Ziti al Forno (Baked Ziti) w/ Meatballs

Ziti al forno is a labor of love, and it is well worth the effort.  As a girl surrounded by Italian food in my home state of Rhode Island, and in the kitchen I grew up in, Peter Bocchieri's recipe brought back so many fantastic memories.  It is not a complicated dish to make, but if you're anywhere near as incompetent as me, prepare to be burned by jumping oil and crushed by falling cans of tomatoes.  (28oz is a lot of ounces on your big toe... ouch!)

The ingredients are what truly make this an incredible meal.  It calls for mozzarella, ricotta, and pecorino romano cheese; the last of which really gives the cheesy layers their flavor.  San Marzano tomatoes, which were originally grown at the base of Mt. Vesuvius, make for a sauce that my great grandmother Stella would be proud of.  Substituting out any of these ingredients would be a crime against humanity.

The preparation has three main phases: preparing the meatballs, simmering the sauce, and baking the ziti.

The meatballs are tiny; about the size of a grape.  The recipe makes about 50 little meatballs.  The edges are browned in a skillet, as well as some Italian sausage, and they are then cooked all the way through in the delicious sauce.

Can't you just smell it?

After 1.5 hours of your house smelling like some villa in Naples, you remove the meatballs from the sauce and begin creating an epic mixture of ziti, sauce, and cheese.  Creating layers in a 15"x10" casserole dish, you are oven-ready.

And voila!

Why does it have to cool for 20 minutes?!

This was a challenging dish for me.  I ended up preparing it over the course of two days, but I have no regrets.  It took almost 3 hours for me to chop up all the necessary ingredients, prepare the meatballs, and make the sauce.  Then it took another 2 hours or so to cook the pasta, arrange the casserole dish, and bake it.  This would be a great weekend project instead of my brilliant choice of "Let's start at 6:30pm on a Tuesday!"

Adjustments / Substitutions

I accidentally bought ground Italian sausage instead of linked Italian sausage, so I had to take the time to shape it before browning.  In the future, I'll definitely be buying encased sausage.

Next Time

This is my favorite dish that I've ever made, so far.  Instead of browning the meatballs in only 2tbsp of oil, I found myself adding oil to make sure they all browned.  However, the meatballs seemed a bit more oily than I would have liked before I added them to the sauce, so I might scale that back a bit in the future.

Source: Cooking Italian Comfort Food - Peter Bocchieri