Place carrots, celery, onion, garlic, parsley and chicken bouillon into the bowl of a food processor. Process into a pulp.

In a large bowl, combine ground meats, milk, parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, eggs, salt and pepper. Add vegetable mixture and incorporate well. If the mixture is too wet, add in bread crumbs until desired consistency is achieved.

Oil your hands and roll golf ball-sized meatballs until all meat is sealed and you have nice, tight, evenly-rounded balls. Every 4 or 5 meatballs, you will need to add more oil to your hands, or the mix will get sticky and hard to manage.

In a large, non-stick frying pan, heat enough oil so that it comes halfway up the meatballs on medium heat. Place meatballs into oil and cook bottoms slowly. Shake the pan occasionally to make sure your meatballs are not sticking. When browned, very gently flip meatballs with a spoon to brown other side. Carefully remove meatballs from frying pan to cookie sheet. They will be very fragile at this point, especially if you have used turkey.

Drain and discard frying pan oil and carefully put meatballs back into frying pan. Add white wine until most of the meatballs are covered. Turn heat up to high and cook the meatballs in wine. The wine will evaporate as the meatballs cook. Shake the pan to ensure they’re not sticking to the bottom or burning. When almost all wine has evaporated, the meatballs will start making noise. Turn down the heat until the wine is mostly gone.

The meatballs are nowhere near as fragile now, so you can pour them, along with all the delicious pan scrapings, into a saucepan. Add tomato sauce to cover the meatballs and simmer about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Ricardo’s Tips:

I use regular ground beef because it has a higher fat content and fat makes things taste really good. You may choose lean ground beef if you wish.

Replace beef with turkey in this recipe for a truly Italian experience. Turkey tends to be more delicate and trickier to work with, so I recommend trying it after you’re comfortable working with the beef.