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Tofu is a space filler. Many restaurants use it to fill up the clay pot so they don't need to use the more expensive roast pork and even-more-expensive oyster. I like a little bit of tofu in the pot. If you make this at home, it's all up to you.

albiston: Thank you for your feedback. If I use fermented black beans, I think 2 tsp would be enough.

Can't be more Cantonese than having a clay pot dish. This dish uses oyster, roast pork and tofu braised in a sauce made with chicken broth, brown bean sauce, oyster sauce and soy sauce in a clay pot. Recipe in here.

#31, Oyster with Roast Pork and Tofu in Clay Pot (火腩生蠔煲)

Oyster with Roast Pork and Tofu in Clay Pot (火腩生蠔煲) No Cantonese style restaurants can claim to be real Cantonese unless it offers clay pot entrees on the menu. Delicious ingredients, braised to perfection, served sizzling hot in a clay pot in front of you. Great when the weather turns cold. There are many different clay pot entrees available. This dish uses oyster, roast pork and tofu braised in a sauce made with chicken broth, brown bean sauce, oyster sauce and soy sauce. Dedicated to pcbilly. Picture of the finished dish: Serving Suggestion: 2 to 3 Preparations: Main ingredients: (From left, clockwise) 2 jars of fresh oyster (about 6 oysters in each), 5 to 6 stalks of green onion, a handful of cilantro, Cantonese roast pork (about 1/2 lb), ginger (about 2 inches in length), 10 cloves of garlic, 1/2 package (2 pieces) of fried tofu. Note: If you don't have Cantonese roast pork, you may use regular pork. Cut in slices and marinate with some soy sauce, ground white pepper and ShaoHsing cooking wine first. Cut the roast pork into smaller, bite size. Keep the fat and skin. Cut the fried tofu into smaller pieces. Trim off the ends of the green onions. Cut into 1 inch long pieces. Peel the ginger. Cut into thin slices. Cut the cilantro into 1 inch long pieces. Peel the garlic but leave them whole. For big size garlic, cut into halves. (Better to use smaller, whole garlic) Pour the oyster on to a strainer. Wash off impurities. Strain off excess water. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on top (suggest: 1/2 tsp). Cooking Instructions: Use a wok/pan, set stove to high. Add a generous 6 tblsp of cooking oil (or frying oil). Wait for a few minutes until the oil heats up before frying. Pour about 1/4 cup of corn starch on a flat plate. Dust each oyster with corn starch evenly on both sides. Shallow-fry the oyster on the pan until both sides are slightly browned. It may take 1 to 3 minutes to brown each side. Remove the cooked oyster and set aside on a plate. Pre-heat a clay pot over high stove setting. It takes about 5 minutes. Add 2 tblsp of cooking oil. Add all whole garlic. Wait until all garlic cloves turn brown. Add 1 tsp of brown bean sauce. Add a pinch of salt (suggest: 1/4 tsp). Dash in 2 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine. Immediately add ginger slices, 1/2 portion of green onions (the white portion). Stir and sautee for one minute. Add the roast pork. Brown the pork slightly (for about 3 minutes). Keep stirring. Add tofu, 1/2 cup of chicken broth, 1/4 cup of water, 2 tsp of sugar, 2 tsp of oyster sauce, 1 tsp of dark soy sauce. Stir well. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce stove setting to around medium to medium-low. Continue to braise with lid on for 10 minutes. This is how it looks after 10 minutes. Add corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce to the right consistency (suggest: 2 tsp of corn starch with 2 tsp of water, adjust). Re-add the oyster and the rest of the green onions and cilantro. Continue to cook for about 5 minutes with lid on. This is how it looks when ready to serve. Finished. Serve with the ingredients sizzling hot.

Nice! Being in the Tropics, these treats must be a year-round favorites?

It seems to be a gradual movement to what we have today. Not only Lemon Chicken. Other examples: Orange Beef, even "Mongolian Beef" is sweet - offered at Pickup Stix. I agree. So was the chop suey, and the 6-inch long "egg roll". They probably feed on to each other: the more cooks make it that way to satisfy customer's taste, the more customers are misled that's what Chinese food is supposed to be, and thus create more demands for the altered Chinese food. Frankly, how many Americans have been to China to taste their Chinese food? How many go to places like Pickup Stix, Panda Express and other small mom-and-pop Chinese kitchens in towns that have low Chinese population?

mizducky: Thank you very much for your kind words. This sure has shifted my future pictorial publications a bit towards the Chinese-Chinese side in the food spectrum.

docsconz: Thanks for your feedback. That's my feeling exactly too. Some of the lemon sauce they use in restaurant is nothing but a big blob of yellow, which looks a bit scary.

I am not sure how one can achieve this. I have not heard of it, and I never thought of it.

Picture: Chinese name: 豉油王煎虾 English name: Pan-Fried Prawns with Superior Soy Sauce Category: Cantonese dinner entree, seafood Description: Shrimp with shells, pan-fried with some garlic and chopped green onions, light soy sauce and a dash of cooking wine. (Offered at: New Hong Kong Wok Restaurant ((916) 454-2828), Sacramento, CA, USA)

Tepee: Thanks for your recipe. I had made it last night. I did it only slightly differently: I dashed in 1.5 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine when sauteeing the garlic, and I mixed in a little bit of chicken broth to dilute the thick soy sauce a bit. The taste was wonderful!

Would you like something like this? (String beans with Sa Cha Sauce) 1 lb of string beans. 1 onion, wedged. 3-4 cloves of garlic. 1/2 jalapeno pepper, sliced. On wok, 2 tblsp of oil at high heat. Add garlic, jalapeno, then wedged onions. Add 1/2 tsp of salt. Add 3 tsp of Sa Cha Sauce. Sautee for a minute. Add string beans. Add 1/4 cup of chicken broth and a bit of water. Cook for about 10-15 minutes (medium heat), first with lid on, then with lid off half way to reduce.

Why pickled? Fresh mustard green tastes gooder. First boild the bone with water, then turn to simmer for maybe 1 hour. Fresh vegetables and tofu can be added 15 minutes before you intend to serve the soup so the vege does not sit in the boiling water for too long. Add a pinch of salt too.

Would there be any interest? Pictures taken.

Out of the 30 recipes I have posted so far, 28 of them are authentic Chinese dishes. Most of them are Cantonese style. The exceptions are Imperial Shrimp, Mapo Tofu, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, and White Bass Braised with Bean/Soy Sauce. Chicken with Butter and Black Pepper is a bit of fusion. Lemon Chicken is the one that is perhaps considered more Americanised. You probably won't find it on the menus in restaurants in Hong Kong.

Thank you for your kind feedbacks, all. By all means try the lemon chicken, and any of the other 28 recipes so far in my series. Sometimes I am kind of debating in my mind whether to post some real Chinese recipes geared towards Chinese audience, or "less" Chinese recipes geared towards non-Chinese audience.

You never had Minute Maid Lemonade? It tastes pretty good.

I just read this small collection of articles on the history of "chop suey" provided by the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago. Fascinating! The "chop suey" lecture slides are particularly interesting, and included pictures of some beloved chop suey, chow mein, egg fooyong and in later era moo shu pork and kung pao chicken. http://www.ccamuseum.org/Food.html

I think the little Brown Bean Sauce (磨原豉) has received very little recognition for its place in Chinese cooking. Like a backend worker, it does its grunt work and the credits all go to the frontend Soy Sauce and Oyster Sauce. (Same fate for Nam Yu (Red fermented bean curds)) I just made a Cantonese clay pot dish with roast pork, fried tofu and oyster. Used some whole garlic and Brown Bean Sauce to start. Dashedin ShaoHsing wine. Then added the roast pork, ginger slices and green onion. Added the tofu, and oyster (coated and fried first), chicken broth and water, plus oyster sauce and soy sauce and sugar to braise for 10-15 minutes. The result was excellent. Just a teaspoon of Brown Bean Sauce does make a difference.

I don't like lemon chicken that is overly sweet either. My version of 5 to 6 tsp of sugar to 1 1/2 cup lemonade (reduced), with juice from one fresh lemon (note: no extra vinegar is needed) has just the right sweet-to-sour ratio in my taste. For those who like the other recipes I posted, I think you will like this version.

This is so hilerious! It's hard being a waiter in Chinese restaurants. They have to carefully examine the plate, over some torn lotus leaves, to determine whether it's okay to remove the plate. And the last thing that they would do is to ask the customer.

I am just wondering... if we go to a formal Japanese banquet, like a wedding or opening ceremony or something, in Japan, do they provide the same cheap wooden chopsticks or some better ones? Or does everybody brings his/her own chopsticks?

I know it is kind of confusing. There are 2 different dim sum dishes in Cantonese cooking that involves lotus leaves and rice. First is Nor Mai Gai (chicken in sticky rice with lotus leaves). You would typically see this offered in US Chinese dim sum restaurants. The typical ingredients are: a piece of chicken, black mushroom, a slice of lap cheung, dried shrimp, salted egg yolk. They are wrapped with sticky rice inside a lotus leaf and steamed. Second is Ho Yip Fan (lotus leaf rice). This one, they wrap the regular rice in a lotus leaf with chopped lap cheung, dried shrimp, chopped black mushrooms, chooped green onions, then steamed. I don't think I have seen this dish offered in US based Chinese dim sum places.

rjwong: That's absolutely stunning! Looks very delish!!! It looks like you use more liu (other ingredients) than rice! When I made this, I always use only sticky rice. Maybe a mix of sticky rice and regular jasmine rice is the key to make it "less" sticky! Never thought of that. I had just bought some decent lap cheung (Chinese sausage) and lap yuk (Chinese preserved pork) from SF Chinatown. You have inspired me that I gotta make this dish soon. I am very chicken to fats. The lap yuk I bought is all lean. I hope it tastes okay.