{"id":3717,"date":"2024-04-08T17:53:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T15:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/?p=3717"},"modified":"2024-04-08T17:53:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T15:53:12","slug":"more-power-to-ya-mayberry-meatballs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/08\/more-power-to-ya-mayberry-meatballs\/","title":{"rendered":"“More Power To Ya” Mayberry Meatballs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’re looking for health food, please go away. The latest #MeatballMonday<\/a> features a saucy barbecue-flavor meatball from the 1991 Aunt Bee’s Mayberry Cookbook<\/em><\/a>. You could borrow it from the Internet Archive until a bunch of publishers decided nobody should be allowed to read out-of-print books electronically<\/a>. I have a Kindle version of this book that I bought ten years ago for 99 cents after the Mayberry in the Midwest<\/a> Festival, which has also been cancelled<\/a>. Most of the recipes feature ingredients that are not available here, but I thought I could swing this one.

The sauce has a commercial BBQ sauce base, refined with ketchup, tomato paste, and brown sugar. My bottle of “American BBQ sauce” from a Discounter<\/em>‘s Fake American Food Week<\/a> was closer in texture to grape jelly than to sauce, so I substituted tomato sauce for the tomato paste and added extra water. The sauce simmered on the stovetop while the meatballs are prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It tastes better than it looks.
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The second ingredient of this recipe: “20 Ritz crackers, crushed.” The supermarket where I have purchased Ritz crackers in a sturdy cardboard box on and off for eight years, most recently in February 2024, had nothing. Not even a bare spot on the shelf. The supermarket is having a fight with the supplier. Again. The world grows grimmer every day.

The German knock-off crackers–a brand name product, the style is the knock-off– are sold in plastic bags, for your pre-crushed convenience. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Good luck spreading your Obazda<\/a> on these!
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I like to think I am smarter than I look, so I weighed the lonesome intact cracker, found it was 3g, and decided 61g of crumbles was close enough to “20 crackers.” (These are not Lillian’s meatballs<\/a>.)

Then I crushed them down further. The finer the crumb, the finer the meatballs. (I just made that up.)<\/p>\n\n\n

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They call it a Club cracker. Don’t ask me, I just live here.
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Because I am an umami junkie, I added some parsley and doubled the black pepper. I also grated the onion, which was a new experience for me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Finely crushed
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The balls are baked for half an hour, while the sauce simmers. The meatball mass wasn’t very wet, and with the fat dripping off the rack, I thought they might be dry. I used my broiler trick<\/a> to get a little tasty crust on the tops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before and after.
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The recipe says to add the balls to your simmering sauce, and let them go for “several hours”. Not happening here, with the highest electricity prices in Europe! I let them simmer while I prepared the mashed potatoes. It was enough.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Yummy meat bits in the sauce.
April 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The sauce is–as expected–extremely sweet and a bit one-dimensional. Next time I will skip the brown sugar, and add some chili powder instead. The balls have a fine inner consistency, and despite the lack of liquid to soften up the cracker crumbs, were quite moist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eatin’ speaks louder than words. Cue up The Darlings<\/a> and tuck in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eatin’ speaks louder than words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meatballmonday"],"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