Porcupine Balls

 Porcupine Balls

        So, I finally made something from the cookbook which got me to start this blog. I made  Porcupine Balls.  I think I'd heard of these before, but hadn't ever considered making them.  This recipe calls only five ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs sausage, 1/2 cup uncooked rice, 1/2 cup milk, onion and sage. Including tomato sauce to pour over top, there's six and there is a note to 'flour' them, so if you want to do that, it's seven ingredients.  I somehow missed that part and didn't flour mine and they turned out fine.  

    The directions are to mix in the order they are listed, make small balls, flour and pour the sauce over them.  Bake slowly for 2 hours.  The recipe doesn't give a pan size or an oven temperature, which I've found in old, cookbooks like this one, there isn't always a pan size and directions are sometimes really unclear. But, I decades ago (like this cookbook is approximately 80 years old), so many more women regularly cooked every single meal, twenty-four/seven and they probably just knew what to do.  

    I used regular sausage that comes in the little tubes, white rice, 1/2 of a medium onion (diced) and I didn't have sage, so I used Italian seasoning mix (2 teaspoons in the mixture and sprinkled some on top). I didn't flour the balls and I used a tiny can of tomato paste, which I thinned out with water to about 2 cups and added a small can of tomato sauce. 

   A small ice cream scoop was used to make the balls and I really liked the size they ended up being. I didn't use any cooking spray on the pan, but I guess you could. It turned out fine without it.  I had the common sense to use the largest baking dish I had (11"x14", I believe) and I still had to squeeze them in there.   After I'd placed all of the balls in the baking dish, I poured the tomato sauce I mixed up over top and placed the pan in a pre-heated oven at 325 degrees.  I ended up taking them out about 12 minutes early.  They were perfect and my house smelled really good! 

    What would I do different? I would try using minute/quick rice or maybe even pre-cooked rice and I would play around with using a hotter oven and cooking for a shorter length of time. I think you could absolutely make these ahead of time and store them without the sauce, refrigerated or even freeze them. Obviously if you freeze them, you'd need to ensure you thawed them out before baking with the sauce.  There's definitely some possibilities for changing things up a bit.  Like, my using the Italian seasoning, not just sage, was an excellent decision.  And, I sprinkled a little bit of parmesan on top when I was ready to eat. I made brown rice to go with mine, but you could easily to some kind of pasta or mashed potatoes. I think you could also make some delicious hot subs with these.  Just add some extra sauce and cheese. 

    I ended up with 20 sausage balls. For me I had 4 in a serving with a side of brown rice. You could have 4 - 5 servings, depending on whether or not you want 4 pieces of 5 pieces. 

    Would I make this again? Oh my gosh, 100%, yes!!!! It tasted really good and wasn't greasy at all, which I'd kind of been expecting.  

    A huge "thank you" to Mrs. Ray Sheeley, who submitted this recipe back in the early 1940s.