White Cabbage Fish Balls Soup

Chinese New Year is approaching. It has become more or less a custom for every Chinese New Year that we will have the white cabbage (some call chinese cabbage) soup for new year’s eve. Sometimes, we will use this soup as the soup for our steamboat feast. The use of white cabbage lends the soup a natural sweet taste, which can be quite tasty especially for the little kids.

You can use fish balls or meat balls. In this recipe, I actually use both fish balls and minced pork (rolled into balls). The basic stock for this soup is ikan bilis stock . You can use any bony meat (including chicken parts) to make the stock. Just prepare and boil the stock for 30 minutes to an hour. If you don’t have time to boil stock (I dislike the use of instant stock granules and prefer boiling the stock fresh), you can do without it but the soup might not be as flavourful. In that case, you might need to adjust the taste of the soup with an appropriate amount of seasoning.

This is the recipe for White Cabbage Fish Balls Soup

Ingredients

• 4 to 8 leaves of white cabbage (cut into 2 inches cross wise)
• 10 to 15 fish balls
• 100 grammes of minced pork (choose and use pork which comes with a little bit of fat. Marinate with a little light soya sauce and white pepper powder)
• a small handful of ikan bilis (choose bigger sized ikan bilis or those suitable for stock)
• 1 litre water

Seasoning

• 2 teaspoons light soya sauce
• Salt and white pepper powder to taste

Method

Bring water to boil and add ikan bilis. Boil in medium heat for 30 minutes. Remove ikan bilis.

Bring stock to boil again and add minced pork balls (rolled into same size as fish balls) and fish balls. Once the balls are beginning to float, add white cabbage.

Boil till cabbage turns limp and all the minced pork balls and fish balls have floated to surface. Add seasoning to taste.

Dish up and serve hot.