Hainanese Beef Balls In Tomato Sauce 海南茄汁牛肉丸

It has been a while since I cooked any Chinese or Malaysian dishes, both cuisines that I know so well. In a way cooking it for the first time in almost a month is like returning home after a long absence and the feeling is a rather wonderful one. This is a quite a peculiar dish I must say; I guess it is very much like a lot of other Malaysian dishes that just combine the best of everything around over the years and it just turns out so wonderfully right, call it fusion if you must.

Growing up in Cameron Highlands, I was lucky to be surrounded by people from all races and all walks of life, not to forget the most wonderful produce and weather one could ever hope for. Apart from giving the world the wonderful Hainanese chicken rice, the Hainanese also are also skilled tailors (second only to the Shanghainese although they might dissagree) and wonderful cooks. This is something that you are very likely to get in any Hainnanese operated coffee shops, the use of tomato ketchup, worcester sauce, potato chips and peas is very much a British colonial legacy (most Hananese also worked as housekeepers for the British colonial households and remain to do so after they are gone)

You may use boned chicken or pork chops for the dish but since I have some beef mince in my fridge, I've decided to make little beef balls instead. I have made this hundreds of times and I  can assure you that this is certainly a crowd pleaser!!! I'm not sure if there are other versions from different parts of Malaysia. If you do know of any, kindly share it with us please.

P.S my former boss R in Singapore, an English native who would only have "meat and 3 veg" every night was happily having this with rice more than twice a week!!

serves 4 as part of a Chinese meal

for the beef balls you'll need;

500g of minced beef

half an onion, chopped

1 egg

dash soy

dash of sesame oil

dash of Chinese wine

salt and pepper to taste

1.5 tbs of corn flour

corn flour for dusting

for the sauce you'll need;

half an onion, sliced

2 tomatoes, cut into wedges

4 cloves of garlic, a small knob of ginger and 3 bird chilies, chopped

5 tbs of tomato ketchup

dash of worcester sauce

dash of oyster sauce

3/4 cup of stock

salt and pepper to taste

corn starch solution

2 spring onions, sliced

3 potatoes, cut into wedges, fried and drained well

1 chili, sliced

sprigs of coriander leaves

Put all ingredients for meat balls in a large bowl.

Mix everything til well combined.

Form meat mixture into little patties, dust with corn flour.

Fry potato til golden, drain well and set aside.

Then fry the meat patties til golden, drain well and set aside.

Fry chopped garlic and chilies with 2 tbs of oil, follow by tomato ketchup, worcester sauce, oyster sauce. Add tomatoes and onion slices, fry for a 2 minutes and add corn starch solution. check for seasoning.

Return potatoes, meat patties into the sauce follow by the green peas, warm through.

Serve with plenty of plain rice!!! I also made a simple stir fried Asian greens.