{"id":3576,"date":"2024-03-11T13:36:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/?p=3576"},"modified":"2024-03-11T13:36:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:36:43","slug":"orange-chicken-meatballs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/11\/orange-chicken-meatballs\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange Chicken Meatballs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am somewhat secretly a fan of “for a limited time only” foods from the Discounters<\/em> I pass by on my daily walks. Eastern Europe Week, Mediterranean Week, Asian Week…my absolute favorite is European-Sourced Caricatures of American Food<\/a> Week. They put their flyers out a week or more before they put out the food, so occasionally “stop in on Thursday for this thing” lands on my weekly chore list. Most of the processed snack\/heat-and-eat offerings are terrible, so I’ve learned to limit my enthusiasm to ingredients (and alcohol).

Last week was “XXL Week.” Food in Germany is normally sold in half-serving packages, but periodically a Discounter <\/em>will make reasonably-sized packages, and right there in the flyer was a pound and a half of ground chicken! Ground chicken! In meatball-recipe quantity! I can never find ground chicken when I want it<\/a>, and there are dozens of better ways to use a breast filet, so I was super-excited about the chance to finally make some new chicken meatballs!

Until I got it home, and realized the word “gew\u00fcrzt<\/em>” on the label didn’t mean “salt and pepper”, like on premade beef patties, but included a whole range of plant material. Paprika, onion, chili, lovage<\/a>. Someone thought the ground meat would be cooked in a pan and consumed plain. SighWTF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m offended by the inclusion of red beets to color the meat. Chicken doesn’t need that.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I chose to remain excited, but the word “curry” limited the available flavor directions. Fortunately, I have a pile of printouts labeled “meatballs to make”, and this Orange Chicken Meatball<\/a> was nestled inside it. (“15 minutes” prep time is, uh, ambitious. Barely covered dicing, zesting, and juicing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ground chicken and panko.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The panko crumbs were soaked in the milk before mixing. The resultant mass was very wet, similar to Iowa Ham Balls<\/a>, which are also baked and then served with a sweet sauce that is prepared separately. Because the meat was pre-seasoned, I left out the salt and pepper, and halved the garlic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wet mass. Uh-huh-huh-huh.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It made 24 golf-ball sized balls. I had to crowd my Backblech<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I need to work on my green-onion slicing skills.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Paired with my Discounter<\/em> meat: fancy-ass sweet-and-juicy organic oranges from Spain purchased from a fruit specialty store earlier in the week (special offer, kilogram price less than supermarket price).

I don’t own a zester, so I use a box grater for oranges and lemons. I like the big bits of peel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before the soy sauce was added.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s a basic sweet-and-sour<\/a> sauce, with vinegar, sugar, ginger, soy sauce, and red chili flakes. While I cooked, I was listening to a very interesting podcast about comets hitting the earth and wiping out megafauna, and I forgot to take a picture of the baked meatballs before I bathed them in the sauce.

I paired them with plain rice and plain veg, there was enough sauce cover the whole dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sad frozen veg, but they’re still veg.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The baked balls remained juicy, and were a bit spongy (but in a good way). Mr Radish said they were too flavorful, and then he ate ten of them, so draw your own conclusions. The sauce was extremely delicious. I will make these again with plain chicken, if I ever find any. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yummy yummy sauce.
March 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too much flavor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-3576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meatballmonday","tag-chicken"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t