Pearl Balls - Dim Sum

Dim Sum refers to a wide variety of light Chinese snacks usually enjoyed with tea.
I'm always very 'greedy' when having dim sum brunch at the restaurant or tea house (茶楼),  I tend to 'over ordered' and 'over eaten' cause wanna try a bit of everything... be it steamed,  deep fried or baked types. That's why I prefer to enjoy dim sum at the restaurant (especially dim sum buffet) vs homemade as I would not be able to make such huge varieties.  But still, I would occasionally dish out 1 or 2 types of homemade dim sum for my family on some weekends.

I haven't made dim sum for quite sometime. Made some steamed Lo Mai Kai 糯米鸡 was last December.

As my dim sum cookbook was 'lost & found' hee hee LOL ! ... decided to try some dim sum recipes that I haven't attempted from this cookbook ...  small meaty Pearl Balls 珍珠丸子 for our afternoon tea.

Pearl Balls 珍珠丸子
Adapted from the cookbook of Judy Lew
Ingredients: makes 18
Meat mixture
450g lean ground pork
1 Chinese sausage, minced
1/4 Cup : chopped bamboo shoots, Chinese mushroom soaked, rinsed and chopped.
1 tablespoon rice wine (I used brandy)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon sesame oil
(I marinated meat mixture and let it stand for 30 mins)

5 water chestnuts cut into quarters
1 Cup glutinous rice (soaked in water for 1 hour and drained)

Method
1) Combine meat mixture. Surround each piece of water chestnut with meat mixture to form a 4cm ball.

2) Roll each meat ball in glutinous rice.
3) Place in a steamer and steam for 25 minutes.

I have omitted the bamboo shoots and replaced with some finely minced water chestnut.

Served with some hot Chinese tea ... these small meaty balls are really tasty ... not overly filling for our tea snack.

I am linking this post to Cook-Your-Book#13 organized by Joyce (Kitchen Flavours).