Recipe: Chicken Meatballs With Yogurt Sauce
Just like gentle mixing, vigorous mixing has its place. You want it for dishes that actually benefit from a dense texture and when handling lean meats. Both are true in my chicken meatball recipe.
The reasoning is this: Since there’s less fat, the proteins need to be developed. When you knead the meatballs, those proteins start to stick to one another, which helps prevent crumbling. Vigorous mixing also pulls out whatever fat is in the chicken as well as the water, which can help bind, but I also have a little insurance.
I add an egg, a classic binder, and cook the meatballs in the oven, a less-intrusive method of cooking that helps keep them from breaking. (And, just like in the Italian American meatballs, I use a spoon to shape the meatballs — but not to avoid over mixing. Instead, the spoon helps more easily form a shape from a sticky mixture.)
In short, loosely mixed meatballs end up delicate and crumbly, good for absorbing sauces, like a tomato sauce. But meatballs that are mixed more? They end up springy, and hold their shape better, making them good for frying and dipping (or if you just like a dense meatball).
In the end, this recipe transforms ground chicken, which can run the risk of being a little bland, into something gorgeously flavorful, full of warm spices, like paprika, cumin and coriander, and fresh herbs, like parsley, mint and cilantro.
Recipe: Lion’s Head Meatballs
Various ingredients can bind and add texture. Understanding what certain binders do can help you manifest the kind meatball you want to eat.
Have you noticed there’s an egg in all of the recipes here? That’s because it’s acts like a glue in how it binds, but it also adds fat. You could also use fresh or dried bread crumbs, which lend structure and absorb moisture, or cooked grains like rice or quinoa can also bind and add a little bite. In these lion’s head meatballs, silken tofu helps out that egg as a binder, which makes them light and bouncy, much like the tofu itself.
These meatballs are dipped into a slurry made from water, soy sauce and cornstarch, which helps create a crisp, flavorful crust when it’s seared.
Then, they’re steamed until springy, or QQ, a Taiwanese term for bouncy, pleasingly chewy texture. It’s the best kind of meatball: one that warms from the inside and tastes like home cooking.
