CONPOY AND EGG WHITE FRIED RICE

Several days ago a friend apologetically remarked that he was sorry, but they kept talking about food. This in reference to himself and a few other chaps. Now, I hasten to add, these men were not starving, and it wasn't close to dinner time. They are all well fed. But they're Cantonese. Who habitually discuss food the way a typical white person talks about the ballgame, or midwesterners talk about bingo last Tuesday in the Church basement.

If you've ever been paranoid about those people on the bus speaking animatedly in a language you cannot understand, don't worry. They're Cantonese, and one hundred and twenty percent more likely conversing about food than your big Caucasian honker or cat eyes. How it's cooked, variations, and what else can be done with those ingredients.

Or mentioning that Northerners use too much oil.
Did they never learn how to cook?
Mandarin speakers!
So odd.

So today, after visiting my bank, I went to a chachanteng for lunch, where on a sudden whim I ordered dried scallop and egg white fried rice vermicelli (瑤柱蛋白炒米 'yiu chyu daan paak chaau mai'). Because I felt like bihun goreng with great globs of sambal, streetfood style. Yiu chyu (瑤柱) are the dried snap-shut muscles of the scallop, what are also called conpoy in English, from the other common Cantonese term 乾貝 ('gon pui').

They didn't have scallop and egg white fried rice, which is more common

SCALLOP AND EGG WHITE FRIED RICE

瑤柱蛋白炒飯

When used in stirfry dishes they require considerably longer soaking to rehydrate them than if they are used in soups or congee. Several hours, instead of only an hour or so. That way when the pulled apart conpoy shreds are fried as a garnish, they won't be oil-drenched. Half of the conpoy are used in the fried rice or vermicelli, the other half are crispies on top. The eggs are separated, the whites scrambled separately and added at the end of stir-frying, the egg yolks mixed in with the rice or soaked rice vermicelli when they go into the pan. And in addition to the chopped scallion added at the end as a garnish, you might also use onion along with some shredded ginger to aromatize the oil when first heating the pan.
Mustard stalk dice are sometimes included for colour; blanch these first.


瑤柱皮蛋瘦肉粥

For congee, wash-rinse the rice twice, bring the water to a boil, then pour in the rice. Stir occasionally to prevent clumping, cook on medium for about an hour. The rice grains will have reached a cloud flower state at that point. Various possible additions, in addition to the soaked and pulled-apart conpoy, would be lean pork (coarse cut, mixed with a little oil, salt, and cornstarch fifteen minutes or so before adding), century egg (cooked and peeled, then mashed more or less into the drained rice before it goes into the pot), dried oysters (which I like very much; soak for fifteen-twenty minutes, rinse well, cut in half), chopped chives or scallions at the end of cooking, fried peanuts on top when served.

For best tasting congee, use new harvest rice, and cook it in a clay pot (砂鍋 'saa wo').
Cover, but leave a crack to let steam out and prevent boiling over.


While you could get variations on all of this at a restaurant or lunch-counter, it's also really home style. And some of these ingredients should always be in your house. Always.



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