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Addendum: This recipe illustrated the general technique of making Cantonese soup. You may use pork neck bones, pork, beef bones or chicken to make soup. You may also use winter melon, hairy melon, bok choy or lotus roots instead of kabocha.

Thanks Chris. Kabocha is very sweet and its texture is very soft and smooth when cooked. A bit like mango. You are right: it turns soft fairly quickly, and does not take on much water as other melons do. This was the first time I cooked with kabocha. I did not know what texture it has but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was so tasty. Chicken feet would make the soup thick and rich. If one doesn't like chicken feet, skip it. (Or use some duck feet. )

Kabocha is a very popular squash in Japan. It is very sweet and tasty. This soup recipe is to use traditional Cantonese soup-making technique and feature kabocha as the main ingredient. The chicken feet make this soup very rich. For a pictorial recipe, click here.

#36, Pork Butt Bone Soup with Kabocha (南瓜豬骨湯)

Pork Butt Bone Soup with Kabocha (南瓜豬骨湯) Kabocha is a very popular squash in Japan. It is very sweet and tasty. This soup recipe is to use traditional Cantonese soup-making technique and feature kabocha as the main ingredient. The chicken feet make this soup very rich. Picture of the finished dish: Serving Suggestion: 8 to 10 Preparations: There are a few special ingredients used to make this Cantonese style soup. You may easily find them in Asian grocery markets. This is a package of dried jujube dates. (紅棗) This is a package of dried dates. (蜜棗) They bring a lot of sweetness to the soup. This is a package of dried olive kerneis. (南北杏) Main ingredients: (From top left, clockwise) Chicken feet, about 10 to a dozen. 1 kabocha, about 2 lb. Pork butt bones, about 2 lb. (On the round plate, from bottom left, clockwise) Dried black mushrooms, about 10. A handful of dried olive kerneis. 4 dried dates. About 15 dried red jujube dates. 3 medium size dried scallops. 5 to 6 dried oysters. About 5 to 6 hours before (or the night before) cooking, soak the dried oysters and dried scallops with about 1 cup of water. Separately, soak the dried black mushrooms, dried dates and dried red jujube dates. Cooking Instructions: Cantonese soup making techniques call for "double boiling" the soup bones or meat. Here is an illustration on how this is done. Use a large pot. Add water to about 1/4 full. Set stove at high. Boil the water. Add the pork butt bones. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes. (Do not boil for too long). Drain the water with a strainer. Rinse the pork bone/meat under running cold water. Wash off any impurity and blood. The reason for this extra first boil step is to remove the "cloudiness" in the soup, which is caused by impurity and blood. Boil another pot of water (use about 15 cups, or 1/3 of this pot). Return the pork butt bones. Add chicken feet. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium. Soft-boil for about 15 minutes. Add soaked black mushrooms (trim stems and add the stems to the soup also), red dried jujube dates, dried dates, dried olive kerneis, dried scallops and dried oyster. Soft-boil with lid on for about 1 hour. Meanwhile, prepare the kabocha. The skin is quite tough and hard to peel. I don't bother with peeling it. Wash the outside well. Scrape off any dirt or small hard lumps. Trim off the stem. Cut the kabocha in half. Remove the seeds inside. Cut into triangular pieces, about 2 inch wide. After 1 hour of soft-boiling the bones/chicken feet mixture, add the kabocha. Continue to soft-boil for at least another hour. (Kabocha turns soft relatively quickly.) Add 2 tsp of salt (or to taste). Ready. Finished. Scoop and serve.

oic... i thought there are some hidden gems in eagle rock that i may not know about.

Do you really mean that Ben? Where do you source the "Gow Yook" (dog meat)?

That's very nice, Grub. Thanks for sharing your picture. Many people have their own versions of "Kung Pao", using whatever available or convenient to them. The dry red chilies and Sichuan peppercorns seem to be the signature of the Sichuan style cookings. I have seen onions and green bell peppers used before. If you have Saki wine, you may use that instead of ShaoHsing. They taste similar.

Thank you, spinner. I am glad that you like this version. I really like the Sichuan peppercorns and the dry red chilies too. Ma La [Mandarin], describing the taste. It means numbing (from the Sichuan peppercorns), that's "Ma", and hot (from the dry red chili), that's "La". I love to eat those dry red chilies. By the time the dish is done, they are soft and typically soaked with a bit of the sauce. But I can only handle about 5 of them... and need to frequently drink iced water. The toasted peanuts are wonderful... but eating them in the left over the next day is a different story...

I have seen bell peppers mentioned in a few recipes (written in Chinese, posted in some .CN websites). Of the restaurants that I had visited or worked at in California, at least half of them used bell pepers in Kung Pao X.

Thanks, jo-mel. I am afraid it would open that can of worms again. No this is not about the debate on the authenticity of King Pao Chicken. It is just a version of it that I happen to like.

Thank you, WolfChef. This recipe was a result of many iterations to the combinations that I like.

Kung Pao Chicken - classical Sichuan dish, with diced chicken, red bell pepper, green onions, peanuts, and dry red peppers with Sichuan peppercorns. For a pictorial recipe, click here.

#35, Kung Pao Chicken (宮爆雞丁)

Kung Pao Chicken (宮爆雞丁) This is my interpretation of this popular Sichuan dish. Use as many or as few dry red peppers as you like to adjust for your heat level. Picture of the finished dish: Serving Suggestion: 3 to 4 Preparations: Main ingredients: (From top right, clockwise) 3 pieces of chicken breasts, about 1 1/2 lb. 3 - 4 stalks of green onions. 5 - 6 cloves of garlic. About 20 small dry red pepper. 3 - 4 tsp of Sichuan peppercorn. About 4 - 6 oz of raw, shelled, unsalted peanuts. 1 red bell pepper. (Not shown: ginger - about 1 inch in length) Trim chicken fat. Cut the chicken breasts into cubes, about 1 inch by 1 inch. Note: Classical Kung Pao Chicken recpies call for using dark meat. You may use chicken thighs or drum sticks for this dish. Just remove the skin, bones and dice up the meat. Marinate the chicken meat: Use 1/2 tsp ground white pepper, 2 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine, 2 tsp of corn starch, 1 - 2 tsp of sesame oil, 2 tsp of light soy sauce. Combine in a mixing bowl. Mix and marinate for about 30 minutes before cooking. Meanwhile, prepare other ingredients. Red bell pepper: remove stem and seeds. Cut into small dices. Green onions: trim ends and finely chop. Peel and minced the garlic. Grate some ginger, about 1 inch in length. Cooking Instructions: Use a pan/wok. Set stove at high. Wait until pan is hot. Dry-roast the peanuts until slightly darkened, about 3 minutes. Remove. Add 3 tblsp of cooking oil. Wait until oil is hot. Velvet the chicken meat in oil until slighly undercooked (pink color has barely disappeared). Like this. Remove and drain excess oil. Start with a clean pan/wok. Set stove at high. Add Sichuan peppercorn. Dry-roast it for 30 seconds to a minute until it releases the fragrance. Add 2 tblsp of cooking oil and 20 dry red peppers. Let the peppers roast until they turn dark brown, about 20 - 30 seconds. Add the minced garlic, grated ginger, and the white portion of the chopped green onions. Add 1/2 tsp of salt (or to taste) and 2 tsp of chili bean sauce. Stir. Quickly dash in 2 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine and 1 tsp of white vinegar. (Let it induce a flame if your pan/wok is hot enough.) Cook for about 30 seconds. Add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of chicken broth. (Adjust if you want the dish dryer or with more sauce.) Add 1 - 2 tsp of dark soy sauce. Add diced red bell pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce (suggest: about 1 - 2 tsp of corn starch mixed in 2 tsp of water). Bring the sauce to the right consistency. Return the peanuts and the chicken. Add the remaining portion of the green onions (the green portion). Continue to cook for a few minutes until chicken is heated up. Keep stirring. Drizzle about 2 tsp of sesame oil on top at the end. Transfer to serving plate. Finished. (Note: The quantity of food made in this recipe is about twice the portion shown in this picture.)

According to Cat's recipe, she used 桂花糖. In translation, this is some kind of candy or sugar with Gwai Fa flavor. I don't know what it is either. Perhaps send Cat an e-mail and ask her. (cat@leisure-cat.com) I have traded e-mails with her before. I am sure she would be delighted to have a fan in England. 桂花 in standard pinyin should be Gui4 Hua1, Cinnamonum cassia per this translation website: http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=%AE%DB

I am not from Toysan but my wife and her family are. I found that Toysanese dishes do not seem to be that different from Hong Kong/Guangzhou (old name Canton) cooking. I found that the "comfort food" examples that are not offered too often in restaurants are: - Steamed pork with salted fish, mui choy - Steamed egg custard with dried shrimp, thousand year eggs/salted eggs - Stir-fried gai lan (Chinese broccoli) with lap cheung slices (Chinese sausages) I am sure Ben and Dejah, et al can think of many other dishes.

This is a great topic for discussion in its own thread. I have created a new thread to continue this discussion so it won't be buried under this "Salt Baked Chicken" recipe.

A question from wesza in this post. Any suggestions?

Re: Grace Young's "Breath of a Wok" I have read a portion of her book. I like the beginning section of this book, which depicted how she researched on how to achieve the illusive "wok hey" as often described by her father. Through that she learned how to shop for a wok and how to season a wok, etc.. That part was useful. The recipes in that book, on the other hand, did not arouse my interest. If I am not mistaken, they are not Young's own recipes but from those people featured in the book, those whom she visited or interviewed. For example, one of the recipes was "Mango Chicken". These recipes did not seem to be popular home-made ones (at least in Hong Kong). If they were served in common Chinese restaurants (in Hong Kong or California) then I have not noticed them.

trillium: You are right. I agree with you that the Wei Chuan does have a bit bias from Taiwanese. I have changed my opinion statement to "They are closer to the classical Chinese recipes than many cookbooks that I have seen in the USA. " in the original post.

Addendum: With this recipe, one can steam the chicken instead of baking in oven. The method and ingredients for marination are still the same. The whole chicken can be steamed for 20 to 25 minutes (I think). Check for doneness with a sharp long fork. If no pink juice runs out, it's done. If not, continue to steam a little longer.

Actually that won't work. The essence of this "steamed shrimp with garlic" dish requires the garlic flavor to infiltrate around the meat. With the shell on in one piece, you need to shell the shrimp and then scoop up some garlic. Not as effective.

Thanks for the ideas, ladies. jo-mel's idea is good. But I am concerned on: (1) sterilization of the coat hangers, and (2) how to prevent them from rusting, and (3) whether they have enough strength to hold up a chicken/duck. Karen: do you have more specifies on what you saw? That seems very interesting and it is something I want to take a closer look at. Where did you see the rotisserie set up? What store? How does it look? The dental fross trick is great! It might just work very well.

I would like to experiment with Cantonese BBQ at home: roast chicken, roast ducks and such. I see that in restaurants, they use some hooks to hook up the birds (while roasting as well as when displaying at the store front). Does anybody know of a source to get these "hooks" at a retail level? Have you seen them? Or are there some ingenious ways to skew up the birds and rotate them inside a conventional oven? I have tried some of those much-touted rotisserie chicken ovens (like the George Foreman oven) but they don't seem to work well at all. With one model that I have tried, the skewers kept falling off the rotating rack! Also, how do you sew the opening of a duck or chicken to keep the marinade in the cavity? Do they use special (big) needles and threads?