Gluten Free & God Seeking: Joann's Oriental Gluten Free Meatballs

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Joann's Oriental Gluten Free Meatballs

We have been hosting a family from Taiwan already for 3 weeks, and the mom has made some Taiwanese food for us each week--already we've had rice noodle, fried tofu and vegetables, and pork and pepper stir-fry.

This week she taught me how to make oriental meatballs. We made these with ground turkey instead of beef, and you couldn't tell. These make a lovely appetizer! A student from China told us they make the same thing but without the rice. We used Thai sweet chili sauce to dip them in.

JoAnn's Oriental Gluten Free Meatballs

Makes 30 meatballs

1. Bowl #1:
(1) Soak 2 cups of sticky rice (also called sweet rice) in a medium size bowl with water to cover for at least 6 hours.
(2) Drain.

2. Bowl #2:
(1) Soak 4 Chinese mushrooms in a small bowl in warm water for 1 hour to soften.
(2) Then mince.

3. Bowl #3: Put 1/4 cup of dried shrimp in a small bowl to soften and then mince.

4. Bowl #4: Finely slice 1 green onion and put it into a bowl.

5. Bowl #5: Mince up 3 cloves of garlic.

6. Bowl #6: Put 3/4 lb of ground turkey into a bowl and mix it with 1 T of gluten free tamari.

7. Bowl #7: Chop up 3 T of cilantro

8. Combine ingredients in the ground turkey bowl:
(1) Add 1 egg and the contents of Bowl #2, 3, 4, and 5.
(2) Grate on your finest side 1/2 of a carrot over the bowl.

(3) Then add seasonings: 2 T gluten free tamari, 1 T + 2 t rice mirin, 2 t sesame oil, 1 t salt, 1/2 t black pepper and 2 t tapioca starch.

9. Make meatballs:
(1) Put about a cup of rice on a small salad plate and about 1 of tapioca starch.
(2) Male a 1" meatball.
(3) Roll it into the rice making sure the rice coats the meatball and sticks to it. Add more tapioca starch if you need to.
(4) Set them on a dinner plate.

10. In an electric put a small rack that a plate can sit on.
(1) Put about 3 cups of water in.
(2) Steam the meatballs for 10-15 minutes at medium-high heat. Check and make sure the rice is tender.
(3) Add more water before you steam the next plate.