Warm Orzo Salad with Wild Turkey Meatballs

Grind your turkey trimmings to make delicious meatballs that pair well with this warm pasta salad

I don’t do it too often, but yes, you CAN grind your wild turkey meat!

If you’ve had trouble cooking wild turkey properly and have ended up with a dry or tough bird time and time again, you should consider grinding some of it up for an ingredient that’s much easier to cook with. 

I personally like to grind breast trimmings, skin, and thigh meat, which ends up giving me a nice grind that’s a bit lighter than just dark meat. The skin helps add a little bit of fat to the mix as well. 

Speaking of fat, there’s probably not going to be enough fat in this grind to make an enjoyable burger, meatloaf, or meatball. It will be fine for sautés and casseroles, but way too dry for anything solid. I highly recommend you add something to moisten up that grind. That could be in the form of eggs, breadcrumbs, ground fatty pork, gelatin, a panade (fresh breadcrumbs soaked in milk), or a certain secret ingredient that I used for these meatballs: mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise is simply an emulsion of eggs, oil, and vinegar. That means your meatballs will benefit from the binding action of eggs, the juiciness of the added fat from the oil, and even a little zing from the vinegar and general mayo flavor. 

I found that 2 tablespoons of mayo per pound of ground meat works quite well and doesn’t overwhelm the meat with greasiness or tartness. 

You can use different mayos for different meatball experiences, too. Try using kewpie mayo for meatballs that are a little sweeter with a certain je ne sais quoi about them. Flavored mayos work well, too. Try using a lemon or chipotle mayo for different flavors. 

Use this trick with any lean ground meat (so basically all wild game) or even with store-bought poultry.

Since turkey, even wild turkey, can sometimes be a little ho-hum in terms of flavor, I added some more ingredients to the meatballs to create a pedestal that would allow that natural flavor to shine. Alliums always do the trick, so I added some minced scallions (you could also use chives) and some garlic, which sit nicely behind the flavor of the meat, adding so much flavor without taking over. 

Make sure that you don’t overwork your ground meat. If you want nice and tender meatballs, you’ll want to mix just enough to combine, using a wooden spoon or—preferably—your hands. Overworking the meat will cause your meatballs to be tough. Many Asian recipes purposely overwork the meat in a deliberate way to create springy, bouncy meatballs. These meatballs are delicious, but they’re not what we’re after here. 

Be sure to salt the meatballs at the last minute. Adding salt early (before you roll the meatballs) causes reactions in the meat, disrupting the bonds between amino acids and a protein called myosin. These proteins dissolve, causing the meat to become more sticky and dense. These dissolved proteins then link with each other, forming large, connected structures which cause muscle fibers to constrict and tighten. These tightened fibers cause the meat to shrink while cooking and cause toughness in the end product. 

The reason this happens with ground meat, as opposed to, say, a steak, is that ground meat has already been physically transformed and opened up through the process of grinding. Steak will greatly benefit from early salting. A burger or a meatball? Not so much. 

Lastly, when you’re ready to roll your meatballs, make sure you wet your hands a bit. I keep a bowl of water beside my work station and dip my hands in every few meatballs. This stops the meat from sticking to my hands and makes rolling the meatballs way easier. 

Follow these tips and tricks and you’ll end up with the best meatballs you’ve ever had!