Meat on a Stick: Panang Cocktail Meatballs!

I just had a very fun night with an awesome bunch of women—all affiliated with Portland’s vibrant food scene! When my neighbor asked me to join them, I felt a little intimidated because I was going to be in the company of café owners, restaurant owners, caterers, chefs and photographers—you know, professionals. Women who know their stuff. I have to say, though, I was put at easy very quickly. Everyone was so friendly and it was fascinating to hear their stories. I came away with a lot of great information. Thank you so much to my neighbor for inviting me!



There was another reason I was feeling intimidated. Two words: appetizer potluck. What does a food enthusiast (=amateur) bring to a potluck for a bunch of women who know their stuff? What else but meat on a stick and dipping sauce, of course! Because professionals or no, everyone likes meat on a stick. And what's the fun of eating meat on a stick if you can't dip it in something?


Panang Cocktail Meatballs
serves a crowd (8 to 10)

• 2 lbs ground beef
• ¼ cup panang curry paste
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 1 to 2 tbs fish sauce
• ½ to 1 tbs sugar
• 5 to 10 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped
• Thai cucumber relish or sweet chili sauce for serving

To begin, set a large pot of water to boil. You may be wondering why? Because you are going to boil these meatballs. Boil meatballs!? Yes! And then you’ll stir-fry fry them. Sounds convoluted, I know, but trust me on this. When have I lead you astray?

You may cook the curry paste by frying it over low-medium heat in about a tablespoon of oil for about 5 minutes. This is not necessary, but it helps to enhance the flavor of the curry paste.

In a large bowl, scramble the eggs, then slowly add in the cornstarch and whisk until it’s well incorporated. Add in the curry paste, fish sauce, sugar and chopped lime leaves. Mix until you get a uniform mass. Mix in the ground beef and make sure it’s thoroughly incorporated. Form into mini-meatballs and plop them into the boiling water. They conveniently float to the top when they are cooked. Fish them out, drain them and let them cool, at least until they stop steaming.

One last step before you’re done! In an ideal world, I would grill these babies over low heat, but trying to start a fire in the rain is just stupid. The second best option is to stir-fry the meatballs to get a nice caramelized outside, while the inside remains moist. During the last minute of stir-frying, I drizzled in some sweet-sour glaze (simple syrup + rice vinegar, to taste) and chopped Thai basil (optional). Alternatively, you could use Thai sweet chili sauce. If you don’t feel like stir-frying you could just as easily stick them under a broiler for a few minutes, turning every so often, until they start to brown.

Serve stuck on skewers with accompanying dipping sauce.

The Danish Cousin to the Swedish Meatball

As promised, here’s the recipe for Danish frikadeller, the cousin to Swedish meatballs. Using a food processor, they are insanely easy to throw together. Cooking them takes all of twenty minutes if you do it in the oven. The only real work is weighing out the portions and working with the mixture, which is annoyingly sticky (but makes for a moist meatball).

I promise, your fellow potluckers will love these.

Frikadeller
makes approx. 30 frikadeller (2oz each)

• 3 slices bread, torn into pieces
• ½ cup milk
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1½ tsp kosher salt
• 3 pounds ground pork (or mix of pork and veal or turkey)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ground allspice

Put the bread in a small bowl with the milk. It will only take a couple of minutes to soak up the milk.

In a food processor, puree the bread, onions, spices and eggs to a uniform mixture. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the ground meat(s). Mix well. It’s easiest to use your (clean!) hands, but don’t squeeze the meat. The mixture will be very sticky.

Using a food processor produces a nice batter to mix with the ground meat.

Traditionally pork and veal are used, but here I used pork and turkey. Don't be alarmed if the mixture is very sticky.

This recipe makes a lot of meatballs, and it would take you a long time to fry up. I like to cook mine in the oven on a rimmed, greased cookie sheet. For 2oz meatballs, it takes about 20 minutes in my convection oven at 375º. Don’t be alarmed if a lot of liquid runs out, the finished product will still be moist. Allow them to cool slightly before removing them with a spatula. Don’t serve these piping hot; they taste best warm or at room temperature.

Trust me, you don't want to spend half the day frying these babies up. Baking them is quick and painless.

The traditional way to eat these are with Danish rye bread or potatoes and pickled beets or pickled red cabbage. However, for a more seasonal and festive dish, you can serve them with cranberry chutney or tomato jam.

If you don’t have a potluck to attend, no worries. These bad boys are well suited for freezing. Place them on a cookie sheet in the freezer overnight, then throw them into two layers of Ziploc freezer bags. To reheat, they can go straight from the freezer into a 350º oven. Or you can thaw them in the fridge overnight and fry them in a skillet over medium-low heat until heated through.

I prefer reheating them in a skillet because they will form a nice crust (see picture below).

When fried on a skillet, they form nice crusts. Yum.

Still delicious when oven-baked.