Chinese meatballs in soup - "Lionheads"

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

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 can chicken broth
• cooking wine
• salt
• white 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 can chicken broth and 1 can of water into pot (reasonably deep). Bring to boil covered.

While waiting for the broth to boil, add water to the pork until pasty (about 1/2 cup) 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 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.