One of the dishes famous TV celebrity cooking judge and successful restaurateur Donatella Arpaia has become well known for are her meatballs. They’ve won accolades from some of the industry greatest critics, though it wasn’t her eighth restaurant, Mia Dona that her version of meatballs—modeled after her Puglian mother’s meatball recipe—was featured on the menu. What makes Donatella’s meatballs exceptionally delicious is her twist of utilizing a slow braise in a rib ragu. “My mother used all beef, but I switched it to veal,” though of course her mother had to approve of the final result before they hit the menu. Donatella learned a fair amount of her cooking skills from her mother and aunts, during Sunday dinners and childhood summers in the Puglia region of Italy, home of hearty pasta meals tossed with sautéed green vegetables and tomatoes, or slathered with rich meaty ragus, and also from the successful restaurant her father, Lello, ran in Woodmere, Long Island. It was at his insistence that she originally chose the career track of a lawyer. But soon after joining a firm, she found herself convincing her father to open a restaurant with her. In 1998, the two opened Bellini, and Donatella would go on to open seven more. Mia Dona first opened as a collaboration with chef Michael Psilakis in 2008, but after he bowed out in the spring of 2010, Donatella reimagined the restaurant as an ode to her family’s Puglian roots.
One day, one of her chefs sandwiched the savory meatballs between two slices of fresh focaccia topped with a few spoonfuls of the ragu and fresh argula, starting a back-of-the-house trend. “Every time someone had it, they’d freak out over it,” Donatella explains, “but no one knew about it.” But it didn’t take long for the idea of setting up a meatball sandwich cart in front of Mia Dona to emerge. Donatella procured a little hot dog cart from a big box store—“I didn’t want to spend the money unless I knew it was going to really work”— gave it a new awning, and out onto the front sidewalk it went in April 2010. Then “it just took off. It became like a cult following.” The cart soon became a gathering place for area office workers in a part of Midtown full of generic delis and high-end restaurants. Even in the height of summer, the workers lined up for piping hot sandwiches with their choice of either spicy or sweet sauce. “God forbid we closed one day—people would complain!” In addition to the meatball cart, a second cart appeared in July offering gelato sandwiches on fresh Sicilian-style brioche rolls for sale during the late afternoon for a much-needed summer sugar rush. Both carts managed to last two summers before Donatella finally made the decision to shut down Mia Dona in the fall of 2011, partly to focus more of her time on her newborn son. The good news for meatball fans is that that cart does make appearances at her Chelsea restaurant Donatella during the summer. “We can open the doors and put it right inside.” For days it doesn’t, you can simply get a dish of her meatballs at the restaurant, maybe even finding Donatella sitting in the back or being the ever gracious host and greeting her customers. Except on Sundays, when she hopes “to continue that tradition of the Sunday meal and slow cooking” with her new husband and baby.
“My biggest compliment is when people say [the meatballs] taste better than their grandmother’s.”
Adapted from Donatella Arpaia’s recipe
These famous meatballs can be served up in a sandwich or over pasta—it’s really up to you. Switching in ground beef for the ground veal used at Donatella’s restaurant yields a meatier flavor. If you want things a little spicy, add in some red pepper flakes while making the ragu. If you like your meatballs lighter, trade out some of the ground beef for ground pork.
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 celery stalk, with leaves, roughly chopped
½ medium onion, roughly chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¾ pound (about 4) meaty, bone-in pork spareribs, rinsed
¾ pound (3 to 4 links) sweet Italian sausage with fennel seeds, pierced all over with a fork
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
½ cup red cooking wine 2 (28-ounce) cans tomato purée
handful of fresh basil leaves
½ small loaf stale Italian bread (about 4 thick slices), torn into 2½-inch chunks
1 pound 80% lean ground beef chuck, broken up
3 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley finely chopped
1 large egg, lightly beaten
¾ cups Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano grated
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
canola oil for frying
Warm the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the celery and onion, generously season with salt and pepper, and sauté, partially covered, about 5 minutes, until golden and soft.
Add the ribs and sausage in a single layer, raise the heat to medium-high, and sauté, again partially covered, turning occasionally until the meat is nicely browned all over, about 7 to 10 minutes.
Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the wine and cook until it evaporates, about 5 minutes.
Add the tomato purée and the basil, and season generously with salt and pepper. Partially cover, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and let the sauce simmer quietly for 1½ to 2 hours, adjusting the heat as necessary to prevent it from boiling.
Put the bread in a bowl and add enough warm water to cover the bread. Let stand for 5 minutes, turning to moisten evenly. Squeeze gently to remove as much water as possible from the bread chunks (they will fall apart, which is okay) and place in a large bowl.
Add the beef, garlic, parsley, egg, and ½ cup of the Parmigiano-Reggiano to the bread and combine. Season generously with salt and pepper. Knead the mixture with your hands—rinsing your hands under warm water occasionally to keep the meat from sticking to them—until it is uniformly combined and smooth. This will take at least 5 minutes.
Pinch a rounded tablespoon of the meat from the mound and shape it into a ball between the palms of your hands. Place on a baking sheet or tray and repeat with the remaining meat mixture. You should have about 20 meatballs.
Fill a 10-inch skillet halfway with canola oil and heat over high heat. Allow the oil to heat to about 325°F, you should see strands forming along the bottom of the pan when it is hot enough to add the meatballs. Working in batches, gently slide 8 to 10 meatballs into the skillet without overcrowding the pan. The meat-balls should be only three-quarters submerged in the oil. Reduce the heat to medium and fry, turning once, until they are firm and golden, 12 to 14 minutes total. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the meatballs to a bowl lined with paper towels. Raise the heat to high between batches to ensure that the oil is hot when you slide the meatballs into it. Twenty minutes before serving, add the meatballs to the simmering tomato sauce; you don’t want them to soak up too much of the liquid and become soggy.
Remove the meatballs and pork ribs from the ragu and transfer to a rimmed serving platter. Place the platter of meatballs and ribs and a large bowl of sauce on the table and serve either as sandwiches with fresh focaccia bread or with individual plates of pasta, each topped with a ladleful of sauce.
