4:57 I'm surprised you didn't copy the wok frying method as he rolls the meatball into the hot oil thus avoiding the splash plus surely it helps keep the shape.
Dude, everytime I watch your videos I remember how much I admire your job. Here in Brazil we have to do an exam to be admissed in a public university. I am trying so hard to study in the University of São Paulo (USP) for4 years. This year I'm trying de 5th time and you and your videos always make me feel happy, proud and hopefull that one day I'll get wherever I want to go. Thanks a lot, Alex
@White Working Class PrideDepends on if you are talking about Kel-Tecs or Glocks. There is almost always something wrong with people who go by "White Working Class Pride.”
What about putting a wok/bowl on a hot plate and put everything on top of a shaking table, so that the balls are continuously rolling around while being cooked? I bet that would make them perfectly spherical!
You only need a smoking hot wok, then add cold oil and heat up to prevent sticking. Slide meatball from side like that Chinese chef did, then frantically tumble and turn the wok on a jet engine exhaust with afterburn on. 😏
This is fantastic! Organising a meatball tasting night, where we make a swedish meatball for my swedish friend, kufta turkish style for my turkish, kufta Bulgarian for me, italian for italian and finally serbian cevapi for contrast. We will call it the Beer and Meatabalgedon night!
Nospam Spamisham There is no reason why we couldn’t build large rotating habitats (like O’Neil Cylinders). Granted colonising other planets would be very difficult, long and expensive endeavour which I do not believe will be worth the investment, however rotating space habitats are brilliant and there is no reason that we could not live in them permanently.
The entire journey for this meatball quest has been nothing short of amazing. Alex, you are one of the only good remaining content creators here on TH-cam. Your process is scientific and creative, your character is infectious and your content is high quality. Please, keep doing what you're doing.
When making takoyaki there are actually specific picks used to make them in order to easily turn them without much contact; would be much better than chopsticks. That being said, another important part of how takoyaki can become so round is the fluidity of the batter, which when you turn it, flows down to the cooking surface to create the shell. Meatballs don't really have that kind of fluidity and would probably be somewhat difficult to cook nicely.
So nice to see people be so happy about... just a meatball! Its not world wide peace or something... just a meatball but still it makes me happy as well to see Alex be happy about it! Cooking brings the world together! :)
In a few decades I could see you being the successor to science-minded chefs like Alton Brown. Start where tradition left off and use that creativity and genius of yours to make something great like these meatballs!
Losing and regaining ones sanity has never been more hilarious. You make my day, thanks for putting a much needed smile on my face on the first year anniversary of the loss of something so special to me.
Alex' videos are the perfect illustration of "male cooking": a man who wants to show off his cooking skills occupies the kitchen for a bigger part of the day, wastes half of the ingredients, uses all utensils from the drawers (including hammer drill and 3d printer), pulls off a drama of the Sophoclean proportions, and after at least two Hitchcockian turns of the events, proudly produces... a perfectly regular lunch. How not to love it? :)
wow this is problably the most quality camera footage i've ever seen. Just to notice the details of Alex dark circles in the beggining of the video(0:16) its amazing!
I was so excited that you were going to make a heated Archimedes screw. Basically it would cook the meatball while constantly rolling it, keeping it a sphere. Sounds like a This Old Tony collab to me!
Alex, you could also try par-fry, flash freeze in liquid nitrogen, then place the meatball is an 3D printed outer shell with numerous holes into a sous vide bag to allow some fat to escape while keeping structural integrity still. Dukes
Wow! What luck! Posted 41 seconds ago and only three views my earliest record ever! Love your videos. Love your obsession with precision and process - so French, so formidable! Keep up the good work you inspire us all!
You can sous vide without a vacuum sealer. Put in a plastic bag, and dunk into the water with the open end of the bag above the water. The air will get pushed out, you can clamp the open back over the edge of your cooking vessel, and clothespin in for the cook. I never use a vacuum sealer anymore to sous vide using this trick. It's so much quicker.
@@AndyGait In my campus lab they freeze cells with liquid nitrogen and my teacher urges the importance of glycerol or DMSO as a protective agent to prevent the freezing from killing the cells so I'm guessing flash freezing fails as well. Unless you wanna eat a meatball soaked in glycerol then go ahead.
If I remember you have spin the takoyaki while you are cooking it to get the perfect rounded shape and for it to cook evenly, due the consistence and structure of grounded meat I think it would fall appart while doing it, but would be nice to see alex try :DD
I don't make meatballs myself but this video made me curious. There are a number of meatball pans for sale just as you figured out how to cook the meatball without flattening the shape. There are meatball spoons which squeezing the meat mixture through a hole in the bowl of the spoon to make mini meatballs. There is even a tv ad for the "Mighty Meatballs" which is a plastic form for making stuffed meatballs. I even tempted to begin making meatballs myself. Thanks for the inspiration.
I hope the last perfect meatball episode will be published on the 9th of March for the International Meatball day !!! I'm so invested in this series it's ridiculous!
Alex, could you use the red silicon shapes to hold the meatball in the sous vide (just in a plastic bag, not vacuum seal, maybe some weights in the bag to hold it down) .. so, cook in the sous vide, and then flash fry the resulting meatball.. so you get the perfect cooking from the water bath and then the fryer for that Golden Brown Delicious exterior. No matter, I love watching your cooking adventures, always a pleasure.
as a patreon im very happy to see where my money is going 😊 ill be part of the creation of the best meatball the world had ever seen thank you so much alex for your amyzing videos 💙
In my country (Indonesia) we used to eat this prefect round meatball (BAKSO) we boil it with chicken broth and then when they are done they will float to the top. Inside this meatball sometimes we put bird egg, or another small sizes meatball with other variations taste...anyway love your video very interesting and new way of seeing food...
u could just buy a traditional chinese wok, note : i noticed western's wok MOST come with a flat base. where's chinese traditional wok is a curve base. in order to make it not flat, you throw the meatball like throwing a bowling ball, side ways from the sides :/
I think he has one, he mad a series where he seasons a wok, I might be wrong and it could be western but if I remember correctly its curved at the bottom
@@blitsriderfield4099 I want to be that guy! so yeh, The word in spanish is "Salud!" wich translates to "Bless you!" but it's literal translation come from "Health" meanwhile "Salute" translate to spanish as "Saludo(s)" wich both translates to english as "greetings!" so yet the word resembles a bit are not related. now... what truly matters, Can you or me make such perfectly rounded and juicy meatballs like Alex did?
from what I remember from French class, salut isn't necessarily just hello and good-bye, its also a wish of salvation or "bless you". it is entirely possible that I'm remembering that wrong, but I definitely remember something along the lines of Salut not just meaning hello and good-bye.
Alex, 3D print a hard case you can place the meatball in. Take that and then use sous vide. This will allow better temp regulation and structural integrity to be kept, plus you could use a less pasty mixture
For the sous vide you should have tried the water displacement method. It is not as hard of a vacuum. You can just seal it with the sealer next to the sink/pot of water or just use it unsealed and clip the unsealed bag to the container while it cooks.
In Thailand we have meatballs as well, we put them in water but it must be at a light simmer and not a boil otherwise the meatballs will lose shape, just wanted to share! Great video!
If you are willing to continue this series, I'd highly recommend visiting Balls & Glory. They're a restaurant with several locations in Belgium (I can recommend the Ghent one as it's the only one I've visited), where they make handcrafted, perfectly round, extremely tasty meatballs. Might be worth a visit. You've investigated the ingredients and the origins in Sweden and Turkey, now perhaps the next stop is Belgium for the technique.
Please hear me out on this one. Make a metal tube slide. Oil it and heat it. Drop the ball directly to the slide. The ball will roll and cook at the same time. So it will stay round. After the heated slide it will have a crust to stay round. Please try it... Thank you for one of the best youtube feed... From Turkey
If you want to cook your meatballs sous-vide, you can edge fry them in oil and afterwards freeze them till firm until they can resist the vacuum. Same principle as freezing raw fish without loosing lots of juices, first edge freeze, then vacuum.
Try a silicon sphere ice maker and cook it sous it in that. Don’t seal it in a vacuum bag, but use a ziploc bag so you have a gentle vacuum on it. Also bring the sous vide temp up a few degrees to make up for the extra silicone layer. It should stay perfectly round
Used to own a meatball business myself and attempted similar experiments. Came to similar conclusions but also had success using a cast-iron Ebelskiver pan...if you are continually moving the meat a little bit as they cook, they will come out perfectly round.
A tip, since people usually apply a thin layer of flour to enhance the crust. U can do the same in that step and use the flour as dampener. And eliminate the fire hazard and slow process of differentiating the meatballs if you are doing more than one in your oil method.
if you use a wok to do the deep frying, it might even help more because if you drop it in on the side (like the lions head video), you'll both minimize the splash, as well as probably keep it rounder because it doest just land on the bottom of the pan and flatten a bit, but rather roll down the side
Is polpette a common word for Italian meatballs? I'm serving an Italian meatball at a wedding and can't decide whether calling them a polpette is pretentious or not
Alex, I am now retired Aerospace design engineer so I have some comments. First, the idea of flash frying the meatballs is good. However, I would recommend that you perform a secondary moulding process (after the first few seconds in the fryer, return into a round mould and let cool. It could be like the "plyers", closable round mould). Let cool and then fry again in that shape. In the first shaping, don't let it drop so far. Gently lower it into the oil. It's not the shaper that is the problem, it's the decelleration at the bottom of the pan. I would also recommend that the ball be smaller in the first place as the weight will have an effect on the final outcome.
In the last restaurant I worked in they had a meatball recipe that called for running all the meat and non meat ingredients through a large meat grinder that you would use for say sausages to mix then the balls would be scooped with a large ice cream scoop (for consistency in terms of total mass) then hand shaped into a relatively good ball shape. Finally they would go to the refrigerator to cool down and firm up slightly before being par fried and finished in the oven.
With all respect to you and your meatball, but it looks like the meatballs we got in the dutch army in the emergency rations. But boy, did they taste good after a day in the field, cold, wet, miserable. Too salty, too spicy, too everything but most of all warm. That was the greatest thing about this meatball. It filled your stomach, gave you warmth, put you at ease, made you think at home. Nowadays I'm always on the lookout for these green cans of 4 meatballs because they represent this feeling for me. I don't have a lot of memories on good food, but this is my number 1.
Alex, I have an idea. Two or three heated pulley wheels which spin away from each other (i.e side view: OO). You would place the fried meatball in the meeting point of the two pulley wheels, this would spin and turn the meatball as it cooks; creating and keeping it perfectly sphere.
Now that you have a method of frying perfectly round balls of a soft mixture, what else can you apply it to? Croquettes? Mac and chee? Loaded mashed potatoes?
Alex, you need a chamber vacuum sealer to keep the moisture from being pulled out of your meatballs. I'm quite surprised you don't have one. It seems like something you would want. They're a large initial investment, but the vacuum bags are much cheaper so it ends up being less expensive in the long run.
Alex, also an idea - to make your meatball-forming device fully from solid metal and create a mechanism (gas-based) to heat it up so it "seals" the form of the meatball. If you make this I can die in piece
Hey Alex, if you put the meatball in a plastic bag (such thing for freezing something in it) and put it in a bath of water with the opening outside, the air will press out without pressing the juices from the meatball. Than you can cook it sous vide.
Alex, sous vide would still work. You don't need to use a vacuum sealer. You can simply pop the meatball into an open ziplock bag and dunk it in the water bath to expel the air without it deforming it's shape. Then you seal the bag, and clamp it to container.
Meat soup dumplings is what you got there! So juicy. If the meatball gun rolled the balls into a wok of hot oil, with a constant velocity, they should stay very round. Likewise, an oven containing a radial racetrack of spiral-cut conical rollers, like a hot dog cooker but for balls, the constant motion would give them even cooking and perfect roundness.
You can freeze the meatballs, and then cook sous vide. We do that for crabcakes. Cooking from frozen is not an issue for sous vide, and it'll keep the structure and juiciness.
As others have mentioned a Takoyaki pan might work but there is something called a Cake Pop Maker which might work better. It makes a smaller ball but it forms both sides at once like a waffle iron.
Alex, I really think you could have gotten sous vide to work! Just use water displacement when submerging your plastic bag, instead of using the vacuum sealer. Essentially I just put my food in a ziplock bag, zip it partially closed, and then slowly lower the bag into the water and allow the water to displace (most) of the air. Then I seal the rest of the zipper. You don't get a perfect seal, but it's close enough and I bet that would have worked for your meatball!
My anova vaccum sealer has a pulse function so you can control the vaccum and stop it at whichever point you like before sealing, might help to hold the shape
I worked in a restaurant, we also set oourselthe cchallof a perfect meatball. We started just like you, with the flash frying, but then we cooked the meatballs in a veal demi glaze in the oven at around 80c till it was cooked. Which turned out to be an amazing meatball.
Hi Alex, I'm italian and in my family we use to fry the meatballs before soaking them in the tomato sauce. Sorry for watching your video only after all this time, if I'd watched the italian episode before, I would have told you to fry them. It would have saved you some efforts ;)
Archimeatballs principle
Not funny
Captain Parasite Come on buddy, not even a little bit?
@@johanalen ok, maybe a little 👌🏿
T-SHIRT !
@@FrenchGuyCooking Archimeatballs principle poster?
You could try to sous vide it using the water displacement method instead of vacuum sealing. I do that for delicate items.
Let's get that up so Alex sees it.
This was my first thought. Upvote!
was looking for this comment ... could of just used a ziplock bag
Eric Winokur exactamundo
This is what I was going to say. The old ziplock bag trick for those without money to spend on vacuum sealers.
Alex, I feel like you've overlooked a potentially better method that doesn't involve an oven: a takoyaki pan!
An angle that made the meatball roll right to the that pan, instead of free fall would certainly be a good test.
Yes, this, my thoughts exactly! Takoyaki pan ftw.
I thought exactly the same
Yes, but how big is it?
@@camarques i was thinking the same thing. in the Chinese video he didn't drop it in the oil but rolled it in. those pans aren't even hard to get.
4:57 I'm surprised you didn't copy the wok frying method as he rolls the meatball into the hot oil thus avoiding the splash plus surely it helps keep the shape.
This is the wildest you've gone yet, my man 😂 Came for the meatball, stayed for the madness
Agreed. But he does it in such a lovely way, you cant be mad at him.
EXACTLY
@@DemTacs ...you absolutely can't....
Dude, everytime I watch your videos I remember how much I admire your job.
Here in Brazil we have to do an exam to be admissed in a public university. I am trying so hard to study in the University of São Paulo (USP) for4 years. This year I'm trying de 5th time and you and your videos always make me feel happy, proud and hopefull that one day I'll get wherever I want to go. Thanks a lot, Alex
"Astronauts don't train in water, they train in... parabolic flight! Which is why I'm making meatballs on a reduced-gravity plane!"
Next level right there...
that's one expensive meatball.... next up how big must be a meatball be to survive re-entry while cooked at the center
They do train in water as well
“parabolic”
Don’t you mean
f(x)=ax^2+bx+c
Or
f(x)=a(x-h)+k
They do actually do a lot of training in water.
"I still don't know how to retain that shape, but, I got a gun now." America Vibes
Well we are a nation full of out of shape people, and also full of guns!
@White Working Class PrideDepends on if you are talking about Kel-Tecs or Glocks. There is almost always something wrong with people who go by "White Working Class Pride.”
fordhouse8b Round is a shape
@@dinnerboons1504 I love everything about this comeback. Not the first time I've seen it but it never fails to make me laugh.
Dropping the meatball in liquid nitrogen might work. Meatball will be suspended in nitrogen in its liquid form and will freeze instantly.
Alex, this journey was great! If you're ever in Norway, let us know an we'll invite you for a nice round of kjøttkaker!
I'd love that !
@nerdforge, Kjøttboller...
WOW I would die of happiness and surprise if there was a Nerdforge x Alex collab
@@whoppitydoppity chudkagår
The words “beauty of a sphere” have never been so joyfully and juicily uttered.
What about putting a wok/bowl on a hot plate and put everything on top of a shaking table, so that the balls are continuously rolling around while being cooked? I bet that would make them perfectly spherical!
@Mycel a ball mill?
Mycel like a rock tumbler?
it would stick wouldn't it?
You only need a smoking hot wok, then add cold oil and heat up to prevent sticking. Slide meatball from side like that Chinese chef did, then frantically tumble and turn the wok on a jet engine exhaust with afterburn on. 😏
timvandegoor1 will it burn tho?
This is fantastic! Organising a meatball tasting night, where we make a swedish meatball for my swedish friend, kufta turkish style for my turkish, kufta Bulgarian for me, italian for italian and finally serbian cevapi for contrast. We will call it the Beer and Meatabalgedon night!
”Unless we are astronauts operating in the international spacestation...”
Unless?...
"So I called up my good friend Elon Musk for a quick trip to the ISS!"
Nate9273 Hey Elon, I need to borrow the falcon for a moment, I wanna cook meatballs in space.
@Nospam Spamisham Yeah…. But what if you could cook meatballs there?!
Nospam Spamisham There is no reason why we couldn’t build large rotating habitats (like O’Neil Cylinders). Granted colonising other planets would be very difficult, long and expensive endeavour which I do not believe will be worth the investment, however rotating space habitats are brilliant and there is no reason that we could not live in them permanently.
@Nospam Spamisham people play millions for just some rocks so I imagine than a whole planet of just some rocks would barter quite a hefty price check
The entire journey for this meatball quest has been nothing short of amazing. Alex, you are one of the only good remaining content creators here on TH-cam. Your process is scientific and creative, your character is infectious and your content is high quality. Please, keep doing what you're doing.
i'm here for that chef wang gang cameo
You should have just used a Tako-Yaki pan and some chopsticks. Perfectly round meatballs.
psyjax2 this is the way
When making takoyaki there are actually specific picks used to make them in order to easily turn them without much contact; would be much better than chopsticks. That being said, another important part of how takoyaki can become so round is the fluidity of the batter, which when you turn it, flows down to the cooking surface to create the shell. Meatballs don't really have that kind of fluidity and would probably be somewhat difficult to cook nicely.
@@Vulcapyro the answer is simple. Meat ball batter. Where instead of minced meat he creates a batter which simulates the taste of the meatball.
@@SaintStarcraft Sometimes we get so caught up in if we CAN do a thing, we forget to consider if we SHOULD.
this is too easy. he wants to do it the hardest way possible just to create more content.
Sous vide was still an option, you could have done water displacement instead of vacuum seal.
So nice to see people be so happy about... just a meatball! Its not world wide peace or something... just a meatball but still it makes me happy as well to see Alex be happy about it! Cooking brings the world together! :)
Alex and Wang Gang is the crossover that I never thought I'd see
this needs to happen sometime!
In a few decades I could see you being the successor to science-minded chefs like Alton Brown. Start where tradition left off and use that creativity and genius of yours to make something great like these meatballs!
A few decades? Right now dude haha, he reminds me of Alton Brown in a way.
Never thought I'd see chef Wang Gang on this channel.
大家好
大家好我是Alex，本期視頻我給大家分享一道家常菜。純圓的肉丸
嘖嘖嘖，完全沒想到會看到王剛
Alex: I've made a perfectly round meatball.
Flatearthers: It's Flat!
Given a large enough meatball the curvature of the surface would become imperceptable from surface level observations with human eyes.
@@DahVoozel it follows those that think the earth is flat have a very very small mind.
TF with them... Lol
Never before has watching a man bite into a meatball filled me such joy hahaha!
Losing and regaining ones sanity has never been more hilarious. You make my day, thanks for putting a much needed smile on my face on the first year anniversary of the loss of something so special to me.
Next: building a rocket to hijack international space station and create meatballs in space.
They do have a zero-G oven now!
Alex' videos are the perfect illustration of "male cooking": a man who wants to show off his cooking skills occupies the kitchen for a bigger part of the day, wastes half of the ingredients, uses all utensils from the drawers (including hammer drill and 3d printer), pulls off a drama of the Sophoclean proportions, and after at least two Hitchcockian turns of the events, proudly produces... a perfectly regular lunch. How not to love it? :)
Chef Wang (in the video): deep fry meatball for 4 minutes
Alex(doesn't know Chinese and didn't check cc either): probably 10-30 seconds...
wow this is problably the most quality camera footage i've ever seen. Just to notice the details of Alex dark circles in the beggining of the video(0:16) its amazing!
I mean, the whole episode i was thinking why dont you just try making a slope at the exit of meatball gun instead of dropping it from 50cm height.
the problem is that it is still too soft so it would flatten by its own weight. That's why you need to flash fry it
@@MikaelMurstam it flattens because it plops agressively . If he used a gentle slope to "deposit " the ball it wouldn't deform so much
I was so excited that you were going to make a heated Archimedes screw. Basically it would cook the meatball while constantly rolling it, keeping it a sphere.
Sounds like a This Old Tony collab to me!
@@busterfixxitt i second this
@@flying_horse that's exactly what I meant
Alex, you could also try par-fry, flash freeze in liquid nitrogen, then place the meatball is an 3D printed outer shell with numerous holes into a sous vide bag to allow some fat to escape while keeping structural integrity still.
Dukes
Wow! What luck! Posted 41 seconds ago and only three views my earliest record ever! Love your videos. Love your obsession with precision and process - so French, so formidable! Keep up the good work you inspire us all!
You are the future of French Cooking, no arrogance just love and respect for everyone
Mais l'important n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage
Jé c'est une canine
Isnt that from la haine?
Studying Wildflower it is
You can sous vide without a vacuum sealer. Put in a plastic bag, and dunk into the water with the open end of the bag above the water. The air will get pushed out, you can clamp the open back over the edge of your cooking vessel, and clothespin in for the cook. I never use a vacuum sealer anymore to sous vide using this trick. It's so much quicker.
AYYYY MY GUY ALSO WATCHES CHEF WANG'S COOKING VIDS!!
Fucking i heard chef wang's voice and thought it cant be, then his famous station appears! Feels great to have our boy represent for his cooking :)
He's great
@@silkhenge OMG saammee
Could you make a fermenting series?
Like kombucha,lacto-fermenting,pickling,kefir...
Thanks!
居然在Alex的頻道看到王剛
宽油~~
宽油
宽油
宽油
This channel inspires me to study more than any other
He should of used a bowl of liquid nitrogen so when the meatball drops into it would immediately firms up and stay a round shape
and then it cracks
At one point I thought that was where he was going.
He mentioned how freezing it would create a problem because the cell walls would break and cause juices to spill out
@@JonathanKayne yeah but that was normal home freezing. I'm guessing the liquid nitrogen might be different because it's instant freezing?
@@AndyGait In my campus lab they freeze cells with liquid nitrogen and my teacher urges the importance of glycerol or DMSO as a protective agent to prevent the freezing from killing the cells so I'm guessing flash freezing fails as well. Unless you wanna eat a meatball soaked in glycerol then go ahead.
Alex's analysis was so crazy it's hilarious
Try using a takoyaki cooking technique! Takoyaki almost always come out perfectly spherical.
If I remember you have spin the takoyaki while you are cooking it to get the perfect rounded shape and for it to cook evenly, due the consistence and structure of grounded meat I think it would fall appart while doing it, but would be nice to see alex try :DD
@@niteliniN If the pan it's hot enough, oil creates immediately a crust, so, I think this could work.
I don't make meatballs myself but this video made me curious. There are a number of meatball pans for sale just as you figured out how to cook the meatball without flattening the shape. There are meatball spoons which squeezing the meat mixture through a hole in the bowl of the spoon to make mini meatballs. There is even a tv ad for the "Mighty Meatballs" which is a plastic form for making stuffed meatballs. I even tempted to begin making meatballs myself. Thanks for the inspiration.
drop the ball in liquid nitrogen, quick freeze and then fry the meatball directly. BOOOM Done ☑️🤙🏻
BOOOM indeed. 🤣🤣🤣
he already explained why freezing isn't a good idea- the water inside the cells expand and break the cells walls, which makes everything a mushy mess.
Putting something that cold into something that hot would likely be extremely dangerous
I hope the last perfect meatball episode will be published on the 9th of March for the International Meatball day !!! I'm so invested in this series it's ridiculous!
Filled Pasta next please!
Ravioli ravioli give me the formuoli!
Alex, could you use the red silicon shapes to hold the meatball in the sous vide (just in a plastic bag, not vacuum seal, maybe some weights in the bag to hold it down) .. so, cook in the sous vide, and then flash fry the resulting meatball.. so you get the perfect cooking from the water bath and then the fryer for that Golden Brown Delicious exterior.
No matter, I love watching your cooking adventures, always a pleasure.
as a patreon im very happy to see where my money is going 😊
ill be part of the creation of the best meatball the world had ever seen
thank you so much alex for your amyzing videos 💙
The amount of science and technology you put into food amuses me... love your videos
This guys here is the best at what he does my favourite channel in ytube
The truth. :)
In my country (Indonesia) we used to eat this prefect round meatball (BAKSO) we boil it with chicken broth and then when they are done they will float to the top. Inside this meatball sometimes we put bird egg, or another small sizes meatball with other variations taste...anyway love your video very interesting and new way of seeing food...
u could just buy a traditional chinese wok,
note : i noticed western's wok MOST come with a flat base.
where's chinese traditional wok is a curve base.
in order to make it not flat, you throw the meatball like throwing a bowling ball, side ways from the sides :/
I think he has one, he mad a series where he seasons a wok, I might be wrong and it could be western but if I remember correctly its curved at the bottom
Not a must, I have made round meatballs using hot, but not boiling water to cook in, in a flat but high pot. depth is more important.
So great when you lifted it out of the oil!! When you want to vacuum pack something liquid-y, it needs to be frozen first. :)
I just start watching this video when I sneezed he said salut which sounded like bless you in Spanish
but it’s not Spanish.
@@mindset5794 nobody asked you, Captain obvious
Comes from same language. Latin. So there's that.
@@blitsriderfield4099 I want to be that guy!
so yeh, The word in spanish is "Salud!" wich translates to "Bless you!" but it's literal translation come from "Health" meanwhile "Salute" translate to spanish as "Saludo(s)" wich both translates to english as "greetings!" so yet the word resembles a bit are not related.
now... what truly matters, Can you or me make such perfectly rounded and juicy meatballs like Alex did?
from what I remember from French class, salut isn't necessarily just hello and good-bye, its also a wish of salvation or "bless you". it is entirely possible that I'm remembering that wrong, but I definitely remember something along the lines of Salut not just meaning hello and good-bye.
Alex, 3D print a hard case you can place the meatball in. Take that and then use sous vide. This will allow better temp regulation and structural integrity to be kept, plus you could use a less pasty mixture
28 seconds and im not first?! amazing. I love this channel.
I was watching this series hoping to see the start of the French meatball. So far I'm not disappointed.
Just start with extremely hot oil and then lower the temperature until the inside is cooked
For the sous vide you should have tried the water displacement method. It is not as hard of a vacuum. You can just seal it with the sealer next to the sink/pot of water or just use it unsealed and clip the unsealed bag to the container while it cooks.
"How do we counteract gravity?"
Me: *loads shotgun & starts up time machine* your inevitable end has come Newton's apple...
In Thailand we have meatballs as well, we put them in water but it must be at a light simmer and not a boil otherwise the meatballs will lose shape, just wanted to share! Great video!
“Unless you’re willing to die for a meatball”
I dunno, I could get behind this movement.
Yeah, most could, then you understand the harm of oxidise fats...
oxidised*
Jah F Don’t threaten me with a good time
If you are willing to continue this series, I'd highly recommend visiting Balls & Glory. They're a restaurant with several locations in Belgium (I can recommend the Ghent one as it's the only one I've visited), where they make handcrafted, perfectly round, extremely tasty meatballs. Might be worth a visit. You've investigated the ingredients and the origins in Sweden and Turkey, now perhaps the next stop is Belgium for the technique.
if this guy opened a restaurant, he'll make the menu 100 dollars each for the "anti gravity archimedes formed meatballs"
This guy doesn't have a family to feed. So he has time to waste by taking something very simple and complicate it beyond any need.
@@csenuber **cough** **cough** Alex famil **cough**
Remarkable! I love the lengths you went to get your Eureka!
tbh a meatball is exactly the kind of thing I would probably be willing to die for
Please hear me out on this one. Make a metal tube slide. Oil it and heat it. Drop the ball directly to the slide. The ball will roll and cook at the same time. So it will stay round. After the heated slide it will have a crust to stay round. Please try it... Thank you for one of the best youtube feed... From Turkey
大家好我是王刚，肉丸团不圆的同学可以交给摊主处理
If you want to cook your meatballs sous-vide, you can edge fry them in oil and afterwards freeze them till firm until they can resist the vacuum. Same principle as freezing raw fish without loosing lots of juices, first edge freeze, then vacuum.
"Alex, save me!" - de-juiced meatball
Actually, I think, that is part of the conundrum. Gradually working the meat through agitation might afford you with the shape and nutrition.
Try a silicon sphere ice maker and cook it sous it in that. Don’t seal it in a vacuum bag, but use a ziploc bag so you have a gentle vacuum on it. Also bring the sous vide temp up a few degrees to make up for the extra silicone layer. It should stay perfectly round
Somebody get this guy an Æbleskiver pan...
Get me one too
Used to own a meatball business myself and attempted similar experiments. Came to similar conclusions but also had success using a cast-iron Ebelskiver pan...if you are continually moving the meat a little bit as they cook, they will come out perfectly round.
3:11 Isn't this the sign for breastfeeding in toddler sign language? Anyway...great balls, Alex!
In that case I'm a toddler any time my wife's around :D
no don't feed your toddlers perfect meatballs please. you will set yourselves up for a life of absolute hell. don't spoil your kids.
A tip, since people usually apply a thin layer of flour to enhance the crust. U can do the same in that step and use the flour as dampener. And eliminate the fire hazard and slow process of differentiating the meatballs if you are doing more than one in your oil method.
Adam Ragusea is probably screaming *NO!* every 15 seconds while watching this video.
if you use a wok to do the deep frying, it might even help more because if you drop it in on the side (like the lions head video), you'll both minimize the splash, as well as probably keep it rounder because it doest just land on the bottom of the pan and flatten a bit, but rather roll down the side
Yeah ... You just "invented" Italian polpette. This is exactly the process that we use in Italy ... maybe we don't make them that round.
Is polpette a common word for Italian meatballs? I'm serving an Italian meatball at a wedding and can't decide whether calling them a polpette is pretentious or not
@@thisisDeus polpette is just italian for meatballs. If you feel like it just go for it and call them polpette.
Alex, I am now retired Aerospace design engineer so I have some comments. First, the idea of flash frying the meatballs is good. However, I would recommend that you perform a secondary moulding process (after the first few seconds in the fryer, return into a round mould and let cool. It could be like the "plyers", closable round mould). Let cool and then fry again in that shape. In the first shaping, don't let it drop so far. Gently lower it into the oil. It's not the shaper that is the problem, it's the decelleration at the bottom of the pan. I would also recommend that the ball be smaller in the first place as the weight will have an effect on the final outcome.
In the last restaurant I worked in they had a meatball recipe that called for running all the meat and non meat ingredients through a large meat grinder that you would use for say sausages to mix then the balls would be scooped with a large ice cream scoop (for consistency in terms of total mass) then hand shaped into a relatively good ball shape. Finally they would go to the refrigerator to cool down and firm up slightly before being par fried and finished in the oven.
With all respect to you and your meatball, but it looks like the meatballs we got in the dutch army in the emergency rations. But boy, did they taste good after a day in the field, cold, wet, miserable. Too salty, too spicy, too everything but most of all warm. That was the greatest thing about this meatball. It filled your stomach, gave you warmth, put you at ease, made you think at home. Nowadays I'm always on the lookout for these green cans of 4 meatballs because they represent this feeling for me. I don't have a lot of memories on good food, but this is my number 1.
This is the only channel i've ever seen that can make me salivate on a full stomach.
Alex, I have an idea. Two or three heated pulley wheels which spin away from each other (i.e side view: OO). You would place the fried meatball in the meeting point of the two pulley wheels, this would spin and turn the meatball as it cooks; creating and keeping it perfectly sphere.
Now that you have a method of frying perfectly round balls of a soft mixture, what else can you apply it to? Croquettes? Mac and chee? Loaded mashed potatoes?
You could of given Wang Gang a mention as you used his video. A lot of his videos have English subtitles. Well worth a watch
Alex, you need a chamber vacuum sealer to keep the moisture from being pulled out of your meatballs. I'm quite surprised you don't have one. It seems like something you would want. They're a large initial investment, but the vacuum bags are much cheaper so it ends up being less expensive in the long run.
Alex, also an idea - to make your meatball-forming device fully from solid metal and create a mechanism (gas-based) to heat it up so it "seals" the form of the meatball. If you make this I can die in piece
Hey Alex, if you put the meatball in a plastic bag (such thing for freezing something in it) and put it in a bath of water with the opening outside, the air will press out without pressing the juices from the meatball. Than you can cook it sous vide.
Alex, sous vide would still work. You don't need to use a vacuum sealer. You can simply pop the meatball into an open ziplock bag and dunk it in the water bath to expel the air without it deforming it's shape. Then you seal the bag, and clamp it to container.
bravo! my wife and i are rediscovering pasta and meatballs thanks to you!
Meat soup dumplings is what you got there! So juicy.
If the meatball gun rolled the balls into a wok of hot oil, with a constant velocity, they should stay very round. Likewise, an oven containing a radial racetrack of spiral-cut conical rollers, like a hot dog cooker but for balls, the constant motion would give them even cooking and perfect roundness.
@3:00 "but ive got the gun now" made my day. Should have been followed with "Fuc gravity"
seeing one of my favourite cooking youtuber watching one of my favourite cooking channel, strange and surprise 😂
You can freeze the meatballs, and then cook sous vide. We do that for crabcakes. Cooking from frozen is not an issue for sous vide, and it'll keep the structure and juiciness.
You should try using beef fat and first flash fry and then confit. Shuld result in a really juicy texture and a nice meaty taste.
As others have mentioned a Takoyaki pan might work but there is something called a Cake Pop Maker which might work better. It makes a smaller ball but it forms both sides at once like a waffle iron.
Alex, I really think you could have gotten sous vide to work! Just use water displacement when submerging your plastic bag, instead of using the vacuum sealer.
Essentially I just put my food in a ziplock bag, zip it partially closed, and then slowly lower the bag into the water and allow the water to displace (most) of the air. Then I seal the rest of the zipper. You don't get a perfect seal, but it's close enough and I bet that would have worked for your meatball!
My anova vaccum sealer has a pulse function so you can control the vaccum and stop it at whichever point you like before sealing, might help to hold the shape
I worked in a restaurant, we also set oourselthe cchallof a perfect meatball. We started just like you, with the flash frying, but then we cooked the meatballs in a veal demi glaze in the oven at around 80c till it was cooked. Which turned out to be an amazing meatball.
Hi Alex, I'm italian and in my family we use to fry the meatballs before soaking them in the tomato sauce. Sorry for watching your video only after all this time, if I'd watched the italian episode before, I would have told you to fry them. It would have saved you some efforts ;)
6:11 I was cheering for it before you brought it out. I feel like a real fan, I can see it coming when you're gonna use that magic machine.