"Polly Esther" wrote:
>"Bob Terwilliger"
>> Polly wrote:
>>
>>> Company's coming and I already had the kitchen clean. Didn't want grease
>>> spattering. I looked around a little with the recipe books and found in
>>> Party Foods and Appetizers by Gwen McKee a way to cook them with no mess.
>>> Discoveries: The neat little scooper tool that was meant for cookie
>>> dough worked great. I don't think the ingredients mattered but the
>>> trick was:
>>> 'place in greased pan and bake at 375° for 30 minutes *covered*'
>>> I had not wanted a greasy mess to clean up and covered in the oven
>>> worked great. The jelly roll pan was a good choice and next time I'll
>>> line it with foil and not even have that pan to wash. Polly
>>
>> You can also make (somewhat misshapen) meatballs in a mini-muffin tin.
>
>I love those little muffin tins. Since I don't fry if I
>can find another way.

Muffin tins, especially those minis, are more laborious to clean than
a skillet/roasting pan... and with muffin tins if you intend to make
sauce you lose the fond. Jumbo muffin tins are good for making meat
loaf if one likes more surface crust, but all those cavities are more
difficult to clean than one pan... that's why so many bakeries make
muffins in those paper liners, to simplify clean up, of course then
they're not muffins, those are cup cakes. Muffins have to have crust
over their entirety, not peeled off with the paper. The easiest way to
form meatballs is with your own wet hands, the best tools are at the
ends of your arms. A normal person doesn't need any kind of tool
other than their hands to measure meat balls, even a blind person can
make consistantly sized meatballs by hand... any normal five year old
can make meatballs by hand faster and better than you can with a
scoop. Bake them in a roasting pan and then deglaze for your sauce.
And meatball making is not pharmacy, meatballs don't have to be +/-
5gms, or even perfectly round... plated with pasta and covered with
sauce, popped in your mouth you couldn't tell a meatball from a
testicle... ouch, watch those teeth, Polly! LOL