I took a gamble and attempted a recipe I had concocted completely in my head. It failed. (I didn’t really care though because Obama winning made up for it.)
The flavor came out nothing less than awesome. The problem was that the MB did not hold together. I liked the flavor so much that I intend to give this recipe another go.
Any ideas what I did wrong?
Mexican Meatballs:
Two lbs ground beef
one lbs chorizo
Bread crumbs - egg
Rotel
Caramelized onions
Various Mexican spices
The chorizo was pretty damn greasy. Could that be it?
That’s a pretty wet mixture to start with and the chorizo is greasy on top of it. How did you cook the meatballs? Were you trying to fry them in a skillet with them falling apart when you tried to turn them? If so, one possible solution is to minimize your handling of them and cook them on a cookie sheet in the oven. If you want a crisped exterior on them, a few moments under the broiler can provide that.
Try adding more bread crumbs, rice, or quick oats. I don’t know which would lend itself better to that flavor profile, but any of those will help it stay together better. Chorizo really is awesome, isn’t it? But its a really really “wet” sausage.
What we do in my family is roll the balls in flour after building them. That gives them a slim crust which is not really noticeable but makes them easier to handle, easier to cook (we pan-golden them before dunking them into raw tomato sauce so it all finishes cooking together) and makes them hold their shape better.
It seems to be one of those tricks that half the families in the country use and the other half haven’t heard of.
How much bread crumbs and egg did you put in? For 3# of meat, I’d use at least two eggs, maybe 3, and at least a cup of bread crumbs. Or better yet, torn-up white bread soaked in a little milk - that tends to be lighter than dry bread crumbs.
I’m just musing here, based on a lot of years of meatball making, but I’d try draining the ro-tel* very well, squeezing out the extra can juice (maybe saving it for making a sauce), and then soaking the bread crumbs in the remaining tomato/chili mixture for 10-15 minutes before adding it to the meats and egg. Rehydrating the starch in the bread crumbs can give the mixture more tensile strength without getting tough.
Precooking the chorizo at least partway and draining it on some paper towels to get rid of some of the grease might help, too.
*Oh, and if you’re making small meatballs, the tomato dice might be a bit too big, and the meatballs fall apart at the veg spots - give it a whir in your blender or food processor to puree it first.
It sounds like the mixture was too wet, I would agree with upping the volume of bread crumbs and possibly coating them with another layer of them at the end. Frying before baking helps solidify the exterior as well.
I’d concur that the recipe sounds wet and greasy. (But then, I swore off chorizo after finding out what it’s made from… used to LOVE albondigas soup.) Use leaner beef, as little chorizo as you can, and press-drain things like the rotel.
Cracker crumbs are by far the superior additive to ground meat dishes. I used to swear by oatmeal, but my mother’s reliance on cracker crumbs has been re-established by a number of Cook’s recipes and other experimentation. Do adjust a little for the salt content.
I have another idea: make it into a meatloaf. I like mine freestanding, not in a loaf pan, so that more browning occurs over the whole thing, then coated it in sauce near the end. And the excess grease runs out.
Ditto on the too much liquid/not enough crumbs. Oatmeal might be a better thickener: when cooking plain oatmeal, I can add 4x liquid to the amount of oatmeal and still have it all absorbed.
ETA: Toasted bread crumbs are tastier, though, but you’ve got a lot of flavor going on already.
Little is the key on the milk. You only need two binders for meatballs or meatloaf, or the end product will fall likely apart. Bread crumbs and egg are the usual binders for this, or bread crumbs and milk, but not all three. Alton Brown told me so.
For meatballs, I usually gently brown them in fat, turning them carefully. Then they’re finished by braising in a tomato sauce. This recipe from Brown calls for a half cup of crumbs and one egg for a pound and a half of meat. You might want to spend some time cruising recipe sites to see what ratios people use for different meat ingredients. Pay attention to the star ratings for the recipes, however.
Plenty of chorizo is just made from straight pork, no lips, assholes, and all that stuff. (This is assuming you can find fresh sausages and not the prepacked stuff that comes in a plastic tube/packaging.) And it’s pretty easy to make yourself. Here’s one recipe. No need to stuff it in casings. Or you could just skip the chorizo all together and flavor your meatball mixture with the spices that go into chorizo. Same difference.
Canned diced (red) tomatoes and green chili peppers. It used to be the only brand (Ro-tel is a brand name) that did this, but now there are several, including “generic” store brands. In many places, it’s earned the name of honor to describe the thing, not the brand, like Kleenex for facial tissue and Xerox for xerographic copiers.
ETA: “Ro-tel Dip” is an awesome artery clogging dip, consisting of a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes and green chilis, with their juice, mixed with a pound of melted American pasteurized process cheese, best known by the brand name “Velveeta”. People turn their noses up at the thought of eating “fake cheese”, but this dip is the first to go at every party I make it for. Serve with tortilla chips. Or, for a rare treat, as dinner over cooked elbow macaroni.
I’d probably eat it if it were lips and assholes; every packaged kind I’ve ever found is made from the salivary glands and some cheek muscle. Now THAT’S gross.
My Spanish isn’t good enough to discuss ingredients in a good carniceria or Mexican grocery store. Maybe there is chorizo made from ‘straight pork’ but I dunno how to find it…
I was in a large, upscale grocer’s somewhere when I still lived in California, and on the “Ethnic Foods” aisle they had a whole section labeled “British Food.” Contained every strange thing I’ve every heard you islanders eat… and a few I’d never heard of. I almost bought a can of spotted dick but it was too expensive for the joke.
So who knows, one of your local grocers might have a “Texan Food” shelf.