chinese meatballs

I’ve always wondered how some meatballs taste so tender and moist.  At first I was convinced the meatballs were 70% fat (I’m still not sure they aren’t), but I did a bit of research and found out that one probable answer was simply: breadcrumbs!

Apparently, back in the day when it was expensive to buy meat, cooks would include breadcrumbs in their meatball mixtures to get more bang for their buck.  Part meat + part breadcrumbs = more meatballs!

Inspired by this new-found fun fact, I tried out a regular recipe for Chinese meatballs and added my own panko breadcrumb twist…

~Chinese meatballs with breadcrumbs and rice~

What you’ll need

• 1/2 cup of rice
• 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
• 1/2 lb minced pork
• 1/2 lb minced veal
• 1/2 cup diced water chestnuts
• 1 tbsp white wine/Chinese white wine
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp egg white
• 1 tsp salt
• 1tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp pepper

What you’ll do

• First soak the rice in hot tap water and soak your breadcrumbs in regular water

• In a separate bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients together
• Add your mushy breadcrumbs and mix again until combined

• Now comes the fun part! Drain the rice and place in a flat dish and prepare a steamer.  Take a bit of the meat mixture, roll it into a ball (about the size of a ping pong ball).  Next roll the ball around in the rice until coated.  Tap off the excess and place in your steamer, ready to steam!

• Repeat until steam basket is full.
• To steam, fill a saucepan half way with water and bring to a boil.  Then put your steamer directly onto the water and cover over high heat.

• 30 minutes later you have a wonderfully moist and flavorful meatball!

I ate mine with some freshly steamed bao and a nice helping of Sriracha hot sauce.

eaten! @the meatball shop

I’m a big fan of specialty shops.  When a restaurant tells you it makes one thing and one thing alone, I think it’s fair to assume (and expect) that the one thing better be pretty darned good.

You can imagine my joy when I heard about a new specialty shop in the LES selling meatballs, and meatballs alone.

It’s actually kind of a genius idea.  Minced meat at wholesale prices has got to be next to nothing.  Paired with a couple standard mass-quantity sauces, a fully stocked bar and you’ve got yourself a specialty shop also known as ka-ching!

The Meatball Shop | The meatball one-stop-shop

Ordering at The Meatball Shop was almost like a game.  It was as if you were to match up the meats to the right sauce, and choose the best serving (meatball on a plate, meatball as a slider).

The options were quite enticing: spicy pork, good ole’ beef, chicken, salmon, veggie and a “special” of the day – which happened to be lamb.  I’m a little curious to know what else could possibly be made into a meatball for the rest of the week’s daily specials…

Even the desserts were a game of matching! Choose your cookie on the left and pair it with the right ice cream on the left.  Now that’s empowering your customer!

First to the table were my spicy pork meatballs with the traditional tomato sauce.  I was a little disappointed as the website said you could pick 4 different meatballs per plate, but I think the reality of one table potentially ordering 4 or more different combinations of meatballs was a bit too cumbersome.

So what’s the verdict? Did the meatball shop have good meatballs?

Well, yes.  They were quite tasty.  But after my 3rd one I started to get bored…maybe I should have tried another sauce? Darn…this game is hard!

Following the meatball plate were the meatball sliders.  There was beef with meat sauce, lamb with creamy mushroom, and spicy pork with traditional tomato.  The meatballs were all cooked well, but again, there wasn’t anything special about what we were eating.  They were just…meatballs.

I guess it’s not like they lied to us!

Unfortunately, the waiter didn’t quite get our order right (despite having it written down for him) and we ended up with two lamb meatballs instead of one chicken one lamb.

The options for sides was a fun bonus round.  We decided on two starches (mashed potatoes and risotto).  The creamy mashed potatoes may have been my favorite dish of the night! The risotto was overwhelmed by parsley and not much else.

Dessert at The Meatball Shop was definitely a winner (or perhaps we were winners for picking the right ones).  Our selections were chocolate chip with espresso ice cream and ginger with vanilla.

Both were chewy and ice-creamy all at once.  No meatballs here, but I think that was a good thing.

Overall I think The Meatball Shop makes a decent meatball, but I would make the ordering process a little more flexible…and possibly easier for the waiters to read?

2.5 stars out of 5 for The Meatball Shop.