Pearl meatballs, also called pearl balls () or glutinous rice balls (), are traditional

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

meatball A meatball is ground meat (mince) rolled into a ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning. Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce. There are m ...

s from

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

and

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

. They are usually made of

ground pork Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, inclu ...

and vegetables, then covered in

glutinous rice Domestication syndrome refers to two sets of phenotypic traits that are common to either domesticated plants or domesticated animals. Domesticated animals tend to be smaller and less aggressive than their wild counterparts; they may also hav ...

and

steamed Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam, but food can also be steamed in a wok. In the American Southwest, steam pits used for cooking ha ...

. Historically, pearl meatballs were eaten on festive occasions like birthdays or

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

, but is now served casually, such as in

dim sum Dim sum () is a large range of small Chinese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch. Most modern dim sum dishes are commonly associated with Cantonese cuisine, although dim sum dishes also exist in other Chinese cu ...

. Pearl balls are a part of ''Mianyang Sanzheng'' ("The Three Steamed Dishes of Mianyang"), a famous dish in

Hubei cuisine Hubei cuisine, also known as Chu cuisine or E cuisine, is derived from the native cooking styles of Hubei Province in China. History Hubei cuisine has a history of more than 2,000 years. The names of dishes and cuisine styles can be found in ...

Preparation

Pearl meatballs are made with

, mixed with

sesame oil Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. The oil is one of the earliest-known crop-based oils. Worldwide mass modern production is limited due to the inefficient manual harvesting process required to extract the oil. ...

Shaoxing wine Shaoxing wine (alternatively spelled ''Shaohsing'', ''Hsiaohsing'', or ''Shaoshing'') is a variety of Chinese ''Huangjiu'' ("yellow wine") made by fermenting glutinous rice, water, and wheat-based yeast. It is produced in Shaoxing, in the Zheji ...

pepper Pepper(s) may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plants ** Black pepper ** Long pepper ** Kampot pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanacea ...

, diced vegetables, and

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diet ...

egg white Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens, it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms a ...

for thickening. The most commonly used vegetables include

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

water chestnut Water chestnut may refer to either of two plants, both used in Chinese cuisine: * ''Eleocharis dulcis'', or Chinese water chestnut, is eaten for its crisp corm * Water caltrop, ''Trapa natans'', is eaten for its starchy seed See also * Chinese cui ...

scallions Scallions (also known as green onions and spring onions) are edible vegetables of various species in the genus ''Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions. Their close relatives include garlic, shallots, leeks, chive ...

bamboo shoots Bamboo shoots or bamboo sprouts are the edible Shoot (botany), shoots (new bamboo culm (botany), culms that come out of the ground) of many bamboo species including ''Bambusa vulgaris'' and ''Phyllostachys edulis''. They are used as vegetables ...

mushrooms A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

, and

lotus root ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as the pink lotus, sacred lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more of ...

. The meat mixture is formed into balls, then rolled and coated in

, which is soaked beforehand but not cooked. The balls are then steamed and served in

bamboo steamer Bamboo steamers, called ''zhēnglóng'' () in Chinese, are a type of food steamer made of bamboo. They are used commonly in Chinese cuisine, especially dim sum, and usually come in two or more layers. Bamboo steamers have also spread to other Eas ...

Gallery

Sticky rice meatballs at Huayanjie, Lize (20211119171910).jpg Zhenzhu Wanzi at Xiangdu Xiangwei Restaurant, Beijing (20240201121141).jpg The three steaming dishes of Mianyang.jpeg, ''Mianyang Sanzheng'', a specialty in

that contains pearl meatballs

References

{{Hunan cuisine Meatballs Chinese pork dishes Glutinous rice dishes Dim sum Hubei cuisine Hunan cuisine