One of the benefits I am looking forward to during my hiatus between jobs is having the time to enjoy cooking during the week. I picked up the first Cook This Not That cookbook to start my quest to see if I can really make heart healthy delights that are truly “delightful” and don’t leave us reminiscing about how it would have tasted in the full fat and flavor days. I tried making the Asian Chicken Meatballs as a first step.
Overall, I would rate the Asian Chicken Meatball recipe an 8 out of 10. It was very tasty (when you made the suggested relish and sauce), it was also very adaptable to the various taste buds around my table. The recipe had two strikes against it: (1) the book suggests that this will taste similar to the much less healthy Mu Shu chicken or pork dish…..uh, No; and (2) chopping the required vegetables took a least a half an hour.
When making this dish, you must also make the suggested Pickled Cucumber Salad and the Ginger-Scallion sauce. The meatballs themselves were good, especially with the lemongrass, jalapeno and red onion flavors bursting through on every bite. But, the Cucumber Salad and the Scallion Sauce added needed spice and depth to the recipe. Also, the benefit of the Cucumber Salad is that it enables everyone to adjust the spice in the recipe to their individual preference. The “sauce” in the cucumber salad is very spicy. Both the salad and the sauce also need to marinate at least an hour before serving to ensure the proper meld of the flavors.
The recipe suggests that you can use either chicken or pork for the meatballs. I tried both and the hands-down favorite around the table was chicken. The pork was much drier and did not showcase the flavors of the minced vegetables in the meatballs. I also tried turkey and found it to be almost as flavorful as the chicken.
I adapted the recipe to please all of my picky eaters by reserving some of the ground meat and adding a bit of seasoning. My 10 year old loves barbecue seasoning, so I added a half teaspoon of barbecue seasoning to a quarter pound of the ground chicken and made him his own skewer of meatballs. For my other two more adventurous little eaters, I made each of them two meatballs without the jalapenos. I had each of my little diners choose a color for their skewer and had them color one inch on the blunt end of their skewer with a Mr. Sharpie before I loaded the skewers with the meatballs. This little art project before dinner got them very excited for the finished product. Once the skewers arrived at the table, it was simple for everyone to see which skewer was meant for them.
The long preparation time for this recipe is in washing and chopping the vegetables. If you are in a hurry, look for chopped red onion and scallions at the grocery store and jars of minced ginger and garlic. This will leave only the jalapeno, lemongrass and cucumber to chop, which will not take long at all.
If you are serving wine with dinner, choose a crisp white wine. If you go with Chardonnay, avoid oak and go for one aged in stainless steel. I recommend a sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio. We had the 2010 Veritas Sauvignon Blanc Reserve (about $25 if you are lucky enough to find it in your local wine store).
Don’t set the table salivating for mu shu chicken. Instead, get your taste buds prepared for a fresh, flavorful chinese dish that has a flavor all its own. You can also rejoice in the fact that if you stick to about 3 meatballs (approximately a quarter pound of pre-cooked ground chicken) you will enjoy dinner for about 300 calories (before the glass of wine). With this in mind, you’re in for a real treat.