The Best Turkey Meatballs

Truth be told, this was my very first experience cooking with ground turkey. The sickly pink color, the oh-so-perfect squiggles of formed poultry, and one achingly grotesque experience with two pounds of the ground bird and a half dozen taco seasoning packets had left me completely content with never letting it in my kitchen.

I had gone to the grocer for a couple chicken breasts for a recipe, but was uninspired. Sausage would have been too heavy... beef too strong... pork too light...

Then I saw it, glistening beneath it's vacuum-formed packaging, beckoning. The only sensible thing to do with ground meat is to make meatballs, so my plans developed on the fly and I decided to try ground turkey for myself.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1lb ground turkey, 1/4c breadcrumbs, 1/4c finely grated pecorino cheese, one egg, and a touch of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly, with your fingers of course. It was at this stage that I realized an interesting tidbit about my chosen protein: it's sticky. Very sticky, more so than ground beef or pork. Perhaps Alton Brown's suggestion of latex gloves would have been appropriate.

Once all is mixed well, form into balls at or slightly smaller than the size of a golf ball. The stickiness was again a factor here - I had to rinse my hands off twice in order to form all ten meatballs. Heat a bit of olive oil in a heavy large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and saute until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Turn off heat. Transfer the meatballs to a plate, and contemplate what type of sauce you are going to make. A nice marinara would go perfectly fine, or toss them with pesto and penne. Or, do what I did and use the pan bits as the base for creamy lemon rotini with arugula and broccoli, shown to the left.