Building Off A Childhood Favorite - A Great Use for Ground Turkey

I've traditionally not been a big fan of ground turkey, especially as a substitute for ground beef.  Primarily, that's due to the fact that in many cases, the supermarket butcher or agri-corporation preparing the ground beef will cut the very lean turkey breast with added animal fat.  Thus you can end up with a product that has just as much fat as ground beef but that doesn't taste as good.

However, when I was growing up, Nana would regularly make turkey balls and tortellini whenever I stayed with her and Papa for a night or a weekend.  A few weeks ago, I decided to try and recreate it for Colleen.  While I don't think I capture the magic of Nana's creation, I was able to develop a really tasty turkey ball that will enter heavy rotation at Casa de Griffin (just probably in different applications).

Turkey and Blue Cheese Balls 

16-20 oz. ground turkey breast (so far I have used 93/7 ground turkey, anything leaner might make the balls too dry) *See update below.
1/2 c blue cheese crumbled
1/2 c plain bread crumbs
1 egg
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp sage

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Mix together all ingredients, making sure to incorporate the blue cheese well without overworking the mixture.
3. Shape into 1 oz balls.
4. Bake for 5 minutes at 450°F.  Then reduce heat to 350°F and bake 20 minutes more.
5. Serve immediate.

Yield: 2 dozen turkey balls.

The second time I made this, I served them on a bed of couscous with green beans sauteed in garlic, butter and lemon juice.

This will most likely be served as an appetizer on Christmas Eve this year.

UPDATE (10-28-2011): As suspected, I tried this recipe tonight with 99/1 ground turkey and it came out pretty poorly.  The turkey balls were extremely dry and did not brown at all except for where they rested on the cookie sheet.  Stick with the lean ground turkey rather than an extra lean ground turkey.