The Balls Are So Great

Since I started my insufferably f---ing snooty internet food site, I've been asking friends to write me with their latest food crazes/crises.  I received this letter from my very favorite food friend Adrienne, who responded to my query regarding what's new in baby food (important background: last year, Adrienne created a new human using her own body.  Her husband was partly responsible):

"Loenne [the tiny human conjured from what previously was nothingness] is a huge fan of meatballs and I have them individually frozen for her dinner every night.

Since she refuses to eat vegetables the past couple times I have ground in my food processor broccoli, spinach, carrots, onions, celery and garlic superfine, almost to a coarse salt consistency. I add the ground veggies to the meat and prepare the balls as normal. I ended up adding a lot more eggs and breadcrumbs than normal since the vegetables are so moist and without fat, and anyway they have never been that successful. I have been cooking them in the slow cooker in sauce- the first time I just threw the balls in raw and cooked for about 8 hours- but they were super mushy and fell apart very easily. The next time I browned them first thinking this would keep them together but they fell apart even worse. If you have any thoughts. . . I think it's a great food for babies so I would love to perfect it. Iron deficiency is very common among children, and the balls are so great because they can be cut up into little graspable chunks. Help!"

After discussing this problem of dissolving meatballs with a science-savvy companion,  I feel confident in providing the following advice: do not use a slow cooker for meatballs.  Meatballs are invariably made using ground meat (the only exception being veggie meatballs, but those shouldn't be prepared in the slow cooker either- j'y reviendrai) and ground meat has already been through a grinder, which does much of the same work as a slow cooker.  That is, a slow cooker, by cooking stuff over a long period, functions to break down the muscle fiber in meat, rendering it tender and tasty by the time the children get home from school and you finish washing their underpants, etc..  Thus, since your George Forman meatballs have already gotten the Mohammed Ali from the grinder, if you put them in the slow cooker the result is a level of breakdown that is simply unacceptable- a total junior high bathroom stall spectacle.  So, don't use a slow cooker for meatballs.

Instead, to prepare delicious, sproingy meatballs, use the following technique: bake in a 350-degree oven for around fifteen minutes for typical-sized balls and use texturized vegetable protein instead of bread crumbs.  In Vancouver, TVP (as referenced in Sunday's post) is available at the Granville Island market food-stand that does the bulk nuts, etc.; I don't know where it is available in Toronto or elsewhere, but I invite you to let me know.  TVP is a meat substitute made of de-fatted soy flour and it comes in sort of grainy flakes, like granola.  To reconstitute it, you pour enough hot water to cover whatever quantity you're using, usually equivalent to the amount of bread you used before you found out TVP is way higher in protein and fat-free.

Note that TVP lends a sproinginess to meatballs that is typically only seen in commercial meatballs, like the Swedish babies at Ikea (btw, if you are there, try the wine; a good source testifies that Ikea wine gets you drunker than any alcoholic beverage outside sake.  I plan to test this hypothesis for a future feature).  I personally like this sproinginess, though if you prefer heavy, dense, high-calorie loser meatballs made with bread, allez-y.

For those of you who tend to get flustered, texturized vegetable protein is different from hydrolyzed vegetable protein, which is a high-glutamate flavor-enhancer like MSG.  They aren't the same, so even if you have, or think you have, an MSG sensitivity, you can still benefit from the high-protein, bouncy excellence of TVP.  (And for those concerned about MSG, I refer you to Jeffrey Steingarten's provocative essay "Why Doesn't Everyone in China Have a Headache?" Is he wrong?? Are we outraged?? I should certainly do my own research, for dissemination via this forum.)

Anyway, Adrienne, I hope these tips were helpful for you and that your future meatballs will turn out as plump and juicy as Loenne.  I loved your idea of making a vegetable salt and feeding it to her unwittingly.  You are such a good mom, there is no damn way that child is developing iron deficiency.  In fact, I'm considering visiting you in Toronto just to get my iron up. 

Oh, and I said I'd come back to the idea of using a slow cooker for veggie meatballs.  Um, don't use a slow cooker for veggie meatballs.  Just brown them in a pan and serve with eggless mayonnaise on a bed of kale.