So, the first recipe from Ching-He Huang. Her approach to Chinese food is informed by a) being Taiwanese and b) being raised in the UK, so she isn't a purist. This recipe was taken from her 'East meets East' chapter, and was her interpretation of Meatballs and Spaghetti - a very loose interpretation, I would say! Very nice though. Imagine, if you will, slippery udon noodles, bathed in a coconutty sauce flavoured with garlic, ginger, chilli, lemongrass, shrimp paste and fish sauce, with masses of coriander. Buried in amongst the noodles are little meatballs, made with beef and seasoned with yet more garlic and ginger, chilli and coriander, chopped spring onions, fish sauce and Chinese wine. Are you hungry? You should be! Anyway, a very successful first dish, more Thai than Chinese. I added a spritz of lime at the end, just to lift the final flavours. The shrimp paste and fish sauce, by the way, should be used as chemical agents in wartime. I used considerably less than in the recipe, and they do fade to a savoury background flavour on cooking. I am looking forward to trying more from her book.
Oriental meatballs! i like the sound of that! Yum!
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