better than your mom's

Shrimp Albóndigas With Sungolds

(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)

I’m just kidding with this sacrilegious statement around Mother’s Day.

But, am I?

Along the Mexican coast, you find lighter and brighter variations of meatballs made with ground fish or shrimp that shatter your expectations of what albóndigas can be.

Back home at Makai, a restaurant across from La Lancha, one of the last-standing public beaches left in Punta Mita, Nayarit (and where I got lost in a swamp with crocodiles in the middle of the night but that’s another story), my friend, and chef Sebastián Renner starts with albóndigas de camarón that are impossibly airy and tender. He sears them until golden brown and serves them over a velvety romesco made with dried chiles. They’re drizzled with a variation of salsa macha called salsa mulata, where the chiles and nuts are finely ground into a paste with tiny dried shrimp, adding a layer of intense umami to the dish.

In Playas de Tijuana, where the border wall delineates the westernmost borough of Tijuana from Imperial Beach and San Diego, there is a puesto dedicated to shrimp meatballs. At Albóndigas de Camarón Las Originales, chef and owner Miguelina Carrillo, originally from Sinaloa, serves her shrimp meatballs in a light tomato broth.

You can call me an albóndiga eccentric since I wrote you a recipe for Minty Pumpkin Seed Albóndigas and now I’m back on today’s Los Angeles Times newsstands with a recipe for Brothy Shrimp Meatballs with Sungold Tomatoes that are tender, fluffy, and bouncy. My version turns albóndigas into a weeknight dinner, which takes less than one hour to make. The secret? Some of the shrimp is finely chopped into a paste with onion and garlic to act as a binder when mixed with big chunks of shrimp, offering a range of tender, fluffy, and bouncy textures that are reminiscent of the bounce in Vietnamese Meatballs, Xíu Mại, with the juiciness of Mex albóndigas.

Sigh.

The albóndigas are gently poached in the broth with Sungolds for just a few minutes, bringing all of their flavor to the soup. It’s not quite peak tomato season, but Sungolds and cherry tomatoes are there for you with their reliable concentrated flavor that some of the big tomatoes are still lacking this early in the season. Top with cabbage, cilantro, onions, and a squeeze of lime. Then make some guacamole on the side with warm corn tortillas for dunking into the broth.

Spring is calling.

There are just a few ways to get this recipe and all involve supporting local journalism because I bet you AI has no roots in coastal Mexico and can’t come up with this recipe unless it copies it! Please pick up a copy of today’s Los Angeles Times on newsstands (I get my copies at 7-Eleven), subscribe to access the LAT digital content here, or become a paid Fresca subscriber to access the recipe below. Thank you for supporting hard recipe writing edited by the brilliant, Betty Hallock, and published by James Beard nominated, EIC Daniel Hernández, and the jefa, Laurie Ochoa.

Tropical sounds via Caloncho’s new album, TOFU, and Nortec Collective for Tijuana albóndiga sounds on this week’s recipe playlist for you and only youuuu

xoxo