These Shrimp and Pork Balls, or 鲜虾豬肉蝦仁丸子, use a simple blend that is great for balls, for filling dumplings, and for many other uses.
The recipe for making these Shrimp and Pork Balls is the very same as that used for the Shrimp and Pork Stuffed Mushrooms I featured in a recent post. If you have read that post, you will recall that I only used a portion of the filling mixture, reserving the remainder for other uses. Often, I use this same filing for making dumplings, steamed, boiled, or ‘Pot-sticker’ style, but making ‘balls’ from the Shrimp and Pork mixture allows you to have Keto-friendly, skinless ‘dumplings’, which can be served in a variety of different ways.
The Ingredients for Shrimp and Pork Balls
Here is the basic mixture I made for the Shrimp and Pork Stuffed Mushrooms recipe. The seasonings were very simple, and just included a little Scallion, along with some Ginger and Garlic, and a little Salt and White Pepper. You can, of course, play with the seasonings and ingredients and produce something you prefer for a given use.
How to make 鲜虾豬肉蝦仁丸子
After making my Stuffed Mushrooms, I actually processed the remaining mix by rapid chopping with two heavy knives as I wanted a smoother, less chunky blend. You can do the same or not, depending on preference, but for making balls, I wanted the largish pieces of shrimp to be less visible. Once done, I formed the remaining mix into 16 small balls, each roughly the size of a small Walnut.
鲜虾豬肉蝦仁丸子 can be cooked any number of ways but I chose to poach them first. The benefit of this is that it is easy to do and you can refrigerate, or even freeze them, for later re-cooking by frying, steaming or braising. The process involves nothing more complex than dropping the balls into boiling salted water and letting them simmer until cooked through but still tender (anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes depending on size).
Here are 14 of the balls already cooled down after poaching. I was planning on doing three little dishes to illustrate how the balls can be used but I I couldn’t help myself and ended up eating a couple of them cold with just a little soy sauce (which was very nice).
For the little appetizer, which is shown in the very first picture, some of the Shrimp and Pork Balls were threaded on to wooden skewers and then pan-fried before being served with a sauce made from a mix of Oyster Sauce, Sriracha Sauce, Rice Wine and a little sugar.
In this presentation, I put three 鲜虾豬肉蝦仁丸子 on a bed of chopped lettuce, nuked them in the microwave for about 60 seconds, drizzled the top of the balls with a little of my home-made Basic Chili Oil (which is one of my favorite condiments for dumplings).
Steaming would, of course, be much more traditional than microwaving, but, in that event, lettuce would be a poor choice for the base as it wouldn’t survive the 15 minutes or so of cooking time required and would end up being badly wilted and almost colorless. A more robust green vegetable, such spinach, or even strips of Bean Curd Skin, would be better.
What dishes might you create using these simple poached Shrimp and Pork Balls?
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