Two Ways to Meatballs

For a potluck dinner last fall, FI decided he wanted to bring meatballs. He wanted Italian style and I wanted Chinese, so we ended up using 5 or so pounds of ground turkey to make 2 kinds of meatballs.

Here are the ingredients, mise en place.


FI chopping up some scallions for the Chinese meatballs.


Ready to mix! We threw in garlic-flavored breadcrumbs, an egg, grated parmesan cheese, scallions, oregano, and I'm not sure what else.


FI mixing up the meat.


The binder (egg and breadcrumbs) made it super easy to make super nice round meatballs. Here they are all ready for baking.


FI spooned a little olive oil over each of them so they wouldn't burn.


I'm chopping up garlic for my Chinese meatballs.


Cutting up tofu, which would be my binding agent.


Mixing up the meat. This had tofu, garlic, scallions and ginger (the holy trinity of Chinese cooking), soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, and maybe some sugar?


Tofu is not as strong as a binding agent, so these weren't quite as round and sturdy. Especially when we baked them. There was a lot more water in these, so they were more mushy and not so round.


Finished meatballs ready to go!


Our friends liked both kinds and we were able to bring some home as leftovers. The Italian ones we ate with spaghetti and sauce. The Chinese ones we ate with rice and veggies.