TEMECULA, Calif. (March 8, 2019) – You can’t just roll out any dish for National Meatball Day. No, that ball won’t fly.
And Jordan Garcia, the precocious, 24-year-old chef at Pechanga Resort Casino’s Paisano’s Italian, realized it takes a special creation to elevate the ordinary meatball to culinary rock star on its special day – National Meatball Day. So enter Garcia’s modern twist on a classic meatball dish, which is available only this weekend (March 9-10) at Paisano’s.
Garcia invites you to celebrate National Meatball Day by savoring his unique combination of house-made pork, veal and chuck flap meatballs surrounding hand-crafted egg-yolk pasta sheets, which are dressed in a red wine reduction and generously garnished with prosciutto de parma ragout.
“I wanted to do something a little different than your average spaghetti and meatballs, so this is kind of what I came up with,” Garcia said. “It’s a little fun, a little playful and I think the guests will love to try it.
“They’re very versatile. A meatball, you can do anything with it. For me, it’s exciting because as far as Italian places go, you don’t see a lot of different meatball dishes, other than spaghetti and meatballs or some kind of appetizer of meatball and red sauce. I’ve never seen anyone play around with different flavors in meatballs in Italian cuisine and I wanted to do something a little different.”
The dish appealed to Garcia’s creative mind not only for the avenue it allowed him to take in stretching the meatball, but for the other ingredients he got to employ. For example, Garcia never needs an excuse to include one of his favorite meats – prosciutto – into the mix. The proper amount of saltiness added, Garcia knew another item that doesn’t get the proper run in the kitchen: the humble pasta sheet.
Garcia’s staff makes them on-site, with fresh, hand-made egg-yolk pasta. By folding them on themselves, it allowed him to dress up the sheets by layering red wine prosciutto ragout below and between the sheets.
“I’ve been waiting to do a dish with a pasta sheet because you don’t really see it often and I love the way fresh pasta sheets are,” he said.
“Of all the chefs I work with on property, he’s one of the most innovative in terms of trying new things,” Paisano’s Manager Shawn Ramsey said. “This is a cut above your traditional Italian food and it shows you what he can do in terms of creativity.”
Come celebrate National Meatball Day at Paisano’s this weekend. One of the 12 restaurants in the Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Pechanga Resort Casino, Paisano’s is open for dining from 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 5-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For reservations to sample Garcia’s unique spin on the meatball, please call (951) 770-8506.