Shandong Vegetable Balls
Made with a diverse range of ingredients, this dish has a light, tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Rich yet never greasy, it features a thick, savory broth balanced with sour, spicy, and aromatic notes.
Ingredients
Lean pork (washed, minced into paste)
to taste
Eggs
to taste
Fatty pork (sliced into 0.6 cm thick pieces, scored with straight cuts, cut into 0.6 cm cubes)
to taste
Dried shrimp (washed, chopped finely)
to taste
Deer horn seaweed (cleaned, some chopped finely, some cut into segments)
to taste
Napa cabbage (chopped finely)
to taste
Cilantro (chopped finely and into segments)
to taste
Minced scallion and ginger
to taste
White pepper powder
to taste
MSG
to taste
Fine salt
to taste
Clear broth
to taste
Sesame oil
to taste
Vinegar
to taste
Instructions
1
Step 1
Wash the lean pork and mince it into a paste. Place it in a bowl and mix in the eggs until evenly combined. Slice the fatty pork into 0.6 cm thick pieces, score both sides with straight knife cuts in a crosshatch pattern, then cut into 0.6 cm cubes. Rinse the dried shrimp thoroughly to remove any grit. Pick over the deer horn seaweed and rinse clean, setting aside 30 g to be minced finely and another 20 g to be cut into 3 cm long segments.
2
Step 2
Take a mixing container and combine the minced lean pork, scallion-ginger mince, dried shrimp mince, minced deer horn seaweed, minced napa cabbage, and minced cilantro. Season with white pepper powder, MSG, and fine salt, then stir thoroughly until evenly blended. Shape into meatballs about 3.3 cm in diameter and arrange them in a single layer on a plate. Steam over high heat for about 8 minutes until cooked through, then remove and transfer to a large serving bowl.
3
Step 3
Pour the clear broth into a soup pot, add fine salt, and bring to a boil. Add the cilantro segments and bring to a rolling boil over high heat, then stir in the MSG. Pour the hot broth into a large soup bowl over the meatballs, drizzle with sesame oil and vinegar, and sprinkle with white pepper powder to finish.
