Lion Head Photos

This post is for one Ms. ALP, who now lives in Montana and misses my lion heads. :) So the next time I made lion heads, I took photos so I could assemble a recipe post.

Some notes: Lion heads originate from the region around Jiangning, which is near my mother's ancestral region. They are oversized meatballs traditionally made with pork and napa cabbage, although you can substitute any large-leafed green that has a similar texture and contains a lot of water (like bok choy). The dominant flavor is ginger, and the magic is in the water that is released from the veggies as they steam. It gets flavored by the meat and the flavors in the meat and is great spooned over rice.

Pork is the most common meat of that lattitude of China. Historically, they have chickens, but eggs tend to be more valued than chicken meat, so the chickens remain alive. Similarly, they have cows (well, a yak-ish buffalo-ish critter), but they are valued as working animals and also tend to live to old age. Anyway, all that being said, I make them with beef because I'm an animal-welfare-snob who only buys free-range meat, and free-range beef is more more readily available in American stores than free-range pork.

My mom made these in a wok, but it's hard to manage the thermals in a wok. Much easier in a heavy pot with high thermal mass. I use an enamel-covered cast iron, but also have used an iron skillet. However, my skillet doesn't have a decent lid, so I use aluminum foil to cover it to steam. As the napa cabbage shrinks, I push down the foil and it gradually changes from a foil dome to a flat foil lid. :)

Here is the recipe I copied from my mom's handwritten green binder cookbook when I left home!

Here are the raw ingredients:

My kitchen supervisor is ready and waiting!

Chop up the green onions and ginger like this:

Ok the recipe calls for a torn up piece of bread, or a slurry of cornstarch and water, but I use cracker crumbs. So mix the meat, the cracker crumbs, the green onions and ginger, and add some soy sauce, some dry white wine, and a generous sprinkling of white pepper. Then form giant meatballs and brown them (in a bit of oil if your meat is very lean).

After the meatballs are browned on the surface, remove them from the pot. Tear the napa cabbage into palm-sized pieces, line the pot with 2 layers of them, and nestle the meatballs all comfy inside:

Then cover with another generous layer of napa cabbage (it's hard to have too much... they shrink a lot and contribute so many good juices), and pour a bit more soy sauce on top:

Turn the heat down super low, cover, and let cook undisturbed for about 30 mins. You should just barely hear the steam sizzling out from the napa cabbage as it cooks. If it's too quiet, turn the heat up notch. If it's too sizzly-steamy-violent-sounding, turn the heat down. When it's done, the top leaves will be cooked:

But it's the bottom leaves that have all the magic! The meat juices will have come out, and the cabbage water will have come out, and those bottom leaves will be braised in juices. Serve over rice!