Made a lot of changes. First we didn't grill them. It was a freaking 13 below outside. I fried them until they were brown on the outside and then tossed them into the crockpot with the Rice Vinegar Basting Sauce recipe from this website. I also used dried lemon grass, since fresh is never available to me. (If anyone has a better way to reconstitute lemon grass so it isn't woody, I'd love to hear it.) I served this as an appetizer to dinner guests and they loved it.
These are tasty as written, but require very young, tender lemon grass to make I like to add very finely ground pork and use rice flour, but that's another story. For those who are just learning how to use lemon grass, here's the skinny:
Lemon grass is very fibrous when not absolutely fresh. I grow it in a pot at home. Remove the outer leaves until you reach the more tender area inside. Very finely mince the pale, tender part for your recipe. Reserve outer leaves and tops. These can be used to give authentic flavor to Asian soups and broths and strained out. Don't waste them! If your lemon grass is all stiff and dry, chop and pour over a little bit of boiling water. Allow to steep then strain. You'll get the flavor for which there is no substitute. It also comes as a paste in tubes in the produce section which can be used bit by bit by keeping in your freezer. This is a wonderful ingredient so ask your grocer to order some for you .
This recipe is wonderful. Added soya sauce instead of salt like other users ... had no cornstarch so I added 2 tsp. rice flour ... some fresh thyme and basil from my garden. Then I refrigerated them for 2 hours. They stayed together very well and tasted delicious. Thanx for sharing bbqgirl!
I added fresh ginger and substituted soy sauce for the salt. The substitution was a mistake and made the meatballs too moist. Other than that they tasted great. The flavors work really well together. I wanted a sauce to make them a little juicier but everyone else in my family liked them as they were.
Like one of the other reviews I added fresh ginger and used soy sauce instead of salt. I also didn't have oyster sauce so used black been sauce instead. Flavor was pretty good but trying to GRILL these was ridiculous! I ended up scraping most of it off the grill onto a cookie sheet and broiling them. I might play with the recipe since it was a different taste for ground beef but I won't be FOLLOWING this one again.
broiled them and they were great. I did not add the full amount of lemon grass
I prepared the meatballs exactly as directed in the recipe except I baked them in the oven instead of grilling them. They were amazing! I served them with rice vinegar basting sauce and shanghai noodles. My family actually cheered. Very Nice!
While the flavors in this were great I found my meatballs to be quite fibrous? Maybe I dont know how to prepare lemongrass. I just chopped up the whole stalk and then blended with the onion and garlic. We will probably try again but this time I will have to strain out the woody pulp.
