At Home with Chinese Cuisine (14 page)

Another important root vegetable for the winter is the family of different coloured radishes. They come in white, green, and red colours that contain different antioxidant properties. The winter radish with an elongated white root is the most popular one that can also be found in British supermarkets. The green one with jade green flesh and the red one with beetroot-red flesh have milder flavour and are often used for salads. The radish is high in vitamin C and it is a good source of dietary fibre, minerals, and proteins. When eaten raw, the white one has a texture similar to that of pears, and it is a match made in heaven when served raw with thinly sliced, cured flathead mullet roe.

Cured flathead mullet roe is a Taiwanese specialty, but equivalents can be found in countries such as Japan (karasumi) and Italy (bottarga). Every year in late December, schools of flathead mullet swim down from the Sea of Japan past the Korean peninsula and follow the coast of China to spawn off southwest Taiwan. The roes are salted, sun-dried, pressed, and sun-and wind-dried before being vacuum-packed for sale. Expertly cured roes should have a reddish orange colour. The pairs of ovaries should be symmetrical in shape, there should be a good balance between the taste of saltiness and the taste of umami; and it should have a firm-to-the-touch texture on the surface and a touch of softness in the centre. The main harbour for fishing wild flathead mullets is about a two-hour car journey from where I grew up. My mother’s fishmonger in the market was from the harbour area and has always been the first one to let us know the availability of the new season cured roes from the wild mullets. Her enthusiasm has always been well rewarded by Mother’s generous patronage, because the roes freeze well. By the time we indulge in this dish in the Chinese New Year celebration, the smell of spring is already in the air.

7
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Recipes

Readers’ Guide to Recipes

Asparagus:
To prepare asparagus for cooking: Use an asparagus peeler to peel off the skin about half way from the middle of the spear toward the cut-end. Hold the asparagus in your hands and with one hand holding the cut-end of the spear. Bend the spear with the other hand moving from the cut-end toward the spear and snap off the woody part. For the fresh young asparagus harvested from the garden just before cooking, do not snap but just trim off about 1 cm of the cut-end.

Bean
curd:
To make the bean curd tenderer, it needs to be blanched before cooking. Boil a pan of water sufficient to cover the bean curd. Put 15-30 grammes of salt into the water. Turn the heat down. Put the diced bean curd in the pan. Allow the water to come to a gentle simmer. Switch off the heat and leave the bean curd in the pan. Drain the bean curd when you are ready to use it.

Cooking
oil:
Unless specified, the cook should decide the variety of cooking oil used in the recipes. I use grapeseed oil and groundnut oil most often.

Cornflour
(and
water
mixture):
Cornflour is the fine white flour extracted from maize. It is often used as a thickener. It is either used in powder form or is mixed with cold water. In the marinade, the cornflour and water mixture is used when the main ingredients are dryish, such as with beef. When mixing in with fairly moist ingredients, only cornflour is used.

When used as a thickening agent for sauce or soup, the cornflour and water mixture is used. Make sure the cooking liquid is bubbling gently before you pour the cornflour and water mixture in. Stir the mixture well before adding to the cooking.

Dried
black
wood
ears:
To reconstitute them, leave them to soak in warm water until they are fully reconstituted. Rinse them well and remove the remains of root that might still be attached to the fungi.

Dried
chilli:
When we need to fry dried chilli to infuse the oil, use low to medium heat (120-150°C) until the colour of the chilli skin starts to turn darker. They burn easily in hot oil.

Dried
shiitake
mushrooms:
To reconstitute them, leave them to soak in warm water. One portion of dried shiitake mushrooms normally yields about 5 portions of squeeze-dried reconstituted ones. Rinse both sides well and use a pair of kitchen scissors to remove the stalks.

To steam the reconstituted mushrooms for softer texture, filter the soaking liquid. Put the mushrooms in a bowl covered with the filtered soaking liquid and steam them over a medium heat for 30-50 minutes, depending on the size.

Similar to the soaking liquid of the porcini mushroom, the soaking liquid of the shiitake mushroom can be used for cooking as well.

Fermented
black
beans
:
I recommend moist whole fermented black beans. They need to be chopped coarsely and stir-fried in warm oil to release their flavour. Taste them before using and reduce the quantity of salt accordingly.

Commercially available black bean paste or sauce usually has a long list of other ingredients added. Make sure you read the ingredients on the label before making the purchase.

Gentle
boil
of
water:
When the ring of water close to the side of the saucepan is boiling but the water in the centre is not.

Ginger:
We normally peel the ginger and use it as an herb for cooking. To benefit from its tonic and warming medicinal effects, keep the skin on for cooking, as often seen in Beijing.

The young ginger is the new shoot of the ginger plant. It is available in the spring/summer but only briefly. It has an ivory colour with a crunchy texture, less fibrous and not as pungent in taste. They match very well with shredded meats and fish of all sorts for stir-frying. Be warned of the likelihood of addiction!

Ginkgo
nuts
in
their
shell:
Ginkgo nuts from freshly shelled new season nuts available in the autumn taste the nicest. To shell them, use a nutcracker. Be gentle with them because their shell is fairly thin.

Put the shelled nuts in a bowl; pour boiling water over them to soak. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave them to cool down. When the water is tepid, the red-brown skin can be peeled off easily. Put the skinned nuts in a bowl with sufficient water to cover them, steam over a high heat for 20 minutes so to cook them thoroughly. Drain and pat them dry. They are ready to be used. Ginkgo nuts in vacuum pack, ready to be used are available in Chinese supermarkets.

Heat
level
for
cooking:
Heat level is used to describe the desired temperature when oil is used as the medium for the transfer of heat. Each level is the equivalent of 30°C. There are low (levels 3-4, 90-120°C/194-248°F), medium-low (levels 4-5, 120-150°C/248-302°F), medium (levels 5-6, 150-180°C/302-356°F), medium-high (levels 6-7, 180-210°C/356-410°F) and high (levels 7-8, 210-240°C/410-464°F) levels of oil temperature.

Marinade
(how
to):
When mixing the marinade with the main ingredients of a dish (mostly meat or fish), hold the lower arm parallel to the work surface with the fingers pointing downwards in a closed circle and lift the arm up and down whilst simultaneously opening and closing the fingers. With this mixing motion, massage in the liquid condiments such as water, wine, spring onion and ginger water, soy sauce, and vinegar first, one at a time, with the main ingredients. With the same mixing motion, add a small quantity of salt (¼ teaspoon to start with) and pepper until no visible liquid is left in the bowl and the meat or fish is slightly sticky to touch. Mix in the egg white (if required) the same way. Finally, add the cornflour or the cornflour and water mixture and mix well.

Leave the meat in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes when the cornflour or the cornflour and water mixture is used. With prawns, leave them to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Potato
flour:
It is made from cooked potatoes. It produces a more gelatinous texture than corn flour when used as a thickening agent.

Room
temperature:
When ingredients are being left in the fridge to rest, always bring them out of the fridge to return to room temperature before cooking.

Salt
and
pepper:
When condiments such as vinegar, soy sauce or fermented bean pastes are used, it is for the cook to taste their cumulative effects and make judgement on the seasoning. Low salt diet is a healthier diet. But insufficient salting will affect the flavour of the dish negatively.

It is preferable to use freshly milled pepper in the cooking for its volatile aromatic oils from grinding. I suggest using white pepper in the cooking and black pepper for the table.

Sesame
seed
oil:
There are two varieties of sesame seed oil. One is extracted from roasted white sesame seeds, which is close in colour and richness to what we are familiar with in the West. It is used for the last minute drizzling in cooking. It is also used for dressings and in dipping sauces.

A much stronger dark brown variety is from the roasted black sesame seeds. It is used for cooking.

Shelled
prawns:
For fresh prawns in shell: put the prawns in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once defrosted, the shell can be peeled off easily.

To prepare shelled prawns for cooking, hold the shelled prawn between your fingers with the tail end away from you. Use a sharp knife to make a shallow cut lengthwise along the abdominal segments of the prawn to expose the dark intestinal vein. Remove the vein and rinse well with cold water. Pat them dry. Leave them in a bowl.

SiChuan
pepper(corns)
(also
known
as
prickly
ash):
Only the husk (hull) is used for cooking. Discard the black seed in the husk as it has a bitter taste when heated.

SiChuan
pepper(corn)
powder
: Use it toward the end of the cooking for its aroma and its pungent and numbing sensation.

I recommend preparing the powder ourselves: Remove the seeds and dry roast the husks in a clean pan over a low heat. Toss or stir-fry until the aroma is released and the colour of the husk deepens (not darkens). Set the peppercorns aside to cool down completely. Grind the husks finely and store the powder in an airtight jar. It can be kept in the refrigerator as long as the powder smells freshly aromatic (at least 8-10 months).

Soy
sauce:
Traditionally, dark soy sauce is used for giving colour while light soy sauce is to add the taste of saltiness to the dish. Most of them are equally salty these days. Taste the sauce before using it.

Be sparing with the dark soy sauce when using it to give colour. Some brands are undesirably ink-black.

If light soy sauce is specifically mentioned in the recipe, the best choice is the naturally fermented soy sauce that follows the traditional and natural way of production. It has a similar colour to the light soy sauce with much less salt and more umami taste.

Spring
onions:
Spring onions have a white stem (referred to as spring onion white in the recipes) with green leaves (referred to as spring onion green in the recipes).

Sugar:
Unless specified, caster (castor) sugar, granulated sugar or crystal (rock) sugar can all be used.

Wok:
The traditional Chinese wok needs to be seasoned at regular intervals. It also needs to be seasoned every time we use it for cooking ingredients such as meats, fish, and rice that are likely to stick to the wok.

To season the wok before cooking, heat the wok until when splashing drops of water into the wok, they rapidly skitter around the surface before boiling off. Add 15 ml of the cooking oil and swirl it around to cover the part of the wok that will be in contact with the food. Remove the wok from the heat and pour any excess oil away. The wok is ready to be used for cooking.