Madame Huang's Kitchen

Sister-in-law Song's fish chowder: a taste of heaven

2013-06-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Sao's fine legacy

Light and delicious, this fish chowder from old Hangzhou is a classic recipe from Zhejiang, a/k/a heaven on earth. This is one of those dishes that looks terribly complicated, but actually is quite easy to put together.

First and foremost, you must have a good freshwater fish to act as the backbone, as the fresh sweetness of its flesh will act as a sparkling counterpoint to the other ingredients.

Crunchy bamboo shoots provide just the right textural component, while chewy mushrooms and ham hover with their own deep flavors in every mouthful.

The beauty of this chowder is breathtaking when done correctly. Everything except for the fish must be cut into thin shreds so that they swirl and twist harmoniously around each other, the beige of the bamboo, red of the ham, and black of the mushrooms providing delight to the eye before their scent has even reached your nose. Tender egg-white flowers dance among these shreds, their brilliant white playing hide-and-seek with the fish flakes.

Spring bamboo shoot

As you take your first bite, you may be reminded of North China’s hot and sour soup, since this too has a good wallop of vinegar and black pepper.

But then again, this is from Zhejiang, so it has a quieter voice, the vinegar backpedaled a bit and there along with the fresh ginger only to spark the aromas of the fish and refresh the palate between each spoonful.

Mention of this chowder is made as early as 800 years ago in the Song dynasty book Mèngliánglù 夢梁錄 by Wú Zìmù 吳自牧, so this is definitely something that has pleased generations of diners in one of the most heavenly places to eat in the world.

Sister-in-law Song’s fish chowder

Sòngsǎo yúgēng 宋嫂魚羹

Serves 4

12 ounces firm, white, freshwater fish (bass, carp, tilapia, etc.)

1 tablespoon ginger juice

½ teaspoon sea salt

5 large fresh or plumped-up dried black mushrooms

A little over 1-inch square of Chinese-style ham

½ fresh or frozen and defrosted bamboo shoot

Mushrooms. ham, & shoots

1 tablespoon fresh peanut or vegetable oil

1 tablespoon finely shredded fresh ginger

3 cups boiling chicken stock, or 3 cups boiling filtered water plus 2 teaspoons fish sauce

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon cornstarch or water chestnut flour mixed with 3 tablespoons filtered water

1 tablespoon black vinegar, or to taste

Chopped cilantro as garnish

1. Rinse the fish, pat it dry, and remove any skin or bones. (If there are tiny bones in there, they will be easily removed once the fish has been steamed.) Place the fish in a single layer on a heatproof, rimmed dish, sprinkle it with the ginger juice and salt, and steam the fish for 10 to 15 minutes, or until it flakes easily. Discard the juices and let the fish cool down while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Remove the stems from the mushrooms. Cut the caps horizontally into 3 layers (or 2 if the caps are thin), and then cut these layers into shreds the size of matchsticks. Trim any skin or tendons off of the ham and cut it against the grain into thin slices and then crosswise into matchsticks. Do the same with the bamboo shoots. You should end up with somewhere in the area of ¼ cup each of the julienned ham and bamboo shoots. (Keep the ham separate from the mushrooms and bamboo shoot.)

Frothy egg flowers

3. Place a medium-sized sandpot on a burner and turn the heat to medium-high heat, being careful not to overheat the sandpot and thus break it. While the sandpot is heating up, place the oil and ginger in there so that you know how hot the sandpot is getting while the ginger slowly releases its fragrance. When it is starting to fry happily, add the mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Stir these around in the hot oil, and when they start to go limp, pour in the hot stock. Bring the stock to a boil over high heat and then lower the heat to medium; let the stock and the vegetables get to know each other for a couple of minutes and then add the ham.

4. After about a minute, remove the sandpot from the heat. Lightly beat the egg whites again and then pour them through a sieve in a fine thread all over the soup. Do not mix the chowder at this point, but give the whites a chance to form delicate flowers all over the surface.

5. Return the sandpot to the heat and bring the soup to a boil before lower the heat to a simmer. Stir in the vinegar and the cornstarch mixture, stir the chowder gently until it thickens, and then garnish it with the cilantro. Serve immediately.

Jiangsu's perfectly crunchy shrimp... with no batter

2013-06-13T09:31:00.001-07:00

Pure, unadulterated yum

This is one of my all-time favorite ways to eat shrimp. Many places in China have their own versions—Sichuan’s addition of lots of chunky fresh chilies and garlic is always a winner—but this version from Jiangsu really appeals to me because the sweetness of the shrimp shines through, the entire shells are as crisp and edible as potato chips, and the balance is perfect from every angle.

To be honest, I usually don’t care for what passes in most restaurants for salt-and-pepper fish. Even if the shrimp is of good quality, which is never guaranteed even if it is swimming (see Tips), the shells are either not crunchy enough or the meat is overcooked or there’s too much salt or the oil is not fresh.

Yes, I am definitely cranky when it comes to shrimp, but with good reason: when this dish is done well and done right, it is heavenly.

That sandy vein

With all of this breathless praise, you might expect these shrimp to also be difficult. They’re not. The only thing that is sort of a slog is deveining the shrimp, but once you get the hang of snipping though the backs and slipping out the sandy intestine, this also can proceed pretty quickly.

Make this a couple of times for your family just to get the hang of it, and then you will soon be looking forward to displaying your shrimp mojo the next time guests show up for dinner.

Crunchy salt-and-pepper shrimp

Jiāoyán sū xiā 椒鹽酥蝦

Serves 4

8 ounces shrimp (31 – 40 count, or smaller if you like) with shells and tails on, preferably with heads (see Tips)

1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 to 3 cups frying oil, preferably rice bran oil (used is fine here if it smells good)

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 green onion, trimmed and finely chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1. First prep the shrimp. If they have their heads on, use kitchen shears to snip off the pointy ends just behind the eyes, because these will explode in the hot oil, and also remove any long feelers. Shrimp with or without their heads should be allowed to keep their shells, tails, and feet. Working on the shrimp one-by-one, use the shears to snip down the back from just behind the head down to about ¼ inch from the tail; your shears should also cut slightly into the meat itself so that the sandy vein is exposed. (This will become easier as you get used to how shrimp are put together.) Use the tip of the shears to lift out the sandy vein and discard. Repeat with the rest of the shrimp until all are prepped.

Marinate shrimp

2. Place the shrimp in a colander and rinse them under cool running water to wash off any debris and sand. Have a medium work bowl ready as you use a paper towel to dry them off, pressing down slightly on them to squeeze out any extra water. Place the dried-off shrimp in the bowl. Toss them with the rice wine and then the cornstarch. Let them marinate while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Have everything ready before you start frying the shrimp, as it proceeds very quickly.

3. Have a wok ready as well as wooden chopsticks, a Chinese spider or slotted spoon, a serving dish, and a bowl for the used oil. Pour the oil into the wok and place it on high heat. When a chopstick inserted into the hot oil is immediately covered with bubbles, add about half of the shrimp, dropping them individually by their tails gently into the oil so that you don’t get splashed. Lower the heat to medium and fry the shrimp quickly until they are a golden brown all over. Remove them with a slotted spoon and chopsticks to the serving dish. Repeat with the other half of the shrimp, adjusting the heat as necessary.

Salt 'n peppa

4. When all of the shrimp are fried and crispy, pour out all of the oil into the waiting bowl, leaving only a film of oil inside the wok. Heat the wok over high, add the salt, pepper, green onion, and garlic, and quickly toss these together for a few seconds to take the raw edge off of the aromatics. Add all of the shrimp, toss them quickly just to coat them with the seasoning, and then serve immediately. All of the shrimp can be eaten; the legs in particular are nice and brittle.

Tips

The absolutely most important ingredient here is, of course, the shrimp. Get the best you can find.

What to look for in shrimp: alive is best, but only if they are wild and from unpolluted waters.

Sichuan classic updated: hot bean sauce fish

2013-06-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Memories of many a great dinner

One of our favorite places to eat on the outskirts of Taipei was a Sichuan-style place near the little port of Tamsui (Danshui) at the mouth of the river that weaves through the capital. The place was always packed, and almost everyone ordered this specialty of the house.

First, though, we had to take life and death into our hands and decide which fish would end up on our plates, which started out feeling rather grisly, but as time went on it made me more appreciative of the sacrifice that something was making (i.e., the live carp) to feed me.

Look for bright eyes and a fast swimmer with no suspicious fungi or parasites calling it home. But then comes the harder part: figuring out whether it is a boy or girl.

Why? Because we (and everyone else, for that matter) were always hoping to snag a fat one filled with the lovely, tasty, texturally wonderful coral roe (yúzĭ 魚子), rather than packed with a bland sperm sac. The males had what is called “fish white” (yúbái 魚白) in them, which still was edible, but it always felt like a consolation prize.

Frying salmon filets

One time we had settled on the perfect one when another person in our party insisted that we were wrong, that she had honed in on a female jam-packed with roe. She was so definite that we let her decide, and so we ended up with a boy on our plate. Oh, the shame she had to bear.

Those in the know like us would finish up the fish and then send the plate with all of its sauce back to the kitchen for a second round of either regular white bean curd or “red bean curd” (i.e., coagulated blood) quickly braised in all of those delicious leftover flavors, and that would be the point at which we’d scoop up as much as we felt we could get away with onto bowls of freshly steamed rice. At the end of the meal, even saddling us with fish white could be generously forgiven… but never forgotten.

There is probably no fish dish more quintessentially Sichuanese than douban yu, or possibly even more delicious. But it is in serious need of updating, as the traditional way with the ingredients is to use a whole freshwater carp, braise it in the sauce, and then add the bean curd later as a final course.

Sichuan bean sauce + ginger + garlic

I've found a much easier and tasty way to cook this, one that assumes you have little more than 30 minutes from start to finish, and one that will require you prepare only a pot of steamed rice and possibly a side vegetable in order to make this a truly memorable dinner.

This is traditionally made with a whole fish, but since they are hard at times to hunt down, I've come to rely on salmon filets, which are perfectly tasty here, gorgeous to look at, and firm enough to stand up to a simple braise.

Fish and bean curd in fermented bean sauce

Dòufŭ dòubàn yú 豆腐豆瓣魚

Serves 4

Fish:

12 ounces (or so) salmon filets, or 1 pound whole fish

¼ cup peanut or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger

Fry the bean sauce

3 green onions, white parts only, coarsely chopped

3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

Bean curd:

1 pound fresh firm bean curd or coagulated pork, chicken, or duck blood

Boiling filtered water, as needed

1 tablespoon sea salt

Sauce:

3 tablespoons hot fermented bean sauce (la doubanjiang)

¼ cup rice lees solids

2 tablespoons rice lees liquid or Shaoxing rice wine

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons regular soy sauce

¾ cup unsalted stock or filtered water

1½ teaspoons dark vinegar

1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons filtered water

½ teaspoon finely ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

3 green onions, green parts only, coarsely chopped

1. Clean and scale the fish, but keep the skin on; pat it very dry. If you are using filets, cut the fish across the grain into strips as wide as you want them. If you are using a whole fish, leave it whole.

Simmer the bean curd

2. Heat a wok over medium-high, add the oil and swirl it around before adding the ginger. As soon as it is fragrant, lower the heat to medium and place the fish skin-side down in the oil. Leave the fish be while it browns, and as soon as it moves easily when you shake the wok, turn the fish over and add the green onion whites and garlic to the oil. When the second side is lightly browned, either scoot everything up the sides of the wok out of the hot oil or remove the fish and aromatics to a plate.

3. While the fish is browning, cut the bean curd or blood into 16 pieces. Place the bean curd or blood into a small saucepan, cover with the boiling water, and add the salt. Bring the water to a boil and then lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook the pieces for around 5 minutes and dump out the water.

4. Remove all but about 2 tablespoons oil from the wok. Heat the wok to medium high and add the bean sauce. Stir this for about 30 seconds to get the sauce hot and smelling terrific, and then add the rice lees and liquid (or rice wine), sugar, soy sauce, and stock or water. As it comes to a boil, add the bean curd or blood and simmer these for around 5 to 10 minutes, until they are cooked and flavorsome. Make a well in the center of the wok and return the fish to the bottom of the wok, heat the fish on both sides in the sauce, and swirl in the vinegar; taste and adjust the seasoning. Dribble in the cornstarch slurry, swirl the wok around to mix it in, and then plate the fish and bean curd/blood. Dust the top with the Sichuan peppercorns and green onion leaves and serve immediately.

Tianjin's lacy potstickers

2013-06-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Crunchy, juicy, flavorful...

Potstickers have become commonplace at Asian and fusion restaurants in the States, but most patrons of such establishments have no idea that the dumplings they’re scarfing down are pale shadows of the little masterpieces made in places like Tianjin.

A city on the Bohai Sea, Tianjin serves as Beijing’s seaport. Cooks in this seaport do fantastic spins on northern Chinese foods, borrowing many ideas from such sources as its large Muslim population and turning them into delicacies like these filled pasta that are beloved by China’s cognoscenti.

Potstickers in Tianjin are amazingly good partially because the ethereally light wrappers are handmade and also because the filling is so juicy and flavorful that only a touch of dipping sauce is needed.

Contrast this with the potstickers served up in most Chinese joints outside of China, which are usually little more than previously frozen pork dumplings with boring fillings and leaden skins. These commercially made things have little to recommend them, and I avoid them like the plague.

... & with a lacy edge

Once you’ve eaten handmade guotie (or wor tip as they’re called in Cantonese), you will fall in love, too, with thin pasta that melts in your mouth, acting as little more than a gossamer hankie on three sides for the juicy, flavor-packed pork hiding within. But, as with all great potstickers, the greatest draw are its bottoms crusted a golden crunchy brown....

(read the rest here on Zester Daily)

Of quail eggs & the West Wind

2013-06-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

The most exquisite tea eggs of all

This romantic-sounding dish, West Wind Tea Quail Eggs, gets its name from a white liquor. One of China’s oldest varieties, West Wind is made in Fengxiang county, which lies almost directly west of Xi’an in Shaanxi.

This was once a center for the earliest beginnings of Chinese civilization. Not only that, but excavations of Western Zhou dynasty (1046-771 BCE) sites around Fengxiang have shown that a thriving brewing culture was already in full swing there at the time.

Made mainly from sorghum grown in the neighborhood, barley and dried peas are added to the mix along with well water to make this unique clear liquor, the different grains adding subtle layers to its perfume.

Beautifully marbled

In this beautiful dish, where the cracked yet unpeeled eggs form intricate webbed designs on the whites, white liquor is added mainly as a flavoring; since West Wind is still hard to find outside of China, any good white lightning will do, such as gaoliang or Meiguilu.

Pigeon eggs are traditionally used in this recipe, but quail eggs are much easier to hunt down here, as good Chinese markets tend to keep a steady supply of them on hand alongside the other kinds of eggs. And while every single other type of egg comes in dozens or half-dozens, quail eggs invariably come as a set of ten packed in little plastic coffins. No one has ever explained why.

Make these 3 to 5 days ahead of when you want to serve them. As with all tea eggs or braised eggs, they need considerable resting time in the fridge for the flavors to seep all the way down to the yolks.

Ten to a box!

West wind tea quail eggs

西風茶鶉蛋 Xīfēng chá chúndàn

Serves 4 to 6

Eggs:

30 fresh quail eggs (see Tips)

Water as needed

Braising liquid:

4 cups boiling filtered water

3 tablespoons green tea leaves

4 slices ginger

2 green onions, trimmed

1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns

1 large piece dried tangerine peel

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

1 tablespoon rock sugar

7 tablespoons regular soy sauce, divided

7 tablespoons white liquor

1. Start this recipe at least 3 days before you want to serve it. Use a pin or tack to prick a hole in the round end of each egg. Place the eggs in a medium saucepan, cover them with hot tap water, and slowly bring the eggs to a boil over medium heat. Stir the eggs every 30 seconds or so until the water comes to a boil, as this will keep the yolks in the center of the eggs. Gently boil the eggs for about 3 or 4 minutes (it doesn’t matter, really, as the eggs are going to be cooked further in the braising liquid), and then empty out the water, fill the pan with cold tap water, and let the eggs completely cool down. Gently crack the eggs all over (but don’t peel them) and let them drain in a colander.

2. Pour the water into a medium saucepan and the tea leaves, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns, tangerine peen fennel seeds, sugar, and 5 tablespoons of both the soy sauce and the white liquor. Bring the braising liquid to a boil and simmer it for an hour or two, or until the liquid has been reduced by half. Add the unpeeled eggs, bring the liquid to the boil again, and then lower it to a barely discernible simmer. After about an hour, turn off the heat and let the eggs come to room temperature. Add the remaining soy sauce and white liquor, taste, and adjust seasonings.

3. Place the eggs and the braising liquid in a covered container; the liquid should cover all or most of the eggs. Refrigerate the eggs, and when you think of it, lightly shake the eggs in the liquid so that they each get a good dunk in the flavorings.

4. After 3 days to even a week later, peel the eggs just before serving. I like to rinse them in the braising liquid just in case there are any tiny bits of shell clinging to the whites. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.

Eggs starting to boil

Tips

Hardboiled quail eggs can sometimes be very difficult to peel, but I’ve hit on a solution for this:

First let them sit out on a cool kitchen counter in their plastic wrappers for about 5 days. This ages them just enough to make the shell easy to remove.

I always use a sharp pin or tack to punch a hole in the round end of each egg, since the air sac there expands in the hot water and tends to break the shell. (Look at their flat bottoms in the top two photos: that's from the air sacs, which makes these shaped like gumdrops instead of eggs.)

Finally, use medium heat to bring the water to a boil; since the eggs will be at room temperature, the water will still boil fairly quickly, but it won’t be fast enough to surprise the air sacs into exploding.

I also stir the eggs every 30 seconds or so as they come to a boil, since this centers the yolks inside the whites.