Pictorial: Conch with Brown Bean Sauce

[hzrt8w]

Stir-fried Conch with Brown Bean Sauce (豆醬炒海螺)

From my experience, periwinkle is best stir-fried with brown bean sauce. Let me illustrate how to prepare this dish. This sauce is also good for other type of seafood or meats, such as chicken.

Picture of the finished dish:

Serving Suggestion: 2 to 3

Preparations:

Main ingredients: (From upper-right, clockwise)

- Shelled periwinkle, about 1.5 to 2 lb total (Note: periwinkle shrinks quite a bit during the cooking process. You should budget at about 0.75 lb per person)

- 3 to 4 stalks of green onions

- 4 small shallots

- 5 to 6 cloves of garlic

- Ginger, about 2 to 3 inch in length

- (Not shown in picture) 1 small chili pepper (e.g. jalapeno)

Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and finely chop the shallots. Trim ends on the green onions and finely chop. Thinly cut about 8 slices of ginger. Grate the rest of the ginger. (Not shown in picture: trim ends and cut 1 chili pepper into thin slices)

Cooking Instructions:

Use a pan/wok, set stove at high. Add about 2 cups of water. Add the 8 ginger slices and periwinkle.

Bring to a boil and boil for about 2 to 3 minutes.

Drain the water with a strainer. Discard the ginger slices. (Note: boiling the shellfish with ginger would suppress the fishy taste inherent in most seafood.)

Start with a clean wok/pan. Set stove at high. Add 2 tblsp of cooking oil. Wait until oil starts fuming. Add minced garlic, minced shallots, 2 tsp of chili bean sauce, sliced chili pepper, 2 to 3 tsp of brown bean sauce, 2 to 3 tsp of sweet flour paste. (Note: no need to add extra salt as these sauces are quite salty.)

Stir well. Dash in 2 tsp of ShaoHsing cooking wine. Add 1/4 cup of chicken broth, 2 tsp of sugar. Bring to a boil.

Add corn starch slurry (suggest: 2 tsp of corn starch mixed in 4 tsp of water) to thinken the sauce to the right consistency. Adjust quantity. Slowly fold in the corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce.

Return the periwinkle. Stir and toss for another 2 to 3 minutes. Make sure the sauce is evenly coated on the periwinkle. At the last moment, add the chopped green onion and stir to distribute it evenly. Transfer content to a serving plate. Drizzle about 2 tsp of sesame oil on top before serving.

Picture of the finished dish.

Edited February 6, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[BarbaraY]

That sounds really good.

I have one question. Exactly what is sweet flour paste. I've only seen it in a few recipes so have never used it.

[Ben Hong]

Ah Leung. I am confused about your periwinkles. I have never seen them sold shelled, I have never seen them so light coloured. My idea of periwinkle is in the Toysan dialect "hien lu", or field snail. Living close to the Atlantic Ocean we pick them off the rocks at low tide, and the Chinese call these snails hien lu also. Both types are up to 1.5 inches big and the ones we get from the ocean is very hard shelled and grey/black in colour, even the meat.

We never shell them, just cook them in the shell...usually with black bean sauce and perilla (coriander is a good sub). The fun is picking them out with a sharp toothpick or a pin. Done western style, garlic, butter, a bit of shallots is excellent also. I used to keep my kids busy for endless hours picking away at the delectable tidbits.

Edited February 5, 2006 by Ben Hong (log)

[Dejah]

Periwinkles, from what I remember, are as you described, Ben. I loved eating those in black bean garlic sauce, as well as the ones boiled in along the beachs of the North sea in England. Haven't been able to buy them for a very long time.

At first, I thought Ah leung's were clam meat, but the shape is different. Just trying to visualize what I saw in the seafood freezer in Wpg. I may have seen packages of "snail meat", but they were bigger pieces.

Man! They make a racket when you toss them around in the wok!

[hzrt8w]

I have one question. Exactly what is sweet flour paste. I've only seen it in a few recipes so have never used it.

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Sweet flour paste is made from fermented flour, I think. It tastes similar to Hoi Sin Sauce, and is dark brown in color. In Chinese, it is 甜麵醬.

There is a picture of it in one of my earlier posts. The small jar at the upper second-right:

[hzrt8w]

Ah Leung. I am confused about your periwinkles. I have never seen them sold shelled, I have never seen them so light coloured. [...]

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The package that I bought has a label of "periwinkle". Perhaps it is another case of "lost in translation".

The one that I bought was a sea-snail kind of thing. The one that you described seems close to the French escargot which lives on land.

[Ben Hong]

I believe that it is conch you were using, not the beautiful huge ones that one thinks of, but the smaller ones that look like giant snails. Long tail on the shell, light greenish, with a hint of brown. Shells are about three -four inches in size.

[chappie]

I live in Maryland where we often find thousands of what we call periwinkles in the salt marshes. They are quite small, maybe a half-inch across at most. Would they work for this dish? I once tried boiling a few of them but found the meat very difficult to extract; plus there's a hard bottom to the "foot" that is probably inedible.

[annachan]

I live in Maryland where we often find thousands of what we call periwinkles in the salt marshes. They are quite small, maybe a half-inch across at most. Would they work for this dish? I once tried boiling a few of them but found the meat very difficult to extract; plus there's a hard bottom to the "foot" that is probably inedible.

←

Those sounds like what I've been used to. You do have to remove the hard disk on the bottom first. To extract them, the best way to to stick a toothpick into the meat and pull it out. Another way we used to extract the meat when we were little was to simply remove the hard disk and suck the meat out of the shell.

[warlockdilemma]

Ah Leung. I am confused about your periwinkles. I have never seen them sold shelled, I have never seen them so light coloured.  My idea of periwinkle is in the Toysan dialect "hien lu", or field snail. Living close to the Atlantic Ocean we pick them off the rocks at low tide, and the Chinese call these snails hien lu also. Both types are up to 1.5 inches big and the ones we get from the ocean is very hard shelled and grey/black in colour, even the meat.

We never shell them, just cook them in the shell...usually with black bean sauce and perilla (coriander is a good sub). The fun is picking them out with a sharp toothpick or a pin.  Done western style, garlic, butter, a bit of shallots is excellent also. I used to keep my kids busy for endless hours picking away at the delectable tidbits.

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I remember doin the same thing as a kid,picking on each hien lu using a toothpick at my Grandma's place .

Ben do you have the toysan style recipe.

[Ben Hong]

Just the standard black bean, garlic, ginger style. If I have perilla or coriander, I would use some of that as a garnish.

[wesza]

After perusing these posts I decided today to make something similar at home.

Went shopping at the Ranch 99 Supermarket in Edmond's and Lums Seafood in the International District both located in the Seattle area and was surprised to find available:

11 varieties of Conch, Whelk and Periwinkles live, fresh packed and frozen.

The ones often served in NYC or Flushing Chinatowns fresh are indeed classified as "Periwinkles" and I enjoyed digging them out of their shells using toothpicks after being cooked in Black Bean Sauce and Garlic since I was a kid. The only other places that served them were the same Italian Restaurants that served "Whole Roasted Sheep Head's" and "Surfreito's" except they provided a metal pick, more garlic and no black bean sauce.

Conch or Scungali were generally available in Cans again except for the more Authentic places. The first place I really enjoyed Conch was in Florida.

In Hong Kong various Whelks were very expensive, brought to your table live for selection, weighed and then prepared to order. Periwinkles we available both live and picked in the markets, often picked while you were completing your shopping.

I bought today several fresh displayed packages and some traditional east coast live periwinkles.

The picked ones weren't as tasty as the live. I think they may have been steamed first them picked or even frozen and thawed out, but were still very tasty.

The live in shell periwinkles were real fun and enjoyed by all made with Black Beans, Chili, Garlic, Spring Onions, Far Due Wine and Leaf Parsley.

Next time I intend to buy the live Whelks that run about 4 to the pound. The Fish Monger advised that west coast periwinkles are lighter in color and slightly larger then the west coast variety. They are also now being imported from Thailand, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines in different variations.

It will be fun trying them all.

Irwin

[Ben Hong]

Irwin, last time I was in HK, I ate at a very busy place on a street corner in Kowloon. It was a "supersized" dai pah dong and served so many varieties of seafood that it took me a half hour to make my selections. After eating my fill of 4 different types, I met my friends who, when told of the magnificent supper I had, all literally blanched. It was revealed to me that shellfish of any kind was not to be eaten because of the danger of hepatitis and other sorts of unpleasant diseases. Thankfully, I did not catch anything, but I was on pins and needles for a year...waiting...waiting. Food for thought. Knowing that HK pumps all its raw sewerage into the harbour and environs...yechhh

[wesza]

Irwin, last time I was in HK, I ate at a very busy place on a street corner in Kowloon. It was a "supersized" dai pah dong and served so many varieties of seafood that it took me a half hour to make my selections. After eating my fill of 4 different types, I met my friends who, when told of the magnificent supper I had, all literally blanched. It was revealed to me that shellfish of any kind was not to be eaten because of the danger of hepatitis and other sorts of unpleasant diseases. Thankfully, I did not catch anything, but I was on pins and needles for a year...waiting...waiting. Food for thought. Knowing that HK pumps all its raw sewerage into the harbour and environs...yechhh

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Ben:

When I lived in Hong Kong the only seafood warning was to not eat the Clams from certain areas when posted and reported in the newspapers seasonally

Even then the public rarely paid attention to the warnings believing that if the Clams were cooked long enough they were safe so poaching was common with the Clams being sold by Hawkers or in Dai Pah Dongs.

The reputable comparatively expensive Live Seafood Restaurants would be sure to only serve Shellfish, Seafood and anything else from sources that they trusted. Clams were fresh from different locations in China and priced according to the season and suppliers location. This also applied to Crabs, Prawns and all live Fish being sold. Traditionally at these Restaurants only live seafood was served. Anything that wasn't alive was returned to the suppliers to be sold to regular Restaurants.

When you ordered items such as Oysters requesting those from the Pearl River you paid different prices according to the location they came from on the River.

The items such as Periwinkles or Whelks were normally from colder water locations served seasonal imported from China or even Australia live. The same shipper we purchased "Sydney Rock Oysters" from also shipped Whelks, Lobsters, Crayfish and Periwinkles live to Hong Kong customers.

With the constantly increasing population by the millions I doubt if much local shellfish in safe year round but hope that with the large amount of newspapers being published and the rumor mills in Hong Kong that any place that served anything questionable could remain in business very long. Your friends must have had some indications about safety of the Periwinkles served street-side I'm glad you had no problems.

Whenever I spend time in Asia I find that after a while I become less cautious in eating out, but always make sure that anywhere I eat is a very busy place where I can watch the cooking. If it's outside try to know something about its reputation if it's inside. I almost always make sure to be accompanied by someone who is local. Generally I have been lucky but the few times when not 100% ouch.

Irwin

[Kent Wang]

Is this the same as (Mandarin) lou2 si1? How expensive are they shelled? I had a dish of at least 1lb for about $6 at a Taiwan-style restaurant in Houston, so I'm guessing retail price is probably around $2-3/lb? That seems really cheap for any kind of seafood.

Also, why boil the periwinkles first and then combine? Why not just cook them together with everything else?

[Kent Wang]

Is this the same as (Mandarin) lou2 si1? How expensive are they shelled?

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After checking with my mother and the Hong Kong supermarket they are indeed one and the same. And periwinkles are indeed a kind of conch. I still want to find where to buy them pre-shelled.

[jtnippon1985]

Found this picture I had taken a while back from when I attempted this dish. Needless to say I loved it and will eventually be having it again.

Edited June 14, 2006 by jtnippon1985 (log)

[liuzhou]

Is this the same as (Mandarin) lou2 si1? ... That seems really cheap for any kind of seafood.

螺蛳 luo2 si1 isn't seafood. It is a type of snail found in rivers and rice fields. Big local speciality in these parts.

They are invariably served in a spicy sauce.

and the most famous local dish is 螺蛳粉 luo2si1fen3 - rice noodles, peanuts, green veg and dried tofu skin in a spicy hot snail soup.

[Dejah]

Is this the same as (Mandarin) lou2 si1? ... That seems really cheap for any kind of seafood.

螺蛳 luo2 si1 isn't seafood. It is a type of snail found in rivers and rice fields. Big local speciality in these parts.

They are invariably served in a spicy sauce.

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Oh MY! That reaches wayyyyyyyyy back into my childhood memories.

[Ben Hong]

OOOooooohhhhh yeah!!!! Real hien lu, not periwinkles (a great substitute though)