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Cutlets in gravy as in the dining room

Cafeteria-Style Meatballs in Gravy

The best, tastiest kind — perfect for a family dinner! Cafeteria-style meatballs in gravy is a recipe handed down from Soviet times. Institutional cooking back then was no gold standard, but a lot of people remember this meatball gravy fondly and try to recreate it at home.

katushafin

Recipe author

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Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Ground meat

500

Onion

Bread roll (one stale roll)

Milk

200

Breadcrumbs (for breading)

Vegetable oil (for frying)

Pepper

Salt

Butter (use less)

Flour

Tomato paste

Water

200

Sour cream

Pepper

Salt

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 19 % 7 g

Fats 58 % 21 g

Carbohydrates 22 % 8 g

249 kcal

GI: 25 / 25 / 50

Cooking method

Step 1:

How do you make cafeteria-style meatballs in gravy? Gather the ingredients for the meatballs. My ground meat is a beef-and-pork blend, but any ground meat works. You can use water in place of the milk.
Step 2:

Peel and chop the onion. For meatballs I like it very fine — run it through a meat grinder, blitz it in a blender, or grate it. But you can also just chop it with a knife.
Step 3:

Tear the roll into pieces and pour the milk over it. If the crusts are very hard, cut them off. After a few minutes, squeeze the pieces with your hands and turn them so the bread soaks evenly. Once it's saturated, wring out the excess milk.
Step 4:

Put the ground meat, chopped onion, wrung-out bread, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Knead the mixture thoroughly with your hands.
Step 5:

The mixture should be completely smooth and tacky. You can slap it against the bowl a few times to firm it up, which keeps the meatballs from falling apart as they fry. Or add an egg — though they didn't do that in the cafeterias.
Step 6:

Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the vegetable oil. With wet hands, shape the meatballs and roll them in breadcrumbs, then set them in the pan. If you're not confident about your speed, shape all the meatballs first and only then start adding them to the pan.
Step 7:

Fry the meatballs on both sides over high heat until a crust forms.
Step 8:

Then lower the heat, cover the pan, and leave the meatballs for about ten minutes to cook through.
Step 9:

While the meatballs fry, make the gravy. Gather the ingredients. I used crushed tomatoes instead of tomato paste, but you're better off with the paste — the tomatoes come out a bit tart. You can cut the butter down to 50 grams (about 3 1/2 tablespoons).
Step 10:

Put the butter in a heated skillet and melt it over low heat.
Step 11:

Add the flour to the butter.
Step 12:

Working quickly with a whisk, blend it into the butter until smooth.
Step 13:

Add the tomato paste. Mine came from frozen tomatoes, which is why they look like this.
Step 14:

Stir the paste in until smooth. The sauce will thicken noticeably.
Step 15:

Then, stirring constantly, pour in a cup of water — the gravy will thin to the right consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste and let it bubble for a couple of minutes.
Step 16:

Stir the sour cream into the gravy, bring it to a boil, and turn off the heat. Spoon the gravy over the meatballs before serving. Enjoy!

My gravy came out a little tart, but that's because I used chopped tomatoes rather than paste. I'd suggest using half as much butter. Mashed potatoes or boiled pasta make a great side. You can also bake the meatballs in the oven instead of frying, pouring the gravy over them at the end.
To keep the sour cream from curdling or separating as it cooks, first stir it together with a spoonful of flour in a separate bowl, then add it to the pan. You can swap in cream of any fat content for the sour cream — just remember that the fat percentage affects the dish's calorie count.
You can replace the tomato paste with canned tomatoes in their own juice, fresh tomatoes, or ketchup.
Use an oil with a high smoke point for frying. Every oil is only healthy up to its smoke point — the temperature at which it starts to burn and form harmful compounds. Unrefined oils, with rare exceptions, have a low smoke point and burn quickly. Refined oils hold up better to heat. If you're roasting, pan-frying, or grilling, reach for a high-smoke-point oil such as refined sunflower, olive, or grapeseed oil.