chiuchow beef meat balls 潮州牛丸 - part 2

A week ago I ventured and made 5 pounds of Chiuchow style beef meatballs 潮州牛丸. It is my first attempt at this and my hope was the meatballs would turn out to have the almost crunchy texture as well as delicious. I am very happy the result are as good as my wildest dream.
I am writing this follow on post to give some updates of the result and to document the ingredients, techniques, and what I learnt that I can improve next time.

I have since consumed quite a bit of this batch of meatballs. Some were fresh ones that were never frozen, and some were from the vacuum packs that stored frozen. What is most surprising is once the meatballs have been frozen and then thawed is more toothsome crunchiness 彈牙 than when they are just been freshly made. The texture is almost the ideal as I set out to achieve, all without the aid of chemical like borax.

I pack 8 to 10 meatballs into each small vacuum pack; this give about 2 to 3 servings and is really easy to thaw; each vacuum bag adds about $0.1 to the cost

here I sprinkled a pinch of roasted garlic on top

When I went purchase the needed beef to make these meatballs I was looking for chuck but the closest the store has was round tip roast for a price that I was willing to pay. The beef was quite lean but I mixed in some bone marrow fat at the end which worked out well. My key takeaways are:

• Do not make the meatballs too small (1 inch or larger diameter should work well) to prevent the flavor from being leached out into the broth when you reheat them to serve. Make the meatballs a bit saltier to compensate for the unavoidable leaching.
• Use a quality fish sauce. I used the remain of a bottle of low quality fish sauce that I tried to finished.
• Use freshly grated garlic instead of garlic powder. 
• To achieve a toothsome and crunchy texture the minced beef needs to be mixed to a sticky paste in a mixer with the dough hook. A bit of water may be added if the minced beef emulsion is too dry. If additional fat is to be added it should be added to the very end. Most people don't have a meat grinder and a bread mixer so a food processor may be use.
• Do not overcook the meatballs. Remove them and shock in ice water shortly after they float to the surface.

My meatballs were inspired by this excellent blog post but I made some changes.

Ingredients:
5 pound of beef round tip roast
10 tablespoons of good quality Thai fish sauce
3 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger
3 tablespoons of freshly grated garlic
3 teaspoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of baking powder
2 large eggs

Cut the chunk of beef into long strips that can be fed into the meat grinder. Use a fine meat grinder die for this style of meatball. Collect the ground beef in a large stainless steel bowl mix in all the ingredients except the eggs. Hand mix them well and store in refrigerator for about an hour to marinate. The purpose of the baking powder serves as meat tenderizer and for achieving the desired texture.

beef chart - cuts of retail beef

cut the chunk of beef into strips that can be fed into the meat grinder

use a find grinding die if meatball with a smooth texture is desired

mix in all the ingredients except the eggs and store in refrigerator for 30 minutes

Place 2 1/2 pound of the ground beef in the mixer bowl. Blend the ground beef mixture in a mixer with a dough hook starting with low speed, then slowly raise the speed to medium low and add in one large egg. Add small amount of cold water if necessary to achieve the desired consistency conducive in hand forming of the meatballs.

divide the mixed ground beef into two batches and process them separately with a dough hook attachment starting with low speed and slowly increase the speed to medium-low

add the egg once the meat achieve a sticky paste consistency and continue to mix; add small amount of water to control the consistency if necessary

a bit of beef fat can be added towards the end to achieve the desired fat content

my mixer has enough capacity to process 2 1/2 pound of meat at a time

the well mixed beef emulsion should form a sticky, stiff, and fluffy paste

here is all 5 pounds of beef paste ready to made into 1-inch diameter meatballs

as each meatball is formed it is scooped off the hand with a wet tablespoon into hot water; I recommend making test out two meatballs for proper seasoning as well as the texture

 the hot water should be just slightly below boiling to avoid the flavor being leached into the water

in about 5 minutes the meatballs will float indicating they are cooked; blanch them immediately into ice water to stop cooking; do not leave them in the ice water too long to prevent the flavor from being leached out

once the meatballs are drained of water they can be pack into vacuum bags

These bowls of beef meatball soup noodles were made from the vacuum packed meatball that has been stored in the freezer. The color is darker and they are more toothsome as well as crunchier.

To preserve the flavor only reheat the meatballs gently to prevent the rich flavor from being leached away into the soup broth. The inevitable leaching is why you should make the meatball saltier to compensate.

these meatballs make preparing a bowl of soup noodles a snap

here is a bowl with ramen noodles and served with some smoked brisket

I am looking forward to make variations of these meatballs. By using different cut of beef, coarse or fine grinding of the meat, and the addition of bits of cow tendon one can achieve very interesting variety of meatballs. A good Chiuchow beef soup noodles place typically has two kinds. One silky smooth and one rough with much sinews so is chewy, and I like a bowl with both. This batch that I made falls close to the smooth style, though I could have made them smoother.

I should mention that in Hong Kong, there are two major different kinds of beef meatballs. The ones like I made here are meant to be used for soup noodles or a stir fried dish (typically with vegetable). There is also a kind of beef meatballs that are steamed and are typically found in dim sum 點心. They are much larger and look almost like Italian meatballs. They are much softer and-has/because-of  more fat and water.

These techniques can also be used to make pork meatballs (popular in Thailand), and fishballs or cuttlefish meatballs. However, I think making fishballs or cuttlefish meatballs are more challenging as their flesh are so much softer and delicate.