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Pork Meatball Soup

Posted by roxiao on November 2nd, 2009

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So after a long hiatus (more like laziness), I finally got around to trying out another one of my mom’s dishes. This dish uses the leftover pork sparerib broth from our sweet and sour spare ribs recipe way back in September. So the following recipe is just for the meatballs in the soup. Veggies and other components are entirely up to you! We made this with some carrots and mushrooms we had lying in our fridge.
Ingredients:

0.5 lb lean ground pork
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp minced ginger
4 diced scallions stalks (whites and greens separated)
1 large egg white
0.5 tbsp starch
Pork stock
1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms
1/2 cup sliced carrots

Directions:

Mix first 7 ingredients minus the scallion whites in a large bowl and let sit.
Add pork stock, scallion whites, mushrooms and carrots to a pot. Add water to taste if too salty.
Cook the soup until the vegetables are tender.
Shape the pork into small meatballs and add to soup. If the meat is too loose, add some more cornstarch.
Simmer soup for 5-10 minutes on medium heat until meatballs are cooked through.

And that’s it. My mom will usually drop the leftover egg yolk into the soup as well. Add it after you turn off the heat once the meatballs are done. This way, the yolk is still semi-soft when I serve the soup

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Golden Shopping Mall – Part I

Posted by manda on September 28th, 2009

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Last week I discovered this magazine Edible Queens on the counter in the visitor center in the Queens Botannical Garden. And lo and behold I see two of my favorite chefs on the cover, Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain! Rob and I are big fans of Bourdain’s “No Reservations” on television and Eric Ripert is, well, god of all things Seafood in Manhattan. Flushing is still a very daunting place to me (especially since I can’t speak Mandarin to save my life) but this article Feasting on Flushing was just the ticket.
Walking down the stairs into the “shopping mall” was like entering a new world, full of little Asian-family kitchens. It was hot and steamy but the smells were unbelievable. Even the sounds of meat being cleaved, vegetables sizzling, fresh noodles being smacked and formed could bring tears to many an Asian’s eyes.
We ordered as much as we could carry, which included the jia cai he zi (chive pies), chu jiao (pig’s feet), zi ran chao yang (lamb burger), and liang pi (cold skin noodles). The chive pies ($1.50) were exactly how Rob’s mother makes them – huge, bursting with chives, studded with dried shrimp and scrambled egg. The pig’s feet were delicious and a great deal ($5 for 2 orders). The lamb burger ($2.50) was a tasty surprise, as it tasted of mexican chili spices. The liang pi ($3.75) won this round: the sauce was fantastic and had a nice little kick to it.
And even still, there are easily a hundred more dishes available in this place! So many dishes to try…so little time. But we will be back hungry for

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Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs

Posted by roxiao on September 13th, 2009

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Or Tang Cu Pai Gu as I call them. Everything up until now has been relatively simple or straight forward so I was particularly happy with the way this turned out. It’s slightly more complicated so I’ll break it down into different parts.
Spare Ribs
Ingredients:

2 lbs spare ribs
5 tbsp starch
1 tbsp flour

Directions:

Place the spare ribs in a large pot with water and bring to a boil.
Strain the spare ribs and dump the water. This is mainly to get rid of all the blood.
Put the spare ribs back into the pot and add enough water to cover the spare ribs. Add 1.5 tbsp salt.
Cook for 30 minutes.
While that’s cooking, prepare a mixture of the starch, the flour, and about 1/3 cup of water.
When the spare ribs have finished cooking, strain them and set them aside. You can keep the stock left over from this. My mom usually stores it and uses it for a light soup.
In a wok (or a frying pan works), heat some oil. If you’re using a wok, put in enough oil so that the spare ribs can be completely submerged.
Dredge the spare ribs and quickly fry them for 3-4 minutes. If you’re using a frying pan or do not have enough oil to completely submerge, fry for two minutes on each side.

Sweet and Sour sauce:
Ingredients:

4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 heaping tbsps of corn starch
6 tbsp of water

No real directions, just mix it all up. Make sure there are no clumps of corn starch in the mixture.
Putting it all together
What’s nice about this recipe is that you can make the spare ribs in advance but wait until later to do this final step.
Ingredients:

0.5 tbsp minced ginger
1 clove minced garlic
2 chopped scallion stalks (diagonal cut)
spare ribs
sweet and sour sauce

Directions:

Heat up 2 tbsp of oil in a pan or wok. The leftover oil from before works fine, just pour out the excess oil. I usually put it in a small container and save it for later.
When the oil is hot, add the ginger and the garlic.
As soon as they get fragrant, add the spare ribs and cook for 1-2 minutes. This is just to warm up the spare ribs if they have been sitting for a while.
Add the sweet and sour sauce. Add a little more water if the sauce starts to congeal too much.
Add the scallion stalks when the spareribs are evenly coated.
Cook for another 1-2 minutes.

That’s “it”! This is easily my favorite dish. You can adjust the proportions of the sauce to fit your tastes. More sugar if you like things sweeter, more vinegar if you like things more sour. You can also add more starch if you’d like a more sticker sauce in the final

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Pork and Chive Dumplings

Posted by roxiao on September 8th, 2009

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So we had an earlier entry for pot stickers where I promised a recipe for dumplings later on. Well, here it is! This is a bit of a loaded entry in that it details prepping the ingredients for the dumplings, folding the dumplings, and cooking the dumplings.
Ingredients:

2 lbs ground pork
4 tbsp ginger
1 tsp cooking wine
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 egg
1 tbsp sesame oil
0.5 cup water
6 cups chopped chives
optional: 2 tbsp oil
2 packs of dumpling skins (dumpling! not wonton!)

Directions for the filling:

In a large bowl, add all ingredients except the chopped chives and the oil
Mix until all the ingredients have been incorporated
Let the meat mixture sit for a couple minutes to let the flavor settle in. I usually take this time to chop the chives.
Slowly fold in the chives until the chives are evenly incorporated into the meat mixture.

Directions for making the dumpling:

Take a dumpling skin and brush some water around the circumference of the skin
Place one spoon of filling in the center of the skin
I will utterly fail at describing the folding method my mom taught me so I won’t even try. Essentially, you just want to keep the dumpling sealed while you cook. The easiest fold is just to fold the skin in half. Make sure that you press the skin together firmly for a tight hold.

Directions for cooking the dumpling (if you want potsticker instead, reference this entry):

Bring water to a boil in a large pot. How much water you use depends on how many dumplings you make. The water should more than cover all the dumplings.
When the water is boiling, add the dumplings to the pot.
In the first half a minute, stir the dumplings around gently so that the dumplings don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
When the water comes to a boil again, add a cup of water.
Repeat step 4
Remove dumplings and serve!

This recipe will produce a relatively saltier dumpling that doesn’t really require dipping sauce of any kind. At home, my parents usually just serve the dumplings with black vinegar. I personally prefer a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and sriracha sauce. There should only be a little sesame oil and you can add as much sriracha sauce as you want. The ratio of soy sauce to vinegar depends on what kind of flavor you’re

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Pork Meatball Soup

Golden Shopping Mall – Part I

Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs

Pork and Chive Dumplings

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