The fade-in finds Joyce Chen behind the kitchen counter grinding meat with an electric grinder. Today, she explains, she will be making "lion head," which, despite the name, actually means meatballs cooked with cabbage. One starts by grinding meat. In China, when one says "meat," the reference is to pork, although for the American cook, beef can be used instead. If pork is the meat of choice, Chen recommends butt or "Boston butt" as this is a cut with some fat in it and thus offers a good balance of fatness and leanness to make the dish tender and juicy. In China, grinding the meat has to be done by hand but in the U.S. an electric grinder makes the task all the easier. (Smiling, Chen suggests that if one needs some exercise, then do it by hand.) Pork is the meat of choice in China since buffalo or cows are hard-working farm animals which means they are not as fatty or tender. Pigs are specifically raised to be eaten and they are lazy animals, Chen notes, so their meat is less lean. To the ground meat, one adds soy, water, salt, sugar, MSG, sherry, and cornstarch. Then, the mixture should be put in the fridge to let sit a bit. When it comes out, it is formed by hand into large meatballs. Smiling, Chen suggests that forming the meatballs by hand is like being a child again and making clay objects or snowballs. The one problem of using one's hands is that it is a bit messy and one will be caught in an inconvenient state if guests suddenly drop in. So, while the meatballs are cooking in oil, Chen recommends washing one's hands and then also cleaning up around the stove. Chen repeats the ingredients as a panning shot shows them on little cards affixed to Chinese figurines. Once the meatballs are browned, they should be put into a clay pot or other pot for simmering. In China, a bamboo sheet would be placed at the bottom to avoid having the meatballs stick but since that is an unlikely option in the U.S., wrinkled aluminum foil at the bottom of the pot will do the trick. Water, soy, and sugar are poured over the meatballs and, covered, they are put on the stove for a slow simmer (at least one hour). It is now time to prepare the cabbage, Chen advises. Round American cabbage will not work in this dish but one can use long celery cabbage or bok choy cabbage found in Chinese grocery stores. If the latter is used, the stalks must be carefully washed by hand as they accumulate dirt. The cabbage is cut into pieces and cooked up in a wok with some oil. Once the meatballs have simmered enough, they and the foil are removed from the pot, the cooked cabbage is put in, and the meatballs and their sauce put over the cabbage. The dish is simmered again. Chen notes that some cooks like to do the whole process with the cabbage and meatballs together but she thinks this makes the cabbage leaves too soggy. Chen removes from the oven a completed meatballs-and-cabbage dish that she had prepared earlier and was keeping warm. This dish should be served directly from the pot and the combination of ingredients will make it smell "really good." Serving from the pot saves on dishes and clean-up, too. With pot holders, Chen takes the pot to the dining area where bowls of rice await. Chen reiterates that the meat should not be ground too finely at the beginning as this will make the meatballs too hard: jokingly, she says that one doesn't want to make meatballs that are so hard they could kill someone if the meatballs were thrown at them. Chen explains that in China, foods are often given glamorous names: for example, lobster (the dish she prepared in the last episode) is called "dragon shrimp" and chicken is called "phoenix." In like fashion, the large meatballs are called "lion head" since they are big and make reference to the king of the jungle. Chen jokes that when one tells the guests they are having lion head they might imagine their host has just come back from a hunting trip in Africa. But it's only a dish of meatballs, after all. With that, Chen signs off.