Pork Meatballs

Adapted from:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/2854/soy+sesame+pork+balls

I have modified accordingly to what is available. I have doubled the recipe to 1kg of mince and adjust seasoning as per taste

•  40g (1/4 cup) sesame seeds - omitted cause there is no sesame
•  480g pork mince- 1kg
•  1 egg, lightly whisked -2 eggs
•  2 tablespoons oyster sauce- a few large dashes
•  1 tablespoon kecap manis- thick soy sauce + 2 tablespoon sugar
•  45g (1/4 cup) rice flour- 1/2 cup
•  1/4 cup loosely packed finely chopped fresh Thai basil- replaced with garden basil
•  2 green shallots, ends trimmed, finely chopped- 4 shallots
•  2 garlic cloves, crushed-4 cloves
•  Peanut oil, to shallow-fry
•  Plum or sweet chilli sauce, to serve- omitted 

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients well and leave overnight in fridge

2. Roll into medium size balls

3. Heat up oil in non stick pan. Make sure there is enough to oil to cover half of the meatballs

4. Fry around 2-3 minutes each side or until light brown

5. Serve as it is.

Spring Rolls

Another variation to the kids lunch box

Ingredients:
500gms minced pork
1 cup of shredded cabbage
1tbsp of minced ginger
Sesame oil to fry filling
1 clove of garlic
1 large carrot
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp of soy sauce

sugar to taste

Stored bought spring roll wrappers (i only used 1 packet)

Method:

1.Heat up sesame oil

2. Fry the minced pork. Add in vegetables and sauces. Amend the ratio of seasoning according to taste. I added some of the homemade chicken stock powder as well.

3. Let the mixture cool before wrapping

4. I froze this right after wrapping. I used the air fryer for this. Fry for 20 minutes at 180C.

Stir Fry Pork and Snow Peas

Another one of those quick dinner stir fries.

Ingredients:

- 500gms of thinly sliced pork strips

- 2 packets of snow peas, remember to pull off the tough strings that run along the pods

- one carrot sliced

- 1 small onion

Seasoning:

- 1 tbsp of oyster sauce

- 2 tbsp of soy sauce

- 1 tbsp of chinese rice wine

- Salt and pepper

- 3 garlic cloves

- 1 tsp grated ginger

Method:

1. Seasoned the pork strips with the seasoning for 15-20 minutes

2. Heat oil in a large wok and start cooking the seasoned pork after the oil is well heated.

3. Stir through the meat until they are 80% cook (partial pink)

4. Remove from wok and continue to cook vegetables

5. Add in more oil and cook the onions till soft

6. Add in snow peas and carrot and cook till vegetables are cooked.

7. Throw in the meat and add some water if you like your dish with sauce. Cover and cook for next 5-10 minutes until meat is all cooked and no longer pink. 

8. Serve with white rice

Shanghai Dumplings With Pork. Chives and Kale

Both my boys enjoyed the chinese dumplings. They love it so much that they can have a meal just full of dumplings. I think dumplings are one of the very balanced meals. It has all the protein, veggies and carbo from the skin. I try to make this at home as i can put more vegetables but it is a very labour intensive task.

I found some time to get myself ready for some dumplings making. As i am quite crazy about kale recently, i added them as well.

The measurement is really base on taste. No strict rule to it.

These are the ingredients for my dumplings:

-500gms of mined pork

- bunch of kale leaves (only the leaves)

- 2 bunch of chives.

- Garlic- 2-3 cloves

-ginger - i thumb size

-dried chinese mushrooms

- gyoza dumpling wrapper

- Soy sauce

- sesame oil

- Chinese rice wine

- pepper & salt

Method

- minced everything, as small as you can manage

- mixed in everything in a bowl and add in all the seasoning to taste.

You can always mix and match whatever filling you like.

This is the amount of Kale in my dumplings. haha

After mincing everything, a big bowl of filling ready for wrapping

It took me 2.5 hours to wrap over a hundred dumplings. I used the tripple pleat method as it looks very pretty but google has alot of other easy method to wrap

I flour the dumplings and store them in the freezer.

To cook, just simply boil a big pot of water and throw the dumplings in frozen. Once the dumplings are cook, they will submerged to the top. it will be around 7-10 minutes.

We usually have dumplings with a Quick Vegetable Soup. I will post a recipe of this quick soup next.

We tried this dumpling yesterday and the skin i used it not very nice as it was very tough and thick. I will be using this wrapper that my friend recommends next time. Putting the picture here so I will remember the right brand to buy next time.

Spinach Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Spinach and Carrot Pork balls with tomato sauce

This is just a simply whack it in dinner. No recipe to follow. I just tried to mince as much vegies into the smallest possible size in the Thermomix. Mixed it with the minced pork. Added seasoning and my vegie stock. Yes my kids are deprived of vegetables. It is just so hard to get any form of vegetables in their diet. if they see it, they won't consume it.



i patiently rolled all the balls and place them on a baking tray before getting it ready to fry in batches. Another wonder invention is the Phillips Air Fryer. With only a drop of oil, i manage to fry this whole tray of meat balls

The first batch was obviously in for too long. i cut it down to 15 mins after that instead of 20 and they were all fine after that.






 While the meatballs were frying, i worked on the sauce. This is just tomato can soup and adding bits of tomato paste, bits of sweet mustard pickles (oh my!! this thing is soooo good), bits of sugar, vinegar. Just simmer and keep tasting to get the desired taste. My sauce was abit too tart due to the amount of tomato paste used but still OK once the meatballs goes in.

Also juggling cooking the macaronis in between frying the meatballs. It would have been nicer if spaghetti were used instead of the elbows.