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Spaghetti and meatballs are red on the inside, but disappeared quickly. Is this just a chemical reaction, and the meatball is still thoroughly cooked? Meatballs are 1 inch in diameter, maybe 20-30 g.

I made some beef meatballs (fresh ground beef shank, red onions, parsley, bread crumbs, 1 egg). I sauteed them on the pot with olive oil, then simmered them with crushed tomato sauce and red wine for 25 minutes. Should I have simmered longer?

One meatball, where I must have not noticed the red phenomenon, tasted just like any regular hamburger meat (quite dry on the inside, actually). Some of the fat and fascia were getting caught between my teeth and some I wanted to spit out.

Edit: so I put it back on the stove and simmered (maybe even almost boiling) for a solid 45 minutes, which I should have done to begin with, because the sauce improved further and thickened. It was reheated served the following day. The meatballs still had the red-inside phenomenon!

wearashirt
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    I'm undecided between calling this "related" and "duplicate": https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/11526/is-until-juices-run-clear-a-valid-test-for-poultry-doneness-why-or-why-not. In general, color is not related to safety. – rumtscho Sep 02 '17 at 17:02
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    Given the situation you describe, I would say that a 25 minute simmer would probably be enough to cook a 1 inch diameter meatball, especially after first browning. What we don't know is how many you had and the size of your simmering pot of sauce. If the pot were over-crowded, it could explain various levels of done-ness. – moscafj Sep 02 '17 at 18:23
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    Do you mean that the red color quickly disappeared? – Cindy Sep 02 '17 at 20:20
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    @Cindy, yes that's correct. Slice the meatball, see a red, shimmering appearance, then it seems to dry off and looks like a regular browned burgermeat inside. – wearashirt Sep 03 '17 at 02:25
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    @Moscafj, there were 26 meatballs in a 5-inch high cast iron pot, about the diameter of a basketball. The sauce was way high as well. In anycase, I've reducedand thickened the sauce much further, barely showing the meatballs. Hopefully it's cooked enough. – wearashirt Sep 03 '17 at 02:26
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    @Rumtscho, ah, how could I forget to use my thermometer. I had just used it to manually sous vide some chicken breasts. – wearashirt Sep 03 '17 at 02:27

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