While it feels very Mad Men-esque to serve tiny meatballs in a sweet jelly sauce, they are still a pretty damn good party food.

This takes a slight departure from the traditional grape jelly and ketchup mixture by using Wildly Delicious Beet and Red Onion Marmalade to achieve that same sticky sweet and sourness.

The Aperitivo twist on these meatballs is using mortadella. The yummy Italian bologna makes the meatballs moist and tender and adds a unique peppery flavor. These meatballs would also be great with pasta and tomato sauce, in a meatball sub or on a platter with a bright and acidic salsa verde dipping sauce

Using a tablespoon to measure the meatballs, this recipe makes about 30. If you’d like them smaller than a golf ball, use ½ tablespoon to scoop out the meatballs. Or if you have a very hungry crowd, this recipe can easily be doubled, or tripled.

Aperitivo cocktail meatballs

• 1 garlic clove
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
• 1 – 1 ¼ lbs ground pork
• ½ lbs thinly sliced mortadella
• 1 jar Wildly Delicious Beet and Red Onion Marmalade
• 1 12 oz. bottle Heinz Chili Sauce

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Grate the garlic clove into a large bowl. Crack the egg in the bowl, add the salt, pepper and olive oil then whisk to combine.

Finely chop the mortadella slices and add to the bowl along with the Panko breadcrumbs, Parmesan and the ground pork. Mix everything together with your hands until all the ingredients are combined.

Before you roll out the meatballs, form a small tester patty and cook in a skillet for a few minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. The mortadella is quite salty, so you might not need to add any additional salt. After adjusting the seasoning, form all the meatballs.

Using a tablespoon to scoop the meat, form golf ball sized balls and place on an oiled rimmed baking sheet, about an inch apart. Bake for 16 minutes, shaking the pan halfway through.

While the meatballs are cooking, add the jar of marmalade and chili sauce to a crockpot. Fill the empty chili sauce jar halfway with water and shake to remove all sauce from the sides of the jar. Pour into the crockpot and stir to combine. Turn on the crockpot to HIGH to warm sauce.

Once the meatballs are cooked, add to the crockpot and gently fold into the sauce. Let the meatballs rest in the sauce for 30 minutes for the sauce to thicken and the flavors to meld together.

Keep the crockpot on low and serve with toothpicks.