I’ve been on “scavenger mode” recently as far as making dinner goes. Decided to take some frozen meatballs from a previous adventure in spaghetti and meatballs last week. Throw them on the stove with a jar of sauce.
… but that wasn’t enough to satisfy my cooking adventure. First things first. I had to do something about the boring jar of sauce. Not much in stock at the house, so I at least chopped up an onion and threw it in there. The meatballs were fried on a griddle, and were very delicious, but I still wanted to try something new with them. So I steamed them.
Yeah… Steamed. Who knew? I was discussing methods of cooking meatballs on a website, and someone brought up steaming. So I figured I’d try it next time I had an opportunity.
"That's a steamy meata balla!"
First off, I needed meat. So I took the last 1lb pack of 75/25 ground meat out of the freezer and thawed it out. To that I added (in order):
- 1 egg (and made sure it was thoroughly introduced into the meat)
- 1 cup of Italian bread crumbs (1/4 cup at a time to make sure there was no clumping
- 1 or 2 tbsp each garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning … because even “Italian” bread crumbs ain’t Italian enough for me!
- Little bit of kosher salt, little bit of pepper.
- I would have added some Parmesan cheese if i had some, but I was out.
- The poster who suggested steaming also suggested adding green onions. Next time!
My favorite method of portioning is using a measuring cup. I usually use 1/8 cup, but it’s on vacation or something ’cause I couldn’t find it, so I took a 1/4 cup and split that in half, rolled them into balls and put them in the bottom of my steamer pot. Once the water started boiling, they probably steamed for 20-30 minutes I guess? I didn’t really time it. Just take one out after 15 minutes or so and cut it open, if it’s not done, put both halves back in and go for however long you think would make it happen.
They were definitely moist. Taken directly out of the pot, they were a little gummy on the outside (which is understandable) but once you put them in the spaghetti sauce, you’d never know. That gumminess is probably what she meant by “the meatballs retain more of their own flavor whereas cooking them in the sauce allows them to absorb more of the sauce flavor as well as impart some of its own flavor into the sauce.” … So it’s a good thing!
Do you have a favorite meatball recipe or cooking method? Feel free to share it here!