Kitchen M Redux I: Steamed Sweet Rice Meatball

In my five and half years of blogging, there is no single recipe or food that’s covered more than once in Kitchen M. But that’s hard to do. I like new, innovative cooking, but I have had some great recipes and thought that I should reintroduce some of my old favorites with the newer visitors of Kitchen M.

Steamed Sweet Rice Meatball was featured more than three years ago, and taken with a 4MP Cybershot. Though my mother never made this at home, this brings me back my childhood memories. I was first introduced to steamed sweet rice meatball when I was in elementary school in Japan and it was one of the dishes served for school lunch.

Now that I think about it, the Japanese school lunch menu was very well thought out. I can’t recall the exact menu cycle, but we rarely got the same dishes in a month. In fact, I remember this particular dish being served only once in a great while although it’s not celebratory food related or particularly expensive. It was neither something that kids fought over. I was kind of a strange kid who liked simple, unostentatious foods. My other school lunch favorite was mackerel cooked in miso, often enjoyed among older adults, definitely not so popular among kids.

Of course, we had no choice but to eat whatever was served on the menu and there were times I wanted to fake my sickness and stay home because the lunch sucked, but now when I think back, I appreciate the variety of foods that were served. Thank you dietitian!

Recipe of the Day - Steamed Sweet Rice Meatball

Ingredients (makes 10-12 meatballs) :
2/3 c + Sweet Rice
½ lb ground pork
3 scallions, chopped
1 Tbsp ginger, minced
½ egg, beaten
1 tsp sake (rice wine for cooking)
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp soy sauce
4 Tbsp cornstarch
Sesame seeds for garnish

Rinse sweet rice with cold water, soak in water for at least 2 hours and drain. In a bowl, mix ground pork, scallions and ginger. Add rest of the ingredients except rice and sesame seeds to the mixture and mix well.

Prepare steaming basket or bamboo steamer and start boiling water.
Make golfball sized meat balls and set them on a side. Gently roll meatballs on sweet rice (don’t overpress the rice) and set a side. Steam it for 20 minutes or longer until internal temperature reaches 160F.

Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. Leave the meatballs in the steamer with lid open for a few minutes until rice dries a little bit (otherwise, it’s hard to pick it up). Serve warm.