Korean Meatballs and Noodles

I baked the meatballs in a 12 inch cast iron skillet, which made the pan sauce a breeze. Also used half ground beef and half ground pork, and a Braeburn apple. Recipes doubles well.

I didn't think the assertiveness and sweetness of the gochujang would complement udon or pasta so I stuck with serving the meatballs in the traditional manner with regular kalbi or bulgogi with short grain rice, kimchi and lettuce. It was fantastic. Next time I will consider adding cilantro to the meatball mixture.

As a Korean American, I love to increase the flavor, so I increased to a teaspoon of grated ginger, a teaspoon of black pepper and upped the garlic to six cloves. Tastes great. Definitely recommend greasing the foil to prevent burns. Also, to get the pan juices, drain them about halfway in (you'll be cooking them in the sauce pan so no need to worry about bacteria) before the juices evaporate and start burning. I also did half gochujang and half ketchup for my kids and it was just right.

Meatballs delicious despite the fact that the pan juices burned off in the oven so could not add anything to the sauce. Woudld recommend greasing the pan slightly to avoid burning buttom of meatballs.

The meatballs would be very delicious on bahn mi bread with a gochujang mayonnaise.

By gochujang do you mean 2 tbsp of the hot red paste? Or do you mean 2 tbsp of the paste mixed with sugar and vinegar?

This dish is great as the cookbook intended, eaten wrapped in leafy greens with scallions and a dab of gochuchang. Perhaps a squirt of sriracha, and an assortment of banchan (little Korean side dishes). And lose the breadcrumbs ... very inauthentic.

We don't need pasta with our Korean meatballs. The original is tastier is and healthier.

P.S. Gochuchang is available in lots of markets, including Whole Foods. Look for the "Mother In Law" brand. Yummy.

I usually add one tablespoon each of doenjang (or miso), soy sauce, sake and mirin to the sauce, as well as about one teaspoon of honey. Makes the sauce much more complex and tasty, especially the doenjang.

We really enjoyed this dish. And it was meant to be as I found a jar of gochujang at the grocery that very day. Look forward to making this again soon.

ps - 1/3 cup pear was one pear.

Excellent! I used half ground turkey and half ground chuck for the meatballs and included a bit of cilantro. The udon noodles were a split decision; my husband loved them, I would've preferred linguine.

Thanks to the reviewer who recommended using a potato masher to combine the meatball ingredients.

I used gochujang hot sauce in a 10-oz bottle.

I baked the meatballs as directed, but in a 12" stainless sauté/roasting pan (sprayed), made the sauce in the same pan. A keeper!

The meatballs were wonderful! We are big Korean food fans, and the whole family like this. I didn't do too well with the gochujang and pasta. I used sweet potato noodles from the Korean store, which were excellent, but I the gochujang I used was too spicy hot. It was still good, but.... Next time I will serve it with romaine leaves, gochujang, kimchi, and rice.

The meatballs themselves were good and a snap to make. I baked them in cast iron so that I could just make the sauce in the same pan. Even so, the pasta ended up kind of dry and didn't really integrate much with the meatballs. I think next time I'll just serve them with rice or wrapped in lettuce.

Really, really good. You do need to use the higher-fat ground beef, or the recipe comes out a little tame.

Proposed sauce is not nearly enough

Used fine ground kasha, lamb, apple cider vinegar and maple syrup instead of breadcrumbs, beef, rice wine vinegar and honey. An extra egg would have been helpful. Added 1 tsp gochujang to the meat mix, pressed the mixture into a greased 8" square pan and baked it like a loaf. Excellent.