Chinese meatballs in soup - "Lionheads"

By Victor Liu
Servings: Makes 10 meatballs, serves 3-4 people.

Planning

Defrost ground pork 1 day in advance.

Ingredients

• 3/4 - 1 lb. ground lean pork
• 6 heads of bok choy (the green kind, not the white) OR equivalent amount of napa cabbage
• 1/2 can (~1 cup) chicken broth
• cooking wine
• salt
• pepper
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• cornstarch
• 2 bundles (~2 cups) vermicelli noodles (OPTIONAL)

Preparation

If using vermicelli, let it soak in water before doing the later steps.

Pour 1/2 can chicken broth (~1 cup) and 1/2 can of water (~1 cups) into pot (reasonably deep). Bring to boil covered.

While waiting for the broth to boil, add 2 cups of water to the pork and stir (uniform direction). Stirring should not encounter too much resistance. Do not add so much water that the pork is saturated.

Mix these into ground pork:

• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• pinch (1/2 tsp.) of sugar
• dash (1/2 tsp.) of white pepper
• 1 1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 tbsp. cooking wine

Make sure soup base is boiling from Process 1 at this point. Add 4 heaping tsp. of cornstarch to the mixture. Parcel out the meat mixture with a moistened spoon into the soup. Clumps about the size of a fist work best. Boil for about 20 minutes (more is ok).

Just before the 20 minutes are up, in a wok (large enough for veggies and the soup), stir fry bok choy in 1 tbsp. oil until the leaves are limp (2 min.)

If using vermicelli, add it in and cook another minute.

Pour soup and meatballs into the wok and cook another 5 min. Add salt to taste.