Liz's Asian Balls o' Meat

Or Low-Carb Steamed Dumplings... or Naked Steamed Dumplings... or Chinese Meatballs.  I think I like "Liz's Asian Balls o' Meat" the best.  Any way you slice it, here's my first original recipe!

I've mentioned I've gone low-carb.  I've told you about my love of steamed dumplings.  I'm feeling like having some Chinese tonight, but the wrappers and dipping sauce for my beloved steamed dumplings have carbs.  What's a girl to do?  Revamp the recipe, that's what!  So I ditched the wrappers and added more eggs and some crushed pork rinds to bind the meatballs and help them keep their shape.  I also reduced the amount of veggies in them since veggies seem to generate alot of moisture when they're cooking... I didn't want that to turn my meatballs into Chinese Crumble.  As far as the dipping sauce, I said goodbye to Mirin, a sweet cooking sake, and used my stepmother's dipping sauce instead: half soy sauce, half cider vinegar.  Seriously, seriously good stuff!

Balls o' Meat Ingredients

1/3 head of cabbage, finely chopped

1/2 bunch scallions (5 or 6), finely chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, finely chopped

3 large button mushrooms, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped or run through a garlic press

1 inch nub of fresh ginger, grated

3 eggs

1 lb ground turkey (or pork)

5 cups crushed plain pork rinds

2 swirls of toasted sesame oil

3 swirls of soy sauce

And by "swirl" I mean draw a circle in the mixing bowl as you pour. 

Dipping Sauce Ingredients

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup cider vinegar

Makes 40 meatballs, serves four

Prep time: 1 hour

Cook time: 25 minutes

Mix all the meatball ingredients together really well.  I use my hands.  Nasty, I know, but nothing else works as thoroughly or as quickly as just rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty. 

Roll the mixture into meatballs.  It might be worth your time to put the whole mess in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to rest first, to give the pork rinds a chance to absorb some of the moisture.  I noticed that the last meatballs I rolled were much easier to make than the first few.

I knew I was going to freeze whatever I didn't end up cooking for dinner, so I put the finished meatballs on a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper.  Once the meatballs I didn't cook are frozen solid, I'll toss them in a plastic tub where they'll take up less freezer space.

Steam the dumplings for 25 minutes and serve with dipping sauce.  We had salad with them to round out the meal.  I used the toasted sesame oil and some vinegar as salad dressing; that was a great match for the dumplings.  And wow, the dumplings were so good!

Honestly, I didn't miss the dumpling wrappers one bit, and you couldn't tell there were pork rinds in the dish at all.  Make sure to use the plain ones, though.  I'm not sure how Mesquite BBQ or Hot 'n Spicy pork rinds would work out...

These were awesome!  They were time-consuming to make but not as much so as the actual dumplings-in-wrappers are.  And it made almost 40 meatballs, enough for two dinners for the two of us.  So the next time we want Chinese I can cut out the hour of prep time and get straight to steaming them.  Easy peasy.  And totally Low Carb!

Steamed Pork Dumplings

I mentioned the steamed pork dumplings in this post. It’s our favorite thing to get when we order Chinese take-out, and I wanted to have control over exactly what goes into them and know their nutritional information and point value. Plus our fave Chinese place closed and the new place made a much doughier dumpling. Still good, but not the same. So I found a recipe I thought I could try and the fun began!  I've made them four or five times and it gets easier each time.

I was not paying attention at the grocery store and bought a little over a pound of ground pork this time instead of the 1 ¾ pounds that the half a recipe calls for. So here are the amounts I ended up with:

1.2 lbs ground pork
3 cups chopped cabbage
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons sesame oil
1 egg
46 wonton wrappers (I must have overfilled the dumplings a little, half a recipe should make 50 dumplings but I think only being off by 4 is not too shabby.)

I chopped about half a head of cabbage and added to the pork in the mixing bowl. Usually I buy the angel hair coleslaw mix but I went to the store twice and they were out both times. It was fun to practice chopping, and the odds and ends that didn’t make it into the dumplings went into my admittedly eccentric Mystery Broth freezer bag (explained here).

I also enjoy smashing garlic, a hobby which comes in handy when cooking. I mixed it up just for you this time. One garlic clove went into the garlic press.

And the other got my favorite treatment, I laid the flat of a knife on it and then slammed the knife into the garlic clove, smashing it. Then I chopped it, no pictures of the chopping, not as exciting.

I grated a nub of fresh ginger into the mixture. To be honest, it was a nub of frozen ginger. When I buy ginger, I snap it into pieces about the size of the end of my thumb and keep it in the freezer since I don’t use it that often.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. I use my hands, and yes, it kinda grosses me out. But the end result is worth it.

Prepare your work space by flouring the spot you will be assembling the dumplings and setting a small bowl of water nearby for dipping your fingers when wetting the wonton wrappers.

I recommend laying out the wonton wrappers and spooning in the filling assembly-line style. I lay out as many wonton wrappers as I have space for, then put a little less than a tablespoon of the pork mixture in each one.

The next part I do one at a time. Wet the edges of a dumpling, fold it over into a triangle and press the edges together. I find it’s easiest to press the apex of the triangle together first, then to do the edges while you hold the dumpling. Then if you overfilled it you can poke the filling around to make sure you have clean wonton wrapper edges for sealing.

Here is a handful of dumplings that I have on parchment paper and am about to put in the freezer. We only eat about 15 at one meal so this time I made as many dumplings as I could with the filling and froze the excess dumplings for future, much easier homemade Chinese dinners.  In the past I have just frozen the excess dumpling mixture because I didn't have two hours to spare putting together the entire batch.

Steam the dumplings for 20 to 30 minutes. I use a stainless steel steamer basket and non-stick spray. The basket can fit about 8 of them; if they touch they will stick together. Serve with your sauce of choice. I like a combination of equal parts rice vinegar, mirin (a sweet cooking wine or sake), soy sauce and maybe a half teaspoon chili paste per serving.

Some people say to sauté them a little to give them some color. It might make them prettier but I just like them steamed. They are full of flavor and are one of my favorite dinners. I like the dipping sauce as much as I like the dumplings. I was thinking maybe I should marinate some veggies in the sauce and grill or broil them. Or use it as a salad dressing. Currently my go-to salad dressing is a few splashes of rice vinegar and two teaspoons of olive oil. But I digress.

Since the recipe made three times what we will eat, I spread the extra out on trays without cooking them, and froze them. Once they were close to frozen solid I tossed them in a big Ziploc bag.

The next two times we want dumplings, I can steam the frozen ones for about 35 minutes, make the sauce and maybe a salad, and dinner is served!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the other half of that head of cabbage.  Any ideas?