Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)

one of these things is not like the others...

JS:
We've talked about the dearth of Vietnamese recipes on this blog before (in our Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad on Sesame Rice Cracker post) as a situation we need to rectify. We love Vietnamese food: we should be making more Vietnamese food at home.

Of course, one of my favourite things to eat at Vietnamese restaurants is cha gio (Vietnamese spring rolls).

I thought it's finally time to tackle cha gio for this month's Regional Recipes. (Scroll to the bottom for Regional Recipes information.)



JS:
As usual, we start off with a lot of ground pork, about 3 pounds' worth. It's because I had three pounds of ground pork in the fridge that day and I wasn't sure what to do with the leftover pork had we decided to make a smaller batch of cha gio.

Besides, I thought -- cha gio? I mean, surely the more we have, the better it is! After all, we can't seem to control ourselves when it comes to food.



TS:
What goes into the cha gio filling?

There's ground pork, ground shrimp, bean thread noodles, onions, carrots, eggs for binding, then salt, sugar, black pepper and fish sauce for seasoning.



TS:
There's also tree ear fungus!

OK, anytime you hear "fungus", it's not that appealing. So I'll rephrase: there's also tree ear mushrooms! Aren't they pretty? I love tree ear fungus mushrooms.

JS:
Having the pork poundage in my head and having accepted it as a theoretical proposition, I was quite surprised when I saw how much it actually was!

When you add up all the other ingredients, it seemed like my pork has doubled in volume.

Uh-oh.

TS:
Let us remind you of the volume we're dealing with. These are two large bowls of filling!



JS:
I was thinking about to the massive fry job this will entail and I was silently berating myself for being so gung-ho about the cha gio.

I had some rice paper in the pantry and was excited that we were finally going to use it. I've never worked with rice paper before, but I do prefer rice-paper-cha-gio over the spring-roll-wrapper-cha-gios.



JS:
Well, after this whole exercise is done, it turns out I still would have not worked with rice paper, as TS had to do the whole wrapping on her own.

I took one look at how she wrapped the first one and decided that I, with my less than dexterous fingers, most likely wouldn't make the grade in cha gio wrapping. I had a feeling mine would be all askew and loose -- and while askew might be acceptable, loose is not good.

TS:
My wrapping skills were not really up to par as well, but as is always in our case, I deemed it "good enough". Of course, that didn't stop JS and CSC from "back-seat-wrapping" for me. They would call out instructions like, "Make it tighter!" Or, "Put more filling!" Or, "It's too small!"

Yes, I tried to make my cha gio demure in size, but JS and CSC kept pushing me to put more and more filling in, despite the disastrous consequences that may ensue.



JS:
I let TS do all the wrapping -- CSC helped too -- because after all, I had another task to handle, namely, frying up the cha gio as soon as TS finished rolling them.

The dreaded fry job.

I devised a plan to handle the seemingly millions of cha gio rolling out of their hands.

I figured I'd do a fry-then-bake job as something more safe and something that would save me a bit of time. The plan was to have the rice paper wrapper to come into contact with hot oil for a time, until it's nice, golden, and bubbly, and then it's off to the oven to finish cooking.



TS:
Of course, in our haste and laziness, our cha gio would be rejected from any cha gio beauty contest. Just look at their grotesque selves above!

JS:
I don't know if my method actually saved me time, but it just felt like a saner approach than standing and waiting for each cha gio to finish cooking in the oil.


rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls

TS:
In our defense, look at the number of cha gio we had to fry up!


cha gio with spring roll wrappers

TS:
We actually had so much filling that we finished two packs of rice paper. Luckily, we happened to have some leftover spring roll wrappers in the fridge, so I set about rolling those too. This time, I fulfilled the fantasy shared by JS and CSC of humongo "cha gio", making these ones very large indeed.


rice paper cha gio, spring roll wrapper cha gio, and wrapper-less meatballs

TS:
Even with the humongo spring rolls, we still had some leftover filling. So, as you can see above, we just made plain ol' meatballs out of them.




TS:
We made nuoc cham (or more specifically, nuoc mam cham ngot) to serve with these rolls. That's a sauce made with fish sauce, water, sugar and vinegar.

JS:
Despite our execution issues, these cha gio were so good!



TS:
We took the suggestion by Wandering Chopsticks to eat them in the manner of the Southern Vietnamese by wrapping them inside lettuce leaves with some herbs. I definitely prefer them this way now!


In case anyone was wondering about the caption below the first photo, one of these rolls have a spring roll wrapper while the rest are wrapped with rice paper.

Can you spot the spring roll wrapper one?

TS:
Of course, where else would we have gotten the recipes but at Wandering Chopsticks. She has not one, but two, cha gio posts.

Recipes at Wandering Chopsticks
Cha Gio/Nem Ran (Vietnamese Egg/Spring Rolls)
Gluten-Free Cha Gio (Vietnamese Spring/Egg Rolls)
You may also want to make some Nuoc Mam Cham (Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce).

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eatingclub vancouver Regional Recipes posts
Greek Meatball Soup (Giouvarlakia)
Simmered Saba Mackerel with Daikon Radish (Saba Oroshi-ni)
Thai Fried Chicken
Roast Pork Belly with Puy Lentils
Beef "Ribbon" Kebab (Pasanda Kabab) with Cilantro Chutney
Canadian Onion Soup with Oka Cheese
Muffuletta
Börek with Beef Filling
Korean Pork Bulgogi (with Muu Namul, Kong Namul)
Lobster Congee from a Lobster Feast
Pork Jowl (Pork Cheeks) with Brown Sugar Rub
Beef Salpicao
Cuban Arroz con Salchichas (Yellow Rice with Vienna Sausages)
Cuban Pastelitos de Guayaba y Queso (Guava and Cheese Pastries)
Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)
Grilled Fish Fillet on Oregano
Pastéli (Greek Sesame Snaps)

We're submitting this to Regional Recipes, a blogging event created by Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok that celebrates food from all over the world. The torch has since been passed to Joanne of Eats Well with Others.

The region for this edition is Vietnam. The round-up will be hosted at Regional Recipes and will be posted after June 1. Regional Recipes information

Vietnamese food at eatingclub vancouver
Squid with Black Pepper
Trout in Vietnamese Caramel Sauce
Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)
Vietnamese Salmon Steaks with Cucumber, Garlic and Ginger
Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)
Vietnamese Chicken Cabbage Salad (Goi Ga Bap Cai) on Sesame Rice Cracker (Banh Trang Me)
Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)
Asparagus and Crab Egg Crêpes

Spicy Sweet Sichuan Popcorn

TS:
So to what use did I put our two different chile oils: Sichuan peppercorn oil and red chile oil? Why, to flavor popcorn, of course!


left: Sichuan peppercorn oil; right: red chile oil

TS:
For me, I needed to use both oils. The Sichuan peppercorn oil gave the popcorn its characteristic "numbing" sensation, while the red chile oil lent heat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper

To make this, I simply popped some popcorn using our air popper, then drizzled the whole lot with the two oils. I seasoned with salt too, of course.



TS:
Then, to make the popcorn extra delicious, I decided to mix in some caramel sauce as well!

No fancy caramel recipe here with corn syrup and all that. I simply melted some sugar (brown, in this case), added the tiniest amount of water, and waited for the sugar to melt and slightly thicken, and turn a nice color.



TS:
My popcorn creation was sweet, salty, spicy and numbing all in one! I'm a genius. :P


To make the oils:
Red Chile Oil (紅油)
Sichuan Chili Oil

eatingclub Sichuan/Sichuan-inspired (Szechuan)
Red Chile Oil (紅油)
Sichuan Peppercorn Chili Oil
Spicy Sweet Sichuan Popcorn
Gong Bao ("Kung Pao") Chicken (宮保雞丁)
Eggplant Dandan Mian (擔擔麵)
Sichuan "Crossed Hands" Wonton Dumplings 抄手, Two Ways (in Broth and with Chili Oil Sauce)
Sichuan Ma Po Tofu (麻婆豆腐)
Water Boil Fish (水煮魚) or Water Boil Beef (水煮牛肉)

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Red Chile Oil (紅油)

TS:
This is that scary red slick that one usually sees on top of Sichuan or Hunan dishes. =)




JS:
To make this red chile oil, I used 2 cups of peanut oil. I waited for the hot to be hot enough before I put in approximately 1/4 cup of the chili flakes.

TS:
We used these Sichuan red chile flakes. They are in bigger flakes and do smell different from standard chile flakes.

JS:
The chili flakes should sizzle quietly, not violently. (If the flakes start popping, then the oil is too hot.)

After five minutes, I turned off the heat. I was actually too lazy to strain the oil immediately and waited for the next day to pour the oil through a strainer or a cheesecloth.



JS:
After straining out the flakes, the result is a beautiful red oil that you can now use for your spicy Sichuan dishes.

Or not.

I think TS has another fantastic application for this oil. Stay tuned!


Red Chile Oil (紅油)
Sichuan Chili Oil
We used the two oils to make Spicy Sweet Sichuan Popcorn!

eatingclub Sichuan/Sichuan-inspired (Szechuan)
Red Chile Oil (紅油)
Sichuan Peppercorn Chili Oil
Spicy Sweet Sichuan Popcorn
Gong Bao ("Kung Pao") Chicken (宮保雞丁)
Eggplant Dandan Mian (擔擔麵)
Sichuan "Crossed Hands" Wonton Dumplings 抄手, Two Ways (in Broth and with Chili Oil Sauce)
Sichuan Ma Po Tofu (麻婆豆腐)
Water Boil Fish (水煮魚) or Water Boil Beef (水煮牛肉)

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Shredded Beef Dip Sandwich

JS:
I know I've gone on record on this blog saying that I don't like store-bought chicken stock. For most applications, 99 times out of 100, I prefer to use homemade chicken stock and will even substitute the chicken stock in a recipe with water if need be.

There is that odd one dish out of the hundred, however, when what I want to achieve is that industrial-commercial taste that only store-bought chicken stock can bring. You know, that taste.

Think the taste of a Chicken McNugget, what Michael Pollan has brilliantly called, in his Omnivore's Dilemma, as that "allusion to chicken," not the taste of real chicken, mind you, but maybe something even more powerful than that, what maybe is the collective nostalgia for that "lost" taste of chicken.

That powerful invocation of "lost" tastes and flavours -- well, that is precisely what I want to have with my shredded beef sandwiches.

Because it does make these shredded beef sandwiches taste so good.



JS:
Please don't ask me to find the exact quote and the page number from the book and enough with the pseudo-analysis.

This is a very straightforward recipe.



JS:
I sweated some garlic and onions in olive oil and butter. For this application, I didn't want them to get caramelized.



JS:
When the onions were sweated enough to release their fragrance, I plopped the beef into the pot and sweated that too.

You can, of course, brown the beef first if so inclined. I just didn't think that browning the beef was going to be necessary, given that I already had a lot of help in the "commercial flavour" department. I added garlic powder and black pepper.



JS:
Enter store-bought chicken stock. Enter soy sauce. This tandem makes commercial flavour.

The beef was left in the pot to simmer until tender, which took approximately two hours. You can leave it longer, I suppose, given that the beef was going to be shredded anyways, that is, there really was no way to overcook the beef.



JS:
When the beef was done, I used a couple of forks to shred the meat, after which I put the meat back into the pot with the juices. You can also separate the meat from its juices at this point.

The juice is of course going to the dip of beef dip. For somebody more patient, you can leave the liquid to cool overnight. This would make it easier to skim the fat off. I wanted to have my shredded beef sandwiches that day so I made do with spooning the fat out of the "jus" as best I can.



JS:
For the side, to complete the experience, I wanted to serve my shredded beef sandwiches with some french fries. I cut up some potatoes into sticks, with the best of intention of frying them up, but when I saw that there were quite a lot of them, I decided to bake them off in the oven. I might have over-baked them a tad in fact.

I bought some "artisan" baguettes from Safeway. Still in keeping with the theme, after all.



JS:
The verdict: very commercial, very good.

Nothing like having beef juices drip down one's arm after a very big bite.

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Recipe
Shredded Beef Dip Sandwich
adapted from The Pioneer Woman's "Drip Beef, Two Ways"

3 pounds bottom blade roast (or chuck roast)
1 large onion, sliced thinly
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp garlic powder
12 to 16 cups chicken stock (store-bought preferred)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp pepper

Melt butter in pot with olive oil. Sweat onions until fragrant. Add beef roast to pot. Add soy sauce, chicken stock, and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer until beef is tender, approximately 2 hours. Shred.

You can put the shredded beef back into the pot with the sauce or serve the shredded beef dry.

To use the sauce as dip, try to skim as much fat as possible with a skimmer. Alternatively, let sauce cool overnight in the fridge and skim fat the next day. Heat the sauce and serve with shredded beef sandwiches.

Suzhou Deep-fried Fish, or Suzhou Smoked Fish (蘇州燻魚)

JS:
I chanced upon this recipe for "Deep Fried Fish, Suzhou Style" while browsing through Pei Mei's cookbooks.

Being food-obsessed, it seems like I hardly read anything else anymore. If the book isn't about cooking or food and/or does not have any pictures of food, my eyes start to glaze over and my mind starts to wander. ;)

Suzhou?
Hm, didn't I read something about Suzhou being a sub-branch of Jiangsu cuisine?

Oh, why yes, Suzhou is indeed one of the three sub-branches, along with Wuxi and Nanjing, of Jiangsu cuisine.

This is the final (at least, final for now!) recipe from our Jiangsu series, to coincide with the second installment of Chowtimes' Eight Great Traditions of Chinese Cuisine (8GTCC) dinners. The second dinner is done and I can't wait for the next one.

For more information on Jiangsu cuisine, visit our Wuxi Pork Spareribs post.

about Fu Pei Mei
http://www.flavorandfortune.com/dataaccess/article.php?ID=379
http://tofuwatch.com/2009/07/decades-later-fu-pei-meis-chinese-recipes-particularly-tofu-still-inspire-who-was-she/

Pei Mei cookbooks

Squirrel Fish (松鼠鱖魚)
JS:
I knew I wanted to get a fish dish in as one of our recipes and perhaps the most well-known fish dish in Jiangsu cuisine is 松鼠鱖魚, usually translated as Squirrel Fish.

Don't worry, no actual squirrels are harmed in making this dish. This is a fish that is deboned, the flesh cut in a cross-hatch pattern to look like a squirrel in flight, then fried, and served with a sweet and sour sauce.

Like a lot of Chinese dishes, there is a story behind the dish "Squirrel Fish."

Apparently, a long time ago, an Emperor wanted to eat carp, but for some reason -- I'm not too clear about the reason -- carp was verboten. Of course, being the Emperor, he wanted to get his way. His chef then had to devise a way to make the carp un-carplike, using his kitchen techniques to make the fish look like a flying squirrel instead.

http://www.tastejiangsu.com/activities/food.html

We were served a version of this at our Jiangsu dinner at Shanghai Village, although Chef Ming's fish looks more like a dragon than a flying squirrel. In his more grandiose interpretation of the dish, he even included foam (from egg whites, I assume) to masquerade as clouds.


Squirrel Fish (or, "Dragon in the Clouds" Fish) at Shanghai Village
photo by fmed

urbanspoon: Shanghai Village (Vancouver, BC)

JS:
As you can see from the intricate knife work involved, Squirrel Fish is a tad ambitious. Plus, TS is not too crazy about fish in sweet and sour sauce, to the point of dislike. I'm not too crazy about fish in sweet and sour sauce either, but I'm only to the point of indifference.

So onwards to "Deep Fried Fish, Suzhou Style" as something that is more manageable within our limitations and inclinations.

Suzhou Smoked Fish is not smoked!


TS:
Just a note about the name of this dish. It is actually called 蘇州燻魚, which means "Suzhou Smoked Fish". JS originally did not want to call our dish such, as we did not smoke the fish for our version.

But then, I wanted to confirm that she provided the correct Chinese name for this dish, since she originally wrote down 蘇式油炸魚, meaning "Deep-fried Fish in the style of Suzhou". After intense googling, made more challenging by a language barrier, I have discovered that Suzhou Smoked Fish is not smoked at all!

First, a Squirrel Fish, now a non-smoked Smoked Fish! Those wily Chinese!

Perhaps JS and I are late to the party, because apparently, this fact is "known", as attested by mmm-yoso's posts describing this "smoked" dish (here and here).

JS:
A little research yielded the story behind Squirrel Fish. I don't know what the story is behind the non-smoked smoked fish though. Perhaps somebody can chime in?

TS:
Curiouser and curiouser.

Anyhow, here's how to make this non-smoked Suzhou Smoked Fish. It's so simple that you'll wonder at the length of our introduction.



JS:
I chose grass carp for this dish. I had originally wanted to do halibut, but decided against it because halibut flesh might be too firm for this application. I wanted a meaty fish but with some give. I took home about 2 pounds of grass carp steaks.

Since the fish was already in steaks, I cut up each into four sections instead of slicing the fish thinly. I didn't bother taking out the bones as I was afraid that the fish might fall apart without them.

The first step is to marinate the fish with some soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, green onions and ginger for 30 minutes. Wine, green onions, and ginger are often used with fish as it is believed to combat the "fishiness" of fish. In some Western recipes, soaking fish first in milk is supposed to achieve the same result.



JS:
In the meantime, I made the Suzhou-style sweet-and-salty sauce.

This is a very simple sauce consisting of soy sauce, sugar, water, a pinch of five-spice powder, and a few droplets of sesame oil. The flavour should be a balance of salty and sweet, tipping a couple of points towards the sweet side if you have to err. It was brought to a boil and simmered on low.


deep brown fried fish, ready to be soaked

JS:
After the fish had marinated for some time, it was a simple fry job. The fish pieces were fried until they're done and a deep brown colour.

When they're good and fried, we soaked them in the Suzhou-style sweet-and-salty sauce. We soaked ours for about 5 to 8 minutes a piece and took them out after to prevent them from getting too soaked and soggy. This is a longer soaking time (longer than 1 to 3 minutes) because our fish pieces were thick.

When it came to serving the fish, we drizzled the sauce over the fish. The sauce is delicious after being infused with the fried fish. Or is it the other way around? Is it the fish is delicious after being soaked in the sauce?

Anyhoo, which is infusing which doesn't really matter. This dish is fantastic.

Again, as with the other Jiangsu dishes, this is an instant hit with the family. We served it more as a "viand" (or ulam, to be eaten with rice), with the sauce included, rather than an appetizer, which is usually sans sauce.



JS:
This sauce is the same type of sauce that was served with the Spot Prawns dish we had at the 8GTCC Shanghai Village dinner. Definitely a keeper sauce with seafood.

Actually, it also works fantastically with crispy fried chicken. The method is the same: marinate the chicken pieces in the marinade (4 to 6 hours or overnight if possible), fry your chicken pieces, then soak in the sauce when done. Serve chicken pieces with sauce and eat with rice.


Prawns at Shanghai Village
photo by fmed

By the way, thanks again to fmed for letting us use his photos from the Shanghai Village dinner. Thanks, fmed!


eatingclub JiangZhe dishes
Jade Tower ( 翡翠塔), or Tofu with Aster Indicus (香乾馬蘭頭)
Wuxi Pork Spareribs (無錫排骨)
"Little Cubby Heads", Lion's Head Meatballs (小獅子頭)
Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭)
Suzhou Deep-fried Fish, or Suzhou Smoked Fish (蘇州燻魚)

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Recipe
Suzhou Smoked Fish (蘇州燻魚)
adapted from the recipe for "Deep Fried Fish, Suzhou Style 蘇式燻魚" in Pei Mei's Chinese Cook Book Volume I

2 pounds grass carp steaks, cut into quarters

Marinade
4 stalks green onions, white parts only, cut into slivers
3" piece of ginger, cut into slivers
2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp water

Soaking sauce
8 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp five spice powder
1 tsp sesame oil

Marinate carp pieces with marinade ingredients for 30 to 45 minutes.

In the meantime, in a separate pot, mix together ingredients for the soaking sauce. Bring to a gentle boil and put on simmer.

Fry fish pieces in oil until deep brown. Put fried fish pieces in the soaking sauce. You can take the fish out after five to eight minutes to prevent them from getting too soggy.

To serve, arrange fish pieces on a plate and drizzle with sauce, if desired. Garnish with green onions. Enjoy.

Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭 )

JS:
Lion's Head Meatballs are known far and wide, being on the menu of most Chinese restaurants, in China and abroad, regardless of the restaurant's regional affliations.

Originally, the dish has its roots in Jiangsu cuisine and this is another fine example of the culinary tradition's subtle sophistication and its insistence on the freshest and choicest ingredients.

For more information on Jiangsu cuisine, visit our Wuxi Pork Spareribs post.

This is a very simple dish to make, but when the dish is this simple, there's nowhere to hide.



JS:
I can imagine the most perfect rendition of Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs, having a Jiangsu chef make this with fresh-picked bok choy from the garden, meat from a pig that's just been slaughtered, and crab meat and roe from crabs trapped that morning. He or she will then cook the meatballs in a chicken stock, made from free-range chicken of course, that has been simmering a whole day.

Back to reality, back in reality, I'm afraid we lazypeople, made lazier by our modern "conveniences" unfortunately, have to allow ourselves some shortcuts.

Oh well, since I've never tried the Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs of my fantasy, I think the version that we've come up with here is still pretty darn good, if I may so myself.

Supreme?
JS:
And oh, just to be clear, we're calling this dish "Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs" to differentiate this dish from the all-pork genre of lion's head meatballs. It's just a moniker, not an indication of anything else.

Making Them Big Meatballs

Whoa, huge!

JS:
The biggest convenience we allowed ourselves is pre-shelled crab. We've used this brand before in another application (Crab Tostada), and while not the crème de la crème, it is good enough in a pinch. ;)

(You can of course use dungeness crabs if you are more industrious and ambitious than me. I weighed that option for a second, before I decided, not this time. Next time, maybe.)



TS:
Ground pork, crabmeat, green onions, and some seasonings. That's it!



TS:
Look at JS' hands of fury!

Braising Them Lion's Heads


JS:
I used a very basic homemade chicken stock for this dish, because I had three carcasses of chicken that were undressed but had nowhere to go except in a pot with water and a piece of crushed ginger.

You can use store-bought chicken stock, but do make sure that the chicken stock is a good brand because in this simple preparation, you will most likely taste any off-flavours (e.g. "tinny", preservatives, etc.).



JS:
I've read that this dish is often prepared with crab roe.

Since we weren't using fresh crabs for this dish, we have no access to their roe. We had a roe-like thing sitting in our freezer, some masago, and that is what we used to garnish the lion's heads. You don't have to use masago though and the dish doesn't suffer for lack of it.



TS:
As you can see, 2 pounds of pork plus 1 pound of crabmeat make 4 big meatballs!

JS simply plopped them into the simmering chicken stock. We had to turn them over sometime during cooking because they were so big that the stock didn't fully cover them. After a while, the bok choy went in.



JS:
I personally think the "Supreme" version of Lion's Head is indeed superior to the all-pork lion's heads, because the crab adds such a different dimension of savoury sweetness to the meatballs.

The taste is, in the words of those old Japanese Iron Chef critics, "subtle yet profound." It is a very light taste, very clean flavours, and yet, quite soul-satisfying.


left: pork-only lion's heads; right: lion's heads with crabmeat

TS:
But, as you can see above, we still had some pork meat leftover so JS made standard lion's heads out of them (sans crab). That's the volume of food it takes to feed the family, I guess! ;D

Other Lion's Heads
JS:
We've had a version of Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs at Suhang. Like the recipe below, this was served in a light broth, with some more crab meat on top of each head.

urbanspoon: Suhang Restaurant


"Little Cubby Heads"

JS:
We've also made an all-pork version, but smaller sized, that we've called "Little Cubby Heads". They were also served in broth.

There are also Lion's Head Meatball dishes that are not in soup but rather braised in a brown sauce. This is what we had at our 8GTCC dinner at Shanghai Village.


Lion's Head Meatball at Shanghai Village
photos by fmed

urbanspoon: Shanghai Village (Vancouver, BC)

JS:
For the record, I also liked Chef Ming's Lion's Head Meatball dish at Shanghai Village.

Wikipedia: Lion's Head


Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭)
eatingclub vancouver version


eatingclub JiangZhe dishes
Jade Tower ( 翡翠塔), or Tofu with Aster Indicus (香乾馬蘭頭)
Wuxi Pork Spareribs (無錫排骨)
"Little Cubby Heads", Lion's Head Meatballs (小獅子頭)
Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭)
Suzhou Deep-fried Fish, or Suzhou Smoked Fish (蘇州燻魚)


Recipe
Supreme Lion's Head Meatballs with Crabmeat (清燉蟹粉獅子頭 )

for meatballs
2 pounds ground pork
1 pound crab meat
8 scallions, white parts only
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp salt
1 egg

8 to 12 cups chicken stock
8 to 12 green bok choy (also called Shanghai bokchoy)

for garnish
masago or tobiko (optional)

Mix pork, crab meat, and other meatball ingredients together well. Form into big balls (4" to 6" in diameter).

Heat chicken stock in a pot, letting it come to a boil. Gently place your lion's heads into the pot and put on simmer for approximately an hour. Add vegetables towards the end and cook until desired doneness. Garnish lion's heads with masago or tobiko at this time, if using.

Serve and enjoy.

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