Pearl Balls

"Pearl Balls" is an unfortunate name for an oh-so-delicious festive Chinese dish.

This is what it looks like right before you dip it in whatever delicious salty soy-based sauce you choose:

I have to admit that it's a tad more time consuming than your average Chinese dish, but it's very easy to make.

If you're making this in the evening, you'll want to soak about a cup of sticky rice in water, and soak about 8 dried portobello mushrooms in water... separately... in the morning.

When you're ready to start, you want to drain the rice and lay it out in a pan or something to dry.

I know this doesn't look like a cup of rice, but that's because I had already used most of it at this point.

Then in a separate bowl, mix ground chicken/turkey/pork, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, corn starch, diced mushrooms, shredded carrots, thinly sliced green onions, and minced garlic.

All the chopping and shredding is the time consuming part. Once again, this is the very last shred of the mix.

You then make meatballs, and roll them around the damp rice.

To cook, you steam them for about 25 minutes... and TA DA! You have festive poorly-named delicious Chinese food.