You will no longer fry meatballs. Here is the perfect recipe for pork and beef meatballs made in the oven or airfryer. They do not come out dry or hard, and the taste is almost identical to the fried ones. Ingredient:
• 1 kg of minced meat, pork and beef, 25% fat
• 15 g of salt
• 2 teaspoons full of ground black pepper (7-8 g)
• 80 g of bread crumbs
• A very finely chopped medium onion (80 g)
• 250 ml of kefir, drinking yogurt, or milk
• 3-4 large cloves of garlic minced
• A bunch of finely chopped parsley or dill.
• 3-4 tablespoons of oil
• Optionally a teaspoon full of sweet paprika or other spices to your liking
To make meatballs juicy, fluffy and tender at the same time, a liquid-soaked filling material is always needed. There are several options that can be used, but the most handy is the bread core. But the secret to this recipe is that we will soak the bread crumbs in Kefir. It is an unusual ingredient for meatballs, but it will help the meat stay juicy, without giving any strange taste. If you do not have kefir, you can also use drinking yogurt. If you are reluctant to the idea of sour dairy, you can use regular milk. It does not matter the percentage of fat in dairy products, so you can use defatted versions without problems.
Set aside for at least 15 minutes to soak. During this time you can prepare all the other ingredients.
If you use the oven, preheat it now to 220 degrees Celsius, heat up and down plus fan.
For this recipe it is important to take a meat with at least 20% fat percentage. For example this is minced pork mixture with beef with 25% fat. If you buy lean meat, the meatballs will come out dry because a lot of the fat drains into the baking tray.
Add salt to the meat. (Salt is by far the most important spice, and it is important to put a sufficient amount. That is why it is recommended to weigh it as accurately as possible. Without enough salt they will not be as tasty.
Add the ground black pepper. Also a very important spice. We add two pretty full teaspoons. It seems like a lot, but it's not.
Add the garlic passed through the press. It can be added more or less according to your tastes. It can be replaced with a teaspoon of garlic powder.
Finely chopped onion. It can also be replaced with a teaspoon of dried onion flakes.
Finely chopped greens - I chose parsley, but it can also be dill if you prefer.
And bread crumbs soaked in kefir.
You can also add any other favorite spices: thyme, nutmeg,… For example, I often add a teaspoon full of paprika, and it tastes very good.
Mix well by hand, until the meat turns into a bound paste. You don't have to insist too much, just until everything is homogeneous.
You may notice a large absence from this recipe. Namely the egg. No egg is needed, the meat binds perfectly without it. If you want to add an egg, because you are used to it, you can do it, but you have to subtract 50 g from the amount of kefir.
The meatballs we want to prepare in the oven or airfryer do NOT need to be formed small. The smaller they are, the faster they will dehydrate and become dry. It is ideal to make them between 80-100 grams.
You have to be careful not to have air gaps inside, that's why I slam them from one palm to another. Once the piece of meat is compact we give it a round shape.
I had 15 pieces.
The meatballs are then greased well with oil on the surface and placed in the airfryer tray, or in the oven tray lined with baking paper.
The airfryer is set at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.
Bake for another 20 minutes, but as I said at the beginning, at 220 degrees Celsius. It is also good to place the tray on top of the oven.
Remember, in your oven or in your airfryer, it may take an idea more or less, because the appliances are different from each other, and of course it also matters how much you cook at once. For example, if you cook all the pieces in the same appliance, the cooking takes a little longer. But to check simply take a meatball and make a cut to the center. If I'm not pink inside, I'm ready.
That's what it looks like at the end.
Here are the ones for the airfryer. They look good, they are reddish, juicy and tasty.
And here are the ones in the oven. They are a little less browned, but otherwise they are the same.