In the first week, I shared a video which I used as a baseline to start off with. The video had a trick in it to guarantee similarly sized meatballs: an ice cream scoop. The scoop is awesome because it not only makes it easier to have all meatballs cook evenly but also makes it much faster to roll your meatball. Long story short, a friend bought me one after hearing me excitedly discussing how it would give me an advantage in the competition. The advantage of speed, by the way, is useless for this particular advantage even if it is convenient.
The bad part of this story is that the scoop was too big. It resulted in meatballs that were probably 1.5 to 1.75 times larger than the meatballs I had been making. However, size was something I wanted to experiment with. Unfortunately, this was also the week in which the meatball would not go into the sauce for any time at all besides a quick dunk. The result was interesting but lacking.
Because I was already committed to only dunking the meatballs and the increased size change, I did not play with any of the additions I had planned for last week. The result was a meatball that was cooked fine but soft. The sheer size of the meatball made it difficult to get a reasonably solid texture throughout the meatball. The texture was closer to a meatloaf than a meatball. The taste was fine, but past that it was unworthy.
Unworthiness aside, I’m now committed to using two pots instead of one. By the time the sauce is hot enough and ready, the meatball has gone cold. And of course, I’m hoping to add an acid next time. Probably lemon… definitely lemon. And in case it wasn’t clear, I will be going back to the regular sized meatballs.