In the matter of dinner
A Cookbook That Fixes That
One hundred thirty meatball recipes from a man who has eaten his way across six continents.
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You have no balls. This book fixes that. One hundred thirty meatball recipes from a man who has eaten his way across six continents and sent a meatball back at a Michelin three-star — birria to bolognese, Lion’s Head to lemon-saffron tangia, cold appetizers through dessert. These are meatballs with a tailor: built to house rules — the two-ounce scoop, the proper panade, standards litigated harder than a prenup — then dressed for the evening. Pour the fifty-year Scotch into the good snifter, light the 1989 Espléndido, put on the smoking jacket; these balls have seen black tie, yachts and at least one Patek Philippe. Let the Montrachet breathe while you roll. Read the Terms of Service. Learn the Godfather Clause. Consult your Consigliere about the last one on the tray. Then make the balls and let the table reach its verdict. Case closed; dinner open.
130 recipes across cold appetizers, hot appetizers, soups and stews, mains, vegetable and side balls and dessert — every one built to the House Rules.
Every meat recipe runs on 2 pounds of meat, 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and a half-cup panade. Where cured meat, soy or fish sauce carries the salt instead, the recipe says so and the jar stays closed.
Oven balls bake at 425°F for exactly 17 minutes on a parchment-lined sheet. Not 16, not 18. The clock has been litigated and the ruling stands.
160°F for meat, 165°F for poultry, no guessing. Guessing is for people with a backup dinner.
Seven more rules preside inside — including the Panade Ritual, the Poultry Accord and the Comma Ruling.
Bosphorus Bites·Squid Pro Quo·The Gavel·Stockholm Syndrome·Italian Penicillin·Soup of the Long Winter·The Cod Father·Poultrygeist·The Lemon Law·Speak of the Devil·Rabeas Corpus·No Bones About It·The French Connection·Katsu in the Act·Pampas & Circumstance·The Smoking Gun·Well, Well, Wellington·Buried Butter·Jerk Store·Tossed Salads·The Kentucky Colonel·I’m Listening·The Berry Best
…and 107 co-defendants, cold appetizers through dessert.
Cold Appetizer Balls · Hot Appetizer Balls · Soups & Stews · Main Course Balls · Vegetable & Side Balls · Dessert Balls
Fifty terms in evidence. The rest are in the book.
Before the first ball is rolled, the reader will rise, place one hand on this book and the other on a kitchen scale and swear as follows:
“I do solemnly swear to weigh my balls at two ounces, every one, without exception or excuse.”
Dan DeCristoforo is the kind of man who sends back wine at restaurants not because it’s corked but because the sommelier picked an uninteresting vintage. A globe-trotting connoisseur of food, wine, cigars and spirits, Dan has spent decades eating his way across six continents (Antarctica had terrible meatballs). He once sent back a meatball at a three-star Michelin restaurant in Lyon. They remade it. It was Better.
Dan lives by a simple philosophy: if you’re going to make balls, make them worth eating.