Sweet & Sour Meatballs

Sweet & Sour Meatballs

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I remember my mom making this recipe for parties.  I made it for dinner but formed the meatballs hors d'oeuvre size instead of dinner size so that they would still cook appropriately.

I decided to form the meat balls in the morning so that at dinner time I'd only have to cook them.  I have two Tupperware containers of this size - one my mom gave me, so naturally that is the one I used to refrigerate the meat balls all day.

I cut my onion very small but did not measure it.

Once all the ingredients were in the bowl I mixed with my hands - like my mother taught me.

I rinsed my hands off and then pinched off small amounts and rolled them between my palms.  I have another meat ball recipe that says to roll with moistened hands (it keeps the meat from sticking to your hands).  But after the initial rinse I never had to re-wet my hands.

Around 3 dozen little meatballs, approximately 1" size.

You know it's an old recipe when it calls for shortening instead of canola oil to fry stuff in.  I also used my Magnalite skillet.  These pots are made with aluminum and my husband swears it is leaching into our food but studies I read online are inconclusive - some say yes, others say no harm.  These were the pots my mom used while I was growing up and I turned out okay!  She gave me a set of my own when I told her one day that when she died I wanted to inherit her pots.  By the time she did die, I think she had actually replaced her own set with something different.

This is where the recipe gets a little tricky - how big is a small jar of grape jelly?  I feel like the chili sauce bottle has stayed consistent through the years but not so much for jelly.  Recently I read a recipe that called for equal parts chili sauce and something else so I went with that philosophy here.  Since my family often bypasses the sauces in recipes I decided just to use a 1/2 cup of each.

I added a bit more jelly and a bit less sauce because we are not super-spicy people.

I browned the meatballs in batches and drained them on paper towels.  They cooked fairly quickly.  I rolled them over so they would brown on both sides.  Some of them I also balanced on the edge if they were a bit misshapen and had pink on the side.  They were not 100% cooked all the way through when I pulled them out.

The jelly started melting so quickly - I was worried I wouldn't be able to measure the chili sauce in time (since I was using the same measuring cup the jelly had been in).

I stirred in the chili sauce and kept stirring to blend well.

Here again - the recipe was unclear.  "Simmer together over low heat at least 10 mins."  I didn't know if it was just the jelly and chili sauce that was simmering together or the meatballs too but I called the ball in.  I stirred a few times to turn the meat balls over and get them coated with the sauce on all sides.

The sauce was fine while it was simmering but when I turned it off and called the family in to serve their plates it got real sticky and was almost hard to get out of the pan.  We ate it over rice (or riced cauliflower in my case) and it made a nice meal.