Chinese Eats at Home (Part 3)

[Dejah]

Now, you see i always thought that "seen" (鮮 ?) translated to that umami flavour.  That extra special taste.  Mind you it's mostly used in conjunction "seen teem" - umami sweetness, or "sun (新) seen" - fresh umami taste.  So what do you folks think, how would you describe "seen"?

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I've always heard these two words used together: "sun seen" to mean fresh as in quality and taste - taste would indicate umami sweetness.

[liuzhou]

The Chinese do not have a specific word for umami

My dictionary and my friends agree on 鲜味 (鮮味 in traditional)

Edited August 30, 2008 by liuzhou (log)

[judiu]

Nice dish Bruce, you can do a similar thing with salted duck egg yolks instead of egg white and it gives an extra richness.  I too was taught to salt my prawns before frying them as it firms them up and gives them a "song" (爽 - i think) "mouth-feel".  Hard to describe that word - kinda pleasantly crisp (like an apple)!!

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Aren't salted duck eggs kind of solidified though?

I tend to add salted duck eggs to my claypot rice to give it that wonderful richness, but my only wish is for a non-solid version so that the egg simply mixes through smoothly, rather than me having to slice it into small pieces.

It's a pity really.

On another note, is anyone familiar with this dish and know how it's made?

It's duck on a layer of taro crisp fried with some sort of batter and served with a mushroom (?) gravy...realllllllyyyy delicious.

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Unfortunately, I can tell you where it's NOT, in The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller. It's the first thing I thought of, though.

[Dejah]

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Aren't salted duck eggs kind of solidified though?

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If you buy fresh salted eggs, only the yolk is solidified. The whites are actually runnier than fresh unsalted eggs.

In our Chinese grocery store, I can buy only cooked salted duck eggs. In Superstore, I can usually buy uncooked salted duck eggs.

I had to use cooked ones last year when I made joongzi. What a waste(how much cooked egg white can one eat? ), and what a pain to extract the yolks. The joongzi were not as good as this year's when I was able to buy fresh salted eggs.

[Prawncrackers]

and I'll be dribbling and waiting for that Kau Yuk recipe

You may cease your dribbling now Ce'nedra! Recipe for Kau Yuk is here, straight from an old Hakka lady i.e. my mother:

- Blanch a thick square of skin-on pork belly in gingerised salted water for approx 15 mins, just to set the meat slightly. Remove from the pot then scrape and poke the skin all over with a spiked stamp (or jaccard - wonderful piece of kit). Cool a little, pat dry then smear the pork all over with dark soy. This should make the skin more tender and give a nice colour.

- Peel and cut the taro into thick half moons. They should be as big as you're going to cut the pork as you are going to layer them. So you will need equal numbers of pork and taro.. Shallow or deep fry the taro pieces to give them a little colour and set aside. In the same oil give the pork a little colour (less then 5 mins) too. Cut the pork into similar sized pieces when cooled a little.

- In a large deep bowl mix together the sauce: meen see (yellow beans), nam yue (fermented red beans - now we're talking Hakka!), light soy, five spice, shaosing, sugar, sesame oil, scallion white, garlic & ginger. Needless to say, my mum doesn't do quantities - just a little of this and that. She did say you only need one lump of nam yue and that the sauce is quite thick like a paste.

- Mix well with the pork and taro and arrange them in the bowl in layers so that you can pick out pairs of taro and pork with your chopsticks. Steam covered for at least two hours.

- If you can resist it, cook this the day before as the flavour and tenderness will be vastly improved. Just reheat it when you want to eat it.

That's it, it's such a lovely dish to eat as you bite into the pork and taro together. The pork so tender coupled with the earthiness of the taro, the flavour is so savoury sweet with the meen see and nam yue. Can't wait to eat it again.

[Dejah]

Kau Yuk is my mom's favourite dish. I made it for the first time last year from Tepee's recipe. Mom was thrilled as she hadn't eaten it for many many years.

Taro is in the flyers this week in anticipation of Mid-Autumn Festival. I'll have to make it again - using Prawn's Mom's directions.

Thanks, Prawn's Mom!

[v. gautam]

A suggestion for peeling taro, in case C did not already know of it:

Wash the whole, skin-on corms and if a largish quantity, plunge into proportionate amount [large quantity] of boiling water for a brief period so that only the skin and the slightest fraction of a millimeter underneath gets set. Drain and run cold water. You now will find that the slippery and occasionally skin-irrritant quality [raphides] of peeling those corms has become much, much simpler. The frying/crisping of the taro also goes so much better this way, without the mucilage layer to interfere.

The process is akin to blanching tomatoes: you take care to cook the skin but not the layers underneath.

If you have not too many corms and a 1000 Watt microwave, a large 3 quart Corning type covered casserole, the washed taro with a tiny bit of water can be microwaved for a few minutes [adjusted for your microwave and how the corms are arranged] until the skins are just cooked.

gautam

[Ce'nedra]

Wow thank you Prawncrackers (and please thank your mum too)! Are the yellow beans fresh, salted/other?

[Prawncrackers]

My mum uses the crushed yellow bean sauce that comes in cans.

Still wondering about that taro duck dish though... hmmm

[Dejah]

My mum uses the crushed yellow bean sauce that comes in cans.

Still wondering about that taro duck dish though... hmmm

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The yellow beans are salted, smashed, sold in jars/cans as "meen see". I use it when I want to make Cantonese roast duck (haven't for a long time tho').

It's a cool autumn-like day and I've been cooking food to take to our daughter's house in Winnipeg. We're going in to help her move, so we'll need lots of energy!

So far, I've got beef rendang, veggie lasagne.

And, for Chinese food, I've got baby back ribs marinating for char siu pie gwut, and finally, I made Zhua fan combining my friend Ping's method and Fushia Dunlop's recipe for Polo (lamb pilau). I didn't have sultana raisins, so I used chopped dried apricots. I miss the plumb sweetness of the raisins. Next time there'll be no subsitutions!

Will post picture of finished product in the zhua fan thread in a bit.

[Peter Green]

Yes!

Following the (relative) success of using an MI unit for doing Korean beef at the table (so gum gui), last night I tackled something I'd really been missing since Chengdu.

Hot pot.

I tried out the pot just once before, and found that, with our kitchen layout, communal dining just didn't work right. Now, with the magnetic induction unit for the table top, we were in business.

The nice thing about hot pot is you can toss just about anything into the broth. I couldn't find any cuttlefish or squid, but the prawns are in season, and I picked up another ribeye roast, froze it, and then slice it thin. Same for the chicken breast.

Chicken broth as a base, with one side kept mild for Serena, and the other lightly spiced for Yoonhi and I.

We finished up with some udon noodles we found in the freezer (no picture, they're just noodles), and then set aside the leftovers.

As a finishing note, my third test worked very well. That was just a quick wok stir fry of the leftovers for lunch today. Very hot, very fast. My quibble is that I've got to relearn my cooking, and use the temperature controls. I understand the physics, but that doesn't stop my hands from wanting to shift the wok about (which breaks contact).

Technology is so much fun.

[judiu]

My mum uses the crushed yellow bean sauce that comes in cans.

Still wondering about that taro duck dish though... hmmm

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The yellow beans are salted, smashed, sold in jars/cans as "meen see". I use it when I want to make Cantonese roast duck (haven't for a long time tho').

It's a cool autumn-like day and I've been cooking food to take to our daughter's house in Winnipeg. We're going in to help her move, so we'll need lots of energy!

So far, I've got beef rendang, veggie lasagne.

And, for Chinese food, I've got baby back ribs marinating for char siu pie gwut, and finally, I made Zhua fan combining my friend Ping's method and Fushia Dunlop's recipe for Polo (lamb pilau). I didn't have sultana raisins, so I used chopped dried apricots. I miss the plumb sweetness of the raisins. Next time there'll be no subsitutions!

Will post picture of finished product in the zhua fan thread in a bit.

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Maybe if your soaked the apricot pieces in a sweet wine, like Mogen David, fo a while? HTH!

[Dejah]

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Maybe if your soaked the apricot pieces in a sweet wine, like Mogen David, fo a while? HTH!

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Sounds like a good idea!

Bought some nice big taro and several slabs of pork belly while visiting daughter in the city. Think I'll attempt Kau Yuk as a treat for my Mom tomorrow.

[Ce'nedra]

Dejah: Please post back on it!

I know this looks really simple, but still, does anybody have a good recipe for this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sydneywalker/1541544845/

[Ce'nedra]

Back to Chinese with spanner crabs stir fried in a fool-proof mixture of salt, sugar, freshly ground pepper, cornstarch and water. Naturally, ginger and green onion was added for fragrance (really, ginger just goes well with most seafood in general). Finally, add to bed of egg noodles.

My plate

[Dejah]

Your plate of noodles and crab look very inviting!

The kau yook was enjoyed mostly by my mom and brother. The rest don't like fatty meat, but liked the taro.

Mom and brother said it was delicious. They only allowed themselves a couple of pieces of the pork each meal (cholestrol control ), and they spread the dish out over 3 days!

My dish didn't look as photogenic as Prawn's, so no picture. I'll be making it again in about 2 months time, so will attempt a better plate next time.

[jo-mel]

For hot pot, I like making little mini OxTongue steamed buns. You simply place a piece of the cooked meat inside -- and yum!

[C. sapidus]

Stir-fried beef with cumin; steamed eggplant with black beans and chiles; garlicky Swiss chard with onions, ginger, and sesame oil; and jasmine rice. The beef and eggplant were from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.

Younger son said that the Swiss chard was his favorite dish of the meal. The recipe, from Vegetables Every Day, may be more Chinese-style than Chinese.

[C. sapidus]

Sichuan tonight: red-braised beef with daikon radish (hong shao niu rou); dry-fried green beans (gan bian si ji dou); spicy cucumber salad (qiang huang gua); and jasmine rice. All from Land of Plenty.

[Ce'nedra]

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There's no real measurement as it's a family recipe that my mum taught me on the spot so here goes...

1 tsp five-spice powder

8 drumsticks

salt

sugar

soy sauce

fish sauce

crushed garlic

water

* I know this isn't specific but there should be a good deal of soy sauce and fish sauce!

Does it matter what type of fish sauce you use? Thai, Vietnamese, etc.?

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Hmm well we use Vietnamese fish sauce at home so I suppose that's what I'd recommend

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Correction: at home we use Vietnamese fish sauce as a dipping sauce and Thai fish sauce for cooking.

[Peter Green]

More fun with IM

I'm still on a hotpot jag.

If you need to clean out your fridge or freezer, it’s time for hotpot.

I’d been looking at what I had in the freezer, along with the produce I’d bought on my last trip, and decided last weekend it was time to do something about it.

The stocks were just chicken broth on one side, and chicken broth with the mysterious package of Chengdu hotpot oil I’d found in town. I’d topped it off with some of my store of peppercorn, and I figured we were good to go.

For protein, I had a piece of tenderloin I’d slice down, and some nice tripe I found back of the freezer compartment (when did I buy that?).

For greens, I’d picked up some really pretty French beans, a wonderful package of wild mushrooms, and we also had some baby carrots in the bottom of the crisper and a package of British purple sprouting broccoli. Add on a freezer bag of dubious looking water chestnuts (and I would kill for some lotus root).

Yoonhi's settled on the method of cooking things through on the mild side, and then only giving them a short bath on the evil side, trying to avoid the worst of it.

Full frontal, say I.

The fridge still wasn't empty, but I felt better.

[WillLack]

Supper last night

Gong Po chicken - Fushia Dunlops recipe - with me adding red peppers and using cashew nuts instead of peanuts as my wife is deadly allergic to peanuts

Gai Lan - garlic & oyster sauce

I went to a cooking demonstration that Fushia Dunlop did at a store in London, and it all finally clicked to see it

[Ce'nedra]

WillLack: Your meals looks beautiful and it also reminds me -I need to get myself that Fushia book!

I'm not so sure how 'Chinese' these are but they are our homemade version of the meat pockets we buy from Chinese bakery shops. I prefer this version since it's nowhere near as oily (I recall the fats and oils seeping through the paper bags containing the pastries).

Mixture of minced pork, button mushrooms, diced onions, salt, sugar and pepper. Oh and cornstarch.

Sliced puff pastry sheets into equal squares and filled them (reminds me of wonton for some reason).

Folded the pastries into triangles and sealed them by lightly pressing the edges and then used a fork.

Egg wash the pastries for colour! At first, mum and I used only egg yolk, second batch used whole eggs...eventually we figured 2 egg yolks, 1 white was the preferred ratio.

Freshly baked goodies

[Dejah]

The meat pockets look very much like the curry puffs I used to make for our restaurant. I didn't use pork, I used ground chicken, chopped onion, curry powder, and mashed potato as thickener for all the sauce.

I use egg-wash for that "glow", but at home, we prefer the pastry without egg-wash. It makes a more "powdery" top but the whole pocket is still flakey.

[Ben Hong]

The meat pockets look very much like the curry puffs I used to make for our restaurant.

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You sold samosas??!!