These aren’t your average meatballs but a regional favorite. Ham and ground beef are bound together with butter crackers and spicy buttermilk then shaped and fried in a sticky sweet sauce.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 CookingGuiltFree | 2011-05-06 02:00:44 |  4,617 Views |
Iowa ham balls!
Last year I moved in with an Iowan. The way people outside the Midwest confuse Iowa and my home state of Ohio you might think that my fiancée Liz and I grew up in similar cultures. And we certainly did in many ways. But they weren’t the same. The Midwest is a huge area and Des Moines is hundreds of miles from Cincinnati. (They’re not even in the same time zone.) So during trips to different parts of Iowa to visit Liz’s family and friends I got an education in the traditions of the Hawkeye State.
Even before I started driving to Iowa once a month I was fascinated by ham balls Iowa’s version of those glazed cocktail meatballs that are irresistible at parties. And now that I have an Iowa roommate I’m working on my own recipe.
According to numerous vintage sources the Iowa ham ball originated as a way to repurpose leftovers. Cooks would mince the night before’s ham mix it with thickeners and milk form it into meatballs and often bake it in a sugar glaze.
