I Make Meatballs Because I'm Lazy

Cooked by Karissa Chen -


Upon my return to Taipei a few days ago, I was immediately put into mandatory, super-serious 14-day quarantine. Like so serious I can't leave my studio apartment to throw out my trash. So serious that if my phone runs out of battery or loses signal, the police will show up at my apartment. So serious that if I break quarantine, I'll be fined $30,000 USD.

Okay, so yeah, I'm not leaving my apartment.

Luckily, I have very good people in my life who stocked up my fridge for me ahead of time with a spare key I'd left. The one thing I asked for, beside a lot of instant noodles? Ground pork. Why? Because I wanted to make a huge batch of meatballs.



Meatballs are sort of my default go-to keep-in-the-freezer food. It's weird because I did not grow up with meatballs. My mother was more of the keep-dumplings-in-the-freezer type. But when I started to cook for myself, I discovered that meatballs were the easiest thing to make and great to keep on hand for whenever I was lazy. I rarely make them the same way twice, because I tend to throw in whatever it is I have on hand. They're also extremely soothing to make. Squishing my fists around raw meat? It's like grown-up play-do!

My indoor herb garden had grown wild in the two weeks I had been gone (Aerogardens are magical!) so I decided to trim a little bit of ALL the herbs for the meatballs: rosemary, parsley, oregano, and thyme. Threw that in with a LOT of garlic. Then instead of my usual breadcrumbs I decided to do a panade. But instead of using stale bread in milk, I decided to use.... peacock biscuits!

What are peacock biscuits you ask? They're like this buttery, crisp, crunchy Taiwanese cracker. Slightly sweet and milky. Not as buttery and loose as a Ritz cracker but not as firm as a saltine. I have two packages because my front door security guy in my building brought me a bag full of groceries an hour after I started quarantining myself. The bag included two dozen eggs, five pineapple buns, a loaf cheesecake, two bulk packages of instant noodles and two packages of peacock biscuits. Yes, I have a great security guy.

Apparently you can get this at 99 Ranch in the States for less than $2!


Anyway, given the copious amounts of carbohydrates I was gifted, I was like, should I use pineapple buns or cracker for panade? I decided on cracker bc the buns were not really stale yet. I soaked two biscuits in some milk, mushed it around, and threw it in my meatball mixture. Added salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, a generous mound of parmesan courtesy of my microplane and then got to squishing.

Squish squish squish. Then roll roll roll. I like smaller than golf ball sized meatballs. Because it means I get to have MORE, evenly distributed.



I browned them in my dutch oven, put most in a container to freeze immediately. A few I plucked out and put aside as I made a simple pasta sauce of cherry tomatoes, basil and chicken broth. Returned the meatballs to poach in the sauce. Made some fusilli (I only have one burner, such is life in a small studio apartment in Taipei!) and I was done!

The meatballs turned out less dense, more bouncy and light when I bit down into them than when I'd made it with breadcrumbs. But not in that super processed way that I don't like about prepackaged meatballs. I think making with peacock biscuits could be a keeper!

Anyway, now I have a freezer full of meatballs! Which I'm glad about, because I'll probably be too busy to cook while in quarantine. There are a LOT of episodes of Terrace House for me to catch up on.

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