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Meatball Soup with Spinach and Crispy Garlic
Gaeng jeut look chin moo ru neua
Too busy or too tired to cook, but too hungry not to?
This is the soup for you. Served Thai style, it goes with
rice and other dishes, but if you ladle the soup over a
big bowl of cooked rice noodles, jasmine rice, or elbow
macaroni, you will have a one-pot, one-bowl, satisfying
meal. I use a bag of washed, prepped spinach, preferably
the sturdy, curly, dark green kind, but baby spinach
leaves are also fine, as are swiss chard, watercress or
bok choy.
Makes 4 servings
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4 cups water
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3 tablespoons vegetable oil
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2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic
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1/2 pound ground pork or ground beef
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About 8 cups fresh spinach leaves, washed and trimmed
(about 10 ounces)
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2 green onions, thinly sliced crosswise
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1 tablespoon fish sauce
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1/2 teaspoon salt
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1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the
water to a rolling boil. Meanwhile, for the crispy garlic
in oil: Place a small heatproof bowl by the stove. Heat
the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat until a bit
of garlic sizzles at once. Add the garlic and cook,
stirring often, until it is fragrant and golden, 1 to 2
minutes. Remove from heat, pour hot garlic and oil into
the heatproof bowl, and set aside to cool.
When the water is boiling wildly, add the ground pork in
generous pinches, by hand or by teaspoons, making
free-form meatballs. Stir well, and simmer 3 to 4 minutes
until meat is cooked.
Remove from heat and stir in the spinach, green onions,
fish sauce, salt, and pepper. Transfer to a serving bowl,
pour the crispy garlic and oil mixture over the soup, and
serve hot.
Recipe from Quick & Easy Thai: 70
Everyday Recipes, by Nancie McDermott, Photographs by
Alison Miksch (Chronicle Books; April 2004;
$18.95/Paperback; ISBN: 0-8118-3731-9). |
