pork and mustard green soup

leah | 04.17.2020

i liked this recipe enough to write in a notebook i'm keeping as a "family cookbook" but then i found an even better way to make it so i have to rewrite it. cool!

we have this bon appetit special issue that's all comfort food recipes and none of them list the recipe writer (weird) but i finally looked it up this year and it's a fucking alison roman recipe. i've been trying to avoid her for so long because i hate her vibe but she got me in the end.

recipe:
link here. my ~new~twist~ is forming the meat+seasonings into tiny meatballs (i got 30 of them out of 1/2 lb ground pork). loose ground meat gets lost in the soup but tiny meatballs are easy to find. i change the seasoning amounts slightly to accommodate this.

meatballs

• 1/2 lb ground pork (beef would be good here too but i haven't tried it yet)
• 2 tsp garlic paste
• 2 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp sichuan peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt

soup

• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp garlic paste
• 2 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp sichuan peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper (start with 1/2 tsp salt)
• 4-5 c broth (i use 5 c water + 2 tsp beef better than bouillon)
• 1 bunch mustard greens, torn (mustard greens are GOAT but i've used all sort of things here, daikon tops most recently)
• 2-3 tsp soy sauce (the recipe rec of 2tbsp is too much imo)
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 8 oz wide rice noodles

grind the sichuan peppercorns and cumin seeds for both the meatballs and the soup in a mortar and pestle. combine all the meatball ingredients and mix thoroughly until it's kind of paste-like. form into ~30 tiny meatballs (like a tsp each?).

heat a couple tbsp oil in a pot large enough to accommodate all the meatballs in one layer. brown the meatballs well on one side then add the soup seasonings including the remaining ground sichuan peppercorns and cumin, ginger and garlic paste, salt and pepper. stir everything together and let the spices fry in the oil until aromatic.

add broth/water and bring to a boil. while this is happening, boil a pot of water for the noodles.

the noodles i buy need to cook about 7 min so i do the following parts simultaneously and the timing works out perfectly.

once the noodle water is boiling (takes about 10 min for me), drop in noodles to noodle pot and mustard greens, soy sauce and fish sauce to soup pot. boil noodles and soup separately for 6-7 min. drain noodles, transfer to bowls, and ladle soup over top.