Substitution for Corn Meal in Meatballs

[MelindaE]

I have a recipe for Tamale Balls that calls for 2 cups of corn meal (along with 1 lb ground beef, 1 lb ground pork, garlic, tomato juice, 1 egg, canned tomatoes, and spices).  Does anyone have a good suggestion for a substituion for the corn meal.  It is what holds the meat balls together and gives it the "tamale" like taste.

[ShannonM816]

Nothing is going to give you that corn flavor.

I would probably browse different meatball recipes and see if you can find something with similar spices, or look for some that use something like coconut or almond flour and check what ratios they use and then try to alter your recipe, if that's what you want to do. Do keep in mind that sometimes if there's a thing you really love, Whole30-fying it is just not as satisfying, so it really might be worth trying other, totally different recipes.

My guess is that if you left out the tomato juice and drained the canned tomatoes pretty well, you might not need any kind of "flour" to hold it together -- I don't think any of the meatballs Mel Joulwan does have any, but they also don't have really juicy ingredients. You could also used mashed potato or sweet potato to make it a little thicker, the way some of the salmon croquet/salmon cake recipes do, but again, no corn flavor from that.

Here's a link to some meatball recipes, and this is an example of what I mean about the salmon cake recipes that use mashed sweet potatoes.

[laura_juggles]

Because the prevailing flavor of tamales is corn, I don't think there is going to be anything that's going to make that recipe work. Sounds like one that'll need to be reserved for outside Whole30