No-Caper Lemon Piccata Chicken Meatballs

Live video:
https://www.facebook.com/Captiveating/videos/439568486776798/

Ahhh, the delicious smell of melted butter and garlic on a pan… Add lemon and you’ve got the whole block lining up at your door!

Tonight I made a no-caper lemon piccata sauce to coat chicken meatballs in that turned out AWESOME.

The aromas of the butter, garlic, lemon, and parsley’ed chicken meatballs came together so wonderfully that my mom walked in the house and said, “WHAT is that delicious smell!?!” Super, super compliment coming from her!

Tweaked the recipe a bit as the original one I used (http://littlespicejar.com/rustic-chicken-piccata-meatballs/) called for capers and chicken broth, which I did not have!

Besides that, I pretty much followed the recipe exactly how it was posted.

Here was the method to my madness:

Ingredients: (chicken meatballs first, then sauce)

1 lb ground chicken

1 egg

1/3 cup Panko breadcrumbs

3 garlic cloves, minced

A bit of lemon zest

A bunch of chopped up parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil to sauté the meatballs on each side for a nice edge

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4 tablespoons butter

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon flour

1 1/4 cups water + MAGGIE chicken broth cube

The juice of a whole, large lemon

A pinch of salt

Steps:

I mixed the breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, lemon zest and egg first, then added the ground chicken, mixed JUST enough for it to all be together.

I heated up the olive oil in my large sauté pan at a medium heat. Once hot, I put the chicken in small sized meatballs onto the pan to give them a sear on each side. This requires tongs so you can flip easily. I found that once you flip them, you can pat them down a bit to flatten them out and get a more even surface area for the rest of the sear.

After cooking them for a few minutes on each side I took them off, put them on a plate and began making the sauce.

The roux comes first. THIS IS THE HOLT GRAIL TO ALL CREAMY AND TASTY SAUCES. Mac n cheese, lemon piccata sauce, and mostly ‘white’ sauces to go with shrimp or pasta or fish. *drooling*

Okay, back to the process. To make the roux all you need is the butter and flour. Melt the butter with the garlic for this recipe, then add the flour, whisk it together over medium low heat since your pan is probably already hot from the searing, and when you see the bubbles start happening, that’s when you know it’s about to go down! *This is when it starts thickening – if you want to water it down some bc it’s too thick to begin with, you can add a bit more stock to it*

Now, add the lemon juice and the chicken broth(I used a MAGGIE CUBITO – a concentrated broth cube because I had no chicken stock. THIS is an amazing shortcut and an awesome little emergency ingredient to have in the house at all times).

Let the sauce thicken some more and gain flavor, then add the meatballs and cook on low for another 6-7 mins. I wanted to make sure they were cooked through after trying one after 7 mins so I let them sit on the lowest setting of my stove for another like 5-6 mins)

And BAM, they’re going to be my lunch with some rice and veggies.

These could def go on some spaghetti squash or even some pasta, quinoa is also a good go to!!

Thanks to everyone for watching the live video tonight! You made my night! And for those of you who haven’t, the link is up top in the post. (I kept my cursing at a very minimum so there are only few ‘shits’ said here and there in case of young ones!)

Everyone have a great week and as always, please post any questions in the comments!