Chef Draz Culinary Consulting worked on developing several variations of meat balls for a major retailer’s home meal replacement program.  The client’s process involved mixing, forming and baking meat balls in the deli department to be assembled in a popular meat balls, pasta and marinara meal.  The retailer faced many challenges with inconsistent product and labor. The solution was sourcing a fully cooked product.  

 

But why seek out a sous vide option when there are numerous fully cooked meat ball products on the market? The gold standard product was a large 4 oz. meat ball.  Meat balls of this size are hard to produce in the typical in-line oven process. Unlike common 1 oz. meat balls, larger formats are likely to be over cooked by the time the interior reaches a safe temperature.  Additionally, through -put is greatly diminished.  Accurate temperature control and the sealed packaging of sous vide offers more even cooking and better moisture retention.

 

Starting with the customer’s gold standard recipe we were able to commercialize their product. A light home-style texture was a key quality factor, so special attention was necessary in mixing and forming these meat balls. Along with commercializing a match to the gold standard, we were able to present several formulation options for further cost savings.

 

Through an unconventional approach to a very traditional food product, Chef Draz Culinary Consulting recreated an Italian American classic.