Food - Drink
Stop Wasting Time Rolling Meatballs And Try The Drop Method Instead
By HEATHER LIM
Making great meatballs at home is a time-consuming task, and one way you can cut down on prep time is to skip the process of rolling your meatballs. Instead, you can use the drop method, in which you scoop up enough of your meat mixture to make a meatball and drop it directly into a hot skillet without shaping it first.
Overworking your meat mixture, which can happen during both the mixing and rolling stage, is a common meatball mistake. While you should thoroughly mix your ingredients, manipulating the ground meat too much and tightly packing the mixture into a dense ball not only takes a while, but makes the meat rubbery and chewy.
The drop method gives you more tender meatballs, and since all meatballs get a bit misshapen during cooking, even if you shape the meat, you don't have to fret over loss of visual appeal. If you use an ice cream scoop to portion out the meat, your meatballs will end up with a mostly uniform size and cook evenly as well.