Meatball

Minestra You just know the Soprano family is eating the kind of Italian food that's getting harder and harder to find in our increasingly upscale Italian restaurants. This dish has that real-thing feeling; surely this is someone's grandmother's famous soup recipe. The soup is delicate but filling at the same time, with its pasta and baby meatballs. Unless you have Soprano-size appetites, this is a main-dish soup. We've cut the recipe in half so it will fit in your soup pot.

You can use purchased sauce here, your own homemade or the versatile This is terrific over pasta.

Located in a century-old coal warehouse that stoked the train coming from Albuquerque, the Zia Diner is in the National Register of Historic Places—and on many lists of favorite neighborhood restaurants. Regulars fuel up with such popular dishes as chicken-fried steak and meat loaf with green chilies and pine nuts. The latter provided the inspiration for another Zia Diner classic: spaghetti with chili and pine nut meatballs.

Voli are marbles, the multicolored little balls that were so popular with kids during my childhood. But unlike the glass versions, which were quite expensive, the ones we used to play with were made of clay and colored in various bright, glossy shades. They were fragile, and their glaze would crack, revealing their dark red insides, similar in color to these delicious meatballs with bulgur. This recipe comes from the island of Rhodes, and bulgur is probably the grain originally used. Later, in the stewed meatballs of the mainland, it was replaced by rice.

A different, easy way to enjoy ground beef.

"I've always loved to cook," writes Mary Gareffa of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, "and though at eighty-nine I'm slowing down, I still love it. My grandfather and my father were both cooks in a monastery in Reggio Calabria, Italy, before they moved to this country, and luckily for me, my father was my cooking teacher. He showed me how to make the tomato-and-sausage sauce for the pasta. When my son was young, he used to tease me for standing over the pot of sauce, stirring and simmering it slowly, but that's the way my father showed me. A sauce is like a baby; you have to be gentle with it. And I know I must be doing something right, because my grandson, Jason, called me just last week to get the recipe." Tender meatballs — bound with bread softened in milk — in a good old-fashioned Tomato-Sausage sauce.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

These rice-coated meatballs, commonly referred to as zhen zhu, meaning "pearls" in Chinese, are often prepared at home in New York City's Chinatown. Steaming them on lettuce leaves helps prevent them from sticking to the steamer rack. They are traditionally made with sticky rice (sometimes called sweet rice), but we've used long-grain rice, which is easier to find.

"For as long as I can remember, every Christmas Eve I've hosted an open house with a Mexican buffet," writes Jill Cole of Fallbrook, California. "Any suggestion of varying the meal is met with cries of protest from family and friends. I set out guacamole, salsa, homemade tamales, and what has become my famous albóndigas soup." Be sure to put out hot sauce for those who like extra heat.

Americans enjoyed most of the food at the scores of Italian restaurants that opened in the twenties, but they couldn't understand the appeal of spaghetti and tomato sauce: Where was the meat? To accommodate, the restaurants began to top the pasta with meatballs. This recipe takes the dish a step further by adding the Sicilian flavors of pine nuts and currants.

If you love spaghetti and meatballs, then you'll love this upmarket rendition featuring perciatelli-long, hollow pasta. The noodles are topped with a rich tomato and porcini mushroom sauce, and meatballs made with ground veal, Italian sausage and more porcini. Start things off with an antipasto platter of olive, assorted marinated vegetables and cured meats. Offer breadsticks alongside, and pour a full-bodied Chianti.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Although the most authentic Swedish meatballs are not sauced, this creamy dill-and mustard-spiked dish is nevertheless hearty, comforting and flavored with ingredients popular in Swedish cooking. The meatballs are served over caraway noodles to capture every drop of the delectable sauce. Uncork a Chardonnay to go with the meal.

Serve these hearty meatballs over noodles or mashed potatoes.

A warming and filling main-course soup.

Serve these over rice as a main course, or offer as an hors d'oeuvre.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.