Rainbow Chopped in Crystal Fold

[piperdown]

One of my favourite Chinese resturants in Toronto makes a dish called "Rainbow Chopped in Crystal fold", and I'm dying for some. However, I no longer live in Toronto, and I can't find a recipe anywhere.

The best I can describe it is minced pork, stir-fried with vegatables (celery, carrorts, waterchestnuts), Chinese sausage, in some kind of sauce. Then Fried rice noodles (or mung bean) are added, and this mixture is then wrapped at the table in lettuce leaves that have been smeared with Hoisin sauce.

Does anyone have any idea on how to make this? I have also heard that it can be made as part of a peking Duck dish, but I've never had it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited May 25, 2004 by piperdown (log)

[aprilmei]

Wow, what a poetic name. On most English menus, it's called something simple and prosaic, like "minced meat in lettuce leaves".

This is a really versatile dish. At home, my grandmother and parents made it with a mixture of dried oysters and pork - that's how I always ate it until I moved away from home, and it's still how I make it. Many restaurants - especially the more expensive ones - like to make it with minced pigeon, which is (IMHO) a huge waste of pigeon. I've never tried the version that you described - with Chinese sausage and carrots - but I can imagine that it would be a good alternative. I've never tasted it using the minced duck from Peking duck but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

In the best versions of this, the vegetables should all be hand-chopped to the same, small size. My uncle once tried using a food processor but the final dish was rough, not refined, and he never did it that way again. Use soaked dried Chinese mushrooms, bamboo shoots, celery, water chestnuts (it's worth seeking out fresh water chestnuts). We never used carrots but I suppose your restaurant used them to make the dish more colourful. If you're using dried oysters (not too many because they have a strong flavour) soak them and then hand-chop them to the same size of the veggies. The same goes with the laap cheung (Chinese sausage) although it doesn't need to be soaked.

Marinate the raw minced meats for about 15 minutes in soy sauce, rice wine, salt, a little sugar, white pepper, cornstarch and oil. Heat oil in a wok and stir-fry the meat until it loses its pink colour then remove from the wok. If you're using laap cheung, cook it now so it gets a little colour, then remove from the wok. Heat more oil and start cooking the vegetables, adding them to the wok starting with the ones that take longer to cook - celery and carrots (if using), ending with the mushrooms. Stir in the meat(s) and dried oysters, add oyster sauce and a little water or broth and let it simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes to let the flavours blend. The sauce should thicken on its own (because of the cornstarch in the minced meat) but if it needs more, stir a little corntarch with water and stir it in at the end. It shouldn't be too "dry" but it also shouldn't be sloppily wet. Serve with iceberg lettuce (only iceberg will do) and hoisin sauce.

Oh, and if you want fried noodles, they should be very thin, dry rice noodles. Don't soak them - just fry them and they'll puff up. It's also good with fried pine nuts added in at the last minute.

[Yuki]

My family makes a version with ground pork or chicken thigh, dried mushroom, bamboo shoot, green pepper, and salty fish. Everything is cut into little cube and stir fried with a splash of soya sauce, rice wine, salt, and sugar. It is good on rice or wrapped with lettuce. There is no dipping sauce for it since it is already such strong flavoured.

You could also use the meat of the peking duck to make this dish too. It is similar to the one made with pigeon.

Peking duck sometimes come in 3 courses

1.) the skin with some meat wrapped in pancakes with cucumber, hoisin sauce, and scallions(I am not what it is called)

2.) A dish made with the meat of the duck, duck meat stir fried with other ingredients then wrapped in lettuce, stir fried duck meat with some kind of vegetables, fried noodles with duck, or whatever they could come up with.

3.) Soup made with the carcass of the duck

It could probably be made with anything you have in the fridge.

[susruta]

Piperdown, do you recall the name of the restaurant in Toronto where you enjoyed that dish? I'm from Toronto originally and when I go back on visits I'm always looking for good Chinese restaurants.

[Gary Soup]

I've seen a dish of that description as Part II of "Peking Duck Served Three Ways" but never with pork. Maybe it's an Atkins-friendly mushu pork...

[piperdown]

Piperdown, do you recall the name of the restaurant in Toronto where you enjoyed that dish? I'm from Toronto originally and when I go back on visits I'm always looking for good Chinese restaurants

It's the Pearl Restaurant at Queen's Quay. I Think it might also be served at the Pink Pearl (in yorkville?), but as my Dad lives 5 minutes from the other one, we haven't been in years. It's been on the menu for years (over 17 years anyway), but I've never seen it anywhere else.

Thanks for the suggestion everyone. None of them sound exactly like what I'm used to, but they do sound good, so I think I'll give them a shot.

[Ben Hong]

Amazing how such a plebian dish can be tarted up, given a poetic name and be sold at an outrageous price . Several people have suggested good workable recipes. I generally use chicken thighs instead of squab and if I really want to impress the gwai lo guests , I would puff up some bean threads in the deep fryer, line lettuce cups with it, add some hoisin and the chopped meat. Voila! Instant class.

This is a variation on a typical New Year's dish, "ho see sung", or oyster sung. Generally dried oysters are omitted in every day lettuce bundles as even my own children find the flavour too strong.

[aprilmei]

I love the poetic names - things like "field chicken" (for frog) and phoenix claws (for chicken feet). The first one confused a friend - he ordered field chicken bo jai faan and was halfway thorugh with it when he pulled a webbed foot out of his mouth. He had a really confused look on his face and asked, what part of the chicken is this? I said, it's a frog foot. He stopped eating and had a rather sick look on his face.

[Rachel Perlow]

Around us, it is called Chicken (or Squab or Pigeon) Soong.

[skunkbunny]

Wow, I remember having this dish 15 years ago, as a 13 year old at what was then Hsin Kuang, the big temple like restaurant on Spadina north of Dundas.. It was very exciting, this gwai lo was very impressed:)

Edited June 26, 2004 by skunkbunny (log)

[liuzhou]

Oops

Edited June 27, 2004 by liuzhou (log)