FLAVORS
New Life
Restaurant Dante and il Casale
Meatb all s FOR
This simple dish is coming to the menu in novel ways.
By Lauren Kramer
Dante de Magistris crafts carne, a
traditional meatball with tomato ragu.
WHEN Dante de Magistris thinks of
meatballs, the idea alone takes him straight
back to his grandmother’s kitchen. “It’s the
kind of thing she would make at least once a
week,” he says.
veal and ground pork, rinsing the meat and
drying it really well to give it a cleaner flavor,”
he says. “We soak two-day-old bread in milk,
and mix it in with the meat. Then we cook
garlic, oregano, red pepper chili flakes and
basil in olive oil to bring out the flavor, and add
it to the meat, too.”
or with pasta. “The trick is to have the right
amount of liquid in your mixture without
it becoming too dense,” he says. “Done
right, meatballs can easily become a menu
favorite, but the problem is that the dish has
been abused.
Chef/owner of il Casale, Belmont, Mass.,
and Restaurant Dante, Cambridge, Mass., de
Magistris says he can’t take meatballs off the
menu, because diners come in specifically
for the dish. “We use a combination of ground
De Magistris poaches his meatballs in
tomato sauce and serves them with
Pecorino Romano and basil as a side dish,
“Until recently, meatballs weren’t considered
exciting or advanced in the U.S., because
for many years, they were bastardized. They
were made in large quantities, which make
