Korean Style Meatballs

I really dig Korean food.  I am still trying and learning, but so far, me likey!  Last night's meal wasn't the yummy goodness I associate with the Korean food I have tried, so I decide to try again.  Tonight's clean up item (see Sunday's post to read my declaration of war on kitchen clutter:) frozen meatballs.  I know, I know.  Why, in the name of sanity, would I have purchased such a thing??  Well, sanity had nothing to do with it and lets move on.  So, what was I going to do with my little processed balls of meat?  I head to the web and look up different Korean sauces, and find a wing glaze I think will work nicely. (The recipe for the wings I based my meatballs off of can be seen here.)  I'm a little embarrassed to say they were delicious!  The prefab meatballs also made this supremely easy.  The hardest part was the 3 minutes I grated ginger.  (tip:  buy ginger root, peel it, wrap it in plastic wrap, and freeze it.  It keeps forever and is easier to grate)  We ate them wrapped in lettuce and the boys had jasmine rice with theirs.  A solid 4 all round.  Perhaps with real meatballs, they could even be a 5!

Korean Style Meatballs

64 bite sized meatballs (25 oz) (these were fully cooked and frozen.  if they were raw, I would cook them first and skip the stove top portion and water in this recipe)
For the Sauce:
1    inch piece of fresh ginger finely grated on a microplane
2 t  sesame oil
6 T  soy sauce
3 T  sugar
3 T  honey
5 ea garlic,minced
1/2    small onion,minced
1 T  red pepper paste (kochujang)
1 c water
For Serving:
Butter Lettuce (1-2 heads)

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine all of the sauce ingredients except the water in a good size pot.  Add the frozen meatballs and coat well.  Turn the burner to high and add the water. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring often until the meatballs are warmed though.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer meatballs to a shallow baking dish.  Continue to cook the sauce in the pot until thick and syrupy.  With a rubber spatula, scrape all the sauce evenly over the meat balls and put in oven.  (I'm sorry but I am going to have to be vague at this point because I had a 3 year old having a meltdown)  I think they cooked 5-10 minutes before they looked all nice and glazed, but since I put them in a dish that was a bit too small and they were in two layers, I gave them a quick stir and basted them with the sauce in the bottom of the dish and cooked them another 5-10 minutes.  The main thing is to make sure that they are well coated and that the sauce is not at all watery. The picture below is them just out of the oven.