Frankie Gaw’s Grandma’s Pearl Meatballs

The recipe for these wondrous little glutinous rice-covered meatballs is adapted from First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home, by Frankie Gaw. The rice gets soaked in water overnight — which makes them porous enough to cook in the time the pork-and-napa-cabbage meatballs steam.

READ: “Taiwanese and Taiwanese American culinary traditions shine in three exciting cookbooks”

The recipe calls for a full pound of napa cabbage. Once you finely mince it, it’s a giant mountain of so much cabbage you think the recipe couldn’t possible be correct. Just go with it Once you salt it, rest it and squeeze out its water, it’s much less voluminous, and you’ll get an “aha” moment.

If you don’t have a proper Asian steamer but you do have bamboo steamer baskets and a wok, you can jerry-rig a steamer by stacking two baskets in the wok, adding boiling water to reach just under the level of the food in the bottom basket, cover the wok and steam away.

Makes 24 meatballs.

Ingredients

1 cup sweet glutinous rice

1/2 medium head napa cabbage, finely minced

2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, divided

1 pound ground pork

1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 3 medium cloves)

1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

3 scallions, green and white parts, chopped, plus optional extra sliced green parts for garnish

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon chicken broth

Vegetable oil, for forming the meatballs

Instructions

1. Soak the rice: The night before, place the glutinous rice in a medium mixing bowl. Add water to cover by 1 inch, and place in the fridge to soak overnight.

2. Make the filling: In a large mixing bowl, combine the cabbage and the 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Mix with your fingers until the salt is incorporated. Set aside for 10 minutes to let the cabbage sweat out water. Meanwhile, in another large bowl, combine the ground pork, garlic, ginger, scallions, brown sugar, sesame oil, the remaining 2 teaspoons salt, and the chicken stock.

3. After the cabbage has sweated out its water, transfer it onto a thin, clean dishtowel and wrap around the cabbage to enclose. Using your hands and brute strength, squeeze out as much excess water from the cabbage as you can. Transfer the cabbage to the rest of the filling mixture and use your fingers to mix all that juicy meat-mixture goodness together, using a circular motion, until the filling looks homogenous and feels sticky, about 3 minutes.

4. Make the meatballs: Drain the rice, then pour the grains onto a plate. Prep a bamboo steamer by lining it with perforated steamer liners or extra napa cabbage leaves. With oiled hands, grab a small amount of meat filling (the size of a ping pong ball) and roll it into a meatball. Then roll the meatball around in the plate of rice until the grains have stuck to the entire surface of the meatball. Set the meatball on the bamboo steamer. Continue forming meatballs into the bamboo steamer. Continue forming meatballs and rolling them in rice until all the meat filling has been used.

5. Steam the meatballs: Fill a pot that will fit your bamboo steamer with an inch of water and bring it to a boil. Place the steamer in the pot and cover. Steam for 20 minutes, adding boiling water to the pot if necessary halfway through, until the rice has softened and the meat is cooked through. Garnish each with a few sliced scallion greens, if desired, and serve.

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