Watercress Soup with Meatballs

Name: Watercress Soup with Meatballs (Sai Yeung Choi Yuk Yeun Tong)
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons oyster sauce; 4 large bunches of watercress: wash thoroughly, break each stem with leaves into 3 equal pieces; ½ teaspoon salt; 3½ cups water; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 pound ground beef chuck; 3½ cups chicken broth; 1 teaspoon Shao-Hsing wine or sherry; 1 egg white, beaten; 1 slice of ginger; 1 teaspoon sesame oil; 2 teaspoons light soy sauce; ½ teaspoon sugar; 4 teaspoons cornstarch

Sai Yeung Choi Yuk Yeun Tong

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Chinese Banquet Cookbook

By Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Published 1985

About

Beef balls are quite common in Hakka cooking, as are balls of fish. Unfortunately, in most instances the meatballs become dense, hard, almost springy after being boiled in the soup. I have altered the recipe slightly to make them more tender.

Ingredients

For meatballs combine

1 pound ground beef chuck
½ teaspoon salt
½

Asia
China
Starter
Soup

Method

Stir the meatball ingredients in a bowl clockwise, with chopsticks, until quite soft and well blended. If mixture is too moist, add another teaspoon of cornstarch. Several times, as you are mixing the meat, pick up the entire mass and slap it down hard into the bowl. This ensures that the meatballs will not fall apart when cooking. Form meat into 30 or 40 small balls. Se