JUST ENOUGH SPICE

A while back I was smoking a pipe filled with one of my own blends. No, this post is NOT about tobacco, that's just a lead-in. Point is that I realized I had hit a nail upon its head.  The blend was not too strong, not over-loaded with condimental tobaccos. It was balanced.
Things should be balanced.

There can indeed be too much of a good thing.

Hot sauce, for instance. Most amateur-made hot sauces include everything plus the kitchen sink. If ten habanero chilies are good, surely five hundred must be better?
Garlic? We've included all of this year's Gilroy.
Cumin? It's stiff with cumin!
And much mustard.
Plus turmeric.
And also ...

Wouldn't you rather know exactly what's in your food?


One of my favourite meals in Chinatown isn't even Chinese. It's a Vietnamese soup - noodle - grilled meat - and other stuff concoction.


燒豬肉河粉湯
SIU CHÜ-YIUK HO-FAN TONG

There's a pleasant simplicity to siu chü-yiuk ho-fan. A bowl of fine broth, with white rice stick noodles (ho fan 河粉 'river rice-noodle') and fresh crunchy bean sprouts (ngaa choi 牙菜 'tooth vegetable'), accompanied by a plate of charcoal-grilled sliced pork. The soup is dolled-up with a little chopped scallion (chung 葱), cilantro (heung choi 香菜), and fried garlic (jaa suen pin 炸蒜片 'oil-scalded garlic slivers'). The grilled pork may have been lightly marinated, though probably not.

What you do is cut up the pork with the fork and knife provided, add a hefty sploodge of hot-sauce to the plate for dipping, then tackle the soup, noodles, and meat with porcelain spoon and chopsticks, slurping liquid, lifting and inhaling the pearlescent white noodles, and flying the pieces of dipped pork over to your mouth either to join the happy community there, or to punctuate.

It's fun playing with the hot sauce. The standard Vietnamese-Chinese Restaurant always provides a bottle of Sri Racha (manufactured by Huy Fong down in southern California), and there is usually a flask of fish sauce (yü lou 魚露 'fish dew') on the table, along with the typical Cantonese oily hot compound (laat yau 辣油 'spicy oil'), and oyster sauce (hou yau 蠔油 'heroic-bivalve grease').

Put a half teaspoon of sugar on the plate. Add a generous amount of Sri Racha. A squiggle of oyster sauce for savouriness. Plus a drizzle of oil from the 辣油 container.
Also augment the soup with some of the liquid from the sliced chili in tamarind or vinegar with fish sauce (pau laat chiu 泡辣椒 'steeped hot pepper') for tangy-sour, and a few drops of the amber-hued fish sauce (魚露) from the little bottle on the condiment tray.
Do not include too much of the fried chilies from the hot oil, or the crunchy red peppers from the pickle.

If the pickled peppers are made fresh daily, there may be lime juice (ching ning chap 青檸汁 'green lemon sap') and tamarind (suen dau 酸豆 'sour bean') in the liquid, as well as some fish sauce. If, on the other hand, the restaurant puts them up in large batches, it will be vinegar (tsou 醋) and a little salt (yim 鹽). The salt-content helps the vegetable matter share its goodness with the pickling liquid, either way.

Dig in.

What makes the meal fun is the contrast of alternating textures and flavours, the crunchiness of the beansprouts versus the smooth slickness of the rice stick noodles, and savoury-smoky sabor of the meat, with just a little juiciness from the streaks of fat among the lean, and the total all-round deliciousness of the zesty red dip that drips from each chopsticked morsel.
Plus hot soothing broth, when you lift the now depleted bowl to your lips to drink the last comforting drop.
Ah, good. Very good.

Dawdle over your glass of chilled Vietnamese coffee while looking around with contented bleary eyes. Everything seems so much better, doesn't it?
Almost sepia and warm. Time slows down, and the waitstaff drift to and fro between the tables. Even the sounds become muted.

Rinse your mouth with the tea that was brought when you first sat down, and load-up a pipeful of tobacco for after.
Pay and tip, leave, light up.

Bowls of heaven.


Balance.



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