Actual Ancient Secret Sought
May 3, 2017 9:07 AM Subscribe
What is the trick to achieving bouncy fish/squid/shrimp balls?
I've tried pounding and slamming around the dough (dough?) by hand. I've tried letting it go in the food processor for at least 20 minutes. I've tried processing and then beating it in the mixer with the paddle. Every time it's just mush.
My next attempt would be to put the meat through a regular meat grinder and then beat that with starch, sesame oil, and egg white in the stand mixer, but I'm tired of turning perfectly good seafood into nasty sea-slop. So I turn to you. It seems like there's one crucial principle that I'm missing.
I've tried pounding and slamming around the dough (dough?) by hand. I've tried letting it go in the food processor for at least 20 minutes. I've tried processing and then beating it in the mixer with the paddle. Every time it's just mush.
My next attempt would be to put the meat through a regular meat grinder and then beat that with starch, sesame oil, and egg white in the stand mixer, but I'm tired of turning perfectly good seafood into nasty sea-slop. So I turn to you. It seems like there's one crucial principle that I'm missing.
Best answer: What I learnt as a kid was to stir the ground fish with salt first, till it has a together texture, and only then add the other ingredients. If you asked my gran, only hand-chopping or a meat grinder would ever work for the grinding, but in my experience a food processor or immersion blender works just fine. It doesn't need to be a lot of salt, and you can do the stirring by hand or in a stand mixer, it's fast either way. Just don't add anything else before you have the right texture with just fish and salt. Has never failed for me even when I was young and inexperienced.
I checked some recipes and they all say to add the other ingredients slowly, but to be honest I don't really do that. The stirring with salt thing is what matters.
I don't know how to describe the desired texture. I'd suggest you just try to vigorously stir som salt into som chopped whatever meat for ten minutes and you will achieve consistency like a sticky dough or something. This base will keep all the elements from separating, which is what is happening when you get what you call sea slop.
posted by mumimor at 2:31 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
I checked some recipes and they all say to add the other ingredients slowly, but to be honest I don't really do that. The stirring with salt thing is what matters.
I don't know how to describe the desired texture. I'd suggest you just try to vigorously stir som salt into som chopped whatever meat for ten minutes and you will achieve consistency like a sticky dough or something. This base will keep all the elements from separating, which is what is happening when you get what you call sea slop.
posted by mumimor at 2:31 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
mumimor, !! ha it feels like it's mostly Italians and italian inspired American cooking where meatballs are crumbly. A Danish postdoc invited the lab to a traditional meal and the meatballs she made were not crumbly. I asked, and yes, there was that stirring to get that "crunchy" mouthfeel. Less stirring, less "crunchy," but it was at least on the axis.
Oddly, upper/upper-middle class college kids in the midwest (arguably slumming it) were really pro-crumbly ground beef/meat and were totally disparaging of modifying it at all (my `meatballing`ground beef was seen as sacrilage. My massaging spices into a chunk of ground beef was "overhandling"). "Crunchy-est" meatballs (exemplified by the Vietnamese variety) were anathema. It was totally Weird.
posted by porpoise at 10:28 PM on May 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
Oddly, upper/upper-middle class college kids in the midwest (arguably slumming it) were really pro-crumbly ground beef/meat and were totally disparaging of modifying it at all (my `meatballing`ground beef was seen as sacrilage. My massaging spices into a chunk of ground beef was "overhandling"). "Crunchy-est" meatballs (exemplified by the Vietnamese variety) were anathema. It was totally Weird.
posted by porpoise at 10:28 PM on May 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Haha porpoise - it's no more than a couple of days ago we tried to make American beef patties for the first time, with no stirring. I felt they were delicious as hamburgers in buns, but not nice on their own. The crumbly texture worked nicely with the condiments etc. in the hamburger serving, but they didn't have a nice mouthfeel on their own.
BUT, I forgot an important detail: the mixture needs to rest at least 20 minutes before cooking. You can make a really wet mix, and get nice and crunchy fishballs that are moist and meaty inside if it rests for a while.
posted by mumimor at 4:11 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
BUT, I forgot an important detail: the mixture needs to rest at least 20 minutes before cooking. You can make a really wet mix, and get nice and crunchy fishballs that are moist and meaty inside if it rests for a while.
posted by mumimor at 4:11 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
On the extreme end of the spectrum, there's a phenomenon called a "sloppy joe" which is kind of like a hamburger but crumbly ground beef in a tomato sauce eaten between two buns.
posted by porpoise at 8:00 PM on May 9, 2017
posted by porpoise at 8:00 PM on May 9, 2017
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I'll grind the fish/shrimp (or more commonly, ground beef) as gently as possible then stir clockwise (and clockwise only; you can go counterclockwise only, makes no difference just don't reverse direction). I use either a pair of large chopsticks held in my fist, or a sturdy small wooden spatula.
The paste will get increasingly "firm" over time.
The secret is the consistent unidirectional stirring.
In my experience, the egg white isn't necessary (it makes the paste goopier) and go light on the starch.
posted by porpoise at 10:41 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]