Tonight I had one foot in the past and one in the here and now.
The dinner I most dreaded from my mother's very limited repertoire was her liver and onions. Served up about once every two weeks, it was a form of torture probably outlawed by several international treaties. Shoe leather and burnt but still half raw alliums.
One night in China about 20 years ago, long after I had to suffer my mother's cooking, someone ordered it and, without knowing what it was, I wolfed it down. It was good.
Tonight I had my mother's signature dish with a few twists.
a) No! It doesn't take half an hour to cook liver!
b) Onions don't cook in five minutes.
c) Marinating in Shaoxing wine and chilli pepper then adding some soy sauce sauce at the end makes all the difference.
Served with buttery riced potato and stir-fried beans.
