Tara Riddle’s Korean barbecue bison meatball skewers.
Grilling a meatball is not as easy as it sounds. Grilling one on a skewer is an even harder feat. I have some tips and tricks to help make this come to fruition.
Korean Barbecue Bison Meatball Skewers
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
Pita
1 egg
1 pound ground bison- Black Rock Bison
¼ cup breadcrumbs
1 squash
1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1 cup Miso-ginger broth—Trader Joes
1 cup coconut milk
Golden Goddess Seasoning- Butler Meat
1 cup Basmati Rice
1 can diced pineapple
Cilantro
For the bison meatballs you will need 1 pound of ground bison. Head on over to your local Carson City Farmer’s Market to get your package of ground bison from Black Rock Bison.
Get out your mixing bowl and add the ground bison, 1 egg, and ¼-cup breadcrumbs. Season the meat with whatever your favorite steak or burger seasoning is and mix it up well.
First tip: Don’t add extra stuff to the mix. Less is more!
Don’t add extra veggies to your mixture as this will keep your meatballs from holding together and they will fall part. Use an ice cream scoop and make all of your meatballs the same size, so that they cook at the same time. You really want to push the meatballs together nice and tight into little balls.
After you have your bison meatballs created put them on some wax paper and pop them in the freezer. Freeze them about 20 minutes, so that they are really cold and stuck together; but not frozen where you can’t slide in a skewer.
While your meatballs are freezing you will want to start on the rice. It takes about an hour in the rice cooker.
1 cup Trader Joes miso-ginger broth
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup basmati rice
3 tablespoons Butler Meat’s Golden Goddess seasoning.
Press start and move on to the veggies.
In another bowl we are going to add in some sliced zucchini, squash, and red pepper. You can use different veggies if you want, but I love the above. I suggest the vendors at the Carson Farmers Market for the freshest veggies. These should be big cut into big chunks that will hold onto a skewer easily. Marinate them in some olive oil, and more Golden Goddess seasoning.
Next, we will pull the meatballs out of the freezer. You will want to skewer only meatballs on a skewer and only veggies on the other skewers.
Get your grill nice and hot.
Spray with non-stick spray.
The worst thing that can happen is your bison meatball sticks to the grill and falls apart. Do not try to flip your bison meatballs around multiple times while on the grill. You only want to turn them one or two times.
Let the grill do the work and give it a nice char to hold them together.
Bison is a lot leaner than beef and cooks rapidly. It will only take about 10 minutes to cook on the grill.
Putting your veggie skewers on first is the best action to take. I like my veggies nice and charred, so I always cook them about 15 minutes before I put the bison meatballs skewers on.
Once your bison meatballs are finished, brush them with whatever Korean barbecue sauce strikes your fancy. There are a bunch out there, so choose wisely.
After all the veggies and bison meatballs are off the grill you can toss on the pita bread for a couple of minutes to give it some grill marks on both sides. Then pull it off and wrap it in foil to keep it warm.
The rice should be about done at this point, so we want to toss in a can of diced pineapple or fresh, whatever you have will work fine. Don’t cook the pineapple with the rice, as it gets too mushy, but add it at the end to allow those tastebuds to pop.
I like to serve this family style on a huge round serving dish, so that people can dig in and take what they want. Pour your rice and pineapple into the serving dish, then top with meatball and veggie skewers, slice your pita into triangles and place on the side. Top with a bunch of chopped up cilantro and some lime wedges. Dinner is served.
Tara Riddle is a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Select. She is a vendor for Black Rock bison at the Carson Farmer’s Market.
