Porcupine Meatballs

What makes a meatball a porcupine meatball? Rice!

I had not heard of this before coming across no less than 2 recipes for porcupine meatballs in one of Gramma June’s recipe boxes. I won’t be too surprised if I find another later…These meatballs are not so different from any other meatball except that they have uncooked rice in them so when they are cooked, the rice is also cooked and sort of sticks out of the meat. The other thing that is a little different (to me anyway) is the use of tomato juice or tomato soup. It makes perfect sense but I usually use ketchup (when making meatloaf) or tomato sauce (when making meatballs for spaghetti). They are all tomato based - there are just differences in texture and sweetness and the flavor can still be adjusted with spices.

I did my best to combine the two and used what I had on hand:

1.5 # Ground beef, 1/2 cup uncooked rice (I used brown rice but I would use white rice next time), 1 onion (chopped - though I would chop it more finely or even puree next time), 1 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, 1/8 tsp ground thyme, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 can of tomato soup and 3/4 cup water. I combined the ingredients (except for the water and tomato soup) and formed small tablespoon-sized meatballs, laying them out in a large baking dish. I then mixed the water and soup and poured this over the meatballs. I covered the pan with foil and baked at 350 degrees for about an hour. They were quite tasty!