Saturday, August 6, 2011

Lion's Head



I've spent the 24 hours mostly testing recipes and shooting them. With a camera, of course. All for a big text book. Three World Cuisines. Equipment, ingredients, food and culture, etc. Recipes too. This shot of the Lion's Head Meat Ball will not go in, though I like it the most. The suggestive spoon and puddles of fat. It tasted the best after cooking a while. The other meatballs were younger and prettier, but the last did taste the best. So I share it with you. Pork shoulder chopped by hand very finely, ginger, shallot, Shaoxing, sesame oil, soy. Browned in the wok, then poached in stock with curly greens - the Lion's Mane! SO satisfying and delicous, you could even eat the wait staff. Tomorrow morning I'm ready to tackle hot and sour - OK, so I'm on the soup section. Soupcon.

6 comments:

Anne said...

Lion's Head 狮子頭 -- greatest meatballs on earth!

Deana Sidney said...

Looks awesome, Ken. May I ask something of you??
After all these years I finally broke down and bought Shaoxing instead of sherry and was terribly disappointed... liked sherry so much more. Does one have to buy an expensive version to get something decent? This was what they had at Kalustyans and it tasted like old, bad, watered down sherry.
For a recipe like your lion's head I would not ruin the dish with it!

Anne said...

Other side of the coin: people who really love Shaoxing wine consider sherry a poor substitute because rice wines have no fruitiness. They don't start with the same kinds of acid.

Judith Klinger said...

Or could it be named after Lion's Head mountain in Hong Kong??
Looks yummy.

Ken Albala said...

Deana, I agree with Anne here. They're both oxydized, but I don't think sherry and rice wine are similar at all. Of course avoid those meant just for cooking, as you would avoid cooking sherry. I spent about 15 bucks on this one, and it is lovely, drinkable. And unmistakable in these dishes.

Cheap WOW Gold said...

people who genuinely adore Shaoxing wine take into account sherry a bad substitute for the reason that rice wines have no fruitiness
Does anyone about to get andBuy World Of Warcraft Gold, does anyone have some good suggestions to get the fast and safeRS Gold, please tell me and thanks a lot who can help me.