Just One More...

I just HAD to come up with one more recipe to share for VRC:Food On A Stick. I decided to try something a little different. A while back, I was inspired by Cat Cora on Iron Chef: America. It was Battle:Hamburger, and she made these little burger patties on a stick, and I've thought about them since. So I thought there would be a way to do this, I just needed to get creative. I started by searching for a fairly easy meatball recipe. The one I ended up with as inspiration was a Rachael Ray recipe from a Meatball Hoagie Episode she did. Looking over the recipe, I thought the egg might make the burger meat a little soppy, and it wouldn't hold it's shape on a stick. So I thought and I thought, and then I remembered a meatloaf that Stephencooks made. Instead of the requisite breadcrumbs, he used panko in his meatloaf. I was intrigued, and filed that away in the large recesses of my brain. So I eliminated the egg, and added some Panko instead of breadcrumbs. I also added a pinch of lemon zest, as I've really been adding it to everything lately. We only had one minor problem with execution. The meatballs themselves stuck very nicely to the skewers, and held up well. But the spaces on the skewer where there was no meatball burned rather quickly. Next time I will make them with my metal BBQ skewers.

To accompany, I made spaghetti and a simple red sauce. Grilling the meatballs gave them such a wonderful flavor that you don't normally find in spaghetti and meatballs. The dish was slightly smokey, slightly salty from the Romano Cheese and had a brightness from the lemon zest. Overall it really was wonderful. And will definitely be repeated. Grilled Meatballs can be found in my Recipe Trove with the original inspiration recipe from Rachael Ray, as well as my modified version.

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