This is the claypot that exists in every Chinese home with a freezer: fishballs, tomatoes and a handful of glass noodles. Nothing is browned and nothing is fried hard. The work is all in the first step, where the tomatoes are cooked until they collapse, and that paste becomes the body of the broth.
Chinese home cooking · Main
Tomato Fishball Claypot With Glass Noodles
Three ingredients and one technique: tomatoes cooked down to a paste before anything else goes in, which gives a broth thick enough to coat the noodles.
- Prep20 min
- Cook20 min
- Serves2
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 6 | fishballs , pre-cooked |
| 2 | tomatoes , ripe |
| 1 small handful | glass noodles |
| 1 tbsp | corn oil |
| salt | to taste |
| 1 | scallion , sliced |
Method
- Score a cross in the base of each tomato, cover with boiling water for 3 minutes, then peel and chop them roughly.
- Soak the glass noodles in hot water until they bend without snapping, about 10 minutes, then drain.
- Heat the corn oil in a claypot over medium heat, add the tomatoes, and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, pressing them with a spoon until they break down into a loose sauce.
- Pour in boiling water to cover, add the fishballs, and simmer for 5 minutes so they take on the tomato.
- Add the drained noodles and cook for another 2 minutes, until they turn translucent and the broth thickens around them.
- Taste for salt, scatter the scallion over the top, and carry the pot to the table.
Notes
- Cook the tomatoes until there is no visible chunk left. Half-cooked tomato gives a thin, watery broth that slides off the noodles.
- Fishballs that are already cooked only need warming. Raw ones go in at step 4 and take 8 minutes.
- If the broth tastes flat, it is usually salt rather than more tomato.
Ratios and technique checked against 不想做厨子的日语老师不是好男人 on Douguo (番茄鱼丸粉丝煲). The method here is written by Stellaok and the illustration is ours; no text or photograph from the source is reproduced.