I recently had the pleasure of joining a long-time friend and famous local radio DJ, the one and only Christine Vitale, who welcomed me into her home where we whipped up a dinner together – on film.

The last time we collaborated on a video project was when she interviewed me at the Sons of Italy two years ago, where I fielded questions regarding my reality show experience, entrepreneurship and Italian-American culture in front of a live audience. This time around, things were a lot more relaxed…at least for me…as I was doing what I do – cooking – and actually playing a different type of a role as a teacher. That’s right, I was doing an in-home cooking lesson!

But these were not my “traditional” meatballs, I was actually testing out a brand new recipe for a new “secondary” ball which I plan on introducing to the public this summer. So in a lot of ways, Christine was my guinea pig for the evening, but I think we both did a pretty good job as a pair in the kitchen. Christine’s extreme talent as a WFDU-FM personality—where she hosts a weekly Sunday program from 7 to 10 on 89.1—which she calls “a foray into the roots of the R&B/Doo-Wop historical experience” was matched by her gracious hospitality and willingness to dive head-first into the meat mixture and get down and dirty rolling balls.

This recipe was for my new Sausage Balls, it’s very simple and does not contain as many ingredients as my veal-pork-beef meatballs since there is so much flavor in the mild pork sausage we used—which was provided by my good friend Joe at the JMA Sausage Company in Lyndhurst.

We made 10 pounds of meat (around 100 balls), but here is the step-by-step process broken down for a family of 4…

Finely dice about 3 garlic gloves and some fresh basil leaves and add to ground sausage along with half a cup of grated Romano cheese, half cup of plain breadcrumbs, half cup of Panko breadcrumbs, pinch of black pepper, 4 eggs. Mix everything together thoroughly and then roll into about 2 ½ inch balls. Bring a deep fryer (or a deep pot on the stove) filled with vegetable oil to 375 degrees and fry balls about 4 at a time until cooked completely. There should be a crust on the outside and a tender inside but you don’t want them red in the middle so make sure they stay in the oil long enough.

In the meantime, bring 4 cans of College Inn chicken broth to a boil in a pot and par-blanch a bushel of broccoli rabe (stems trimmed). This is to remove some of the bitterness. Then get a skillet very hot and drizzle with olive oil, a few red chili flakes (or chili flake infused oil if you can find it which is what we used), and 3 whole garlic cloves. Add the broccoli rabe and sauté for a few minutes until it crisps up.

Serve the sausage balls and broccoli rabe together with your favorite vino or, in our case, a Blood Orange Bocce Ball. This is a twist on an old classic drink, which is amaretto, orange juice and club soda. I used blood orange juice, and these cocktails were the perfect capper on our evening in the kitchen!

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Come out and MEAT me and Christine on April 25 at Mexicali Live in Teaneck where I will be making a special appearance with a Johnny Meatballs signature gift basket which will be raffled off. This will be my second annual visit to this fantastic fundraiser concert—hosted by Christine and the Group Harmony Ally of WFDU-FM. For tickets and directions, call 201.833.0011