Sesame-Soy Meatballs

We loved these little meatballs. They were a little sweet, a little garlicky, slightly spicy, and were very easy to make. We made a double batch so we'd have plenty for lunches during the week. You can serve them with rice, or nestle them into lettuce leaves or flatbread. We decided to serve them over a bed of rice noodles tossed with red curry paste - a sort of Asian twist on spaghetti and meatballs.

Sesame Soy Meatballs
adapted from Cooking Light - November 2010
serves 4 (5 meatballs per serving)

Notes: The original recipe suggests serving with steamed snap peas and two cups cooked rice tossed with 1 tablespoon of chile paste. This method works for rice noodles as well. I've read that rice noodles don't make very good leftovers though, so I only cooked what I would use that night, about 1 ounce of dry noodles per person. I soaked the noodles for 30 minutes in hot water, drained, then tossed with about 2 teaspoons dark sesame oil and 2 teaspoons of red curry paste (or more to taste, and it helps to mix the paste with a little water or oil first). Right before we were ready to eat I stir-fried the noodles in a dry skillet, just to warm them up and toast the curry paste a bit.

1/3 cup minced green onions
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon chile paste (red curry paste works too)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 pound ground sirloin
Cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

In a large bowl, combine the green onions, brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, chile paste, salt, and garlic. Add the beef and gently mix together until all ingredients are evenly distributed. With moist hands, shape the mixture into 20 (1 1/2-inch) meatballs. To make sure I made the correct number, I divided the mixture into quarters, and made 5 meatballs out of each quarter.

Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add about half the meatballs to the pan and cook for about 4 minutes, turning them occasionally to brown on all sides. Transfer to a  jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray, spreading them out into a single layer. Repeat with procedure with the remaining meatballs. Once all the meatballs are browned and arranged on the jelly-roll pan, bake at 400 F for about 7 minutes. We baked them until a randomly sampled meatball reached an internal temperature of 160 F, so ours had to stay in the oven a few minutes longer.