The night before our spaghetti dinner, Caleb sat me down by the cabin\u2019s large, whirling fireplace and talked to me about meatballs for two hours.<\/p>\n
It was a privilege, a personal Q&A with a meatball expert and a fascinating deep dive into the cooking theory behind one particular food. Caleb basically taught me everything I know about meatballs<\/a> that night. Here are some of the things I learned from him:<\/p>\n Meatballs often contain a panade, which is a mixture of bread and dairy (often white bread and milk or cream) that helps keep them moist. The fat used in the panade can vary depending on the fat content of the meat being used. For example, lean meat like turkey might benefit from the richness of cream, whereas a fattier meat like pork might be better off with milk (or water, or stock).<\/p>\n To your panade, add all the spices, herbs and flavorings you want to put into your meatballs, then gently fold that into your meat. This helps prevent overworking the meatballs, which can make them tough and bouncy.<\/p>\n Eggs are a binder, and they help keep the mixture together both before and after cooking.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not always easy to fry perfectly round meatballs. The more oil you use, the less you have to turn them and the rounder they\u2019ll turn out.<\/p>\n Caleb and my meatballs turned out great, and after the catering week was over, I tucked all that knowledge away in my little cooking toolbelt for later use. I came back to it all a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n I\u2019d decided to make a mutabbal recipe for you all, and one night during my recipe testing, I was having a hard time sleeping.<\/p>\n Mutabbal<\/a>. Mutabbal \u2026 meat \u2026 a \u2026 balls. I laughed. Mutabbal and a-meat-a-balls. <\/p>\n The next day, I tried to imagine what kind of meatball would go well with the tahini-fortified, garlicky eggplant spread. Lamb. Lamb, for sure. Spices. Cumin. Coriander. Parsley. No \u2014 cilantro.<\/p>\n I went about my work and forgot about it for a few hours. Then, I remembered the panade. I\u2019d used white bread and half-and-half with Caleb as a base for Italian meatballs. Wait! What about pita bread? And \u2026 yogurt? No! Labneh. <\/p>\n The following week, I headed to the test kitchen to test it out. I finely minced pita bread (not the most fun task in the world) and mixed it with labneh. It wasn\u2019t as moist as I remembered my past panades being, but I hoped it would provide enough moisture while also adding a pleasant, familiar lactic tang to the final meatballs.<\/p>\n To the mix, I added a beaten egg, cilantro, garlic, onions, spices, lemon zest and salt.<\/p>\n I folded that mixture into some ground lamb (I had my butcher do this \u2014 ask yours!) until everything was homogeneous, then tore off a little chunk and tossed it in a pan with oil to check for seasoning. <\/p>\n It was delicious.<\/p>\n I portioned, rolled and tossed the meatballs in flour, then fried them in batches in enough oil to come about halfway up their sides, so I\u2019d only have to flip them once.<\/p>\n When they were dark, golden brown and cooked all the way through, I tore one open and tried it with a dollop of my mutabbal. <\/p>\n Yum. <\/p>\n The meatballs \u2014 moist, spiced, tender \u2014 went great with the smoky mutabbal. But\u2026 it was missing something. Something bright.<\/p>\n I looked at my ingredients, and my eyes landed on the labneh. Bingo. <\/p>\n I thinned the labneh out with water, brightened it with lemon juice<\/a>, enriched it with olive oil, seasoned it with salt and flavored it with chopped cilantro, mint, lemon zest and garlic. I gave it a taste.<\/p>\n Yum! <\/p>\n I grabbed the other half of my torn meatball, spooned on some mutabbal, then some labneh drizzle plus a little dab of harissa.<\/p>\n Wow. It rocked.<\/p>\n I was proud, and I think Caleb would be too. <\/p>\n My final recipe is by no means a quick, easy dinner meal. It\u2019s something to put time and love into, perhaps as a part of a feast made for friends. <\/p>\n I\u2019d be honored if you\u2019d consider making it. Even if you don\u2019t, I hope you\u2019ll take away some lessons to apply to whatever meatballs you decide to make one day. Just don\u2019t make them like my old housemate from The Max House did. <\/p>\n Happy eating, Recipe<\/p>\n For these lamb meatballs, I decided to make my panade out of ingredients that felt more in line with the mutabbal I was serving them with. I ended up using a mixture of leftover pita bread and labneh (drained yogurt) combined with lots of spices, herbs and lemon zest. The resulting meatballs were moist, herby, spiced, seasoned, spicy and just a joy to eat. (Stephanie Breijo\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I was a sophomore in college at UC Santa Cruz, I lived in a hippy-dippy, not-so-cooperative co-op…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[51804,51810,4462,51808,51805,2882,51803,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,5463,51809,51807,38221,51806,315],"class_list":["post-498372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-caribbean-recipe","tag-curry","tag-dish","tag-good-caribbean-restaurant","tag-hot-sauce","tag-hour","tag-jerked-catfish","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-minute","tag-restaurant-expert","tag-scotch-bonnet-pepper","tag-spice","tag-spice-courtesy","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Cody<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Serves 6-8.<\/p>\n![\"Mutabbal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792177809_855_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n