Do the meatballs need eggs? That’s the question we’ll try to answer in this video.
Within the last year I’ve posted several videos on ground meat dishes which traditionally
use eggs, but I don’t. And many of you have asked why I don't use eggs. The short answer
is that my recipe has evolved this way completely by accident. One day, I had some leftover
filling from pelmeni which I turned into Eastern European cutlets simply by adding some breadcrumbs.
It was so little meat that I wasn’t sure how much egg to add to it. Normally, it’s
about 1 egg per pound, but what I had was not even close to a pound and trying to figure
out fractions of an egg seemed like an overkill, so I skipped the egg. And guess what? Nothing
terrible happened. These were the most phenomenally juicy and tender cutlets. By the way, in Eastern
Europe, the word “cutlet” is usually used to refer to a ground meat dish. Just like
meatballs, but flat, breaded and pan fried. I realize that in most English speaking countries,
the word cutlet usually refers to a solid muscle dish. Just clarifying so that I don’t
confuse anyone. Anyway, back to the ground meat mixtures.
Since my cutlets turned out so well without eggs, I didn’t bother to include them when
I started developing a more formal recipe for my ground meat mixture. But your questions
are totally valid. Maybe an egg would make it better? Or maybe just yolks would make
it better. Danielle Gritzer uses only yolks in his meatballs and they are fantastic.
Of course if we want to really understand what the eggs and yolks are doing in ground
meat mixtures, we can’t really compare a recipe that doesn’t use eggs to a different
recipe that uses eggs, and a third recipe that uses yolks. We have to keep everything
the same except for the egg component. And that’s what I set out to do with my experiment.
Having my recipe written in percentages was very handy for this project. I didn’t need
to make a full batch for every test. For every idea that I wanted to try out, I used 200
grams of meat and adjusted all the other ingredients accordingly.
I made five meatball mixtures. The control mixture was my usual recipe without eggs.
I called this mixture A. B was the same as the control plus 10% of egg. That’s like
adding 1 egg for 500 grams of meat, which is a typical amount of egg in meatball recipes.
C was the same as the control plus 10% of yolks. That’s about 2 and a half yolks per
pound of meat, which is similar to what Danielle Gritzer uses.
Of course, these two tests might not be completely fair. Adding eggs adds moisture and I was
concerned that my meatballs would become too wet. It’s possible that the recipes formulated
to use eggs use less of the other fillers like bread, milk, and onions. So I set up
2 more tests.
For batches D and E I reduced all my filler ingredients by 10% to compensate for adding
the eggs and yolks. D was made with 10% eggs and E was made with 10% yolks.
I seared the meatballs, put them in the sauce, and baked until they got to 160F which took
about 20 min at 300 degrees. Ok, let’s taste them. These are all tender and juicy. Samples
B and C are slightly softer than the control. That’s the ones with additional eggs and
yolks without any reduction in the other filler ingredients. The one with the yolks is just
a tiny bit more unctuous and rich tasting than the one with whole eggs, but I am trying
very hard to find some difference. Samples D and E seem very similar to the control.
That’s the ones with the addition of eggs and yolks, but a reduction in the other filler
ingredients.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I’d notice the difference between any of these
samples unless I was tasting them side by side. I’d be happy with any of these meatballs.
This makes me think that it’s not the egg that makes the most difference but the overall
amount of filler ingredients.
Of course, the cooking time affects the tenderness of the meatballs too. I saved one meatball
from each batch to try a different cooking time. Personally, I like my meatballs baked
for a full hour because it results in a much softer texture. This also gives the sauce
more meatiness. I am wondering if the presence of the eggs would make more or less of a difference
with this longer cooking time. Here they are. Let’s taste them.
I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this many meatballs in my life. See
what I do for the sake of science?
Ok, so for the long cooked meatballs, it seems to make even less of a difference. These meatballs
are all much softer than the quick cooking ones and the difference between the batches
is not noticeable even when tasting them side by side.
So, what did we learn from this experiment? Separating yolks from whites for ground meat
mixtures might not be worth it. Adding 10% of egg to my existing recipe might make the
meatballs even more tender. If you do that, make sure to increase the salt just a little
to account for the additional weight of the egg. For every 100g of egg, increase the salt
by 1 gram. And in case you are wondering, yes, I did do this for my samples to keep
the salt level perfectly consistent between all the samples.
Thanks to everyone who inspired this delicious experiment.
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.