Lately, I've been spending a lot of time looking at pictures of food, thinking of food, and trying out new things. Partially it's because I finally have extra free time at the moment. Partially because I'm feeling out of sorts and need some form of creative outlet. Today was one of those miserable weather days. Yesterday it hailed. Today I should have gone for a walk. I kept looking out the window at the rain and thinking about yesterday's sleet and hail, and decided it was a good day to stay home. I thought briefly of rescuing my poor laundry that's been hanging on the line for the past three days and decided to cook instead.
While trying to figure out what to do with the small piece of salmon that's too small for three people I stumbled across a recipe for Rice Coconut Balls here. It called for shrimp and cilantro, neither of which I have. But its great virtue is that it was a way to use up some of the rice flour that has been sitting in the pantry for months.
Despite the fact I was looking for a recipe for my fresh (-er previously frozen) salmon, I decided to use canned salmon, because it too needs to be used up. The fresh salmon ended up in soup. I'm not fond of canned salmon. I dislike the pieces of bone and skin that turn up in the cans. It worked fairly well for this recipe. For some unknown reason I went on a green onion binge at the market, and have been trying to use it up ever since. Luckily green onion keeps fairly well. In the end I tripled the amount of ginger, used salmon instead of shrimp, and green onion instead of cilantro.
Ginger Salmon Coconut Balls
adapted from Taste of Beirut - Rice Coconut Balls with Shrimp
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tbs crushed ginger
2 cloves mashed garlic
2 tsp sesame oil
105 grams canned pink salmon
200 grams rice flour
1/2 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup water
Shredded unsweetened coconut
Mix the salmon, green onion, zest, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil in a bowl.
Place rice flour in a bowl. Mix the coconut milk with the water. Form a crater in the rice flour and start adding the coconut water gradually, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon forming a paste. Stop adding water when the paste is firm and not sticky and holds its shape well. (Note: you may not need all the coconut water. Mine got too wet with the amount of coconut water in the recipe. If your dough ends up too wet, simply add more rice flour until you get the consistency you want).
Pinch off round balls of dough and flatten each ball in the palm of your hand (it was suggested in the original recipe to use a cookie scoop). Place a generous teaspoon of shrimp mince on the flattened ball and enclose the ball completely, rolling it between the palm of your hands. Bring a pot of water to a boil, lower the heat and drop a few rice balls at a time; let them simmer for 3 to 4 minutes until the balls are heavy and cooked.
Remove and drain and coat in shredded coconut.
Thoughts: For fun I coated a few in sesame seeds. They were ok, but the sesame seeds didn't want to stick and kept falling off. Best to stick with coconut.
These were pretty. A touch dry. H liked them. B wouldn't touch them, but he's 9 and ultra-picky, so this was expected. I wanted the filling to have a little more kick. Perhaps more ginger?
As an experiment I fried a couple of them in a tiny bit of sesame oil. It warmed them back up and gave the coconut a toasty color. Not as pretty and while the coconut tasted better it also was a little oily. Maybe toasting the coconut would work.
They would benefit from a dipping sauce. We ended whipping up a soy sauce-rice vinegar-garlic-ginger sauce.
