Fist of Kitchen presents… Eat it: China!

meatballs

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 8 dried mushrooms, finely chopped
• 12 water chestnuts, finely chopped
• 1 c. onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp. ginger, minced
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp. sherry
• 4 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. sherry
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 1 tbsp. oil

soup

• 1 head cabbage
• 1 ½ c. hot water

preparation

Mix the meatballs together and form into whatever size you like, then sauté in hot oil. Nestle the balls amongst the cabbage leaves in a pot, then simmer with the water.

I was looking forward to trying this—porky, crunchy meatballs in a nice broth flavored with onion and ginger. Many people report this as a favorite comfort food, too. Frying up the meatballs was encouraging. The light texture and delicate flavor reminded me of some of the things I like best at dim sum…like the inside of a dumpling.

The sisters’ recipe calls for the sauteéd balls to simmer for a half-hour in water, and that might be where this went south. The flavor leached out of the meat without contributing to the “stock,” leaving it with nothing but faintly-livery, over-wet drabness. Google image searching the Chinese characters turns up a slightly different-looking thing than the English does—much more like the “red cooking” braise that’s popular in the eastern provinces. I so want this to be good! Next time, we’re going to try: grinding the meat at home, making smaller balls (you can see from the photo that ours were about baseball-size, which was unwieldy for eating) using an actual stock for the soup base, and using a more delicate, cuisine-appropriate cabbage (basic red and green were all that were available at the coöp today). We should use green onions, too. I don’t think that’s enough to make the meatballs right, though, and have some research to do…

One thing I did learn, though, is the pinyin on this is shī zǐ tóu. As in shihtzu. Anyone who would name a dog after a cat has a sense of humor I like!