Skip to main content

Lionhead Soup


Cooking new and exciting recipes is hard when limited by the heat and ingredients that may or may not be available at the store.  Throw in a small town store and the limits become even higher.  Sure, everything can be ordered off the internet but at what cost?  When a new recipe is found the first thing reviewed is the list of ingredients, especially Asian foods.  Fish sauce, dark soy, bean paste, rice vinegar, shoaxing wine, anise, various fresh peppers.  Luckily enough, Asian ingredients can easily be substituted so when Chicken Lionhead Meatball Soup was discovered and only need one substitution it had to be added to the list of new recipes.  Even better that while it was a soup and it is hot outside, the prep time and cooking over the heat was minimal and quick.

Modifications Made:
Panko crumbs were not needed to keep meatballs together therefore were omitted.  Black pepper was added to the meatballs for some spice as there was none elsewhere.

Scaled for Likability: Great
In reading about Lionhead Soup, the meatballs were originally made with beef or pork or both, never chicken.  The beef or pork made for a richer broth to flavor the noodles.  Where I could see the advantage of a richer broth, one could easily swap homemade chicken broth with homemade beef broth or a combination of both.  Cooking the meatballs in beef broth would change the flavor slightly but not enough to deter from the simplicity of this dish.

Simplicity was the key element to the this soup but it was not lacking in flavor.  In fact, the only thing missing from the soup was those crunchy fried wonton strips served at Asian restaurants when ordering hot and sour soup.  The crunch would have offered a nice texture to the soup.  Keeping the noodles separate meant leftovers would have been just as good or even better as the meatballs and broth flavors would have had even more time to meld and become one.

When making again, a whole nub of ginger will be added to the chicken stock along with a fine diced shallot onion.  Allowing the chicken stock to cook with all the listed ingredients plus the additional ginger will result in a stronger ginger flavor without the bit of the ginger itself.  Meatballs the size of lionheads is fun and different but for the ease of eating, bite size meatballs will be used instead.  With the use of an ice cream scoop, making the meatballs and plopping into the well seasoned broth will be easy.  Or use of an ice cream scoop and dropping onto a cookie sheet to freeze before adding to broth will be easy, too.  So many options so little time.

Popular posts from this blog

Better Than Campbell's Old Fashion Vegetable Soup

Went to the store with the hopes of gathering fresh produce for soup. With more than 45 people in line for two packages of any meat product and the produce section containing only avocado, orange, and most randomly, strawberries, I settled upon canned soup.  Well not canned soup since that section was still void of food, too.  Instead soup made from canned goods as the canned vegetable section had been mostly restocked. Soups like this 15 Minute Vegetable Soup  are ideal in dire food situations such as current times. Modifications Made: Plain petite diced tomatoes omitted, frozen carrots instead of canned, green beans and corn undrained, peas omitted (gross, nasty little pods), one cup celery, three cups diced potatoes, one can tomato sauce, two beef and two pollo de tomate bouillon cubes, six cups water.  Once onions were softened, carrots/celery/potatoes/juice of green beans and corn, sauce, bouillon cubes, water were added and allowed to simmer until carrots almost tender.  Green be

Papas a La Mexicana (Ranchera)

It  is a crying shame that there are six hens and not a egg in sight. What am I supposed to do with homemade ranchero sauce? Thankfully with a few quick searches of the internet a recipe from my hometown newspaper was discovered: Papas Ranchera . Not once in the thirty years I lived in my hometown did I ever eat at a local food joint serving papas rancheras. No time like the present to remedy this cultural dish. Because this recipe is hidden behind a paywall (grrr...) I have included it here for you: Servings: 4-6  Ingredients: 1 pound potatoes, diced 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/2 large onion 1 1/2 medium tomatoes 3 jalapenos 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup juice from canned tomatoes Instructions: Fry potatoes in vegetable oil until lightly browned (about 4-6 minutes).  Saute onions, tomatoes, jalapenos until soft.  Add garlic powder and salt. Add tomato juice until vegetables are covered (may need to add water).  Bring to a boil and then add potatoes.  Cover and reduc

Sour Cream & Chive Scalloped Potatoes

Can't believe the Month of the Potato is over.  There are so many more potato recipes saved.  Guess I will have to work them into another month. Last week's scalloped potatoes were one of the best new recipes during the month of potatoes.  With today being the last day in the Month of Potatoes, I decided to go out with a bang by cooking another batch of scalloped potatoes but this time sour cream and chive.   The Best Scalloped Potatoes , or so they said. Modifications Made: Recipe was reduced by half.  Mayo was omitted and one entire package of chives were chopped and added to sauce before pouring onto layers. Scaled for Likability: Good Betty Crocker Sour Cream and Chive Box Scalloped Potatoes were the standard for this recipe.  These were a family favorite for years but have long since been discounted.  Bummer.  Trying to replicate this seemed easy enough.  Alas, it was not. These had a nice texture but were too oily from the cheese and did not contain enough onion, garlic,