The basic idea is a spicy meatball, full of cheese, wrapped in pizza dough, and topped with sauce. Sounds familiar, but it ends up fairly unique tasting, and yummy!
Another two (simple) steps for the most part:
The Meatballs
The meatballs are pretty simple. I made enough for a LOT of Bocce Balls with the recipe, as I freeze the leftover meatballs for spaghetti, or other recipes. Your mileage (or recipe scale) may vary. This one makes about 14-16 large meatballs.
1 lb Mild Italian Sausage
1 lb Lean Ground Beef (lean helps offset the high fat of the sausage a little)
1.5 tsp Onion Powder
1.5 tsp Garlic Powder
1.5 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
2/3 cup Italian (or similar) breadcrumbs
2/3 cup cubed Mozzarella
a splash of milk (yes, I'm being vague. Just enough to moisten the mix as needed)
Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Roll large meatballs (approx. 1.5-2" diameter), trying to keep the cheese chunks "inside" so they don't melt out of the meatball.
Once they're all made, cook at 350 for 20 minutes, turning them halfway.
Let those cool while you work on the next part - wrapping them!
The Dough (and more cheese!)
For this step you'll want:
1 Dough (I used a premade Pillsbury dough...)
1/2 a jar of Pasta Sauce (your favorite; I highly recommend Barilla Tomato and Basil for it though!)
1 Block of Mozzarella
Spread the pizza dough over a large cutting board, and cut into squares approximately 4-5" on each side.
Cut thin, small slices of mozzarella, and place one piece on the center of each dough square. Place a meatball on top of each slice of cheese, and then place another thin slice on top. They don't need to entirely cover the meatball (with small slices, I had gaps).
Pick up the four corners of the dough, bringing them to a point, to form a ball around the meatball/cheese.
Bake them in the oven at the recommended temperature for your dough (400 for the Pillsbury). Check it early though; they cook faster than an actual pizza, generally. While doing this, you'll probably want to also heat the pasta sauce in a pan on the stove, to top them with later.
Once the dough balls are browning, add more cheese on top of each, letting it melt in the oven.
Once the cheese has melted, pull them out of the oven. Cover with pasta sauce (this is definitely last; I tried this step in the oven for earlier attempts, and it made them soggy!) and viola; odd looking, extraordinarily tasting wrapped meatballs!
looks like a yummy recipe. Thanks for sharing this. We saw this item at the local Pizzeria Venti restaurant. Our friends loved them. We are vegetarians. I am going to try a vegetarian version of it using "soy meat ball" and "soy sausage patties" (Morning Star brand available from grocery store frozen section) ground and mixed together instead of meat.
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Thanks for sharing this; we had a local Italian restaurant that went out of business, but they made awesome bocce balls. I tried to recreate them once, and did ok, but they were not the same. This recipe makes me happy, I can't wait to try it! Thanks!
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