Chicken Meatballs Baked

James was accepted to the College of Charleston. Early decision. The email arrived Friday at 4:17 PM while I was at the library administrative offices reviewing budget projections for the next fiscal year, and my phone buzzed and I looked at it and saw a text from James that said: "I got in." Two words. I stared at the screen and the budget projections blurred and the office went soft and I put my head down on my desk for approximately thirty seconds and then I picked up my phone and called him.

He answered on the first ring. "Mom," he said, and his voice was shaking, which is something James's voice never does, and I said, "I'm so proud of you," and he said, "I know," and the knowing — the fact that he knows I am proud without needing to be told, that the pride is as constant as gravity in this family — was more meaningful than the acceptance itself.

Robert took us to dinner at the restaurant on East Bay — the same restaurant where he and I went for Valentine's Day, the same restaurant where the she-crab soup is good but not as good as mine. James ordered a steak and ate it with the appetite of a young man who has just received good news and intends to celebrate it with protein. Carrie raised her glass of sweet tea and said, "To the College of Charleston's newest bookworm," and James said, "I prefer 'bibliophile,'" and Carrie said, "Same thing, fancier word," and the table laughed, and the laughing was the sound of a family that has survived things and is now, for this one evening, purely happy.

Carrie's birthday is Saturday. She turns fifteen. I made the miso soup and teriyaki chicken and rice, following the recipes she wrote out on index cards — her index cards, her handwriting, her recipes. The mochi was a collaborative disaster: sticky, misshapen, hilariously bad. We ate it anyway, laughing, green tea powder on our faces, and the laughter was the dessert, and the dessert was perfect.

I gave Carrie a book for her birthday: "The Makioka Sisters" by Junichiro Tanizaki, a novel about four sisters in Osaka navigating tradition and modernity. I chose it because it is beautiful and because it is about family and because it is about the tension between staying and leaving, which is Carrie's central question and which the novel answers the way all great novels answer central questions: by refusing to answer them, and by showing you that the question itself is the point.

Carrie’s birthday dinner was her design — miso soup and teriyaki and mochi we laughed our way through — and I would not trade a single sticky, misshapen moment of it. But the recipe I keep coming back to in the days after, the one I made later in the week when the good feeling still hadn’t worn off and I wanted food that matched the mood, was this one: baked chicken meatballs, simple and satisfying and exactly the kind of thing you make when you want a meal that holds the whole table together. It’s Carrie who taught me that cooking is an act of love, written on index cards or whisked together without a recipe, and these meatballs are my contribution to that lesson.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb ground chicken
1/3 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil (for brushing)

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 400°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Combine the mixture. In a large bowl, add the ground chicken, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, egg, garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Using clean hands or a fork, mix until just combined — do not overwork the meat or the meatballs will be dense.
Form the meatballs. Using a 1.5-tablespoon cookie scoop or your hands, roll the mixture into balls roughly 1.5 inches in diameter. You should get approximately 20 meatballs. Arrange them on the prepared baking sheet with at least 1 inch of space between each.
Brush with oil. Lightly brush the tops of the meatballs with olive oil. This helps them develop a golden exterior in the oven.
Bake. Transfer to the preheated oven and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through (internal temperature of 165°F) and lightly golden on the outside. Do not flip them — the parchment prevents sticking and allows the bottoms to set cleanly.
Rest and serve. Let the meatballs rest on the pan for 3 to 4 minutes before serving. Serve over pasta with marinara, alongside roasted vegetables, or tucked into a crusty roll with a little provolone.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Meatballs Baked — The Dinner We Made Together When Everything Was Good