Over a month ago while hanging out with my friend Tyler we discussed our common pastime: cooking. This brought us to the subject of taking on unusual dishes. The new recipe we found was Chicken Meatballs.

Let me explain a little bit of my background first. I was born and raised in New York City. Classic Italian dishes such as Chicken Parmigiana and Sicilian Pizza had graced my palate many times. However, in all of my exposure to Italian American cuisine I had never heard of Chicken meatballs.

Tyler and I took up this culinary challenge the following week. We went down to our local Wal-Mart and got bread crumbs, canned tomatoes and eggs. This was an educational project for Tyler and my roommate Luke, who have never had much Italian American food besides their average Domino Pizza slice.

When we arrived at the house we immediately set to work. My kitchen got saturated with the smell of chopped onion, minced garlic, blended tomato sauce and rolled bread crumbs. I, being the most experienced with bread crumbs, rolled the balls of ground chicken into the sandy mixture. The smell of panko stayed on my hands for days.

The process was long but enjoyable. First, the meatball sauce used was made of tomato puree and cream. This smelled good but was put aside while my friends and I added chopped onions to the panko, which would cover the meatballs while they fried. Our fine-smelling tomato-cream mixture would have to wait.

We followed most of the directions to the letter. However, even though we followed the rules up to the lightly frying part my friends got a little crazy. They insisted we add water to the pan as we baked them. I allowed them to do so. I feared that the dish would become a soggy disaster. Surprisingly, the dish did not get soggy but retained a good amount of moisture instead.

The three of us put on an indie film and draped Swiss cheese over the meatballs for the finale. That was a most pleasant night indeed.

To see this recipe click on the link below.

Chicken Parmesan Meatballs in Tomato Cream Sauce

Thank you for reading.