Pork Meatballs over Laksa Soup

We have been very busy the last couple of weeks with entertaining overseas guest, from China, Germany and USA.

We have mainly been providing them with our pork and our goat, and fresh fruits and vegies from our garden/orchard.

One quick dish I did was steaming Asian pork meatballs over a Laksa soup. I have a steamer with a reasonable size base that I cook the soup in the bottom (where you usually only boil water) and have the meatballs steaming above, getting all of the lovely flavours infusing through.

For the Meatballs
• 500g pork mince
• 4 shallots, ends trimmed, thinly sliced
• 5 water chestnuts, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
• 3 teaspoons soy sauce
• 3 teaspoons oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• 40g (1/4 cup) plain flour
• Steamed rice and Asian greens to serve with, or you can place in the Laksa to make it an all in one main dish.

First of all combine the mince, shallots, water chestnuts, garlic, coriander, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and egg in a bowl. Roll 1 tablespoonful of the mixture into a ball and roll in seasoned flour, with salt and pepper and place in the steamer. Place baking paper between the layers.

Laksa Soup
Fry 1 diced onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of fresh ginger in a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan of your steamer. Then add 1 full jar of Laksa paste(400mls) with 3 cups of Chicken or vegetable stock, 400ml of coconut milk and 125ml of coconut cream. Place the steamer on top, bring to the boil and let it simmer for half an hour or until the pork meatballs are all cooked through.
Whilst that is cooking, get your soup bowls ready with the following items divided between them. You can have it as an entrée, if you have lots of people or if you only have 4-6 you can have it as a main dish.

• 100g mung bean vermicelli noodles (cellophane or glass noodles)
• A kaffir lime leaf in each
• 2 cups of (110g) bean sprouts
• 1/2 cup coriander leaves
• 1/2 cup Vietnamese mint leaves
• Cooked prawns, diced chicken
• Sambal oelek and lime wedges, to serve

This dish goes nicely with a glass of our Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc