Classic Turkey Meat Balls

Why turkey meatballs?  Well, ground turkey was on sale at the grocery store, so that's why.  Besides, it's something you can make with your fresh pasta recipe that I gave you earlier this week.  You can do this recipe with any meat you want.  Traditionally, Italians do meatballs with a mix of beef, pork, and veal, but I've used, chicken, lamb, and venison as well.  I've found this recipe to be the most versatile, but I'll also be putting up different style meatball recipes through the blog.  I like to make these in big batches and freeze them to keep on hand.  You never now when a party's going to break out around here.  This makes about 40 1 oz. meatballs.

3 lb Ground turkey ( or whatever meat you like)

2 eggs

1/3 c diced white bread, toasted

1/3 c milk

1/4 c. parmesan

1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano

1 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme

1 tbsp. garlic powder

1.  The first step is to make a panada.  Toasting the bread removes more moisture allowing it to pick up more milk, and, therefore, more flavor.  Mix the diced bread and milk, and let it sit in the fridge for an hour.  

2.  After an hour, add the eggs, Parmesan and herbs to the panada and start smushing it all together with your hands.  (Yes, "smushing" is a word, look it up in the New Jersey Dictionary).  Make sure everything is mixed well, then go back into the fridge for another hour. 

3.  Now it's time to get all of this good stuff mixed together!!  Put the meat into a nice mixing bowl and mix in your panada by hand. Before you get all messy, season the meat with salt and pepper.  You can always go back and add more.  If you want to taste test these, all you need to do is heat up a pan with some oil, then fry up a small patty.  Don't be afraid to do this a few times until you get the seasoning right.  

4. When the mix is nice and homogeneous (big word right?), take a one ounce s ice cream/cookie scoop, and a bowl of warm water.  Dip the scoop in the warm water then scoop out 4 or five meatballs.  After that you'll see the meat start to stick to the scoop.   Just simply re-dip and clean.  Keep doing this until you've scooped all of the meat.

5.  Now get a saute pan hot with some oil.  When you see a slight bit of smoke in the pan, start searing your meat balls.  We're going to cook them all the way here, only because we're going to freeze them, and they're so small.  

So that's it, they're ready to freeze or serve.  If you want to make these bigger, go ahead,  just make sure you finish them off in the oven. These will keep in the freezer a good couple of months, if you wrap them correctly.  As always, if you have question, just ask below.

Happy Eating

-The Doctor