When you make homemade meatballs do you fry or bake them before putting them into the sauce?

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My mother always baked them first to give them a good crust so that is how I made them for years. Then I saw Mario Batali recommend just poaching them raw in the tomato sauce and I tried that. The method worked out well and wound up in a more tender and moist meatball. I know that the now-disgraced celebrity chef did some terrible things and now he is retired from public appearances. Still he remains my favorite celebrity chef of all time. He was great on The Chew because he could talk just as knowledgeably about cooking as he could about history or another country. Whenever I see that inevitable question--if you could have a beer with one person who would it be? My answer is still Mario Batali.