A recipe for sweet and spicy meatballs

and a tip for clean hands while you roll them

Hello, hi! Welcome to the second installment of The Fresh Letter. Last week we covered the simple ingredient I use to attain the ever-illusive perfectly caramelized onion (spoiler: it’s water)—find that here if you missed it. This week, I’m excited to share another coincidentally water-related tip with you:

To avoid sticky hands while rolling meatballs, keep a sidecar bowl of water at the ready…

And use it to lightly wet your hands throughout the rolling process. Damp hands will mostly prevent the meatball mixture from sticking to your hands as you roll out your meatballs. I’ve seen some recipes that recommend oiling your hands before rolling, but in my experience, water works just as well and makes much less of a greasy mess. I assume this trick is somewhat self explanatory, but I’ve broken it down into steps below, because, well, you know what they say about making assumptions…

Here’s how:

1. Get your meatball mix of choice (I’ve shared a recipe below for your cooking pleasure) ready and set up a spot for rolling out your meatballs. A meatball rolling station, if you will. Choo choo, all aboard the meatball train.

2. Pour lukewarm water into a medium bowl and place it beside your rolling station. Dip your hands in the water and do a little flickity-flick to send some of the water back into the bowl so your hands are damp, not dripping wet.

3. Roll your meatballs per recipe instructions, re-wetting and flicking whenever you feel the meatball mixture starting to stick to your hands.

4. Once all the meatballs are rolled, discard the hand water down the sink because it’ll be, for lack of a better phrase, *pretty yucky* when you’re done. Proceed with your meatball recipe as it’s written. That’s it!

5. Bonus: this tip also works for rolling cookie dough if that’s your ball du jour.

I’m sharing my recipe for Curry-Spiced Turkey Meatballs, originally published in the autumn installment of my In Harmony e-book series with you here because I really want you to put this tip to the test. You can, of course, employ a water sidecar with whatever meatball recipe your heart desires, but I think this one is particularly fantastic—the curry spice lends depth of flavor and the golden raisins (or sub regular if you can’t find golden) add just the right sweet touch.

I like to serve these meatballs over greek yogurt that I’ve doctored with a little lemon juice, salt, and a bit of minced garlic to taste. It also pairs well with my Roasted Beet and Dill Salad with Whipped Feta, also from in In Harmony: Autumn. Shout out to my pal Zoe, who texted me this weekend to let me know she was making this recipe and inspired today’s topic. Now you and Zoe can avoid messy meatball hands!

Curry-Spiced Turkey Meatballs

That about covers it, dear reader. But before we wrap all the way up, I have to ask, are you as impressed with me as I am with myself that I made it all the way to the end of this installment of The Fresh Letter without making any gross meatball-related innuendos? Just me? Got it.

Anyway, as always, keep me posted: let me know if you cooked this recipe or used this tip—you can respond to this email or tag me on Instagram. And if you want more meal prep-specific tips and an expertly curated menu on Fridays, read more about the paid subscription here, or…

With love and a tip of my chef’s hat,

Erica

Want more? I’m so flattered! You can also follow me on Instagram or check out my blog where you can find my tip-laden e-book collection.