These lightly seasoned chicken meatballs are skewered, grilled, and finished with a sweet and salty tare sauce.
done in kebab form. This required taking a pretty wet ground chicken mixture and getting it to cling to a skewer, which is no easy feat to accomplish. In my tests, chilling the mixture in the freezer for a little while helped things out, making the meat firm enough to at least withstand the short trip from tray to grill, where it became more solid quickly as it cooked over a very hot fire.
Once I had the meat ground, I worked on giving it a mild seasoning. Chicken is a pretty lightly flavored meat, so I didn't want to overwhelm it with too many additions. I started slowly by mixing in small amounts of scallions, minced ginger, minced garlic, salt, and white pepper. Continuing down this path, I added in an egg—a pretty ubiquitous binder in many meatball recipes. The ground chicken quickly became wet again, but not loose like it was originally. The meatballs didn't hold the tight round shape the previous batch did, but also didn't break apart. They didn't hold on the skewer as well either, which required me to support the meatballs on the stick with my hand when moving them into a storage container.
From the get go, they certainly did—staying on the skewer without additional support, turning with no sticking or breaking after being browned on one side, then holding up throughout the rest of the cooking time, including after being brushed with tare right at the end. I thought I had a clear winner already, but the first taste proved otherwise. Despite the awesome appearance, the meat was a bit dry and rubbery, albeit the flavor overall was excellent.