Last Friday, I wanted to throw together a quick dinner before the husband and I went out with some friends for drinks. There was a pound of pork in the fridge that needed to be used ASAP…so meatballs it was! I typically make an Italian-style meatball since they’re quick and easy but was craving a new recipe to add to my meatball archives. Poking around in the fridge, I had enough ingredients to make it more of an Asian-style meatball.
Like all new things I cook, there were a few errors along the way and I’ll probably change it up the next time I attempt these meatballs. I don’t believe in perfecting a “recipe” before sharing it since new ideas are too exciting to withhold and everything is always subject to change. Cooking is forever a learning process so keep reading - I’m a big fan of how these turned out.
Ingredients
1 lb ground pork
half of a red chile pepper (de-seeded)
grated ginger
garlic
dou ban jiang (broad bean chile paste)
cilantro
salt + ground black pepper
For most Chinese-style dishes, the aromatics typically include a combination of chile pepper, ginger, and garlic - which I happened to have on hand! For one pound of pork, I grated in a 1.5-2’’ piece of ginger and chopped up 2-3 cloves of garlic (grating garlic is too annoying to do gracefully so just chop it finely). I then finely chopped about half of a red chile pepper, de-seeded and de-ribbed, and threw in about a palmful of finely chopped cilantro.
For the savory, funky element, I put in about 2.5 small spoonfuls of dou ban jiang, a bean chile paste I use in mapo tofu and beef noodle soup. Honestly, still not entirely sure what else to use it for so I’ll probably have to ask my mom. Anyways - a few spoonfuls (my spoon is about a teaspoon? not sure, I don’t properly measure) and salt+pepper rounded out the mixture.
Interestingly, the grated ginger exuded a lot of juice and the combination with the dou ban jiang made the meatballs on the wetter side. Not a bad thing, but they did not stay on the skewers I had prepared. No worries, I threw them on a grill sheet to get those pretty grill marks. You can also use a cast iron pan - which I probably will the next time around to avoid cleaning a comically large grill sheet for just a few meatballs.
I still struggle with cooking meatballs on the stove top as you can see in the photo above. The meatballs on the top of the plate were seared at too high of a heat, burned a bit, and struggled to cook all the way through. I ended up having to cut a few in half to check their doneness. Lesson learned - start at a medium-high and let them gradually cook through for 10-15 minutes depending on the size. Ground pork is also forgiving enough that a few minutes extra won’t result in a tough, overcooked meatball.
Changes I may make:
These meatballs were SUPER savory and flavorful - albeit on the saltier side. Since we were in a rush, I served them with a Vietnamese dipping sauce with fish sauce and lime juice and a side of sautéed kale. If I were eating them on their own, I would exclude additional salt as the dou ban jiang is already pretty salty. However, these meatballs would have tasted great in a lettuce wrap with some pickled daikon/carrot mixture and plain rice noodles. In that case, those water-y elements would have balanced out the saltier meatball. I will have to experiment more and report back.
Happy grilling!