Have a ball!

When appetites wilt in the summer heat, it's time to pay a little more attention to presentation. Try a few recipes with a healthy mix of vegetables, fibers, meat and drama. Pauline D. Loh tells you how to have fun with mince.

The name itself was fascinating. When we were children, my grandfather's favorite Shanghainese dish was something called Lion's Head. When we were told we were going to have that for dinner, we couldn't wait to see what it was like, but not without a little trepidation. Certainly, our imaginations ran riot.

When the dish was finally borne to table, not without a little extra flourish, we clapped our hands in delight. In the middle of the dining table was a platter of giant meatballs framed by a wreath of green vegetables. The smell was a mixture of sweet and savory, with just a whiff of wine.

As our chopsticks touched the meatballs, they were so tender they fell apart. The filling was soft and moist and really juicy. After that introduction, Lion's Head meatballs became a favorite dish that perked us up even on the hottest days when we couldn't bring ourselves to eat anything else.

After I married into a Beijing family, I found out that this was also my mother-in-law's favorite dish, except she called it sixi wanzi or Four Happiness Meatballs. The flavors she preferred were slightly stronger with more cinnamon and star anise, but basically it is the same recipe.

These giant meatballs are very typical of the Northern palate, strongly flavored and double cooked. There are many versions, but I like a relatively lighter recipe that uses grated lotus root to add bulk to the meatballs. The lotus root is crisp yet starchy and also contributes a particular fragrance to the dish.

Many cities claim the meatballs as their own. If you do a search on the Internet, you'll get recipes from Yangzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou and Shanghai. There are even a few claims from Japan and Korea.

So, depending on the region the meatballs come from, the filler vegetable may range from cabbage to onions to soybeans. But all recipes share one common instruction - that the meatballs must be fried, then braised. The double cooking does give the meatball a melt-in-the-mouth texture.

In Beijing, you can also get deep-fried meatballs from the cooked food counters of the supermarkets. They range from pure pork to vegetarian and are generally well-seasoned and crisp on the outside - more like a snack than something you'll put on the dinner table. These are great when you have kids, because you can also tell them these are "popcorn" meatballs.

They are really easy to make as well, and you can hide the daily quota of vegetables in them by chopping up carrots, onions, celery or any leafy greens and mixing them into the meat. I often add grated potato or sweet potato to tilt the ratio of meat to vegetables as well.

My favorite take-out soup when we're too lazy to cook is a delicious winter-melon and meatball soup that comes from a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant opposite the People's Daily campus. The meatballs have a little bit of tendon in them and are just little lumps that the chef swiftly flicks into the soup, but the chewy texture is quite addictive. Besides, it's almost a one-dish meal, with a little meat, lots of vegetables and a bowl of soup to boot.

Here are my recipes, and they are generally adjusted so there is a lot more vegetables added to the meatballs. But they taste just as good, and the authenticity has not been sacrificed in the name of health. I hope you enjoy them.

Recipe | Meatball soup wiht silky gourd

Ingredients:

2 silky gourds (loofah)

150 g minced pork

1 tsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sesame oil

Slices of carrot

1 liter chicken stock, or water with a chicken cube

Method:

1. Mix minced pork with cornstarch, salt, pepper and sesame oil and stir vigorously in one direction. Form meatballs with a teaspoon.

2. Peel the silky gourd and cut into chunks. The summer squashes are really young now, so there is no need to seed them.

3. Heat up the chicken stock, or boil the water and add a bouillon cube.

4. When the water is boiling, add the silky gourd and carrot. After the soup comes back to a boil, add the meatballs.

5. When the meatballs float, the soup is ready.

Food notes:

You can use almost any vegetable or combinations. Harder vegetables such as winter melon, choko and radish must be sliced quite thinly so they cook quickly and evenly. Add carrots for color and flavor. You can also use watercress, or mustard greens.

Recipe | Lion's head meatballs

Ingredients:

500 g minced pork

250 g lotus root

1 egg

Green vegetables (cabbage), blanched

5 cm knob ginger, grated

1 bunch spring onions, chopped

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 tbsp Chinese wine

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 liter chicken stock, or water

1 bunch spring onions, cut into lengths plus 5 slices ginger

Method:

1. Wash, peel and grate the lotus root into a large mixing bowl.

2. Squeeze the grated ginger to get about a tablespoon of juice.

3. Beat the egg and add to the minced meat together with the ginger juice, chopped spring onions soy sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil and Chinese wine. Mix well then stir vigorously in one direction.

4. Add the grated lotus root and stir again, until mixture is well blended.

5. Divide mixture into four giant meatballs.

6. Heat up a frying pan with oil and wait for the temperature to rise to about 180 C. Place the palm of your hand over the oil, and when you can no longer count to five over the oil, it's ready. Carefully slide the meatballs into the pan and spoon the hot oil over them, bathing them patiently until they are an even golden brown. Shake the pan occasionally so the bottoms do not stick.

7. Gently move the meatballs onto a plate and drain pan of oil.

8. Return the meatballs to pan and add the stock, together with ginger slices and spring onions.

9. Braise on a gentle simmer until meatballs are cooked, about half an hour.

10. Plate meatballs. Surround with blanched vegetables.

11. Finally, reduce the stock in the pan and thicken with a little cornstarch. Add a little dark soy sauce for color and glaze the meatballs with the sauce.

Food notes:

If lotus root is not available, you can substitute with grated radish or chopped water chestnut. These vegetables best imitate the texture and taste of the lotus root.

Recipe | Little meatballs

Ingredients:

250 g minced pork

1 potato (150g) grated

1 egg white 1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp ginger juice

Method:

1. Place all the ingredients together and stir vigorously in one direction until the mixture starts getting sticky.

2. Heat some oil in a non-stick frying pan.

3. Shape little meatballs with a teaspoon and drop them into the frying pan. Don't worry if they are not perfectly round, some rough edges would actually make the meatballs crisp better.

4. Patiently fry the meatballs on all sides until they are uniformly golden brown.

5. Drain well, and serve with a side salad of greens.