Hi everyone! Cruising on Pinterest the other day and I came across a recipe I knew I had to subject Chris to, I mean, enchant Chris with my superb cooking skills for dinner. Going through the recipe I realized it needed a little goosing up so here is my version of it!
Quick and dirty:
1) Mix 1lb ground meat, 5 eggs, 4 rolls of crushed crackers in a bowl
2) Add 1Tb dried onions, 1 1tsp dried garlic, salt, & pepper
3) prep onions for filling
4) stuff onion layers with meatball filling
5) cover stuffed onions with bacon strips
6) bake on a pan at 375F for 20-30min.
More elaborate directions:
Prep time: approx 30min to 1 hour, depending on tears ;)
Bake time: 15-20 min @375, 30min or so @400F
Ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs ground meat (I used 80/20 blend hamburger, if it's greasier like a 70/30 blend- add more crackers, and the meat can be any redmeat but has to be ground.)
5 raw eggs (or 5 egg equivalent from carton)
4 rolls of crackers (saltines for more salty flavor, Ritz for buttery flavor)
1Tb Dried onions
1tsp dried garlic
1tsp salt
1tsp pepper
Whole onions (I used 2 large onions, one white and one yellow, if using med sized- go for 4 and for small sized use 6 onions.) For sweeter meatballs, use Vidalia onions.
1-2 package bacon, at room temp or having been thawed out fully.
I used the thick cut, extra long kosher ones.
You'll also need a cutting board, a knife, a baking sheet with edges, and a mixing bowl, and the oven preheated to a suitable baking temp. I recommend 375F to be on the safe side. No one likes burnt meatballs. :(
Add ground meat along with 5 eggs into the bowl and mix it together using a sturdy spoon or your fingers.
Take your rolls of crackers....
And roll them around and generally crunch up the crackers....
And then pour the contents into the mix one container at a time, making sure to evenly disperse the cracker bits.
I poured out a handful which is somewhere around 1Tb or so. The dried onion will be activated by the fat in the meat and along with the crackers will soak up the extra grease present. If using more fatty meat-add more dried onions and crackers (1 roll per every extra 5% fat)
Add half the amount you did of onions so: 1tsp dried garlic. Use less if using fresh garlic! Add 2 1tsp salt and 1tsp pepper, basically 2 pinches of salt and then a top surface coating of pepper.
The final meatball mix should be firm but moldable like a thick bread dough or chilled cookie dough. If too fluid, add more crackers. If too crumbly add eggs, one at a time.
The tops and bottoms need sheared off and the outermost skin peeled off. Do what you have to to survive this: piece of bread, clothespin on the nose, gasmask....whatever. I used the more potent onions, although I'm sure if you use smaller ones the punch isn't as bad to the tear ducts. At the very end, you'll need to cut a vertical line down each ring, the best way to accomplish this is to put the knife point into the center and without hesitation bring it down towards the outer edges. Then get the onion wet and gingerly pop each layer out from the others so that you have a collection of hollow onion balls.
Fill each onion ball with meatball mix as shown above.
For added zestiness, pop another ring over the stuffed one making a complete onion ball, as shown.
As you can see, I went for both plans as a trial.
This part is tricky. Grasping the onion ball firmly, wrap a strip of bacon around its circumference. Then wrap another, and possibly another...and so on until you feel the onion is sufficiently covered. I ran out of bacon so opted for the healthier version of only 1 to 2 strips per onion ball. The recipe I was following called for toothpicks to hold everything in place- but I didn't have any. You could also use cotton sewing thread to tie it all together....but I'm lazy and didn't want to do it. So I opted to settle the onion on top of the bacon edge thus securing everything in place courtesy of gravity. :)
I wanted to be cautious, so I baked these monster onion bombs at 375F for a little over 30min. The bare onion edges got a little blackened but I wanted to make sure the meat was cooked. Served with a salad these softball sized meatballs were simply marvelous.
P.S. I forgot about the bacon grease which congealed all over the pizza pan so next time I'm going to put down a layer of cracker crumbs to soak it up. I'm sure the dog will love it! And cleanup will be that much easier! Hope you love them as much as we do!!!
P.P.S. I will not be held responsible for any issues resulting from you following this recipe. I post it here for fun and to help spread the love of cooking.
