How To Create Flavorful Lion's Head Meatballs With Your Steam Oven

Meatballs are flavor packed morsels that are easy to make, quick to cook and easy to devour. In this recipe the meatballs are steamed in a savory broth in the steam oven. Serving the meatballs in the broth creates a warming flavorful meal and best of all, vegetables to accompany the meatballs can be steamed at the same time.

Lion's Head Meatballs with pork and shrimp packed with flavor

Recipes for meatballs are found in many different cuisines, typically they are pan fried or baked in the oven but steaming the meatballs results in a light texture and the savory steaming broth is also the perfect poaching liquid for any accompanying vegetables.

This recipe uses a combination of simple ingredients to create fabulous flavor and great texture. The base for the meatballs is ground pork; ginger and green onions add bright flavors to the meatballs while finely chopped shrimp, water chestnuts and bacon are incorporated into the mix to lighten the texture and add flavor. Instead of egg and breadcrumbs the binder for these meatballs is a little oatmeal and cornstarch.

Ingredients

Partially steam the meatballs

Add the veggies at the end

Even though the technique for cooking the meatballs is called steaming, these meatballs are actually steamed/poached in chicken broth. The ingredients and seasonings in the meatballs intensify the flavor of the broth creating a wonderful savory taste sensation.

What to Serve with Lion’s Head Meatballs

These meatballs are traditionally rolled quite large and are named because they resemble a lion's head, typically one meatball is served in a small soup bowl with the broth. Another option is to add some vegetables to the broth part way through cooking and serve the meatballs with those vegetables in the broth. We chose baby bok choy cut into quarters together with shiitake mushrooms, the combination was delicious.

Adding vegetables is not necessary, but it’s a good reminder of how easy it is to cook multiple foods at one time when cooking with the steam oven. If you were cooking a meal with multiple courses and needed some rice then the rice could be steamed at the same time as well.

Steam ovens offer a versatile array of cooking options and in many ways can simplify the cooking process. In my next post I will review creating simple delicious vegetable salads in the steam oven so you can take full advantage of these amazing features.

Larissa, Your Convection Enthusiast