Meatball Double Feetball Bleg
My son is subsisting on an almost entirely meatball-centered diet. It’s one of the few adult foods I can get him to eat. So I am always looking for new ways to make meatballs. This evening I have a hankering for Asian style pork meatballs. I’ve scoured the internet for recipes, even tried one. (The sauce was heavy, vinegary and one-note, so I over-corrected with too much brown sugar, turning it sickly sweet. GROSS!!) Most of the recipes I’ve seen seem to variations on the on the recipe I tried, which, I’m sorry, is just not good. So I was wondering if any of you had a surefire method of making a nice tangy, saucy Asian meatball.
UPDATE: I want to thank everyone for chiming in. In the end, I ended up doing what I normally do: I made up my own recipe.
In a bowl, I combine Panko bread crumbs, a little milk and one egg, along with the pork, a bit of Hoisin, some Chinese 5 spice, fresh grated ginger, minced shallot and a handful of cilantro. I baked them, and they were firm but tender and flavorful. Fantastic.
Served them with more of dipping-style sauce than a sauce sauce made with a dash and a splash of the following:
Lime juice
Cilantro
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
Fresh grated garlic
Red pepper flakes
Fresh grated ginger
Were I to do it again, I’d probably cut back a tiny bit on the hoisin and Chinese 5 spice and go with a more simple, thickened and reduced soy/ginger/garlic/brown sugar sauce, with maybe a splash of lime or rice wine vinegar.
The sauce I made was crazy good but definitely veered way into Thai territory, but I found myself craving more of a simple Teriyaki-style sauce.