My friend just returned from a trip to Ireland & Scotland, and shared her experience with and love for the super-popular Irish snack in my Fb WFD group. I’d not heard of it before, nor experienced it when we were in Dublin many years ago), and now I’m bummed I never got to try it, bc it sounds freaking delicious.
My fried is vegetarian & had the tofu version, which she also loved.
Well, if it was something I encountered here in the Boston area, I would say it looks like a Chinese-American version of a salt and pepper style dish. These are often batter fried and tossed with peppers (usually a jalapeno or long horn, depending on the place, along with some dried red chile peppers), pepper (Sichuan if the place caters to that even remotely…not often though, so usually black pepper…), and salt. Sometimes fried onion chunks. A local place near me does calamari, chicken, and shrimp versions. I can see where adding chips would be popular in places with a chip culture, especially as a late night drinking/recovery food.
Breaded or battered chicken in the shape of balls.
Very common in Canada, too.
It’s a staple of Chinese Canadian food. Usually sweet and sour chicken balls, but they’re also served with lemon sauce, pineapple sauce or honey garlic in some restaurants.
I took my Bay Area relatives for sweet and sour chicken balls in Calgary. They had never seen them before.
It’s really more of a Canadian thing to have Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls.
The American Chinese or Chinese American restaurants usually only serve battered Sweet and Sour Chicken (or pork).
Chinese Canadian restaurants often have both chicken balls and sweet and sour chicken. Some CDN restos serve Chicken Balls as the only Sweet and Sour Chicken option.
The balls tend to have a breadier batter and less chicken inside each piece compared to American sweet and sour chicken.
Out of maybe 50 visits to Chinese American restaurants in NYC and California, I can’t ever remember seeing Sweet and Sour chicken balls on an American menu. They were novel to my American relatives.
Which is not to say Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls don’t exist anywhere in the States.
Chicken balls aren’t being sold at every mall food court, or frozen at the grocery store, the way they’re sold across Canada.