Determining what finger foods and snacks to serve at your next family and friends gathering, whether it be a summer barbecue or holiday meal, can be one of the most difficult aspects of the entire event. Should the pre meal offerings match the meal or be completely different? Does it even matter? Well, I can't answer those questions for you because they will be unique to each situation, but I can tell you that no guest will ever complain about a delicious snack while awaiting the main meal. The key is to keep finger foods light and simple, yet maintain a high level of flavor standards that will be expected for the main meal. One of everyone's favorite Chinese takeout meals is General Tso's Chicken, so today's recipe plays off that and combines it with finger foods to create General Tso Meatballs! These savory beef meatballs combined with that ever so popular spicy and tangy sauce are sure to keep your guests smiling, even if they are waiting forever for you to finish dinner. Can it be done? Stick around and let's find out together....Let's get Cooking!
This recipe can be broken down into three steps: preparing the meatballs, cooking, and finishing in the sauce. We will begin by making the meatballs. Combine ground beef, panko, 2 thin sliced green onions, eggs, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and red pepper flakes to a large mixing bowl. Use your hands and really get in there to ensure all the ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the ground beef. As always, don't forget to season with a touch of salt and pepper as well at this point, but the General Tso's sauce will do most of the work for us later on. Be careful not to overwork the meat too much, though, as that will mess with the final texture, so just get everything mixed well throughout and let it be.
Since this is a meatball recipe, we need to roll out the beef into equal sized portions. Aim to create each meatball about the size of a heaping tablespoon to a small golf ball. 2 pounds of ground beef at that size should create about 20 meatballs, give or take a couple. If you intend to serve these as a finger off/snack, I would probably go a bit smaller and make closer to 30, whereas a larger golf ball size better suits an appetizer portion. Portion and roll out the meatballs and place them in a tray as you go.
Once you have all the meat portioned, take the cornstarch and dust it over each meatball. Shake the tray around and be sure to get all sides coated because this is how we will form a nice crust during the cooking process. The meatballs should be just damp enough for the cornstarch to naturally stick in an even, light layer.
Now that the meatballs are ready for their grease bath, heat about a 1/4 inch of oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. I do suggest using a corn or vegetable oil over olive oil, however, as they have a higher smoke point and will just pan fry the meatballs better. Once your oil is plenty hot, carefully transfer each meatball over to the pan, being careful not to crowd the pan too much. You may need to cook them in a couple batches depending on your pan size. Sear each meatball for about 3 minutes per side, until all sides have formed a nice crust. Smaller meatballs should only be cooked about 1 minute per side.
Once you have cooked all your meatballs for 10 to 12 minutes, remove them from the pan and drain the excess grease. You don't have to clean the pan, but it doesn't hurt to take a paper towel and give it a good wipe to clean any residual grease. Once your pan has been wiped out, add some chicken stock, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, hoisin, and honey before turning the heat to medium. Give the mixture a good whisk to combine the ingredients before adding the meatballs back to the pan and sauce. Simmer the meatballs and sauce for 6 to 8 minutes until the meatballs are fully cooked and the sauce has thickened up somewhat.
That pretty much wraps up these General Tso Meatballs! What do you think? They were not too difficult at all, eh? Once they have fully cooked and the sauce thickened, pull them from the pan and plate them with the remaining green onion and/or sesame seeds.
While these are flavored in that General Tso sauce, they tend to be much milder than the traditional chicken dish itself. You can certainly tweak the seasonings and sauce to your liking if you prefer a bit more heat, but I think these represent a perfect mild to medium level that most people can tolerate. You are trying to satisfy your guests, right? When it is all said and done, about 2-3 golf ball sized meatballs should represent a serving size according to the nutritional information in the recipe card below. If you made them smaller, perhaps the size of a quarter machine bouncy ball, well you can certainly enjoy a few more. Give these unique meatballs a try for yourself and let me know what you think! Are they as good as the takeout version with chicken or did we push the limits a bit too far? No matter how you feel, keep trying new things in your own home kitchen.....Just Keep Cooking!
GENERAL TSO MEATBALLS
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