Healthier and quicker Chinese sweet and sour meatballs are easy to prepare and quite comforting.
You love meatballs? Right! Elaine presents yummy meatball recipe to celebrate New Year with you because round food means perfection and a happy family gathering in Chinese. I wish all of you a happy new year. Hello 2016!!
No matter how they are presented, meatballs are loved by foodies word widely. When Elaine was still a young girl, we usual deep-fry meatballs for our Spring Festival. But now, deep-frying is not very welcome in Chinese kitchen because firstly, it maybe unhealthy and secondly, it requires large amount of oil. And I absolutely do not want any waste in kitchen. So I use pan-frying instead of deep-frying. But, there are still some advantages about deep-frying.
- Deep-frying can creating and keep the shape. For example, if you are making a sesame ball, deep-frying is quite necessary.
- Deep-frying can shorten the cooking time, which further create a crispy shell with tender and soft inner part.
So Elaine will not recommend frying the balls with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. We need around 4 tablespoons this time, but after pan-frying, you can use the left oil to make a quick vegetable stir-fry.
Sweet and sour taste—糖(táng)醋(cù) is a very popular basic taste in Chinese cooking and we have several ways to achieve sweet and sour taste. For example, in sweet and sour ribs, black vinegar and sugar are responsible for sour and sweet. However we also have this sweet and sour taste made with ketchup. In Chinese, we call this sauce as 茄(qié)汁(zhī). I guess most of you are more familiar with the later ketchup sweet and sour sauce.Usually in order to keep the pure bright color of ketchup, white vinegar is used instead of black vinegar. But black vinegar can also work perfectly with ketchup sweet and sour taste.
I use garlic, ginger and green onion water instead of whisked egg in this recipe because I want the meatball to be fluffy. If you prefer a denser texture, use whisked egg and skip soaking the ginger and green onion water.
Add the ginger, green onion and garlic water in the ground pork by three batches. Stir in one direction until the pork absorbs the water completely after each adding.Place around 3 teaspoons of cornstarch in the mixture and continue stirring for 2-3 minutes until the pork becomes slightly sticky and present a paste like texture.
Shape them into balls (mine is around 4cm- 5cm in diameter). Pat them several times between the two palms so the balls will become dense enough. If you feel the pork is slightly sticky, coat your hand with clean water or wear a plastic glove.
Heat up around 4 tablespoons of cooking oil in wok (we will exclude some of them after frying the meatballs, so do not be scared about the oil amount); place the balls in to fry. Let them stay here for a while and turn over from time to time. Fry until both sides get golden brown. Be gentle and do not break them. Transfer the meatballs out and pour the extra oil out too.
Pour sweet and sour sauce mixture to the wok and wait, heat until boiling. Return the meatballs to coat with the sauce. Continue heating about 1-2 minutes until the sauce is welled thickened and evenly coated on the balls.
Transfer out and serving with steamed rice. Garnish green onion if you prefer.
Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Ingredients
- 2 cups ground pork
- Oil for frying
- 3 teaspoons cornstarch
Pork marinating
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
Ginger, garlic and green onion water
- 1 garlic clove , minced
- 1/2 inch ginger , minced
- 1 green onion , minced
- 2-3 tablespoons warm water
Sweet and sour sauce
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 4 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar , both white or black version can work
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3 teaspoons corn starch
Instructions
- Marinate ground pork with a small pinch of salt, soy sauce and sesame oil.
- Chop green onion, garlic and ginger, and then soak with 3 tablespoons of water.
- In another bowl, mixing all ingredients for sweet and sour sauce.
- Add the ginger, green onion and garlic water in the ground pork by three batches. Stir in one direction until the pork absorbs the water completely after each adding.
- Place around 3 teaspoons of cornstarch in the mixture and continue stirring for 2-3 minutes until the pork becomes slightly sticky and present a paste like texture.
- Shape them into balls (mine is around 4cm- 5cm in diameter). Pat them several times between the two palms so the balls will become dense enough. If you feel the pork is slightly sticky, coat your hand with clean water or wear a plastic glove.
- Heat up around 4 tablespoons of cooking oil in wok (we will exclude some of them after frying the meatballs, so do not be scared about the oil amount); place the balls in to fry. Let them stay here for a while and turn over from time to time. Fry until both sides get golden brown. Be gentle and do not break them. Transfer the meatballs out and pour the extra oil out too.
- Pour sweet and sour sauce mixture to the wok and wait, heat until boiling. Return the meatballs to coat with the sauce. Continue heating about 1-2 minutes until the sauce is thickened and well coated on the balls. Transfer out and serving with steamed rice. Garnish green onion if you prefer.
Nutrition
Ohhh I can tell from the recipe that we will love your sweet and sour sauce! This will be a great dinner menu and the leftover for my kids’ lunch box. I look forward to trying this very soon! Happy New Year, Elaine! Can’t wait to see what you will share this year. 🙂
Thanks Nami. Hug Hug! I can image how great this looks in a lunch box. Happy new year! I hope you can have a lucky 2016 with lots of happiness. Reading your blog really makes me feel quite happy and warm.
I think I could eat an entire batch of these in one sitting! Love all of the flavor you have going on here- cannot wait to try this recipe!
Thanks Karly!
Der Elaine
I made this quick and easy recipe during my lunch break this week and loved it. I will definitly make it again.
I “streched” this sauce with some broth becauseI love sauce (in general).
Thank you for this and all the other recipes. Keep up the great work.
My mouth was watering looking at your picture. Going to try this weekend! Thanks, Elaine for sharing this recipe.
Amanda, thank you for your lovely comment. Hope you will like it.
The sweet and sour meatballs are outstanding. I used ground beef (it’s all I had) and tripled the sauce. Very, very good, thank you for posting it.
Angie,
Tripled the sauce! Wow, you are such a sauce lover. Thanks for this lovely comment and happy cooking.
Hi, I’m a former food blogger and I had this recipe bookmarked I think probably since you published it!
Anyway, I just wanted to pop back to say I finally made this recipe last week and it was absolutely delicious. I ended up oven baking the meatballs and adding them back into the sauce. Thank you for your recipes and your gorgeous photography.
Thanks Nancy.
Made this tonight and it was delicious! We had them with fried rice ?
Thank you Jo. Glad to hear that.
delicious meat balls I doubled the amount of soy and sesame oil to marinade the meat and left its for 30 minutes. When I made the ginger water I added 1 red chili seeded and diced and 2 spring onions and again left it for 30 minutes . After I had added the water and then the flour I added I teaspoon 5 spice. I have just eaten my first meatball with no sauce. It was fantastic a tiny bit spicy but not that hot. Even the most conservatives tastes would like. Loved the idea of marinading the meat. The idea of the ginger water was new to me and I will definitely use it again. next time I will leave the meat for an hour and similarly the water. Maybe next time I will double the 5 spice and use 2 chilies. one of your correspondents baked her meatballs. My questions are for how long and at what heat.
Thanks I will be back
James,
Thanks for the feedback. yes, sometimes the meatballs may break for several reasons. Possibly the pork is not well combined until sticky so the balls can’t fold the shape for a long time. Or the fire might be strong during the simmering process. Slow down the fire after adding the sauce and let them absorb the flavors slowly.