Snowflake Meatballs

Snowflake Meatballs

　　Main ingredients: premium pork, glutinous rice

Preparation: Dice the pork into a mixture of lean and fat meat in a 7:3 ratio, then mince it into a paste. Add MSG and salt, and you can also include eggs and water chestnuts. Stir in one direction until well combined, then shape into round balls. Coat the balls with glutinous rice that has been soaked until semi-transparent, and steam them in a steamer until cooked.

Characteristics: Deliciously fragrant and sweet, soft and tender. From afar, they look like tiny snowballs, but when bitten into, they reveal a light pinkish-red interior—novel and adorable.

Related legend: When the Yuan troops invaded Xinhua, a group of anti-Yuan resistance fighters was trapped on a mountain. It was midsummer, and the Yuan army hoped to win without a fight by cutting off the rebels’ food supply. Unexpectedly, after several days of laying siege, snow suddenly fell on the mountain. The Yuan soldiers thought divine forces were aiding the rebels and hastily retreated. In truth, the “snow” was actually snowflake meatballs thrown by the rebels. Since then, snowflake meatballs have gained great fame and have been passed down to this day.