My husband had never had porcupine meat balls before. My mother loved them, so we had them often growing up.
Basically, a porcupine meat ball is the stuffing part of a stuffed pepper. But it is formed into a ball instead of stuffed.
This recipe brings to mind stuffed peppers even more with the sauce.
Growing up we never had sauce with the porcupine balls. My mother just served them as is, and of course since she couldn’t really cook, they were always very dry.
These meat balls were very moist. They almost fell apart when you tried to pick them up with your fork.
The sauce was thick and chunky with the peppers and onions.
Thankfully, the rice cooks beautifully in the covered dish. There is nothing worse than crunchy rice in a baked dish! I know I have made stuffed peppers before where the rice didn’t cook.
I served this with the carrot custard. I’ll take more about that tomorrow, it didn’t really work. But the balls themselves were very filling and delicious.
PORCUPINE MEAT BALLS
1 Pound Ground Beef
1/2 Cup Uncooked Rice
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/8 Teaspoon Pepper
1 Onion, Sliced
1/2 Green Pepper, Sliced
1 Tablespoon Shortening
2 1/2 Cups Tomato Juice
Dash Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper
Combine ground beef, rice, salt and pepper. Form into 1 1/2 inch diameter balls. Place in a baking dish. In a skillet, brown the onions and green pepper in shortening. Add tomato juice, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour over meat balls. Cover. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.
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