Chinese meatball and noodle soup

Whilst shopping for ingredients for my Chinese dumplings I came across some reduced priced pak choi. It still looked healthy and knowing I would have left over ingredients from the dumplings I decided to make a meatball/noodle soup the day after. The soup included the meatballs, pak choi, left over shitake mushrooms and spring onions and noodles. The mince for the chinese dumplings was packed with flavour so I kept the soup fairly simple. On the day I made the dumplings I rolled tablespoons of the leftover mince in to balls and baked in the oven for around 15 minutes. I then stored them in the fridge overnight. The following day the soup was quiet simple to pull together. I stir fried the meatballs with the vegetables to reheat them. The end result was delicious and packed with oriental flavours.
Chinese meatball and noodle soup
Serves 2

For the meatballs
(I used approximately half of the mince in this recipe. Below I have detailed an estimate of what I believe would produce something similar if you don't have left over mince from making gyoza)

200g ground pork
2 large spring greens leaves, minced
1 stalk spring onion, minced
3 shitake mushrooms, minced (if dried - rehydrated and rinsed carefully)
2.5cm ginger root, minced
1.5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp corn starch

• Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
• Combine all the filling ingredients well.
• Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls.
• Arrange on a baking tray.
• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

For the noodle soup
800ml Chicken or vegetable stock
1 tbsp root ginger, finely grated
1 red chilli, finely chopped (I used a dried chilli as that was all I had).
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 pak choi, sliced
6 shitake mushrooms, sliced
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 portions of vermicelli noodles, cooked according to the packet
2 tbsp soy sauce

• In a saucepan bring to the boil the stock, ginger, garlic and chilli. Simmer for at least 5 minutes or until you are ready to serve the finished soup.
• In a frying pan (or wok if you have one), heat 1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil until hot.
• Stir fry the pak choi stalks, spring onion and shitake mushrooms.
• Add the pak choi leaves when the rest of the vegetables are almost cooked (approx 3-5 minutes depending on how well cooked you like your veg).
• Add the soy sauce to the stock.
• Combine the noodles, vegetables, meatballs and stock. Serve.

Enjoy!