Silky Chicken Meatball Rice Noodle Soup

Silky Chicken Meatball Rice Noodle Soup 

This is my comfort food. The truth is while India is definitely the land of spices in a small part of the beautiful city of the erstwhile Calcutta there resides the beautiful people who had immigrated from our neighboring country famous for its noodles and Kung Pao Chicken and made Calcutta their home  some centuries ago .

The truth is while the popularity of Chinese cuisine has spread far and wide , that what is served as Chinese food can sometimes be outrageous. To be fair having spent an entire Childhood visiting these tiny Chinese eateries which held on to their tradition with a firm hand I had the good luck and opportunity to get a glimpse of Chinese cuisine one which is extremely healthy, one which emphasizes on flavours infused by the fresh ingredients used and one which is soul warming and extremely hearty . Sadly with most of our Chinese population leaving Calcutta and these tiny joints shutting their shutters forever I can slowly see my favourite cuisine disappearing from Calcutta.

Even today there are a few eateries in Central Calcutta's old Chinese settlement which serves amazing traditional Chinese food. Here we must remember that having settled in Calcutta some dishes might have been adapted from the traditional ones served in China yet these eateries serve their own traditional dishes creating a tradition of their own.

One of Chin Wah's delightful offering is the meatball soup, tender, juicy succulent its a treat indeed and the flavour of garlic and ginger with a few greens (mustard green, pak choy etc) makes it one of my favourite soups ever.

Sitting in Mumbai I decided I wold make as much use of the internet as possible and create silky soft chicken meatballs. A bit of reading later I found this amazing site called, neckredrecipes.

I adapted their recipe for Chicken meat balls and made a divine lunch of Chicken meatballs and rice noodle soup

Here is the recipe which serves 2

300gm chicken breast
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
7 to 8 baby carrots (In case you don't find baby carrots use 1 large carrot and julienne it)
1 mediium sized pak choy
half a stalk of spinach
1 spring onion
Salt as per taste
100gm to 150gm of rice noodle
150m of ice cold water
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp rice flour or cornflour

Chop the chicken in small pieces and blend it in a mixer grinder of food processor and then add 2 tbsp water, salt and 1 tsp ginger garlic paste and blend well to form a smooth paste. Now mix it well with the cornflour or rice flour and let it chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

After 2 hours make little balls (13 balls) from the meat paste and then bring a big pan of water to a boil and then add salt and simmer the water and add the meatballs and wait till they float and cover and simmer for 2 minutes and immediately transfer them to a bowl filled with the ice cold water. Soak the rice noodles as per instructions on the packet.

Now in the same pan in which the chicken balls were boiled add the remaining ginger garlic paste , carrots, the root of the spring onion sliced into 4 parts  and root of the pak choy which you must slice thinly and simmer for 7 minutes to 10 minutes and then add the noodles and the spinach and pak choy leaves and boil for 1 minute and add the chicken balls and boil for 50 more seconds and have a hearty meal.

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