Ben Hong

Sooo, that shuts us bananas out.

Mouthwash with an alcohol content of 20%! ← Good one, TP Girl. Just as good as any wine, in this case. Ah, mais oui M'sieur we have green wine. Our sommelier recommends somezing out of ze cellar..."Scope",(appellation controllee) vintage Oct.7, 2005, would be the perfect apres "Haum Ha" digestif. The wine is bold. with a definite minty finish, redolent of medicinal flavours in keeping with the yin-yang dichotomy of ze fine foods that have been prepared for you. It has a refreshing aftertaste zat keeps on giving.

OK, all you Ladles and Germs: Let me set a mise en scene for you wine afficionados. The typical Chinese meal (non-banquet) is communal, that is, served with all the soong or choy on the table at once, with each person taking what he wants and eating a mouthful of rice with it. (Nothing like the western style of dining , where there are definite time and place delineations for each course of the meal, eg. salad, soup, fish, meat, cheeses and desserts). On a Chinese dinner table, there may be "red" dishes, "white" dishes, "purple" dishes, "black" dishes, etc. I know wine service and am not exactly a neophyte oenophile, I can tell the difference between shiraz and shinola, burgundy from bullshit,. So, my wine snobby friends how do you "match" wines with foods at the Chinese table? Hmmm??? I can see it now...pick up a piece of white-cut chicken, eat some rice, take a sip of white wine; some lobok gnow nam, eat some rice, imbibe some red or (is it white?), ho-yau gai lan needs??, does red-cooked fish need red or white??? Now the main question of this post is: WHAT THE HECK DO YOU SERVE WITH HAUM HA OR HAUM YU??

Forget the wine. Pu nei tea or any of the ilk goes best with Chinese food. I am almost a teetotaler because I am cursed with the Asian alcohol syndrome, ie: missing the alcohol tolerance gene. A surprising number of us are "afflicted" thus. Couple that with the fact that alcohol is a trigger for my migraines and I would be playing my own version of Russian Roulette. I DO love the taste of wine and spirits though.

Min see (bean sauce) is not chu hou sauce, Chu hou sauce is more akin to hoi sin sauce, not as sweet though. Min see deng is one of those indispensible staples in th Chinese larder that is never missed until you need it. For me, it is an essential component in the marinades for Chinese styl bbq meats. Min see with steamed fish is a great rice accompaniment. Green beans chowed with pork, min see, a dash of sugar and a bit of 5-spice is to die for. I also use it in twice-cooked pork. Be adventurous. BTW: the real Toysanese among us with pronounce "white" with a "w" ie: "waak" similar to the "waak" as in "waak wah" or draw picture.

Sue-On, you guys got snow already??? We had a string of sunny days in the high 70s. Our leaves are only about 30% turned.

Can't rightly remember what exactly happened almost 40 years ago, but I remember that the undulating boat to-ing and fro-ing made me hungry. Ahem, it was all about the food, yeah...that's it...the food.. :blush:

When that happens, Ben-sook, will you give me the honor of illustrating the book and doing the cover for you? ← Thanks for the comments and encouragement folks. Gastro88, among others, has been trying for a long time to get me to start a book. There might be a something in the future as a retirement project. Sweet Tepee, I would be honoured to have you illustrate it.

Jo-Mel, I am not really certain how the ponds were refilled, but I imagine that there were natural springs and brooks in and around the ponds. Rainwater would most definitely play a part because we were in semi tropical China. As a bonus, the mud at the bottom of the drained pond was much sought after for it was excellent fertilizer. Tepee, when I first revisited my village after a 40 year absence, I found that the houses were pretty much derelict with only a few being occupied. Our own particular village's inhabitants were luck, most of us emigrated out of China. In walking around the intact pond, I was struck by the stench emanating from it, for it was neglected and the only water in it was rainwater filled with garbage. I strongly empathize with your feelings about the loss of your Grandfather's pond. Nevertheless, in walking around our pond, I can hear once again the laughter of children at play just before bedtime, felt the gaiety of celebrations that took place on the bricked areas around it, hear the water buffalo boys alternately singing to and cursing at their charges as they watered them, felt the despair of losing a favourite toy boat. I took a lot of pictures in 1990 to bring home to my brothers and friends in Canada. To a person, they were absolutely stunned by the scenes. Such is life.

There have been several mentions of "dace" in recent threads and at least one query as to what it is. Dace then, is my muse for writing this thread. No, this is not a "fish story" for 'pon my word every word is true. My natal village is located in the region of Guangdong Province commonly called Toysan (Taishan, Toisaan, Hoysaan will also do) and it is found amid 4 other villages belonging to the "Hong" or in Mandarin, "Hsiung" clan (my Japanese friends always make a big to-do in greeting the fierce "Kuma-san" (Bear) Each of these villages had about 20 families, and physically they were about 300 meters long with a couple of lanes and alleys dividing the arrayed houses. Three of these villages had a large hand dug pond in the front of it, running the length of the village. These were dug/built for several reasons...irrigation, washing, firefighting, and to us kids, swimming . Of course, since no Chinese endeavour ever gets done without a food component, the most important use of the pond was for aquaculture. Each year in the springtime, the time the rice seeds were planted and the shoots were being incubated, the monsoons have abated, the new clothes and toys that we got for CNY were forgotten, and the weather was generally warming up , we'd see fish sellers delivering "tanks" on their shoulder poles full of water and fish fry, purchased from a hatchery quite a distance away. The fry would be released into the pond and left to grow unmolested by poachers or kids or anglers. You see, they belonged to the villagers who joined together to pay for the seeding of the fish and it was a big issue for anyone to take/steal a fish before the appropriate time. There were several species of fish bought each year, including carp but the primary one would be dace. Dace is not what I would consider a prime fish, being about a half pound in size and bony, but it is delicious deep fried to and sauced with a black bean mixture, panfried with dark soy and garlic. The most common way to prepare dace was to sun-dry the lightly salted fish in the cool autumn breezes, and later steam it on top of cooking rice. So, after a long spring and summer of growing up in the largely polluted pond, the day is picked to drain the pond and harvest the fish, usually after the Harvest Festival. These village ponds are marvels of Chinese hydro-engineering as they have a series of gates and sluices to open and shut that fills or drains the pond. The day that the pond is to be drained is a HUGE day for us kids, for it is probably the only day we were "allowed" to get dirty without Mother's scolding Once the pond is drained, after a day or two, the families who paid to join the fish "co-op" descend into the filthy quagmire with baskets to catch the floundering fish, which were brought up on shore to be washed, sorted by species and weighed by the appointed tallyman. At the end of the day, when all the fish have been gleaned, the fish would be distributed according to financial participation. The choicest "found-ins" like eels and turtles, freshwater crabs, etc were usually claimed by the people who contributed most money. Now whenever there is a windfall of fish each year , sometimes 200 lbs. per family, and no refrigeration the only recourse is to salt or dry them. That is what's done with the harvested fish. Along with the fish, my mother and grandmother usually dry a few ducks and some lup yoke at the same time. Dace is the preferred species because it grows well, is fairly good tasting, is of the proper size for drying and when dried it is delicious. This is one food inspired memory that I can manage to claw back from the abyss.

Sue-On, in a word, no. It has almost the opposite effect in that besides making tough meat chewable and it also affects it by giving it a "springy" texture. Easy does it though as too much will give the meat a bitter taste. My usual dose is 1/3 tsp. to a half pound of sliced raw meat. Mix it in with the regular marinade and the longer you let it sit, the more tender the meat becomes.

Wow indeed. That first post is a compendium. NOW, what do you do for an ENCORE?

←

In a thread on roast crispy pork about 5 months ago, I posted my own recipe that was used successfully by a couple of people. Any real good computer nerds here to find it? I have cured my own lap yuk a few times. The best were almost equal to the store bought stuff, the worst (at first) was tossed. Basically the process is nothing more than : slice the rind-on pork belly into 1 inch thick slices, salt, and let stand for a while, then add sugar, a shot of whisky or other alcohol, and dark soy sauce. If there are flies present, sprinkle with black pepper. After marinating overnight, string each piece and hang in a cool airy place for about a week, until stiffly dry, but not completely dessicated. The lean meat will have a semi hard feel. A variation that I like is to add 5-spice powder to the marinade, just enough that you can barely smell it. Sorry I can't give measurements, as I really don't write down anything when doing things like this. Trust your taste buds ,your nose and eyes to emulate your favourite lap yoke.

Cilantro...ahhhhh.....

I admire the curiosity and ambition of people who want to duplicate favourite things like commercial sauces and condiments. Yes I have, in my time, tried to do the same. However, all such attempts were were abandoned after a few tries because the results were less than spectacular. For the simple reason that one develops a preference and gets used to one brand or another, one style or another, one taste or another. If I had never tasted the Lee Kum Kee premium brand (girl poling a dinghy with a little boy) I may have developed a taste for other styles and brands. To me, the BEST homemade stuff or any other brand is NOT oyster sauce Same reasoning that HP Sauce and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce cannot or should not be duplicated. Why try to improve on perfection?? As a cooking tip, where oyster sauce is called for as an integral flavouring part of the dish, you might try using a combo of mam nuoc, a dash of sugar and one shake of msg as replacement. I find that it gives close to the same taste as oyster sauce, but with a lighter finish.

Several observations: I have N E V E R eaten lap cheong that was smoked, do they really smoke the sausages? I know that we make dishes like tea-smoked duck, but I need to be reminded that there are preserved foods that are smoked. Lean to fat ratio for lap cheong is usually somewhere around 3/1 or at a cheaper price, 3/2. In Old Chinatown in Toronto there are at least two specialty meat shops which among other things, make lap cheong, lap yuk, lap ap, etc. In the front of the store they sell the ready to eat cooked stuff; bbq meats, loo mee, joongs, stews, trotters, etc.etc.

Missing?? I would always finish a steamed fish with a splash, pop and sizzle of very hot oil.

I am so sorry that I can't ever remember the name of the place, even though I have eaten there about 5 times this year. It is about a block and a half north of Dundas on Spadina (west side of the street), the usual red and gold sign with the word "seafood" included in the lettering, tidy place without the usual BBQ meats hanging in the window, but at the rear of the dining room is an aquarium. The staff is comprised of mature people rather than the usual youngsters...very very friendly and helpful. The food is, in my opinion, a cut above the usual in Old Chinatown. The reason I keep frequenting the Dundas/Spadina area is because my family and relatives are mostly downtowners, and my visits are usually business related which means downtown. To get to the "other" chinatowns in Markham, Richmond Hill, etc. we need to drive, a hassle, but sometimes the food is worth the trip though. Still, going into Old Chinatown is like going home to me, as I have been going there since my late teens. And, that's a long, long time ago...before City Hall was built, erasing 3/4 of the really old Chinatown around Dundas and Elizabeth St.

Based on my mammary..er...ahh...hmm..memory of biology taken 40 years ago, pigs can have a productive mammary outlets (nipples, or teats) numbering anywhere from 8 to 18 and are not always in even numbers. The most prevalent number is 12, but as anyone with any experience in farm animals can tell you, there are very often broods of 16-20 piglets. Gustatorily, I am a leg man, but in certain other interests, I am a teat man.

Edible amaranth is called "han choy" in my dialect/accent, delicious but it cooks down to nothing. Tung ho or chrysanthemum greens to me is like catnip to a cat. Absolutely my fave among the leafy greens.

QUOTE(hzrt8w @ [/quote) Shouldn't that be an even number? Pigs have 2 rows of nipples, right? "lok fah naum"? ← pigs are split down the middle along the backbone and then through the sternum, and belly longitudinally. You get half the nipples on each side. Counting from the rear, five would get you just into the ribs. Yeah, I brought home about three pounds of lap yuk too. The fattier the better, not as tough and stringy as the lean meat. The fat of lap yoke has that mouth feel that we call "tui how".

Came in from Toronto last night after spending three days at a conference and with my kids. Other than the requisite rubber chicken we had to eat at the official dinners, I treated my kids and their SOs to a couple of "down-home" type meals. Highlight meal was the seafood dinner we had. Besides the usual bbq meats which were requested by all, we had crab in scallions and ginger, braised variety of mushrooms on pea shoots. (there was a new 'shroom I never had before called "king oyster mushroom, absolutely terrific taste and texture), yu pen (grouper), shrimp stuffed tofu, hong siew fish (deep fried with a sweet and sour sauce), baked oysters (gorgeous), various other dishes. Sorry, no pics. Brought home a humongous raft of amaranth, which will be flash wokked with haum ha , and a couple of bunches of chrysanthemum greens, which will be cooked with fu yu. Does anyone else have suggestions on cooking aforesaid vegs?

Three layered pork, belly pork, pork flank, fresh bacon, pork rashers all meant the same thing. The Toyshanese have another very colourful term: "ng fah naum", literally translated means "5-blossom flank". The 5 blossoms refers to the last (back) 5 nipples of the row on the belly of the pig.

Are you actually steaming or just simmering?