I have a recipe that duplicates the chicken balls from a local Chines Buffet establishment. Here it is from my cookbook, "You Can Be A Great Cook with Poultry. (I figure, I wrote the book, and self publish it, so I can post parts of it
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Asian Chicken Meatballs
There’s this great restaurant just down the road a bit from my home. They serve some fine food at this place. One of my wife’s favorite dishes served at this establishment is chicken meatballs. They are good. I’ve had them.
Well, to make a long story short, I had to try to make something similar at home. The results of my efforts (and this is according to my wife, folks) are chicken meat balls of superior quality to the ones found at the restaurant. These are especially good with pineapple sweet & sour sauce.
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Ingredients:
1 large chicken breast
2 large chicken thighs
3 stalks celery
tsp. salt
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. onion powder
1 medium egg, lightly beaten
Skin and remove the chicken from the bones and either mince in food-processor, or run through a meat grinder. Mince the garlic and add with the onion powder to the meat. Finely chop the celery and add it to the chicken with the remaining ingredients. Mix well.
The trick to these meatballs is egg. Lacking sufficient fat to hold them together, the protein rich egg white coats each morsel of meat, acting like the fat in a hamburger. It binds them.
Shape into 1 inch meatballs and gently set them into a deep frying pan. Add 1/2 cup of water and cover. Gently steam the meatballs until they are firm. Remove the pan lid and allow the water to evaporate, or pour it off. Add two tbs. peanut oil and sauté until lightly browned on all sides. Serve with Pineapple Sweet & Sour Sauce, white rice and butter, and with steamed carrots. Arrange artistically on dark plates and serve.
Makes approximately 24 meatballs.
If you want the pineapple sweet & sour sauce, let me know.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North