Recipe: Niku-dango. Delicious Japanese meatballs. Goes perfectly with rice!

You can eat these meatballs warm or cold. My mom used to put it into my bento box for lunch all the time. Nostalgic!

The sauce is a savoury Japanese sauce - almost like teriyaki sauce. It goes perfectly with white rice. 
We call these "niku-dango". Niku is meat, and dangos are the bite sized mochis/dumplings usually eaten as dessert.

Recipe for approximately 10-15 meatballs:

• 1/2 pound of minced meat (I used turkey)
• 1/4 large onion
• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs (panko)
• 1 tbsp milk
• potato starch (this makes the sauce more sticky)
• ★ 1 tbsp of Japanese sake
• ★ 1 tbsp of Japanese mirin

• ★ 1 tbsp of Japanese sake

• ★ 1 tbsp of water
• ★ 2.5 tbsp of Japanese soy sauce
• ★ 2 tbsp of sugar

Steps:

1. In a bowl, mix the panko & milk. Once the crumbs get wet, add the meat and chopped up onions. Mix.
2. Mix well, then create little bite sized balls. Like a "dango" (bite sized mochi). 
3. Put them into a bowl or bag with some potato starch. Make sure the balls of meat are covered in them.
4. Boil the meatballs until cooked thoroughly.
5. In a separate pan, start cooking the sauce (all the items marked with ★)
6. Add the boiled meatballs into the pan with the sauce.
7. Cook on low heat and simmer until the sauce becomes sticky or saucy.

Serve with white Japanese rice. Yum!

Soon on my #foodblog. Niku-dango! #Japanese meatballs. Link on my profile!

A video posted by Japanese lifestyle blogger (@jpinsider) on Jan 24, 2015 at 4:48pm PST