Shrimp Balls (Ebi-shinjo) in Clear Soup
This is a very elegant soup. It is often served in Kaiseki Ryōri, but it’s surprisingly quite easy to make. Simply mix prawn paste and hanpen fish cakes with seasonings, make balls and boil them before serving in clear soup.
- Prep time
- 15 min
- Cook time
- 10 min
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 150g/5.3oz fresh or frozen prawn/shrimp without shells (, deveined and finely minced (note 1))
- 1 hanpen fish cake (, very finely diced (60g/2.1oz, note 2))
- 1 tsp sake
- ¼ tsp juice from grated ginger
- 1 tbsp cornflour/corn starch
- A pinch of salt
- 800ml/1.7pt dashi stock ((note 3))
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 2 tsp sake
- ⅔ tsp salt
- 4 bamboo shoot slices (, boiled)
- 4 mitsuba ((note 5))
Instructions
- 1
Add the Clear Soup ingredients to a saucepan and heat it up. When it starts boiling, add bamboo shoot slices and cook for a minute or so. Turn the heat off.
- 2
Place the diced hanpen on the cutting board. Using the side of a knife, press the hanpen pieces down to crush them, making them into paste like texture.
- 3
Add the prawn, hanpen and the rest of Ebi-shinjo ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
- 4
Divide the prawn mixture into 8 equal portions. Wet your hands and make a ball from 1/8 of the prawn mixture. Repeat and make 8 balls.
- 5
Fill a medium size pot with water to a depth of about 10cm/4” and heat over high heat (note 6).
- 6
When the water starts boiling, drop balls one by one into the boiling water.
- 7
After the ball starts floating, cook about 2 minutes and transfer to a plate.
- 8
Reheat the Clear Soup, place two Shrimp Balls per serving bowl and add equal amount of soup to the bowls.
- 9
Place a bamboo shoot slice and a mitsuba in each bowl. Serve immediately.