When you have a name like mine, you spend a lot of time thinking about whats in a name.
Would I be so…Lexa…if I was Jennifer?
I’d like to think so, but I think the name helps with the whole package.
Someone I know recently had a baby and they gave the kid a completely wackadoodle name. I can appreciate their efforts, but the kid has a hard road ahead of him. Might I also assert I am completely serious when I love the name Shoshanna? (I am sure my Jew lust plays a role, but I think it is a pretty perfect name.)
It isn’t like I think every kid should be named Madison or Jake…in fact, I think it should be every parents goal to divert from the top 100 list. You want your kid to be a little special, a tad unique, ya know? Your kid is going to spend her whole life learning how painfully unspecial they are: you may as well at least try to humor them in the beginning.
My point is made by this recipe. I wish it had a better name. Baked chicken meatballs seems too simple, an understatement, painfully common. Honestly, these are the best meatballs I have ever had. Like ever. In the whole entire world. They are moist and flavorful and kind of unique due to the mix of chicken and panchetta and I had a serious love affair with these. I want to cuddle with them and bring them to meet my parents. They are so amazingly good and to call them just meatball…well…it seems a shame. They are so much more.
But that is what they are: a meatball. Maybe it is more in the character than the name. A plain old meatball can be pretty special, it seems. What do I know?

Baked Chicken Meatballs
from Smitten Kitchen
3 slices Italian bread, torn into small bits (1 cup)
1/3 cup milk
3 ounces sliced pancetta, finely chopped (you can swap in Canadian Bacon if you can’t find pancetta)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 large egg
1 pound ground chicken
2 tablespoons tomato paste, divided*
3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Preheat oven to 400°F with a racks the upper thirds. Soak bread in milk in a small bowl until softened, about four minutes.
Cook pancetta, onion, and garlic in one tablespoon oil with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large skillet over medium heat until onion is softened, about 6 minutes. (Alternately, as in “I thought of this after the fact”, I’d bet you could render the pancetta for a couple minutes and cook the onions and garlic in that fat, rather than olive oil.) Cool slightly.
Squeeze bread to remove excess milk, then discard milk. Lightly beat egg in a large bowl, then combine with chicken, 1 tablespoon tomato paste, pancetta mixture, bread, and parsley. Form 12 meatballs and arrange in another 4-sided sheet pan (I used a 9×13 roasting dish).
Stir together remaining tablespoons of tomato paste and oil and brush over meatballs (the paste/oil does not mix in any cohesive manner, but just smoosh it on and run with it) , then bake in upper third of oven until meatballs are just cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes (though mine took a good 5 minutes longer).
* Deb accidentally added a heaping tablespoon of the tomato paste into the meatball mixture the first time she made it, and ended up liking it better than without it. She’ d use the tomato paste on top too. It’s good both places. (I did the same thing. It was awesome.)