Korean Meatballs

Serve everything over white rice

I continue my experiments with ground turkey with this post. I am really starting to like it and it is really easy to use in lieu of ground beef or chicken. The only concern I have is making sure it is cooked through without over cooking and drying it out. It doesn't help that my oven thermometer must clearly be incorrect. Things tend to always take much longer to cook then the recipe says. Maybe its time to ask for a new one... such a renters dream.

On to the recipe itself, which was ripped out of an issue of Cooking Light. The recipe is suppose to be made with chicken breast that you grind up in a food processor. Since my attempts to use my blender as a food processor have mostly failed in the past (another kitchen wish list item) and I had some ground turkey in the fridge, I figured a substitution should be no problem. It really was no problem. Instead of processing anything I just finely chopped the garlic and mixed everything with a fork, it worked great. Interestingly, this recipe did not call for any cracker or bread crumbs to help soak up excess moisture, so they were a little sticky and didn't want to form nice, neat balls. Either way they were really tasty.

The recipe suggests serving them with kimchi and quick pickled cucumbers. The only way I have found to enjoy kimchi is in a fried dumpling and I had no cucumber to quickly pickle. I did have some zucchini, red pepper and onion waiting for use, so once the meatballs were transfered to the oven, i sauteed them in the leftover oils with some salt and pepper. It all worked together well, I was a bit concerned it wouldn't.

Korean Meatballs (serves 4)

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 2 teaspoons chili oil 
• 8 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 pound ground turkey 
• Cooking spray 

1. Preheat oven to 400°. 
2. 2. Combine brown sugar, sunflower and chili oil, and garlic in a medium mixing bowl.  Add soy sauce, salt, and turkey; mix with fork until will mixed.  
3. With moist hands, shape mixture into 20 to 25 meatballs.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 10 meatballs to pan; sauté 4 minutes, turning to brown meatballs on all sides.  Arrange browned meatballs on a pan with sides coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining meatballs. 
5. Bake at 400° for 5 minutes or until done.

Enjoy!