Hubei Pearl Meatballs (珍珠丸子)
A crowd pleaser from the Hubei province.
Note from 2024: And… luckily we hid our stride alright with recipe #2. The sole update here is that if you are not currently in China, you should use pork shoulder (Boston Butt) in place of leg.
Hey, last week we did a dish that you guys were a bit more familiar with (Kung Pao Chicken, here) – so this time we wanted to do something awesome that maybe you’ve never heard of before: Pearl Meatballs (珍珠丸子).
This is a dish from the Hubei province. This is a super underrated cuisine in China – Wuhan is one of the best food cities in the country in my opinion. This particular dish forms one leg of the Mianyang Three Steamed Dishes, and has a Ginger/Green Onion flavor profile.
As before, we’ve got a video to go with this. And just like before, I’m not totally thrilled with the final result of the video, but it should still be a useful visual if you’re following along with the recipe.
Basic Ingredients:
Pork Leg, 70/30, 500g. We use pork leg (a.k.a. ‘ham’) because it’s got a good ratio of lean to fat. If I recall correctly, when I was living in the USA I don’t think pork leg is overly easily accessible. I think a mixture of Boston Butt and Pork Belly would probably sub fine. What we’re looking for is a ratio of 70% lean to 30% fat, which is the most important thing here. Just be careful with pre-ground pork mince (discussion on ground pork at the end).
Ginger, 50g. Roughly enough to get about 3 TBSP minced.
Lotus Root, 100g. Or use ~6 water chestnuts. Either are perfectly fine. We chose Lotus Root to give it a little more Hubei flair – lotus root is everywhere in Hubei.
Soaked Dried Shittake Mushrooms (冬菇), 4. Soak these in very warm water at least three hours beforehand. Make sure to save the water! The water that the dried mushrooms have been soaking in is awesome, and we’re gunna use this later in the recipe.
Green Onions, white part only. 8-10 sections. If you’re not familiar with working with green onion, a discussion on how use the ‘white part’ of green onion at about 4:20 in the video.
Soaked Sticky Rice (糯米), ~3/4 cup. Soak this in warm water at least 3 hours before using. There’s actually two types of sticky rice, short grain and long grain. For this recipe, some Hubei cooks will swear up and down that you have to use longer grain, but honestly I’ve used shorter grain and it comes out great too. If you’re in China, the shorter grain one will be the Jiangsu/Zhejiang style, and the longer grain will be Hubei/Sichuan style. In you’re abroad, the longer grain one is Thai/SE style, and the shorter grain one is Korean/Japanese style.
Ingredients for your Marinade:
Slurry of cornstarch, 2 tsp; mixed into reserved dried mushroom water, 2TBSP. The water that you soaked the dried mushrooms in should be a brownish color. Taste it, it’s awesome. That stuff’s like crack, use it in anything you can. ‘Umami-bombs’ are all the rage nowadays, yet somehow I’ve never seen this one… take 2TBSP of it and mix in 2 tsp of cornstarch.
Egg, 1. This isn’t overly common in Chinese minced meat dishes, but for a ball like this it helps add some structural integrity.
Rice Wine (料酒), 1 tsp. In the West this is usually called Shaoxin Wine.
Sesame Oil, 1 tsp. Toasted of course.
Sugar, 1 tsp.
White pepper, ¼ tsp. Black pepper could work in a pinch.
Chicken stock concentrate, 1 tsp (鸡汁). We use a really nice one that we buy from Guangzhou, but Knorr makes a Chinese-style one that works just fine. But feel free to use your favourite bullion or even MSG if you need.
Light Soy Sauce (生抽), 4 tsp. Got a comment in the Kung Pao recipe about the difference between light and dark soy sauce. Light soy sauce is the ‘standard’ soysauce.
Other Ingredients:
Salt, 2 ½ tsp. We’ll add this one after we marinade the meat.
Soaked reeds, plantain leaves, banana leaves, lotus leaves, or bamboo leaves. Soak for 3 hours in warm water. Reeds are traditional for this dish as that’s what they have it Hubei, but any of these work in a pinch as the effect on the final flavor is pretty subtle. These are only used if you’re using a bamboo steamer - if you’re steaming with a plate, you obviously don’t need these. Discussion on steaming methods at the end.
Process:
Soak your dried mushrooms, sticky rice, and reeds/leaves (if using) in very warm water. Remember to wash your sticky rice 2-3 times before soaking. And save that dried mushroom water!
Dice the pork fat, roughly chop the lean. The basic idea here is that we’re going to want to fincely mince our lean into something almost resembling a paste, while keeping the fat as a nice solid dice.
Peel and dice ginger, combine with the lean.
Mince your lean and ginger. Use a big knife and chop the pork into a mince. It’s a bit difficult to describe the technique – a demonstration is at 1:45 in the video. This takes a bit of effort, but you should be able to mince it all down in about ten minutes or so. You could use a food processor, but I feel like it also takes me 10 minutes just to wash the damn food processor. You can control the consistency a bit better doing it with a knife as well.
Prep your meat marinade. Re-combine the lean-mince with the fat cubes. Add in your mushroom water slurry, the rice cooking wine, the sugar, the soy sauce, the chicken stock concentrate, white pepper, and sesame oil. Crack and egg into it a mix it together.
Mix your meat. This is a critical step. I like to do this the traditional way with chopstocks. Again, this is a little difficult to describe, so here’s what the process looks like in the video. Mix it vigorously in one direction for a couple minutes, until it’s sticky and springy. I’ve also heard rumors that you can do this with a stand mixer with the hook attachment, so if you’re weak with chopsticks you can give that a try. I’d try setting ‘1’ for a few minutes, but keep an eye on it, as I’ve never done it before. Once you’re done, toss the meat mixture in the fridge to marinate for about 20 minutes or so.
Dice up your lotus root (or water chestnut), the whites of the green onions, and the dried shitake mushrooms. Remember to squeeze the mushrooms before dicing them because often they can have some water left inside.
If you’re using a bamboo steamer, cut your leaves and lay them down on the steamer to make a ‘floor’ for your meatballs to eventually go on.
Season and ‘dat’ (咑) your meat mixture. Take out the meat mixture and add the 2.5 tsp salt. Now, ‘dat’ it (I’m sure I’m butchering that word as it’s a Cantonese word). Try to grab almost all of the meat mixture with your hands and slam it down into the bowl. This will improve the ‘springy-ness’ of the meat and give it a more solid texture.
Roll your meatballs. Take a heaping tablespoon of the meat mixture (~1.5 TBSP) and shape it into a small ball. Lightly roll the meatball in your pre-soaked sticky rice (you should drain the rice before this if that wasn’t obvious). Remember that the rice is gunna expand - you do not want too much sticky rice on your ball, unless you want a meatball that’s 50% rice and underseasoned.
Steam. You’re putting your stove full blast when you steam. Steam this for 5-6 minutes if using a bamboo steamer set-up. If you’re using a plate there’s going to be much more variability in the timing depending on your plate and your stove. When I did this at my brother’s place in the US it ended up being about 9-10 minutes if I recall correctly. If you’re steaming using a plate and have an instant read thermometer, do me a favor and check the temperature at 7 minutes to see how much longer you need.
Garnish and serve with other steamed stuff. Traditionally in Hubei this meal is served alongside a steamed fish dish and a steamed veg dish.
Makes ~20 meatballs. If you're satisfied with the results, make a big batch of meat your second time. The meat mixture freezes real well.
A note about ingredients: Don’t use pre-ground pork. I just feel pre-ground stuff is never really… that good. If you feel like you have to use pre-ground pork, get a mixture that’s mostly lean – then buy some belly or pork fat or something and dice the fat from that using the method described.
A note about method: You can absolutely use a plate to steam. The reason bamboo steamers are generally superior is that they allow for better air circulation inside the steaming tray. In a bamboo steamer, the steam is coming up from under the food, while in a plate it’ll circulate above it. This makes steaming times in bamboo steamers quicker and more reliable.
If you have a bamboo steamer but can’t get reeds or leaves, can use cheesecloth in its place. It doesn’t look as impressive but absolutely does the job.
With a plate, some water will accumulate on the plate as its cooking. Just transfer the meatballs to a different plate and forget the water ever existed.