CHOI POU FAAN: THE CAREFULLY CHOSEN TASTE

My bachelor versions of choi pou faan (菜泡飯) have grown ever more Byzantine. I think I may have invented a new cuisine.
Either that or a short-cut to compost.

Normal choi pou faan contains vegetables plus shredded ginger and minced garlic briefly parched in a hot pan (feel free to use bacon to grease it up), then seethed with stock and a splash rice wine, followed by adding water and cooked or soaked rice.
Once the rice is tender, bowl it up, and eat it with a spoon.
Basically a rice and vegetable soup.
Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner.
Midnight snack.

So far I've done Thai interpretations, versions with dried fish, bacon and egg, curry, pickled chilipeppers, and lap cheung. Capers have been used, plus sardines and pickled garlic.
As well as Habanero.


最近做的菜泡飯

Most recent version:
Gailan (芥蘭), chopped.
Scallion, minced.
Garlic, slivered.
Ginger, slivered.
Jalapeno chilies, chopped.
Thai red curry paste.
Tomato paste.
Sriracha hot sauce.
Shrimp paste.
Peanut butter.
Sliced hardboiled egg.
Dried shrimp.
Pork fat.
Fatty pork.
Crumbled peanuts.
Chicken stock.
Coconut milk.
Nutmeg.
Black pepper.
Habanero.
Lime juice.
Sugar.
Salt.

Plus parboiled white rice, rinsed, and water.

It was delicious.

Not something to eat before smoochies.

Smoochies weren't on the agenda. But they're important.

While I was growing up, I learned a song with this line: "when I was a little boy, this is what my mother told me, that if I did not kiss the girls, my lips would grow all moldy".
Yes, I learned it from my mom.
Good parenting.

As a sour middle-aged grumpus, I stave off moldy lips by upping the flavour ante of the food I eat. The alternative is kissing random strangers in the street, and I can imagine problems occurring if I were to do so.
I'm a firm believer in public harmony.
And world peace.


I'm also a very firm believer in the positive power of smoochies, but some applecarts need not be overturned hastily, and the key there is knowing a person whom it would be wise and good to smooch.

Choi pou faan is easier.

And delicious.




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