Chicken meatballs browned in a skillet, then finished in a lemon pepper cream sauce built in the same pan.

Twenty meatballs, four servings, forty minutes.

Divide the seasoning and the garlic

Three cloves of garlic and four teaspoons of lemon pepper, both split between the meatballs and the sauce.

One clove and two teaspoons go into the meat. Two cloves and two teaspoons go into the sauce.

Seasoning both components means each tastes of something on its own. Put it all in the sauce and the meatballs are bland underneath; put it all in the meat and the sauce is thin.

The parsley splits too, half in the meatballs and half held back.

Wet hands for rolling

A tablespoon and a half scoop, then rolled with wet hands into twenty neat balls.

Ground chicken is sticky and it clings to dry palms, tearing as you release each one. Damp hands let it slide off cleanly.

Re-wet every few meatballs rather than once at the start.

Ground chicken needs the panko and egg

Two thirds of a cup of panko and one large egg.

Chicken is leaner and softer than beef or pork and it does not hold together on its own. The egg binds and the panko absorbs moisture, giving enough structure to roll and hold shape.

Panko rather than fine breadcrumbs, which pack the meatballs dense.

Brown them, then take them out

Six to eight minutes over medium-high, turning occasionally, until golden brown.

They are not cooked through at this stage. They go back into the sauce for ten to twelve minutes more, and taking them to done now means dry meatballs at the end.

Turning occasionally rather than constantly. They need to sit against the pan long enough to colour.

Check the temperature at the end

Ground chicken should reach an internal temperature of 165F, which the recipe does not state.

Ten to twelve minutes in a simmering sauce after browning is comfortably enough for meatballs this size, but a thermometer through the largest one confirms it.

Poultry needs a higher temperature than beef, and ground poultry needs the whole thing to reach it rather than just the surface.

Cook the flour a full minute

Butter and the remaining garlic first, one minute until fragrant, then the flour stirred in and cooked another minute until light golden.

That minute removes the raw pasty taste flour has. It is the most commonly skipped step in any roux and it carries through the whole sauce if you rush it.

Light golden is the visual cue. Darker than that and you are making a blond roux, which has less thickening power.

Add the liquid slowly, while stirring

A cup of chicken stock and a cup of whole milk, added gradually.

Liquid poured into hot roux all at once seizes into lumps that will not stir out. Slowly, while stirring, it incorporates smoothly.

Then cook until it comes to a low boil and thickens slightly. It will thicken further over the ten to twelve minutes with the meatballs in it.

Lemon juice at the end

Two tablespoons, from one lemon.

Adding acid to a milk-based sauce carries a risk of curdling, and doing it at the end when the sauce is already thickened and off a hard boil minimises that.

Fresh rather than bottled. In a sauce with this few components, bottled lemon juice tastes noticeably dull.

Serving

Over mashed potatoes or buttered noodles for dinner, or on toothpicks as an appetiser. <p>The remaining parsley scattered over at the end, which adds colour to a pale dish. ## Lemon pepper seasoning Four teaspoons total, and blends vary considerably in how much salt they contain. Some are mostly salt with lemon and pepper added.

Check yours before adding the half teaspoon of kosher salt the recipe calls for. If salt is high on the ingredient list, hold the extra salt back and taste at the end.

Making them ahead

The meatballs can be rolled and refrigerated a day ahead, or frozen raw on a tray then bagged. Brown from frozen adding two or three minutes.

The finished dish keeps three days refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of stock, since a milk-based sauce can split if pushed hard.