using Welsh Waygu : the bigmonster’s mighty meaty mini meatballs marinara
Herbs for the garden for the meatball bonanza
On some of my filming trips across the world, I have had the good fortune to shoot at lots of high quality restaurants and hotels. One of the perks, I guess, is to target the kind of cuisine that you like. Allegedly the best beef in the world is Kobe beef, from the Waygu breed.
Originating in Japan, it is the stuff of legend, and has a price to match. Think of it as the champagne equivalent of beef. In a restaurant, you can easily pay over £100 for a steak that originates from Japan. The Japanese also heavily restrict the transport of the cattle, until some enterprising breeder smuggled some bull-juice to Australia and started a non-sanctioned breeding line. You can also visit Ifor’s site here
Ifor's Welsh Waygu. Thanks Ifor!
waygu mince for bigmonster's mighty mini meatballs marinara
One of the quirks of the Waygu lifestyle is that the cows do very little exercise, get massaged daily, and get their own lifetime supply of beer. Other than leaving them happy and docile, this gives their meat a fatty, marbled, texture. When cooked, the fats melts away, leaving succulent steaks unlike any other. And it’s true: the Waygu beef is the nicest steak I’ve ever tasted, but it leaves me wondering if that’s what I look on the inside!
It gets better, too. A Welsh farmer, Ifor Humphreys, brought some of these cattle, which now live the life of luxury on the Monmouth lowlands, drinking Monty’s Ale and generally having a great time. Until it’s time for the one way trip to the market…
We bought some of Ifor’s beef so we could try some ideas: the steaks were good, if a little thin, but for us, it’s the mince that has surpassed expectation. One of the qualities of the beef is that the fat renders out at a low temperature, so my meatballs recipe is a fantastic way to have a healthy meaty meal: It’s Welsh Waygu Mighty Mini Meatballs Marinara…. The sauce is a a basic Marinara sauce, so you can use the Lazy Pizza sauce recipe from here
