Great Balls of F… Fish!

Made this for lunch last Friday. Home-made fish balls with some bee hoon (rice vermicelli) in a vegetable soup.

I had wanted something light, healthy, colorful, and quick and easy to prepare, and I didn’t want instant noodles. It so happened that my mum had just bought some “ma kau” (sorry, I don’t know the English equivalent for this… Chinese mackerel maybe?? if such a thing exists!) fish meat from Chinatown that same morning. Aha! Fresh home-made fish balls from very fresh fish meat. Sounded perfect.

This stall at the Smith Street wet market sells copious amounts of this fresh fish flesh (try saying that really quickly ten times in a row ) everyday. Two elderly Cantonese ladies sit there the whole morning just scraping meat off the fish and beating it into a smooth pulp. The beating is done by hand (I think) in a large wooden bowl, with maybe just a little salt water added to the fish meat. By the time my mum got to the stall they were out of the ready-prepared fish pulp, and were still in the midst of preparing the next batch. Not wanting to wait, my mum simply bought the scraped fish mash, and had planned to beat it into the smooth pulp herself when she got home. I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered, so I gave the fish meat only a quick mash before shaping them into balls. I thought it produced a rather interesting texture - different from the usual fish balls. There was a less refined, almost rustic, look, feel and texture to my fish balls.

Wanting to keep the taste of the fish balls as “pure” as possible, I added only a bit of salt water (rather than salt itself, as salt water, according to my mum – and I’ve learnt not to question her culinary wisdom on such things – enhances the texture and smoothness of the fish meat) and a little pepper to the meat. Then it was simply rolled into tiny bite sized balls. No flour or other binder was needed.

Next, I brought some chicken broth to a boil, added in some fresh veggie and tomato, and seasoned the soup to taste. When the vegetables were almost at the doneness I wanted, in went the fish balls. As they started to float to the top (indicating they were cooked), I let the soup come to a quick rolling boil, and quickly added in two lightly beaten eggs (seasoned with a dash of light soy sauce and pepper). I reduced the heat, and quickly but gently swirled the eggs to form smooth loose strands throughout the soup. Just before the eggs were fully cooked, I turned off the flame and allowed them to finish cooking in the residual heat, so that the egg texture would stay smooth.

Unfortunately, after removing the soup from the heat, I discovered that not all the fish balls were fully cooked through. Like I said, I was feeling lazy. So instead of removing the undercooked fish balls from the soup and cooking them again separately, I just plonked the whole pot back on the flame for another minute or two. The result? Somewhat overcooked eggs with a slightly “rough” texture (as you can see from the picture). They tasted fine. But I’m just picky sometimes about the eggs having a smooth, refined texture.

At this stage, this chunky concoction already made for a delicious stand-alone soup. But I wanted to make a full meal of it, and so while the soup was cooking, I also boiled some rice vermicelli in a separate pot of water. It’s best not to cook the vermicelli in the soup, as this tends to turn the soup "cloudy", and makes it that little bit less visually appealing. My laziness and hunger again dictated that I didn’t bother with the cold rinse for the bee hoon. Once it was cooked, and the soup was ready, I added the two together, and it was good to go. Time to eat!

Oh… and where’s the bee hoon in the picture you ask? Err… let’s see… it’s… here…

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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