Sticky Rice Pork and Honeynut Squash Pearl Meatballs

Preparation

Prep sticky rice

In a bowl, soak sticky rice in water the night before (or at minimum a few hours). The next day, strain the water and pour the rice onto a plate. Add black sesame, white sesame, and furikake to the rice grains. Mix until they're evenly distributed. Cover and aside until assembly.

Prep honeynut squash

Preheat an oven to 425°F. Carefully half a honeynut squash and with a spoon, scoop and discard the seeds. Drizzle generously with olive oil and place onto a sheetpan. Roast for 45 minutes until the honeynut squash is tender and can be pierced through with a knife.

Make meatball mixture

Scoop out the flesh of the honeynut squash into a mixing bowl (discarding the skins, or eating them! they're edible!) and add ground pork, scallions, garlic, ginger, kosher salt, sugar, apple cider vinegar, and an egg. Use your fingers to mix all that juicy meat- mixture goodness together, using a circular motion, until the filling looks homogeneous and feels sticky, about 1-2 minutes.

Assemble rice and meatballs

Prep a bamboo steamer by lining it with perforated steamer liners or extra napa cabbage leaves. With oiled hands, grab a small amount of meat filling (the size of a ping-pong ball) and roll it into a meatball. Then roll the meatball around in the plate of rice until the grains have stuck to the entire surface of the meatball. Set the meatball into the bamboo steamer. Continue forming meatballs and rolling them in rice until all the meat filling has been used.

Steam the meatballs

Fill a pot that will fit your bamboo steamer with an inch of water and bring to a boil. Place the steamer in the pot and cover. Steam for 20 minutes, until the rice has softened and the meat is cooked through, and serve on its own or in your favorite broth with some extra chopped scallions sprinkled on top.