Lettuce Cups with Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs

Reading the March issue of Bon Appétit on the plane home from Marco, I saw this recipe for Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups. Hello! I love lettuce wraps and this looked like something fun which everyone, maybe, would like. Most of the ingredients I had on hand and the rest I remembered to get at DeCicco's...except cilantro. Dammit, it's always something. So wherever I list cilantro below, I substituted parsley.

This is a good Young Chef recipe because there are lots of little jobs for kids to do like grate carrots and slice cucumbers, whisk this and that, shape meatballs, arrange things on a platter, etc.

Just in case the short people in the house didn't care for it, I also made cappellini in a Thai peanut sauce. This turned out to be a brilliant move as you'll soon see.

Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups (from Bon Appétit)

You can make the dipping sauce ahead of time and keep it in the fridge, then bring to room temperature while cooking everything else.

• 1 3-inch lemongrass stalk, outermost leaf removed
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tbsp coarsely grated carrot
• 4 tsp packed brown sugar
• 2 tsp minced green Thai chile, or serrano chile with seeds (I didn't use this)

Smash the lemongrass with a rolling pin, then mince fine, you should have 1 tablespoon. Place in small bowl and whisk in rest of ingredients until sugar dissolves. Set aside

The meatballs can also be made ahead of time and kept chilled. They are made just with ground pork and there's a lot of emphasis on keeping them cold during prep. It didn't say why. I just follow orders.

• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 5-inch stalk of lemongrass, outermost leaf removed, smashed with a rolling pin and minced.
• 1/4 cup chopped shallots
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Chill pork in freezer while making lemongrass paste. Pulse lemongrass, shallots, cilantro, fish sauce, garlic, oil, sugar and white pepper in food processor until a paste forms, scraping down sides with a spatula.

Add pork and pulse until combined. Shape into 24 balls (each about 1 tablespoon). Place on plate or baking sheet, cover and chill at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.

Start water boiling for the pasta.  In a small saucepan, combine the following for the peanut sauce:

• 3 tbsp soy
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 3/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• pinch of red pepper flakes

Whisk until smooth and keep on low heat while pasta cooks. Use cappellini or spaghetti.

Heat vegetable oil in skillet on medium heat, add meatballs and brown until cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Get a large platter, put the bowl of dipping sauce in the middle. Separate the leaves of either butter lettuce or iceberg for the cups. Slice thin 2 Persian or English cucumbers. Arrange on one side of platter, put cooked meatballs on the other.

Drain pasta, reserving a cup of pasta water. Return to pot and toss with peanut sauce and as much reserved water as needed.

So you put some meatballs into a lettuce cup, garnish with the cucumber and drizzle the sauce over it.

This was a hit! I sensed that the kids wouldn't like the dipping sauce and I was right—it was very intensely salty and lime-y (I'm going to fiddle with those two things next time). So I put the peanut noodles into lettuce cups with a meatball, the sliced cucumber and extra carrot that I'd grated. They each ate four!

Not bad for a Monday.  

Bartender, another Corona please...

Thai Coconut Soup

After the Dim Sum outing, the only thing I really felt like for dinner was soup, and specifically my coconut thai soup. I used to make this soup every Monday night when I came home from the city. Jeeps would have the kids at swim lessons and I'd be on my own for dinner. This was my go-to meal, Heaven and comfort in a pot. I could make as much or as little as I wanted, but I usually made enough to have a little for Tuesday lunch.

Thai Coconut Soup

• 3-4 cloves of garlic (and once again I find myself clean out of garlic so I'm using the pre-minced kind in a jar, mea culpa.)
• 2 tablespoons fresh ground ginger (which I also get in a jar at the grocery store.  It's usually in the produce section, the brand is Spice World, and I'm never without 5 or 6 jars of this stuff.  If you can't find it, then grated fresh ginger is fine.)
• 1 can lite coconut milk (and like the damn garlic, I was out of that and had to use "whole" coconut milk. This works fine, although it has more of a tendency to separate, and also makes a richer-tasting soup. Jeeps doesn't mind the latter but I kind of do.)
• Carrots, peeled and diced. (The more the merrier. Honestly, do you understand soup or stew recipes that call for one carrot?!)
• Asian fish sauce. (This is one of the make-or-break ingredients, to the point where if I don't have it on hand, I won't make the soup.)
• Lime juice. (Fresh is best, but I use bottled and I sleep well at night.)
• 1/2 bag of Trader Joe's Thai Vegetable Gyoza, thawed in a colander in the sink. (Yum, yummier and yummiest. If you cannot procure, then naturally any kind of vegetable pot sticker will suffice, or you could use rice noodles or broken spaghetti.)

Put your soup pot on medium heat and splash some olive or coconut oil in. Get your minced garlic smiling in the oil, and then add the ground ginger and a pinch of red pepper flakes (more or less according to your preference). If you want to just stop here and park your face right above the soup pot and inhale for five minutes, believe me, I understand. The smell is divine. When you revive, add the carrots and saute another 5 minutes.

Add the coconut milk, scraping out the can with a small spatula. Stir well, then add 2 cups of low sodium chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until carrots are tender.

The trick is to taste the broth and taste some more before you start fiddling with additional seasonings. Start with a teaspoon of asian fish sauce and a tablespoon of lime juice. I also like to add some baby spinach and some chopped scallions.

By the way, did you know that you can buy fresh scallions, chop and freeze them? They keep very well and I was happy to discover this—I like using scallions in cooking but seem to do so sporadically. More often than not I end up with limp scallions in the crisper drawer just when I need them most.

When the broth is properly salty and sweet and sour and savory, add the gyoza and simmer another 5 minutes. If you have fresh cilantro on hand, chop some of that and add.

This soup is great when you have a cold—all that garlic and ginger and the red pepper flakes make your nose run like crazy. It's awesome.