Panade: Keeping Meatballs Tender

Panade: The Starch That Keeps Meatballs Tender 

A panade is a mixture of starch and liquid, such as breadcrumbs soaked in milk, incorporated into meatballs, meatloaf, or forcemeat to keep the finished product moist and tender. The starch absorbs liquid and coats the proteins, preventing them from binding too tightly during cooking. In this episode, Rhoda recognised that the cornmeal already present in liver mush would function perfectly as a panade when combined with ground pork for albondigas. Home cooks can apply this principle: adding a tablespoon or two of cooked polenta, fresh breadcrumbs, or soaked white bread to a meatball mixture will yield a noticeably softer, more yielding texture.