NYT Cooking project: Five-Ingredient Creamy Miso Pasta (no recipe)

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Chelsea

My idea for this new project was simple: the night before I went grocery shopping, I’d open the NYT Cooking app, note the “recipe of the day” with delighted anticipation, write down the necessary ingredients on my list, and make that. Easy peasy. Done.

Until the day I actually did look, only to find a gorgeous recipe for salmon with Thai flavors over coconut rice. While he can stomach it in a spicy curry where the flavor is all but undetectable, N’s tolerance for coconut pretty much ends there. It can be buried deep, deep in the ingredient list and he can still detect it. Coconut-scented sunscreens make his nose wrinkle with objection. Even items cooked in or with coconut oil can be suspect. A coconut rice simply wouldn’t fit the bill.

As you might guess, this led to a much-longer-than-anticipated perusal of the site and substantial additions to my virtual “recipe box” (which I suppose is good in the long run for keeping this little project on schedule). And then, somehow, I ended up with the simplest of all recipes, which was a near-perfect fit for the gloomy, soaking wet weekend we just experienced.

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Dalgona Experimentation

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Chelsea

I hope you are well and finding ways to keep yourself and your loved ones – perhaps not joyful or fulfilled – but safe and satisfied – during this strange time. I have not yet – and the “yet” is important – succumbed to the siren call of quaran-baking, but I have, thanks to a friend and former colleague, been introduced to the fluffy, caffeine-laced clouds that are Dalgona coffee. Basically equal parts instant coffee, sugar, and hot water, whipped together until they froth and then fluff into a mound of something like meringue, this confection is then scooped over very cold milk, and your tongue gets a play of temperatures and textures, not to mention an intense hit of sugar and caffeine.

I tried the original first, and, as I mentioned previously, I’m a fan. But immediately I had questions: why settle for instant coffee? Why not a strong brew of something high quality? Why water, when you could get extra creaminess from scalded milk? What about adding cocoa powder or vanilla or almond extract? Where would chai spices fit in? To what other application could this be put, aside from a float atop a glass of milk (or, as my siblings have discovered, iced irish cream liqueur)? With raw materials at hand and plenty of time, this would require experimentation.

My first thought was how this could work as cake frosting or filling. To get everything in there together, I would replace the water with hot milk, and following a suggestion I saw here, I would use twice as much milk “for a creamy texture.” What I can tell you today is that if you use 2 parts very hot milk to one part each instant coffee and sugar, it takes a very long time to whip up. It might become marshmallow-y clouds eventually, but I wasn’t quite patient enough for that.

The lightly thickened, foamy concoction I ended up with wasn’t nearly thick enough to serve as a filling or a frosting for anything – it just wasn’t spreadable. But it was certainly capable of draping itself thickly over a slice of still warm chocolate cake. And when shaken up thoroughly the next morning and stirred into to a glass of milk with a little bit of chocolate syrup, it was an intense – and intensely satisfying – replacement for an iced mocha.

Spaghetti with Miso Tomato Sauce

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Chelsea

A lot of people focus, when they talk about their own recipes – the recipes they have created, or modified from already-existing dishes – on secret ingredients. There’s that one, singular item you add to “make it your own,” (or, if you’re the Colonel, maybe eleven). If you’re a certain kind of cook, you leave it out of your written recipes so no one can duplicate your masterpiece exactly, and they struggle for a lifetime trying to figure out why theirs doesn’t taste quite like yours. Secret ingredients puzzle your audience; they are intrigued but can’t quite identify that flavor combination – it blends just enough to keep it unidentifiable.

My one big secret ingredient used to be nutmeg in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies – it added another layer of warmth and interest, and it made one of my high school friends giggle about my cookies being aphrodisiacal. It was unexpected until you knew it was there, and then it made sense. My college roommate adopted it in her own chocolate chip cookies and at least once left it out of the recipe she passed along to a friend, so that the cookies would never be quite the same, thereby keeping them special.

Apart from that, my typical “secret ingredient” practice is just adding so many components that I likely won’t remember them all when I need to recreate whatever dish it was (clearly ideal methodology for a food blogger!). But suddenly, I have a secret ingredient. It fits all the qualifications: it adds a definite flavor without being obvious, and it would be difficult to guess at were you trying blindly to taste out every component of the dish.

This came about by accident, as many of my masterworks do. We had just arrived home from our annual summer road trip, which meant a whatever-is-still-good meal. Pasta is easy here – a bag of spaghetti and a can of tomatoes are guaranteed to be fine and tasty – but being who I am, the urge to tinker kicked in and I was rooting around in the fridge looking for something to make it special. I found a container of heavy cream that, shoved to the very back, was not only still good, but almost frozen, and a tiny, hard, crusty little corner of miso paste. It looked okay, apart from being approximately the texture of granite, and in a moment of innovation genius “well, why not?” I tossed it into the sauce.

As secret ingredients go, this is a good one. No, you don’t necessarily want to buy a whole tub of miso paste just for this, since you’ll only be going through a tablespoon or two, but the number of other sauces, soups, and stir-fry dishes that it will contribute to makes it a great thing to have at the back of the fridge. (And really, if you bought the stuff for Deb’s recipe in the first place, you’ll need a new recipe to use up that last stubborn chunk that has been hiding in your fridge for months anyway.) The miso adds all the salt needed to the sauce, but it also contributes a lux, complex quality that gives depth the tomatoes and somehow makes the cream feel lighter – more sprightly.

In the final incarnation, I added leeks for an onion-y aromatic base, a splash of wine to deglaze, and a smattering of chili flakes, and I was delighted with all of these additions, though you could certainly leave out the heat, replace the leeks with garlic or shallot (or some combination), and I wouldn’t say no to marsala in place of the wine.

In any case, though, scatter the top with a chiffonade of basil or some parsley fragments, and challenge your dinner guests to guess what that extra flavor is – I bet they will be stumped, trying to determine our new secret ingredient.

Spaghetti with miso tomato sauce

40-45 minutes

Serves 8-10

1 pound spaghetti

2 tablespoons salt for pasta water

4 tablespoons butter

½ cup finely chopped leek, white and pale green parts only

½ cup dry white wine

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)

2 tablespoons white or red miso paste

28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes

½ cup heavy cream, at room temperature (adding to the sauce at room temperature, rather than cold, eliminates the danger of curdling)

optional: 2-3 tablespoons chopped parsley or chiffonade of basil to scatter over the top

Fill a large pot with water, add the 2 tablespoons salt, and bring to a boil. When it boils, add the spaghetti and cook according to package directions, stirring once or twice to separate pasta strands. When the spaghetti is tender but still has a slight bite, drain it and add it to the sauce as directed below.
While the pasta water heats, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. When it is melted, add the leeks and turn the heat down to medium-low; sweat the leeks, stirring often, until they are tender. This should take about 8-10 minutes.
When the leeks are tender and translucent, add the wine and the red pepper flakes, stir to integrate, and raise the heat to medium-high. Simmer for 3-5 minutes to cook off some of the raw flavor of the wine.
Now, add the miso paste, using a wooden spoon or a whisk to break it up and integrate it evenly into the wine mixture. Cook 2-3 minutes to allow it to soften and distribute (the older the miso paste is, the more reluctant it will be to integrate).
Dump in the canned tomatoes and their juice, stir, and turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Periodically, crush the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon or with a potato masher (be careful: they squirt!).
When the sauce has simmered at least 20 minutes to let the flavors blend, and when the pasta is cooked and drained, take the skillet off the heat and stir in the room temperature cream.
Integrate the drained pasta (I use tongs for this), then place the skillet back over medium-low heat and cook, frequently manipulating the pasta with your tongs, for another two minutes. This lets the pasta absorb some of the sauce.
To serve, transfer to a large bowl or serving dish and, if desired, scatter the top with your parsley or basil. Warm garlic toast is a welcome accompaniment.

Beer Braised Cauliflower Tacos with Chimichurri

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Chelsea

The first heat wave of the summer has hit Southern California (actually, if I’m honest, it has hit most of the country. Stop cackling, Seattle), and as a result, the things I most want to consume are tacos, grilled anything, bright, herbaceous sauces with plenty of acid, and beer. Fortunately for everyone concerned, today’s recipe combines three of the four. Entirely decent odds.

I had these tacos at a brewery restaurant in Venice, just on the other side of Highway 1. We’ve done cauliflower in tacos before, but that was a wintry dish. This one, with bright, sharp chimichurri sauce and briny crumbles of feta, is all summer.

As many breweries do, this one tries to use their beers in their food as well as in pint glasses, which makes a lot of sense. A glug or two of dark beer into a cheese sauce is perfect, and braising everything from beef to cauliflower in a simmer of ale rather than red wine just fits the venue.

I suppose in this instance, braising isn’t quite accurate – a braise is a long, slow cook in liquid, and here the beer deglazes the pan and then simmers just until the cauliflower florets are tender – but the name sounds nice, doesn’t it? Anyway, the normally mild, sometimes musty vegetable picks up some color and char from a very hot skillet, then sucks in some of the nutty bitterness of whatever beer you pour, sputtering and steaming, into the pan with it. It’s not quite the same depth and richness as roasted cauliflower, but a lighter incarnation that is a bit less sweet.

Once you pile the florets up into a nicely toasted tortilla, you spoon on some chimichurri sauce, a bright, Argentinian answer to pesto, possibly of Basque origin, that is traditionally used to both marinate and top grilled meat. It’s usually dominated by parsley, though sometimes cilantro and oregano make appearances, and gets its sharpness from raw garlic and a healthy dose of vinegar. Mine starts out traditional and then tempers the tang with red wine vinegar, rather than straight white, and sneaks in a bit of sundried tomato and green onion (though you could also use shallot) for a sauce that would make an equally good salad dressing, if you have some substantial greens laying around that need a kick. My version also uses much less oil than some, so feel free to glug in a bit more if you want a looser sauce.

A few crumbles of feta on top of the veg, and you’re ready to serve. And if you’re really feeling the beer-y flavor, perhaps a side of these black beans. Hit it, summer.

Beer Braised Cauliflower Tacos with Chimichurri

Makes 1 cup chimichurri, and enough cauliflower for 4-6 tacos

About 30 minutes

For chimichurri sauce:

3-5 garlic cloves, peeled

2 tablespoons shallot or the whites of green onions

1 tablespoon oil-packed sundried tomato, drained

¾ cup packed parsley, stems and all

2 tablespoons cilantro, stems and all

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

5 tablespoons (¼ cup + 1 tablespoon) red wine vinegar

⅓ cup vegetable or olive oil

For cauliflower tacos:

1 large head cauliflower, cut into bite-size florets

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

12 ounces dark beer

soft corn tortillas, lightly grilled or toasted over an open flame

crumbled feta cheese, to serve

pico de gallo, to serve (optional)

additional cilantro, to serve (optional)

To make the chimichurri, blitz the garlic, onion or shallot, and sundried tomato in a food processor until the ingredients are well broken up. This ensures no large chunks of garlic in the final product. Then, pack in the parsley, cilantro, salt, black and red pepper, and vinegar, and pulse the food processor 2 or 3 times at 1-second intervals. Finally, drizzle in the oil and pulse again, 2 or 3 times at 1-second intervals, until everything is well chopped, but not so long that a fully emulsified paste is created. We are looking for the mixture to retain some texture. Set aside until ready to serve.
In a large bowl, toss the cauliflower with the 1 teaspoon salt, the cumin, and the 2-3 tablespoons olive oil. Preheat a large skillet or a grill pan over medium-high to high heat and, when it is quite hot, tumble in the oiled, seasoned cauliflower. It will sizzle tremendously.
Char the cauliflower on all sides – you are looking for dark bronzed marks on the outside, but not to cook it through – this should take 3-4 minutes.
Deglaze with the beer by adding it all at once and stirring gently. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cook until the florets are tender but still have some texture; about 5 minutes.
To serve, use a slotted spoon to pile up about ¼ cup of florets in each tortilla. Spoon over a few teaspoons of chimichurri, then a few teaspoons of crumbled feta. Add pico de gallo and a few extra cilantro leaves if desired, and serve immediately.

Banh Mi-tballs

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Chelsea

When it comes to creating music, it seems to me there are two basic schools. One begins with the melody, considering sound, instrumentation, rhythm, process. Words and story – if there is one – get added to fit the beat and the harmonics and the feel. The other starts with the words: weaving a story, shouting a chorus, infusing rhyme and connotation and syllabic play. Filtering in notes and melodies that fit the narrative.

Guess which one I favor.

I have the same issue with food. Seriously, when it comes to creating a recipe, I should probably start with the fundamentals: ingredients. Taste. Familiarity. Procedure and execution and fitting flavors together.

More often than not, though, the singer-songwriter I’ve never been pops to the forefront and I’m instead thinking of names and paragraphs and ways of representing the food I haven’t even made yet.

That’s what happened with this experiment. In fact, this is in many ways the inspiration for the whole meatball project. Not because I’ve had a dish just like it that needed to be recreated. Not because I’m obsessed with or particularly fond of meatballs. No. Because I thought the name “banh mi-tball” was too good to pass up.

As I noted previously, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the authenticity and exactness of such a sandwich. Ratios of meat to vegetable, the types of vegetables, the texture and flour types in the bread, form the bases of entries on numerous discussion forums that range from curious to intensely heated. Names are called. Gluten is flung.

Here’s the thing, though. Now that I’m invested, I just wanted to make a sandwich good enough to be called banh mi-tball. I mean, you can’t back up a heart-wrenching narrative woven in clever rhyme with a tinny little toy guitar and an out-of-tune keyboard. But by the same token, I don’t think you have to be Jimi Hendricks or Eric Clapton to support the story in a satisfying way.

What I’m trying to say here, is that I’m not all that interested in authenticity. I didn’t seek out every banh mi shop in Los Angeles and sample and compare and pester their chefs for trade secrets. Even when I’m not losing my mind grading papers during the semester, I don’t have that kind of time or motivation. The point was, I decided, to strive not for exactness or tradition, but to craft a damn good sandwich. So that’s what I’m going for.

Bread, vegetables (pickled and non), meat, spread. These are the necessary components. There should be a crisp crust, there should be a representation of sourness, spiciness, and umami, there should be a vegetal crunch. For this incarnation, I added strips of fresh Persian cucumbers to my pickles, along with sprigs of cilantro and wedges of lime. I spread my slightly-less-than-crisp “baguettes” with a curiously beautiful coral-hued spread of mayonnaise, sriracha, fish sauce, and lime juice, and I stood back and let my fellow sandwich-diners have their way with the pan full of meatballs on the stove.

Since banh mi sandwiches so often feature pork, a pork meatball was the way to go. It would need to echo some of the flavors found in the sandwich itself, which means this is one of those recipes with a tablespoon of this and a teaspoon of that and an ingredient list long enough that you might at first be put off. You shouldn’t be, though. Like so many good Asian recipes, especially sauces, every single individual component has a part to play, and none are particularly exotic. Ginger and garlic for their aromatic spice. Jalapeños and cilantro for freshness and heat. A few tendrils of pickled onion and a squeeze of lime for sourness. Soy sauce and brown sugar to balance that sourness. Fish sauce and red miso paste for that earthy umami funk. Capitalizing on my previous meatball experiments, a pinch of baking powder for lightness and an egg to bind everything together.

Despite the lengthy ingredient list, the actual production of the meatballs is easy. Remembering my satisfying results with Swedish meatballs, I dumped everything in the food processor and let it whir. Pâté is a frequent protein option for banh mi sandwiches, so the smooth, bouncy texture I knew I could achieve with mechanized mixing seemed to fit the bill. After a mix, a quick roll with moistened hands, and a shallow fry in vegetable and sesame oil, all that remains is a twenty minute simmer in flavorful liquid. I opted for chicken broth with a bit of miso paste and a bit of brown sugar swirled in, which resulted in a poaching liquid so tasty I debated serving small bowls of it on the side.

Once you have all the components, sandwich construction is easy. Because people tend to like crafting their own, this actually makes remarkably good party food. Just lay out your pickles, your vegetables, your bread, set down a jar of spread and a bowl of meatballs and watch your guests go to town. Load up your own baguette with enough fillings to stretch the corners of your mouth as you attempt that first bite. Then hide the leftovers. Because you’re going to want this again, and you might not want to share it.

Banh Mi-tballs

Makes 22-24 tablespoon-sized meatballs

For the meatballs:

2 cloves garlic, skins removed

2 teaspoons grated ginger

1-2 tablespoons jalapeño slices

¼ cup cilantro

1 pound ground pork

1 tablespoon red miso paste

½ tablespoon soy sauce

½ tablespoon fish sauce

½ tablespoon brown sugar

½ tablespoon lime juice

¼ teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped pickled onions

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

For the sauce:

1-2 cups low sodium chicken broth

1 tablespoon red miso paste

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Add the garlic, ginger, jalapeños, and cilantro to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until almost paste-like. This will ensure easier integration and no large chunks of garlic.
Add the pork and all other meatball ingredients through the 1 egg (that is, everything except the vegetable and sesame oil), then clamp on the lid and pulse to combine until the vegetable bits are well integrated and the pork itself is smooth and slightly gluey in texture.
Working with moistened hands to avoid too much stickiness, roll the mixture into tablespoon sized balls. When all are rolled, heat the vegetable oil and sesame oil in a large skillet over medium heat until the oil shimmers, then carefully add the meatballs in a single layer.
Fry over medium heat until browned on all sides; 5-8 minutes. Remove to a clean plate.
In the skillet, whisk together the chicken broth, the 1 tablespoon of red miso, and the 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Carefully place the meatballs into the simmering broth, again in a single layer, cover, and reduce heat to medium-low.
Simmer meatballs for ten minutes, then flip each one over and simmer for 10 minutes more. Serve hot, warm, or room temperature on a sandwich with pickles, vegetables, and spread (recipe follows).

Sriracha and lime mayonnaise

makes a generous ⅓ cup; enough for about 4 sandwiches

⅓ cup mayonnaise

zest of one lime

1 teaspoon lime juice

½ tablespoon sriracha or to taste

1 teaspoon fish sauce (go easy; it’s strong)

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well to combine.
To assemble the sandwiches, split baguettes lengthwise, spread generously with sriracha and lime mayonnaise, then layer on meatballs, pickled vegetables of your choice, cucumber, sliced jalapeños, cilantro sprigs, and if desired, a squeeze of lime juice.

Mom and Myrna’s (Swedish) Meatballs

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Chelsea

I fervently hope you have at least one recipe in your arsenal that your family is just mad about. In my case, I guess that might be… tacos? Or perhaps, pardon the sub-par photography, pot pie. For my mom, this recipe is a take on Swedish meatballs from an old cookbook with a faded gold cover. Populated by numerous, lightly ethnic recipes from various European and Mediterranean regions, the cookbook is most stained and marked (Mom makes adjustments in the margins with pencil) on the “Myrna’s Meatballs” recipe. On the facing page is a photograph of a woman (Myrna, I guess) with well-teased chestnut hair, large glasses, and a round face, in the process of lighting candles over a nicely stocked dining room table.

The meatballs themselves, with their mixture of beef and pork seasoned with warm spices and draped in rich brown gravy, are definitely a take on the Swedish smorgasbord classic, and my family is nuts for them. Every year when we plan our Christmas menu, the one item that doesn’t change, it seems, is these meatballs. This past year, because the plan was all rolled appetizers, the meatballs didn’t fit the theme. Rather than skip them, however, they became Christmas Eve dinner instead. Christmas was saved. For Christmas 2015, we’ve already decided the theme will be “food on a stick” (because, I mean, what else would we do while eating the current year’s offerings than plot options for next year’s celebration?). My sister has already excitedly declared that we’ll just stab the meatballs with toothpicks, and that’s one dish done.

I must confess: I like these meatballs quite a bit, and I enjoy them when they show up in the Christmas spread, but they aren’t quite on my deathbed menu. They are tender and tasty, and the gravy in particular – depth and extra richness imparted by a mere teaspoon of instant coffee powder – is a savory treat. But something about the meatball itself made me want to fiddle.

In one of those lovely coincidences the universe sometimes hands out, the Cooks Illustrated issue in my, well, my bathroom magazine rack (what?) just happened to contain a Swedish meatball recipe, and though many of the ingredients were the same as Myrna’s immortal list, the procedure was different enough to catch my attention. Since one of the things – I think – I wanted to adjust about the family meatball of choice was the texture, it seemed fortuitous to combine-and-conquer.

The main difference in the CI version of Swedish meatballs is the way the meat is prepared. Mom and Myrna knead together the pork, beef, a handful of parsley, spices (plenty of black pepper, as Mom is always telling me), lightly sauteed onions, and breadcrumbs soaked in milk (called a panade) in a bowl before forming soft balls. Taking a cue from sausage making, CI recipe tester J. Kenji Alt instead vigorously paddles the pork in a stand mixer with spices, baking powder for lightness, and the traditional sopping panade. A touch of brown sugar goes in too, for a background hint of sweetness. Grated onions and salt join this combination, and the whipped meat paste is only lightly combined with ground beef. This results in a tender, light meatball with a sort of springiness, achieved by stretching the meat proteins in the pork as it is paddled into a paste-y emulsion. It also more evenly distributes the fat through the meat, which seemed worth imitating.

In my version, because I also wanted to minimize the number of dishes I was going to make N. wash (our version of an egalitarian kitchen: whoever cooks, the other one has to wash up. You can guess how this usually works out), I decided to go for the food processor instead of the stand mixer. I was going to use it to make fresh breadcrumbs anyway, and decided relying on it to grate my onions and mix up the meat would keep things easy. In retrospect, this seems counter-intuitive – wouldn’t the blade tear apart the meat proteins, rather than elongating them? Yet it did produce a pleasing texture.

Mom (and Myrna) brown their meatballs in a few tablespoons of butter, then finish them by simmering them in the gravy for half an hour. The CI version, on the other hand, does more of a shallow fry in vegetable oil, cooking the meatballs completely and then just running them through a quick turn in the sauce. I decided, again, on a slight compromise. I used less oil than the CI recipe, and browned the meatballs on all sides, opting to use my electric skillet so I could control the oil temperature. Once the meatballs were golden and felt almost crisp, I drained them, whisked up the sauce in the same skillet, and returned them to the gravy for the requisite half hour simmer. Any opportunity to add flavor seemed like the right thing to do.

When we couldn’t take the aroma anymore (the dog kept appearing in the doorway of the kitchen, wagging and smiling. Their eternal hope is so encouraging and so sad), I boiled up some egg noodles, tossed them with butter and parsley, and ladled on the main event.

I don’t think I’m allowed to say that my meatballs were better than Mom’s. But they were very, very good. I think the textural change – a subtle tenseness to the exterior that burst when you bit through it, and a tightness to the meatball that was somehow not at all dense – was an improvement. I also added a reserved squeeze of dijon mustard to both the panade mixture and the sauce, and that, along with the bare hint of sweetness from the brown sugar, was a good choice.

But in addition to the texture and the minimal flavor upgrades, I think the nest of buttery noodles made the dish. When we eat these meatballs at Christmas time, they are usually part of a large spread – one little corner of a plate full of wildly varied appetizer items. Here, resting atop an eggy bed, glazed with thick gravy, we really had a chance to appreciate their deep, warm flavors.

Mom and Myrna’s (Swedish) Meatballs

Makes 25-30 1-inch meatballs

For meatballs:

1½ cups bread crumbs (from 1-2 slices of bread)

1 cup whole milk or half and half

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

⅓ cup grated onion (about ½ of a large onion)

1 tablespoon butter

½ pound ground pork

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley + 1 tablespoon for serving

⅛ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon ground allspice

⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ pound ground beef

1 cup vegetable oil

For gravy:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

½ teaspoon brown sugar

1¼ – 1½ cups beef broth

salt and pepper to taste (taste first; sodium content in beef broth may vary)

Using the disc shredder of a food processor or a box grater, grate the onion and cook it in 1 tablespoon butter over medium low heat until tender and translucent but not browned. Set aside to cool.
While onion cooks and cools, use the regular blade of a food processor to create 1½ cups bread crumbs from 1-2 slices of bread (stale is fine). Combine the bread crumbs, the milk or half and half, and 1 teaspoon of dijon mustard in a small bowl and let soak for 5 minutes.
Add the ground pork, cooled onions, ¼ cup parsley, salt, baking powder, brown sugar, and spices to the food processor. Squeeze out the soaked bread and add that as well. Process for 1-2 minutes into a smooth, homogenous mixture. Pause to scrape down the sides as needed.
Dump the pork and bread paste into a large bowl and add the ground beef. Using your hands or a spatula (but hands work better), gently fold the beef into the pork mixture until just incorporated. With moistened hands, form generous tablespoon-sized balls (about 1 inch) from the meat mixture.
Heat oil in a straight-sided skillet to 350F, or until the first meatball sizzles when cautiously dipped in. I used my electric skillet to help monitor the temperature. Fry the meatballs, turning as needed, until brown on all sides – about 5 minutes. Remove and let drain on a paper towel-lined plate or tray while you make the gravy.
For gravy, carefully pour out the remaining oil in the pan, but leave any browned bits behind for extra flavor. These are called fond. Melt the 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat, then sprinkle in the flour and whisk together. Let flour and butter cook for 1-2 minutes into a loose, lightly golden smear. Stir in the instant espresso powder, the brown sugar, and the dijon mustard. Add the beef broth, whisking constantly to deter lumps. Continue to whisk slowly until mixture reaches a simmer and thickens to a gravy consistency. Taste for seasoning, keeping in mind flavors will intensify as it continues to simmer.
Add the meatballs to the gravy in the pan, cover, and cook over low to medium low heat for 30 minutes, basting the meatballs occasionally.
Serve hot or warm over buttered egg noodles, mashed or boiled potatoes, or with toothpicks for an appetizer or smorgasbord spread. Sprinkle the final tablespoon of parsley over the starch or the meatballs themselves for a little brightness.