Chinese bacon

[susruta]

Does anyone have a recipe for Chinese bacon? My husband and I are crazy about it but the only way we know how to cook it is with sauteed green vegetables. There must be some more interesting things to do with this delicious ingredient.

[ecr]

Doesn't get you away from green vegetables, but it's wonderful stir-fried with shredded or sliced Brussel sprouts OR with sugar snap peas. All that's needed is a dash of shaoxing wine and some soy (ginger and garlic to taste).

[Gary Soup]

Are you referring to Chinese sausage? It's excellent stir fried with cucumber.

[grumpy]

Chinese bacon is lop yuk. Chinese sausage in lop cheong.

It is great stir fried with Chinese broccoli.

Think of it this way: the benefit of the broccoli cancels out the fat of the bacon.

[BettyK]

Anyone make their own lop yuk? Can I do it in my basement when it's cold and dry?

I live in a business area so you can imagine hanging lop yuk outside.

[tissue]

Cook it with sausage and rice to make that Cantonese rice dish, Bo zai fan.

[jo-mel]

Susruta -- have you tried it as Double Cooked Pork? That dish uses black beans a a flavoring.

[Ben Hong]

Favourite childhood memory # 1021 : Lop yuk cooked on top of rice, then sliced thin and served to me on top of a heaping ricebowl by Mother . Sometime she tossed in some roasted peanuts.

Lop yuk is easy enough to make, but why bother? Living in a small city where all the local butcher shops have been displaced by supermarkets , it is nigh on impossible to find rind-on belly pork.

When rind-on belly pork is available, here was the procedure that I used:

Cut pork belly into 1 inch wide strips. Marinate in a "heavy" marinade of :salt, dark soy, rum or other spirits, black pepper, sugar, and for safety's sake, a bit of saltpetre. String each piece and hang in an airy, cool dry, place until it attains the right feel. Store in a fridge.

[susruta]

Thanks, everyone! These are great ideas.

[grumpy]

Consider this option.

Wycen Foods

903 Washington Street

San Francisco, CA 94108

(415) 788-3910

Wycen produces Chinese beef jerky, lop cheong, etc. I would assume they produce Chinese bacon as well. They might be able to ship you the product.

[trillium]

Is their lap cheung the kind that is strung up (vs. the plastic packaged kind). I'm looking for a good place to mail order since I can't find any I like where I live and the stash brought back from Philly is running low.

Grace Young has a lap yuk recipe in her book.

regards,

trillium

[grumpy]

I believe I had the strung up variety. This is available in SF, as far as I know. The stuff in Portland comes from Vancouver, BC and is packed in plastic.

I'll make some inquiries with my family....

BTW, I also think Wycen offers a lo-fat variety and a turkey lop cheung.....

It's been a while since I've gotten a care package.

[susruta]

Tissue, what is bo zai fan? I could not find it in any of my Chinese cookbooks but this is probably a matter of transcription. What would some alternate English spellings be?

[trillium]

I believe I had the strung up variety. This is available in SF, as far as I know. The stuff in Portland comes from Vancouver, BC and is packed in plastic.

I'll make some inquiries with my family....

BTW, I also think Wycen offers a lo-fat variety and a turkey lop cheung.....

It's been a while since I've gotten a care package.

Ohh...you're in Portland too? And you have someone in SF who would send you some? What can I bribe you with? I really don't like the stuff from Canada (no offense to the Canucks) it's too sweet and wet. I fantasize about making my own, but the recipe I have says to smoke it over lychee branches, which I think would be pretty hard to come by (plus I don't have a smoker)! Maybe another fruit wood would suffice.

Turkey lap cheung? Hmmmm. Have you tried it?

regards,

trillium

[trillium]

I forgot to add that I like to do claypot dishes with lap yuk and taro root plus whatever I'm in the mood for (mushrooms, fermented tofu, tofu skins, chicken etc).

regards,

trillium

[Katherine]

Favourite childhood memory # 1021 : Lop yuk cooked on top of rice, then sliced thin and served to me on top of a heaping ricebowl by Mother . Sometime she tossed in some roasted peanuts.

Lop yuk is easy enough to make, but why bother? Living in a small city where all the local butcher shops have been displaced by supermarkets , it is nigh on impossible to find rind-on belly pork.

When rind-on belly pork is available, here was the procedure that I used:

Cut pork belly into 1 inch wide strips. Marinate in a "heavy" marinade of :salt, dark soy, rum or other spirits, black pepper, sugar, and for safety's sake, a bit of saltpetre. String each piece and hang in an airy, cool dry, place until it attains the right feel. Store in a fridge.

"right feel"...

For a person who wants to make their own, but has never had access to the real thing, how would you describe the "right feel"?

[grumpy]

Susruta, another recipe idea for Lop Cheong or Lop Yuk is to scramble pieces of either with eggs and peas. A simple, satisfying dish.

Trillium, I recall that the lo-fat and turkey varieties were similar in taste and texture. The texture was on the fine side. Regular lop cheong's texture is rather coarse. I agree with your comments about "too sweet and too wet." And the stuff is great in clay pots. I'll start making inquiries.

[BettyK]

Consider this option.

Wycen Foods

903 Washington Street

San Francisco, CA 94108

(415) 788-3910

Wycen produces Chinese beef jerky, lop cheong, etc. I would assume they produce Chinese bacon as well. They might be able to ship you the product.

Thanks, but I live in Canada and importing meat is not an option.

[Gary Soup]

Consider this option.

Wycen Foods

903 Washington Street

San Francisco, CA 94108

(415) 788-3910

Wycen produces Chinese beef jerky, lop cheong, etc. I would assume they produce Chinese bacon as well. They might be able to ship you the product.

There's also a place that makes its own lap cheong on Walter U. Lum Place (along the west site of Portsmouth Square) in SF. It's called "Guangzhou Sausage King" or something like that. They also have them hanging to air-dry.

[BettyK]

"right feel"...

For a person who wants to make their own, but has never had access to the real thing, how would you describe the "right feel"?

Katherine, when my mam makes lap yuk she lets it dry until it's good and dry (like lap chong). Then she stores it in the freezer. When she needs to use some in a recipe she puts it in a steamer to rehydrate, again just like lap chong.

[susruta]

In Chicago, the Chinese grocery store on the North Side where I shop sells plastic-wrappedSun Ming An bacon made in Brooklyn.. The ingredients include cinnamon and gin!

[aprilmei]

Susruta, bo zai fan is also sometimes spelled "bo jai fan" but most Chinese cookbooks probably have it listed simply under "clay pot rice" or "sand pot rice" because it's referring to the implement, rather than the ingredients (other than the rice - fan). The sand pot gives the rice a lovely smoky flavour, and as others have pointed out, you can use it to cook many other ingredients with the rice, not just the lop yuk. Although lop yuk and lop cheung are definitely the easiest things to use and all that lovely fat steams out of the meats and flavours the rice.

[Dejah]

Tissue, what is bo zai fan? I could not find it in any of my Chinese cookbooks but this is probably a matter of transcription. What would some alternate English spellings be?

"bo zi fan" literally means " little pot rice"...cook the lap cheong or lap yuk, or BOTH,

together with your rice. I usually slice the meat and lay them on top. As the rice boils,

the meat tends to "sink down" a bit, adding wonderful flavour throughout the rice. Other times, I leave the meat in whole pieces and slice after they are cooked. Anyone else like to chew and chew and chew on the lap yuk rind...after it is cooked, of course!

If I cook the rice on top of the stove, the crispy rice on the bottom of the pot is especially yummy.

[Dejah]

"clay pot rice" or "sand pot rice"

Aprilmei,

Clay pot and sand pot same or different utensils?

Is there any particular way to season, maintain, and prepare a sand pot for cooking?

I have had 3, 4 sand pots, and they have all cracked after about 6 uses

Both the "too sweet and too wet" plastic wrapped lap cheong, produced in Vancouver, I believe, and the wind dried (don't know from where) ones are available in Winnipeg. I like them both. I don't care for the chicken liver and pork ones tho'. The texture is too fine for my taste.

Where are you BettyK, that you can't get these?

My Mom used to make her own lap yuk, back in the 60's. I'll have to ask her if she still remembers the recipe, not that I'd try to make any. I am having visions of my 100 pound Great Pyrenees dog taking flying leaps at my bamboo pole strung with delectable strips of lap yuk!

[aprilmei]

Dejah, they're the same, but cookbook writers call them either sand pot or clay pot.

I've had my clay pot for quite a while - the top is cracked on the interior but it hasn't gone all the way through to the surface so it's still intact. When you buy a pot, they vendor should have a large bucket of water so you can immerse the pot in it and check it cracks (tiny bubbles show around the cracks). You're not supposed to put an empty pot on the heat or it will crack, you should start a filled pot on a low flame and gradually increase the heat and don't try to "chow" anything in the pot. I generally chow all the ingredients in a wok to give the meat a good colour then put it in the pot.

The exterior of the pots turns darker as they get a lot of use but it doesn't seem to affect the cooking in the same way as it does a well-seasoned wok.

Here in Hong Kong, bo jai fan is almost like street food in the winter. Small, inexpensive restaurants add it to their repertoire because it doesn't take up any precious kitchen space - they always cook the bo jai fan outdoors on the street so the passers-by can smell it cooking. The best places still cook it over charcoal, rather than gas, and it really adds to the flavour. And as you point out, the crusty rice on the bottom of the pot is the best part. They're only about HK$25 (about US$3) a pot, depending on what you choose for the topping.