Lion’s Head

Do you know Chinese people love meatballs too?  Yes, and the Chinese style meatball dish called Lion’s Head (獅子頭) has a long history, it is a dish good enough for the royals!

After yesterday’s turkey egg pancake rendition, I have about 2.5 lb turkey minced meat left and tonight I have two hungry boys to feed.

The traditional Lion’s Head used pork and must be about 60% lean, 40% fat.  However, nobody eats so much fat any more.  The most famous kind of Lion’s Head is firstly deep fried and then braised in stork.  Again, who has the time to make stork?!  And deep frying?!  No way – I almost never deep fry anything, except stir fry.

So here is my very yummy and speedy version – it is another East meets West!

Open a can of Campbell great for cooking Cream of Chicken soup, yes, your heard it right.  I meant to use chicken broth but I am running out, so I went ahead and tried something new.  I will give tips later if you are using chicken broth.

Put it in your wok and add one can of water, so it is just as if you are preparing the soup.
Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop up balls of meat and gradually drop them into the soup.  (For marinating instruction, please see the previous post.)  I did about 12 balls.

Simmer the balls a little bit before you check to see if they are formed, do not stir too much.  After about 10 minutes, they should be quite well cooked, put in sliced nappa cabbage, some chopped garlic, ginger and scallions, cover and cook for another 5 minutes.  Finally, cut well soaked vermicelli into 2-inch lengths and drop them in.  Stir gradually, cover and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.  You can tell if vermicelli becomes transparent, it is ready.  

Please note vermicelli is like any noodle, it absorbs liquid like a sponge.  Serve the dish immediately with rice.  If you let it sit for too long, the whole dish may become very mushy.  You should also consume the whole dish in one sitting.
 
If you are using chicken broth instead of canned cream soup, the sauce is clear rather than creamy.  If you want, you can thicken the chicken broth by adding some corn starch, make sure you keep stirring when you add the corn starch.  Otherwise, you can still enjoy this dish as if it is a dish with soup.

We three finished the whole thing and someone almost wanted to lick the dish, yum!