Cooking: Lion's Head Stew

Since the weather is getting chilly, I decided to make Lion's Head Stew for dinner tonight. Justyn and I went to a restaurant that serves an awesome version of this dish. Tonight, I tried to make it better than the restaurant.

This time I decided to take pictures of each step since I haven't done that yet... or at least I don't think I have. I'm too lazy to search on my own damn blog to check haha! Anyway, I started out by mixing the ground pork with dark soy, grated ginger, scallion & sesame seed oil. Then I rolled them into balls and coated them in corn starch.

I deep fried them in some peanut oil until they were a nice deep brown color.

The dried shiitake mushrooms were reconstituted in some hot water and sliced. I rinsed the eensy beensy shrimps in some water.

The mushrooms, sliced ginger, scallion, and napa cabbage went into my pot to saute for a bit before I added some water and beef broth (I didn't have any chicken broth).

When the liquid came up to a simmer, I added the meatballs and let everything simmer for 10 minutes. I also added a mixture of broth, soy sauce and cornstarch so it would thicken the soup.

Then the rice noodles went in for another 8 minutes.

Ta-da! I didn't think it was as good as the restaurant, but it was still very good and comforting for a winter's night.