Pork Meatball and Wintermelon Noodle Soup

The weather has been turning a little bit more wet and stormy, as expected near the end of the year with the onset of the monsoon season. I’ve been enjoying a little more time indoors thanks to the weather as well as the continued burgeoning number of cases of Covid-19 in the community. It’s not like I don’t run out to do errands but I usually dash out and finish the task as quickly as I can.

Just this week Mum was unwell – she’s usually chirpy and healthy and it was a bit of a shocker when she didn’t emerge from her room for dinner. Of course overfunctioning husband GP jumps on her and does her rapid antigen test, and instantly does blood and urine tests when she has barely had 3 hours of symptoms! And of course I’m the one who shows kitchen love and makes a simple digestible noodle soup for her. Thankfully it was just a tummy bug in the end and she recovered really well very quickly.

So this is a very simple meatball and wintermelon soup. Wintermelon is very mild tasting and is usually cooked in soups. It’s 3 g of carbohydrates for every 100g of wintermelon which makes it carb safe in my book. The wintermelon and pork balls do cook quite quickly and so the soup is also quick and easy to make. I think the trick in this soup is to use a really good stock. It’s fine to use store bought chicken stock, but somehow homemade stock tastes so much better. I usually make bone broth in the Instant Pot once or twice a week and so there’s always stock around to use for soups.

The pork balls are also an off the top of my head type of recipe. There is a very simple combination of seasonings that we usually use – soy sauce, ground white pepper, sesame oil and garlic. And the meatballs can vary in the kind of meat (I like pork mince best as the meatballs are usually more succulent compared to chicken mince. And the vegetables added can be any variety of vegetables ranging from Chinese chives to Chinese cabbage. In this recipe I kept the seasoning light, in keeping with a very light and gentle noodle soup instead of a hearty soup.

This recipe was perfect for a convalescent. Mum’s tummy was not up to finishing a full bowl of noodle soup, but she split the bowl over 2 meals. I’m thankful that she bounced back by the next day and is all well now!