? [music] What can $25 do? According to Google, to buy what $25 used to get you when you started this show, you'd now need $34.

[11:51] Can I have $34? >> There's a disconnect between the very astute observation about the state of our economy and inflation and you're just asking for 34 bucks.

[12:05] >> Well, let me answer your question with another question. The dollar menu at items that only costed a dollar. Now it's called the value menu and nothing costs a dollar at all. Everything costs more. So would you come over and paint

[12:19] my house for me >> for $34? >> This is where we're getting into sort of foodie territory. Some fresh herbs, some

[12:32] fresh vegetables, some more meats involved, and uh and uh $25. So, for the meatballs at the $25 level, I'm using a mixture of half ground beef, high

[12:46] quality vacaled ground beef [music] and half sweet Italian sausage removed from its casing. Italian sausage on its own can make for a [music] pretty bouncy cut it with a little bit of beef tends to be a little bit more tender and

[13:00] palatable. Then for the pinade, rather than breadcrumbs, we're going to use little bits of actual bread, specifically white sandwich bread. Some hydrate the pinade. And don't be afraid to really mush it up. You might also

[13:16] want to let this sit for about 10 minutes to ensure total absorption. To minutes to ensure total absorption. To the pinade, we're adding one egg. Throw in a little pinch of crushed red pepper flake, about half a teaspoon's worth.

[13:29] garlic. And we are going with freshly grated better in the meatball than the jarred [music] stuff. It's going to taste better, too. So, I'm going to finely grate about 1 oz in there. I'm also

[13:42] going to throw some freshly chopped herbs in there. I've got some parsley, 3 tablespoons worth once it's chopped up. And a lot of people don't add fresh And a lot of people don't add fresh basil to meatballs. And I say pish posh.

[13:54] Uh because the the thing with basil is that when you cook it, it oxidizes and it turns brown. But you know what else is brown? Meatballs. So, it doesn't really matter. And I love having the hit of fresh basil flavor in there. It's,

[14:07] you know, I think it's definitely worth the trade-off. We're also going to season this with salt and pepper. Also going to add dried oregano just to give it that kind of classic American red sauce joint Italian flavor. So, I'm

[14:20] going to start by kind of incorporating the two meats together. Just getting [music] letting them get to know each other a little bit. There's our pinade. other a little bit. There's our pinade. I'm also adding about a half a small

[14:32] finely minced onion. All right, that looks like a pretty damn fine meatball balls. [music] I just decided that the $25 level is the true Italian grandma

[14:44] one because it's, you know, it's damn good food, but it's not getting into any good food, but it's not getting into any cheffy It's just here's the ingredients. How can I best put them together to make the best possible end

[14:57] diminishing returns from this point. All right, those bad boys have some nice browning on them, which means it's time to finish them in the sauce. In this case, a more expensive jarred sauce than we used last time.

[15:15] Now, this time for spaghetti, we're stepping things up a notch with deco. [music] It's really high quality pasta for not that much more. If you can

[15:27] spring the extra I think it's like050 cents a dollar. This stuff's worth it. Tastes really good. Behaves really well in this 12-in highwalled saut sauté pan. Fan stuff out in there. And it fits directly into the pot. No hanging out.

[15:42] No having to bend and push it down into the water. It's just in there ready to go. I think these meatballs are pretty much done. I'm going to pull them out and I'm going to finish the spaghetti in the sauce [music] right in this pan.

[15:54] Okay, spaghetti is nice and al dente. Another thing I love about using a shallow pot like this, it's very easy to just bing. Normally, I'd finish this with a little bit of fat, but it is just

[16:06] [music] the the the carbone sauce mixed with the meatballs cooking in it is just loaded with fat. So, I think it's already all good.

[16:21] close. This time I'm going to class things up by use of a carving fork, which I'm just going to use to twirl the pasta. Get it into our bowl and just pasta. Get it into our bowl and just kind of shuffle it off. See? Classy.

[16:34] Let's get a couple balls on there. Looks a little silly. Normally you don't do meatballs with this pasta configuration, but whatever. We need visual variety. Bit more sauce on top. Freshly grated parm, of course. Just

[16:48] watch those balls wiggle. Hit it with a little bit of last minute seasoning. Get a little bit of crunch from some flaky finishing salt and top things off with a little bit of fresh basil. And there you have it. $25 spaghetti. Grandma classic.

[17:02] money. Let's take a look inside a ball, shall we? We have a nice even texture in there. The onions have cooked down, so they're not really even noticeable. It's nice and juicy. You can see as I squeeze it. Good juicy meatball.

[17:21] amp up the flavor of [music] your meatballs. It's adding both the fat and flavor of pork and all the seasonings therein to your meatballs in one easy step. It's definitely worth doing. And I don't know if this would hold up in a

[17:34] blind taste test, but I do think dco tastes better. There's this distinct [music] almost sweetness to it. This is like in my mind the perfect bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. [music] So, I can only wonder what'll happen if

[17:48] we throw more time and money at it. Stick around and find out.

[18:15] >> Babish cookware. Swear to me you'll only use it for good. So why should I spend it on this and not a parlay on DraftKings?

[18:29] >> Well, I would rather spend $50 on a bowl of spaghetti because it's a sure bet when it's my recipe. Because when it's my recipe, I'll give you I'll give you f I'll give you five to one. Josh Allen throws

[18:46] 800 yards to this game. >> Who's Josh Allen? >> I don't know. $50 spaghetti and meatballs. Special occasion spaghetti and meatballs. I really need to impress my courtappointed therapist. Spaghetti

[19:00] doing that, but that's the kind of spaghetti and meatballs we're making. So, we got this chuck roast. A really nice well-rounded piece of meat to be grinding up. A lot of channels of fat in here. And we're breaking this down into

[19:14] cubes. And now we're going to grind it up. Let's use a food processor with a thoroughly chilled blade. So the blades in the freezer. Has been for overnight at this point. And now so too shall this. These little guys are headed into

[19:27] the freezer for probably about [music] 20 minutes. So now onto the question of the aromatics. Uh, we're still going with fresh onion and [music] garlic, but I want them to be more cooked down. I'm going to start by sautéing our onions,

[19:40] garlic, letting them cool [music] before putting them in the pinade. We're not looking for browning. I'm just going to cook these down for 3 to 5 minutes. The same way that you would and we are going to do when we make sauce. Throw a little

[19:54] water in there to sort of delaze the pan and get some of that nice brown stuff same way I would do if I was trying to quick caramelize onions. Now I've turned the heat down. I'm adding two crushed cloves of garlic. And just letting that

[20:10] going to let these cool and these are going to add more flavor to our meatballs and give them a better texture. Okay, beef is cold, blade is cold. These things help prevent smearing and give you a better chop. So you might

[20:23] be wondering why are we grinding our own beef? And really, it's for a sense of control. We can control the texture of the burger, the flavor, and the fat content by grinding our own meat. When you get preggroundown meat at the store,

[20:39] it makes for a great meatball, but it is ground to a paste. Basically, there is no texture to it. And now we can give this kind of a meatier, beefier texture uh in addition to a deeper flavor by combining it with other

[20:54] deeper flavor by combining it with other meats. Cover your ears. chunks. You just want it to be a nice heavily grind

[21:13] is that it kind of flings the beef up in the air. Goes and it sort [music] of helps circulate the meat. You don't have big chunks that are just floating on big chunks that are just floating on top, not getting down to the blades.

[21:28] that is a nice looking ground beef. You can see there's no big steaky chunks. [music] It's just a nice, really nicely loose textured ground beef. That's going to make for some great burgers. I mean, meatballs. So, for our meated balls,

[21:45] pinade. Now, for the liquid, we're not using plain old milk. We're using buttermilk. And that's because it has enzymes in it that are going to deeply tenderize the meat and it's going to flavor it with a nice buttermilk twang.

[21:59] it's nice and thick. We're going to add our cooled onions and garlic, our single large egg. So now this time we're still using fresh basil and parsley, but I'm going to add some fresh oregano to the mix. This [music] has a intense

[22:15] vegetable almost almost almost aggressive oregano smell and flavor. So I'm not going to do much just like few picked leaves. For the cheese this time we are stepping things up. This is a 24-month granapadano very close to

[22:29] The added age is going to translate to a much stronger more pungent flavor. I'm also going to add [music] some ground nutmeg. This is an Italian classic 1/ eighth of a teaspoon ground fennel. Half a teaspoon worth. And that

[22:44] [music] sauce, Italian sausage notes. Season this with salt a little bit more prolifically than we did cuz we're not using a preseasoned sausage. Finely ground black pepper. Now, we're also going to add a healthy hit of anchovi

[22:58] paste. I like thinking of anchovi paste almost as um the way soy [music] sauce is used in many Asian cuisines as a base sort of umami and salt booster thing. Not going to taste fishy as long as you don't go crazy with it. About a half

[23:12] tablespoon. That's the How about that? Got a nice looking pinade. It's time to add our meat. And now what I have here is an equal mix about half pound each of ground pork and ground ve. And I want these to be primarily beef meatballs. So

[23:26] I'm going to add in about two parts ground beef, one part ve, one part [music] pork. Let's get this all mixed up. This is a good feeling mix. It's not sticking to my [music] hands too much. All right, there's our mix. Now, to

[23:39] meatballs, we're going to utilize a trick that I learned from Jay Kenji Lopez [music] Alts. I've got a/4 cup of chicken stock here onto which I'm sprinkling one full packet of powdered gelatin. This is going to [music] make

[23:55] gelatin. This is going to [music] make an insanely thick uh completely to be able I'm going to be able to chop into [music] tiny little cubes, then mix into the meat. And that basically all that is going to melt when the balls are

[24:09] cooked and that's going to just make them super juicy and [music] even more flavor into the whole affair. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to microwave this once or twice until it's completely uh dissolved. And then I'm

[24:22] container, fridge it until it's solid, [music] pop it out, chop it up. So, now let's try to break that up as best we can. Let's get these into the meatballs.

[24:34] Time to roll. Going with slightly bigger meatballs this time. You know, trying to get my money's worth here. $50. You better give me some big old balls. And baking sheet because [music] instead of frying them this time, I'm going to

[24:48] color on all of them. [music] Just sort of streamline the process. And then they're headed in the sauce to finish cooking. So, here I have some whole DOP San Marzano tomatoes. Some really nice high quality ones. And uh you can

[25:03] of break them up as you go, but that makes for a [music] very chunky sauce. So, I'm going to lightly puree these with a stick blender before they go in chunks of tomato in there, but there's nothing too big. There's a nice texture

[25:17] to it. Over on the stove top, we've got some extra virgin olive oil. Let's add our very finely minced onion. Let that sweat 3 to 5 minutes till nice and soft. Two big cloves of crushed garlic. Now, whenever you're making tomato sauce from

[25:32] scratch like this, an instant way to deepen its flavor and cut the harshness and acidity of the tomatoes is to use a good gug of tomato paste. [music] So, I'm putting a fair amount in here and then mixing around, letting it uh cook a

[25:47] bit with the onions. We're going to do this until the tomato paste starts sticking to the bottom of the pan, basically creating a tomato fond. There we go. In go the tomatoes. get to scraping. Make sure nobody we

[26:02] don't want anybody to burn. And pretty standard thing to do to amp up the flavor of the sauce is to add a springrig of basil. I picked off a bunch of the leaves and pick off even more because this stem is full of flavor and

[26:15] picking off the big ones, putting it in there. Save those those for the many many more applications we need basil [music] for today. Then, if you really want to be Enrique Glaciius, we're going to chop off the rind of our parmesan and

[26:29] throw that in with the [music] sauce. And then you can be my hero or I can be your hero. Whoever's doing it can be Enrique Glazes. This guy is going to simmer for about [music] an hour. We want it to, you know, lose a

[26:44] lot of that moisture that we just put in, lose that water, let it evaporate. We want the uh basil to have imparted all of its goodness. [music] And we want the tomatoes to have mellowed and sweetened. All right, there we go.

[26:57] Nicely colored balls. Drop these straight in the sauce where they can more gently cook. Cuz if you just roast these straight up, if you just bake them, you're going to squeeze out all that gelatin. Wow, that is pretty

[27:09] picture perfect. So now these are going to simmer in the sauce for probably 20 through. Don't want to overdo it. If you cook these too hot, too fast, you're going to squeeze all the juice out and they're going to be tight and tough.

[27:22] Save that for your booty, not your balls. All right, so I got my pasta discuss pasta. What are we going to use for the $50 version of spaghetti and meatballs? And we found this guy. This is Pastifico Pastapicio

[27:37] which if you look very, very closely right there, you'll see that this is Dolce and Cabana pasta. I don't know why, but [music] it is. That is their word mark. And this bag, I believe, clocked in around $12. So, [music]

[27:52] looking at uh some pretty expensive sketi here. Looks like Bob and Bob's Burgers almost. It looks like a drawing that his kids like that looks to me like kids did a drawing of him. It looks like it's a very nice pasta. As you can see,

[28:07] it's definitely bronze dyed. [music] like it's super rough and and matte and uh almost sandy sandpaper kind of vibe on the outside and uh that's going to starch [music] being released into the pasta cooking water. In it goes for oo

[28:24] pasta cooking water. In it goes for oo mutos as the Italians say. Going to grab a bunch of this sauce preemptively put it in this sauté pan [music] ready to receive my pasta. All right, so

[28:38] is taste it and see if it's actually worth [music] $10 or whatever it costs.

[28:50] Pasta's done. So, it's going straight into our nicely cooked down sauce. Of course, we have to add a couple splashes of our pasta cooking water. So, now I'm going to finish it off with some really expensive coldressed olive oil. Nice

[29:04] drizzle worth. I think uh we're going to need to season it with salt because I the sauce. Let's go ahead and make ourselves a nice little love nest here. I'm doing it in a ladle for easier transference [music] over to the bowl. I

[29:18] don't want it to be a super tall pile of spaghetti. I want it to be able to be short and wide enough that it will support my ball. I want a little extra sauce on there. And I want it to kind of [music] drape down the sides if

[29:31] possible. There we go. It's like a almost like a spaghetti volcano, but in some kind of Marvel movieesque plot twist, the volcano [music] has been blocked by a giant ball. Let's get some cheese on there.

[29:45] Some flaky finishing salt. Add a bit of crunch. Freshly ground pepper. Couple more drops of olive oil. Class things up a little bit with some extremely thinly julian

[30:01] basil. [music] There we go. That looks pretty classy. That looks like something you'd get [music] at Italian Disney World. And there you have it. $50

[30:13] spaghetti and meatball. This is just one returns on the pasta. [music] Once you go past the $4 mark per pound, I don't

[30:28] think you're going to get much noticeable difference in flavor or quality. This tastes exactly like any spaghetti I've ever had. But I think where [music] the difference is really going to be found is in this juicy ass

[30:42] meatball. Look at that. Really juicy. really deeply flavorful, super varied flavor from all the stuff

[30:58] different kinds of meat. [music] The texture is nice and open because we use we ground our own beef, which is going to help create a less compressed, dense meatball. Is it worth 50 bucks? I think if you are really trying to pull out all

[31:13] the stops and really make something impressive and uh unique and that you can really put your own signature on, this is a wonderful way to go. I can't say go out and spend $50 otherwise you don't know what spaghetti and meatballs

[31:27] are until you've had this. I can't say that. But I will say while it might not necessarily be worth 50 bucks. It's like I can't deny how good it is. One of the best meatballs I've had. Diminishing returns.

[31:42] It still returns. >> Is this spaghetti still good if no one >> I don't know. If you get a boner and nobody sees it, did it really happen?

[32:05] spaghetti and meatballs. What are you trying to prove? H What did your daddy do to you? How are we going to make $100 spaghetti and meatballs? Well, by using the most expensive specialty version of every single

[32:19] [music] we could find, the most expensive tomatoes, meats, everything. And I'm also going to pull out all the tricks in my trick book to make these as sumptuous and ridiculous [music] as possible. First up, the tomato sauce.

[32:35] versions I could find of [music] tomatoes in this great nation. Fresh some of the better tomatoes in the world, but also the maybe the most [music] price inflated ever imagined.

[32:48] These are probably 10 times the price of your average tomato. I think these were expensive tomatoes you can buy [music] and probably one of the trickier tomato sauces to make because making sauce with fresh tomatoes takes [music]

[33:01] many, many more steps of complication and much more time. Like, this needs at least 4 hours for the flavors to mellow out, for it to taste anything like what you might get out of a jar or a can. So, [music] let's get started. First thing I

[33:15] need to do is cut a little cross into the bottom into every one of their bottoms. [music] And then these are all getting plunged into boiling water for 30 seconds. And then plunged into ice water, which is going to make the skins

[33:28] [music] peel off very easily. All right. So, I have my mixture of blanched and peeled red zebra tomatoes, kari tomatoes, and heirloom tomatoes. And to give them a more traditional red sauce vibe, I'm going to add some DP San

[33:40] Marzano Italian tomatoes. These were dum dum expensive. They were uh $8 for outrageous. Then we're going to puree those tomatoes. Then for the aromatics, I have two small, very finely diced onions. I'm going to almost caramelize

[33:54] very, very slowly, draw out their natural sugars, and get them to a jammy about [music] 20 minutes. Then I'm going to add the garlic, sauté for a second, sauce. So, I'm bring this up to a simmer and then it's headed into a 225°

[34:09] favorite ways to make tomato sauce because it just gets really deep in jammies flavors in the oven over the course of hours and that's what we especially [music] need using fresh tomatoes. These guys need time and

[34:22] night [music] I roasted the tomatoes for like 6 hours and it basically turned them into tomato paste which worse things in the world than homemade tomato [music] Uh, so I basically cooked the hell out

[34:36] fine mesh sie [music] cuz I want a really smooth seed-free sauce. Uh, I'm going to use this as a tomato paste base for my main sauce which I'm going to make from my favorites, Bianciano Dapoli. So, it's going to be really

[34:51] bright and fresh. We'll combine it with our thick, rich tomato paste. Cook them together for 30 45 minutes. I want to I want a good balance of fresh and roasty. Now, I want to add oil. This was the most expensive olive oil they had at

[35:04] Italy, clocking in at $53. I com feed a whole bunch of garlic cloves, bay leaves, basil, peppercorns, and shallots for about 2 hours at 200° Fahrenheit, and it's [music] made what I imagine is going to be an extremely

[35:18] flavorful infused oil. Yeah. Now, that is profound. I'm going to cook this for a little while just to uh maybe like 30, 45 minutes to cook off the totally raw tomato flavor. And I think we're going to have an absurdest

[35:33] tomato sauce. All right, now it's time to talk meat. [music] of meats indeed. We're going with the usual beef pork ve, but classy. So, first up for the beef, we have a dry-aged Australian [music] Wagyu Denver

[35:48] steak. Uh something I would never normally make into a meatball. This is just a beautiful steak that increases the fat content of the meatball, but you could just do [music] that by adding fat. Just add beef fat. It's way cheaper

[36:01] and you're not wasting this gorgeous steak. But we're trying to make this as expensive as possible. So, [music] I guarantee any restaurant that's selling a $100 plate of spaghetti meatballs is going to have Wagu or or

[36:14] Coobe meatballs. So, only [music] fitting. All I can do is say that blessing that I learned from The Pit on HBO. I love you. Goodbye. I forgive you.

[36:27] I hope you can forgive me. Next up for the pork, we have penetta. This is a probably going to lose a little bit of the fat because I have a surprise fat additive. And lastly, we have a lovely ve chop that I'm going to cube up and

[36:42] grind. Now, I've never done this, so I don't know if it's going to work, which leads me to ask myself, why am I doing it? Uh, what I have here are some lovely marrow bones that I have [music] brined overnight in salt water. So, what I'm

[36:57] the raw marrow. [music] I'm going to use that as a fat source in the meatball that as a fat source in the meatball mix. And marrow as a fat is just so flavorful. It's so over the top, and it's just going to

[37:11] it's just going to taste good. Oh yeah, look at that. Like butter. Now got to break these guys down. There we have it. Our quote down. There we have it. Our quote unquote meatball mix. All right, grinder

[37:23] overnight. Need that nice and cold. These guys, not going to freeze them as hard as I did yesterday. Going to keep it under 20 minutes cuz I want really firm edges, soft cores, just like me. So now I want to get basil flavor into the

[37:37] meatballs, but I also want pine nuts and [music] currants. This is like a very Sicilian style meatball. They just throw pine nuts and currants in there. But that in there without chunks of anything is to make a pesto [music]

[37:50] where I also incorporate currants. See what happens. All right. So, we're going to start with some pine nuts. Then I'm going to add a couple of our kfi garlic going to add a couple of our kfi garlic cloves. Some of these zante currants.

[38:03] raisins. Not too many. Just a little bit [music] of salt. This is going to suck. But for the next, I don't know, hour or so, I'm going to process this into a very fine paste. I don't want pieces of [music] currant

[38:16] picking around. And now I'm going to start processing in the basil leaves and adding our [music] infused oil one little splash at a time. All right, little splash at a time. All right, never mind. Screw the old ways.

[38:35] I took two slices of white bread, cut off the crusts, cut them into small about an hour or 200° F. Ground them going to add just enough buttermilk to

[38:48] hydrate things. Let's add this to it as well. This is liquidy. There we go. Nice thick goopy [music] paste. To this, we are, of course, going to add our four-year-old parmesan. I also have a very finely minced collabin

[39:00] chili. Here comes our egg. And what we have here are duck eggs. Again, we're possible, but also duck eggs are a it's going to [music] continue the ongoing quest of adding as much fat to

[39:14] these meatballs as it can handle. Also, I'm going to add more of this ki garlic. And I'm going to crush some of these shallots in there as well. Then, we have some very finely minced high quality anchovies. These are fish anchovies, so

[39:29] they are $10 for a tin. Now I got some porchini mushroom powder here. These are just dried portorchini mushrooms that I powderized. And I'm just going to add like teaspoon and a half's worth. And about a/ teaspoons worth of ground

[39:42] fennel in there. Now we've also got one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. Freshly grated nutmeg. This is a very old school Italian thing to put in lasagna, meatballs, all the best things in life. And why not some MSG? Just just

[39:57] [music] just whatever, man. Let's let's have a good time. Let's enjoy ourselves. Let's throw a little dried oregano in there just for the nice nostalgic in there and they're very, very salty. So, I'm going to go easy on the salt

[40:10] here. Yeah, that is just right. Now, what we got to do is combine it with our balls. Oh, got to get the demiglass. Right. That's a nice hard demi now. All right, let's chop that up. Yeah, these little microbasters base the

[40:28] meat from within. Into the stand mixer goes dry-aged Wagu panchetta [music] goes dry-aged Wagu panchetta [music] ve bone marrow ground beef. We're going to add all this beautiful reduced chopped demiglass. And we've got

[40:44] our pinade. It's very thick and pasty, so it is going to help bind it very, very well. Now, I really don't want cracked meatballs. So, I'm going to try and kind of emulsify this together a little bit more than you might if you

[40:56] were doing it by hands by using a stand mixer. Looks good to me. Still have distinct cubes of demi in there. That's good. All right, let's get to it. I We're going to fry the the meatballs. Then, we're just going to put them in

[41:09] some nice warm sauce. I'm going to bring the sauce up to a simmer and then once to kill the heat. Let the residual heat take it the [music] rest of the way. take it the [music] rest of the way. Now, onto the pasta. And it pains me to

[41:21] say this, but this bag of pasta was $18, bag of pasta was $18, which I think is unjustifiable. [music] But I'll taste it and see if it's the most incredible thing I've ever tasted.

[41:36] Other than that, big waste of money. Beautiful looking. Feels really nice. Let's see what happens. Here we go. Hold on to your butts.

[41:49] pasta that costs a small fortune. Seems like it's breaking pretty easily.

[42:02] flavorful pasta I've ever had. It has a great texture and it really tastes like like [music] wheat. It tastes like the stuff that it's made of. For the record, its cost of entry, but that is I will say that is different. I've never had

[42:15] pasta quite like that before. It's very good. Here we go. It does seem like it's good. Here we go. It does seem like it's breaking really easily.

[42:29] Little bed for our ball. Just like a fairy tale [music] of sorts. That's one of the advantages of deep frying is that it's just a perfect sphere. Ah, make a little extra sauce. We have our four-year-old Parmesan cheese. A little

[42:43] four-year-old Parmesan cheese. A little grounded pepper, infused oil, flaky finishing salt. Careful not to knock the whole goddamn thing over like knock the whole goddamn thing over like that. You know, like that. And a single

[42:55] micro basil on top. There you have it. $100 spaghetti and meatballs. Jesus Christ, that was a lot. Is it worth it? Only one way to find out.

[43:07] First, we have this meatball, which is so tender. Look at that. I didn't even through that meatball. See how tender that was? It's Oh, well, that was bound to happen. It's only fine dining until you start to eat it. It turns into same

[43:21] slop as everything else. It is. It's got to be the best spaghetti It is. It's got to be the best spaghetti meatballs I've ever had. But, um, would I rather spend two days making this and well over $100? uh or spend 25 bucks and

[43:37] make [music] the like classic just higherend homemade. This one, I'm kidding. I I think I'd rather do 25 bucks. I think $25 is the rather do 25 bucks. I think $25 is the sweet spot for spaghetti and meatballs.

[43:49] bored and [music] you want to see how far you can push meatballs, give this a try because it is exquisite. That wheat flavor [music] of the pasta is gone cuz it's underneath the, you know, sauce. It's

[44:04] definitely doing something nonzero. Like, it's it's subperceptual, but [music] for a box of pasta ever again. The meatballs, I think a big takeaway from this is to get [music] a really smooth

[44:20] whipped up pinade. Having all this fat emulsified throughout the mixture made it so soft. And also having just a a pinade almost devoid of texture itself. It was very very smooth. And then I think emulsifying that into the meat

[44:35] gave it this incredible ethereal texture. It's fantastic. I can't this. I can't recommend you're spending two days to make it. But if for some reason you find yourself with both of those things on hand and wanting to burn

[44:49] them, it's not a bad way to do it. So, what did we learn today? Throwing money at spaghetti and meatballs doesn't necessarily make it that much better. In fact, the more money you throw at it, the less better it becomes with it.

[45:04] diminishing return. I said I mentioned diminishing returns in the in the video. And that's what this is. And that's what this show is called.

[45:18] that you eat some spaghetti and meatballs right god dang now. And I hope you do it [music] with Babish. Thanks again to my long-term partner Be sure to head to rankedwithbavish.com [music] to submit your ideas for what

[45:33] want to see as a guest. While you're there, admire the smooth template design creating your website, Squarespace can definitely help. In just one click, you and fonts that can be applied to any template. You can create an entire site

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[46:02] trial and use code Babish for 10% off your first purchase of a website or your first purchase of a website or domain. [music]