This is a popular and delicious Chinese vegetable stew with meatballs. If you use pre-made and frozen meatballs, you can save a lot of time for dinner.The meatballs below are for a week's portion for 3 ~4 people. Fry them and freeze them for different dishes. This is the best idea for your meal prep.
Ingredients
Meatball Ingredients:
- 2.2 lb ground pork or ground beef (Note 1)
- 4 eggs (Note 2)
- 5 tablespoons potato starch (Note 3)
- 1/4 chopped onion
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger (Note 4)
Meatball Stew With Napa Cabbage:
- 1/2 large napa cabbage or medium size
- 5 shiitake mushrooms
- 1/4 carrots, cut them in half
- 10 meatballs
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1/2 bowl water
Instructions
How To Make Asian Meatballs:
- Put all the ingredients in a large pot.
- Mix them well by hand in one direction.
- Mix them until they're sticky. Use a spoon to form meatballs.
- Prepare a pan and heat the oil to 160°C/320°F. (Note 5)
- Fry the meatballs in batches for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Leave them to cool and put them in a zip bag to freeze or store in the fridge.
Meatballs Stew With Napa Cabbage.
- Wash and cut the napa cabbage in half. If the cabbage is medium-sized, you don't need to cut it.
- Slice the shiitake mushrooms and carrots. (Note 6)
- Heat the pot with oil. Stir the mushrooms and carrots for 2 to 3 minutes until you smell the flavor of the mushrooms.
- Add cabbage, meatballs, soy sauce, oyster sauce and water to the pot.
- Cover the pot for 5 minutes over medium heat, open the pan, stir and cover again.
- Turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and simmer with the lid on to get tender cabbage.
- Ready to serve with steamed rice.
Video
Tips & Notes:
- The ratio of fat to lean meat is 30% fat and 70% lean meat. Too much fat will cause the meatballs to turn into smaller pieces after frying. If you use minced beef, make sure you add half minced pork as it contains more fat than beef. If you use meat that is too lean, the meatballs will be too dry and hard.
- Eggs can give meatballs a feeling of air and make them tender.
- Potato starch helps the meatballs to hold together and not fall apart.
- Ginger can remove the smell of meat. Gives freshness to meatballs.
- How to know if the oil temperature is 160 °C? Hold the chopstick into the oil. When it bubbles a lot, the temperature is 160°C.
- It's best to use dried shiitake mushrooms, as they have more flavor than fresh or other types of mushrooms. Make sure you soak them in water until they're soft.
- Stir the minced meat in the same direction to make it even.
- Adding more eggs will make the meatballs softer and more tender.
- Stir the meat until it becomes sticky. If you stir for too long, the meatball will be too hard.
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?I love hearing how it turned out! Leave me a comment and make sure to leave a rating below.
