Three Free Thursday Part I: Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs with Edamame

Happy Three Free Thursday, Blog Readers!   To recap the process, on the first Thursday, I select three free recipes from sources on Twitter.  On the following Thursday, I report back via blog entry the full results of my adventures in the kitchen and let you know if you should try these recipes at home. Enjoy!

Recipe: Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs

with Edamame

Source: @Real_Simple

Link:http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chicken-teriyaki-meatballs-edamame-snow-peas-00000000006815/index.html

After the last Three Free Thursday adventure with "Pineapple-Ginger Rice with Edamame", I vowed that I would go back to basic recipes for awhile and simply help my readers find classic recipes to add to their overflowing recipe boxes.  However, after some helpful suggestions from @EatingtheWeek and reading this recipe for "Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs with Edamame", I felt I needed to try again.   

Anyone else think soba noodles
kind of look like brains?
Great Halloween dinner. ;-)

Findings:

The recipe is pretty basic and requires a bit of "re-engineering" - in particular adding different types of vegetables instead of just heaping three cups of snow peas into skillet/wok and incorporating different seasonings.  I tried @EatingtheWeek's brillant ideas - serving the dish over a bed of soba noodles and seasoning with red pepper flakes and/or brown sugar - in a few of my experiments. In the end, I settled on my favorite combination - mini meatballs atop a bed of soba noodles, adding a heaping serving of frozen stir fry vegetables in place of half of the snow peas, adding red pepper flakes and fresh ginger to a doubled amount of soy/brown sugar sauce and chilling overnight. 
After experimenting with this recipe, I did end up enjoying the final meal outcome.  It was particularly good as a cold dish for lunch the following day.  The flavors really deepened overnight and the soba noodles absorbed a bit of the sauce.  I'd suggest that everyone start with the basic recipe and my tips and then experiment with frozen vegetables to tailor the recipe to their taste. Let me know what combination works best for you and yours.

Tips: 

• Serve hot over white/brown long-grained rice or serve cold over soba noodles.
• Replace 1 1/2 cups of snow peas with 1 1/2 cups of frozen stir fry vegetables (thawed) and cook for 3-4 minutes before adding the sauce.
• Double the sauce recipe to better coat the rice (or soba noodles) and add stronger flavor to the dish.
• Make 32 mini meatballs instead of 16 larger meatballs to minimize cooking time.   
• Spice it up! Add a small pinch of red pepper flakes or 1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger to soy sauce/brown sugar sauce prior to reduction.

Rating: 3 out of 5  

Thanks for reading Part I of this week's Three Free Thursday! Feel free to send in recipe suggestions for Three Free Thursday on Twitter to @RecipEngineer or by e-mail RecipEngineer@gmail.com