Fried frog legs, fried chicken, various types of rice-sheet noodle, mami, fried tofu, lumpia... plus lechon. And congee, egg-noodle, and cold beverages.
Also: avocado shakes.
[One avocado, peeled and stone removed, osterized with a hefty scoop of vanilla icecream, half a cup ice, two tablespoons of sugar, and a cup of milk or evaporado. Plus a teaspoon of lemon juice to keep the avocado pulp from browning, and a pinch of salt to accentuate the sweetness.]
Avocados are a health food.
All this and more contained between Recto Avenue, Juan Luna Street, Rizal Avenue, and Escolta. Binondo is not nearly the same as San Francisco Chinatown, not by a long shot, but there are a few similarities.
Instead of a Canton - Hong kong focus, you should think of Foochow with a touch of Shanghai. Mostly Fujianese (Hokkien).
The neighborhood began centuries ago when merchants from the Fujian coast settled north of the Pasig river, and over several generations made their restricted neighborhood the financial heart of the city.
Emporiums, restaurants, benevolent societies.
Banks, schools, and hospitals.
Very modern.
By the beginning of the fifties, a number of non-Hokkien speakers had trickled south from places like Shanghai, and some immigrants from Hong Kong had also settled there, so dim sum eventually became available, albeit a selection more suited to strictly local tastes.
Both Hokkiens and Filipinos are major fatty pork peoples.
Still, Hong Kong eaties can be found in Binondo.
If you absolutely need a taste of home.
And don't like Mickey D's.
You just have to know that it won't have the same names there as it does here. For instance, what we know as 'mein' (麵 'min') is called 'mami', and rice stick noodle (米粉 'mai fan') is 'bihon' ('beehoon'), roast pork rice (叉燒飯 'chaa siu faan') is called 'asado rice', tripe (牛肚 'ngau tou') becomes 'goto', 'congee (粥 'juk') may be called 'lugaw', and so on. Filipino English is also a little different. Or an awful lot.
Instead of reading the menus in "English", do so in Chinese.
There will be much that is familiar.
And all delicious.
For instance:
嶸榮小食館 WAI YING FAST FOOD
810 Benavidez Street,
Binondo, Manila.
Just north of Estero De La Reina (Queen's creek), a short distance west of Ongpin Street. And not far from Ongpin North Bridge (王彬北橋).
A full selection of tasy snack foods. Dim sum items, noodles in soup, dumplings, buns, drinks.
The curried beef brisket rice plate (咖喱牛腩飯 'gaa lei ngau naam faan') is precisely what you remember. It's good, very good.
[In Hokkien pronunciation: 'ka-li gu-lam p'ng'.]
Speaking of such things, another place to try is a few blocks south of there.
Go down Onpin, across the creek (Estero De La Reina'), and turn left at the second corner, which is Yuchengco. Keep on walking, past where Gandara and Sabrino Padilla meet, to the corner of Dasmariñas.
嶸嶸茶餐廳 YING YING TEAHOUSE
233-235 Dasmariñas Street,
Binondo, Manila.
[Former location of the President, which was an institution. Remember the black bean eel? Plus kangkong. And no, I do not have a clue why the 'ying' (嶸) in the previously mentioned restaurant is pronounced 'wai'. English and Chinese names of businesses often don't match. Consider Yummy Dim Sum on Stockton Street, for which the characters read 'kam faa faai chan ("golden elegance fast food"). Anyway, Ying Ying is well-known for their 'white chicken', which to many Cantonese is the measure of cuisine.]
This, precisely, is what happens when a Hong Kong style cha-chanteng ("tea restaurant") meets Filipino food. All the HK favourites, plus lechon kawali, mango shakes, hot and cold condensed milk beverages.
And an entire section of frog on the menu.
Ribbit.
As well as Okiam Chicken: 南乳焗雞.
Okiam describes a typical marinade much used to flavour such things as chicken wings and pork knuckles. Mix red fermented beancurd (南乳 'naam yiü') with a lesser quantity of rice wine (米酒 'mai jau')) and a jigger of sesame oil (麻油 'maa yau'), dash of soy sauce (豉油 'si yau') for colour, and a teaspoon or three of sugar (糖 'tong'). Rub over, or use to marinate for several hours at least, before roasting at a high temperature.
I suspect that o-kiam chicken may be derived from 鹹雞 (salty chicken; Hokkien pronunciation 'kiam ke'), made with red fermented beancurd as a Hakka influence, though traditional Hakka salty chicken (客家鹹雞 H: 'keh-kia kiam ke') uses only salt, water, and ginger, not fermented beancurd. But 'kiam' also means brine (as in 鹹菜 H: 'kiam chai'; pickled gailan or brassica spp.) and by extension, condiment (鹹酸 H: 'kiam s'ng'; salty-sours).
[Note: in some Hokkien dialects, chicken is pronounced 'ki'. Standard Hokkien often has 'ke', and rarely 'kwe'.]
Some famous Hokkien chickens
Ke ang we (雞公煲): cock in a pot. Lo-kiam ke (鹵鹹雞): soy-brine pickled chicken. Mwa-yiu ke (麻油雞): sesame oil chicken. Ngo-hiang ke (五香雞): five spice chicken. Sa-pwe ke (三杯雞): three cups chicken; chicken stewed with one cup each soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil, till dry and sizzling, almost smoking. Sugar and ginger are frequently included in the recipe. Sie ke (燒雞): roast chicken.
Tswui tso ke (醉糟雞): glutinous wine-lees steamed chicken.
Swi ke (水雞): frog; literally "water chicken".
AFTER THOUGHT
Filipino food is very good, and so are the many Hokkien dishes in Manila Chinatown. If you have a taste for Chinese pastries, there are a number of places to satisfy your cravings; lots of little things with red bean paste or linyong. Plus different versions of tikwe.
A friend is heading over to Manila in a week, so I dug up notes. I really wish I had been much more inquisitive, and asked probing questions about cooking methods and ingredients. But people over there tend to be vague or secretive about key details, especially when it comes to something they proudly claim as their family's own, or a part of their business and fundamental to their fortunes.
I should have kept better records.
And I'm hungry right now.
Time for tocino.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label 福建話. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 福建話. Show all posts
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
HONG BAK VERSUS... HONG BAK; A FUKIENESE QUANDARY
A dish which spells home to most Fujianese is 'hong bak'. They can all agree that nothing else is quite so evocative. But their unanimity ends there, as they will NOT agree on what it is. Or who makes a genuine version, which, naturally, is the absolute best and quite coincidentally their very own heirloom recipe (and from a very dear aunt to boot).
Or cooked by a little food shop in their hometown, wherever that is.
Probably either in Kelantan or Sarawak.
封肉或稱焢肉
"SEALED MEAT", OR "PICKLE MEAT"
The version known as 'hong bak' (封肉) is alleged to have originated in Tung An (同安 "tang oa~"), and is considered a traditional dish from the Min Nan (閩南 "ban-lam") culinary repertoire (福建菜系，閩菜系 "hok-kian chai-he", "ban chai-he"). Tung An is to the north of the port of Hsiamen (下門 "ah mui") , and as Hsiamen ('Amoy') is where many South-East Asian Fujianese (福建人「福建郎」 "hok-kian lang") hail from ancestrally, this may be reasonably credible.
Or entirely disbelieved.
The other version, called 'hong bak' (焢肉), is more common among overseas Fujianese, and often varies considerably from recipe to recipe. Many people will add hardboiled eggs, or fresh mushrooms, or dried tofu skin. Even large cubes of tofu, which may be deep-fried beforehand.
The Peranakan along the Malacca Strait will augment the flavour with coriander seed ground into a paste with garlic, ginger, and shallots, which is sauteed in the pan before the meat is added.
The first version has a back-story, the latter versions have the weight of fond memories.
According to the accepted narrative, a scholar who had achieved a major ranking in the imperial system prepared a celebratory dish of fatty pork with mushrooms and chestnuts, cooked in cloth that held it together in a block-shape. Later versions simply placed the large chunk of meat skin-side down and fried it with sugar. At the point where the caramel might start burning, soy sauce and rice wine were added, along with chestnuts and mushrooms, plus enough water that when the pot was sealed it would gently steam till done. Properly made, the fatty flesh was tender enough to break with the diners' chopsticks.
Another tale states that a destitute man, in order to make a variation of a luxurious porridge which was traditionally served during a Buddhist parade festival, went into hock to purchase a very small but rather nice chunk of pork. Which, in the Chinese scheme of things, naturally means a cut with alternating fat and lean. He carefully coloured it by sauteeing it and adding sugar, wine, and soy sauce. When it was dark and marvelously fragrant, he put it in his family's pot of rice gruel. It made it so splendid that his neighbors came over to have some, in consequence of which his fortunes improved, and within a number of years he was reasonably well-off.
No, I have no idea when that festival takes place.
Sorry.
The reason why the character 封 is used in naming the dish is that it means to seal, like an official letter or parcel. The meat is darkly hued on one side, and left whole while cooking, creating the visual representation of a stack of documents or cahiers.
Plus, of course, it IS sealed on one side.
The word 焢, which in Hokkien (閩南語 "ban-lam gi") sounds exactly the same as 封，is a transcription of the dialect word for semi-pickling meat, thus both making it savoury and less perishable in a warm climate.
Note that 肉, which means 'meat', is pronounced 'bak' in Hokkien and other Min languages, being a phoneme derived from a different route than Mandarin 'rou' and Cantonese 'yiuk'.
Possibly related to a proto-Malayoid root-word for hog.
焢肉怎麼煮阿？
HOW TO PREPARE HONG BAK?
The Hokkiens of South-East Asia all follow a similar procedure vis a vis the meat itself, but differ enormously as regards additions, the only thing standardly being some pre-soaked black mushrooms.
My original version had the pork left whole, scored and browned on the skin-side, then seethed with a little Indonesian-style sweet soy sauce and a lot of sherry, whereupon I would add ginger slices, whole re-hydrated black mushrooms, whole star-anise, a cinnamon stick, and water to come half way up. Then I would stick it into the oven at low heat, with the lid on, for an hour or two, and ignore it while it cooked in its juices.
It always came out perfect, and butter tender.
You could easily cut it with chop-sticks.
It was a variation of the 封 style.
That was a long time ago.
譜：焢肉
RECIPE: HONG BAK
One and a half pounds of belly pork with skin on.
Half a dozen cloves garlic (or less).
Half a dozen soaked black mushrooms (or more).
Half a dozen slices ginger.
A small piece of cinnamon.
Smallish piece of dried tangerine peel (陳皮).
Two or three whole star anise.
Three TBS soy sauce.
Three TBS brown sugar.
One TBS oyster sauce.
A very hefty jigger of sherry or rice wine.
Half Tsp. ground coriander (optional).
A pinch of freshly ground pepper.
Oil.
Water.
Cut the pork into large chunks. Rub a little of the sugar on the meat, all over. Whack the garlic cloves with the flat of a cleaver to loosen the skin, which remove. Trim off the hard ends, but do not chop the garlic; it's fine the way it is.
Fry the garlic till fragrant, decant to a saucer; you'll add it back later.
On medium heat, colour the pork chunks well, allowing for a little caramelization. Now add everything else including the garlic, and enough water to nearly cover; the pot should be somewhat crowded.
Bring to a boil, turn heat low, and simmer for forty five minutes, stirring occassionally to prevent scorching.
If you are using a larger casserole for cooking, you may add some wedge-cut potato or broken tofu skin sticks (腐竹) to share the juices. In that case, increase the amount of ground coriander and add a little more soy sauce.
The oyster sauce is in lieu of the dried shrimp that many people would use for a faint savory touch.
You could also dust the meat chunks with a little flour before gilding them in the pan, which would enrich and thicken the sauce, but that seems rather pointless.
A slightly thin sauce is preferable when eating Chinese food.
Serve with steamed rice, of course, and your favourite sambal on the side.
NOTE: dried tangerine peel (陳皮) is called 'chenpi' in Mandarin, 'jan pei' in Cantonese, and 'tan peh' in Hokkien. It is often used for a hint of fragrance, and is considered beneficial to the digestion and the mucous membranes. Its use is not only culinary, but also medicinal, having a mild tonifying effect. In cooking it frequently shows up in duck dishes, as well as fatty pork stews, and soups.
Look for packages that promise 新會柑 ('Hsin-hui Tangerine', "san wui gam"), as even though the fruit is too sour to enjoy, these provide the very best dried peels. Unlike most other tangerine peel, it will be a blueish-green, sometimes verging towards brown, or even black.
Good peel keeps its fragrance for a very long time.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Or cooked by a little food shop in their hometown, wherever that is.
Probably either in Kelantan or Sarawak.
封肉或稱焢肉
"SEALED MEAT", OR "PICKLE MEAT"
The version known as 'hong bak' (封肉) is alleged to have originated in Tung An (同安 "tang oa~"), and is considered a traditional dish from the Min Nan (閩南 "ban-lam") culinary repertoire (福建菜系，閩菜系 "hok-kian chai-he", "ban chai-he"). Tung An is to the north of the port of Hsiamen (下門 "ah mui") , and as Hsiamen ('Amoy') is where many South-East Asian Fujianese (福建人「福建郎」 "hok-kian lang") hail from ancestrally, this may be reasonably credible.
Or entirely disbelieved.
The other version, called 'hong bak' (焢肉), is more common among overseas Fujianese, and often varies considerably from recipe to recipe. Many people will add hardboiled eggs, or fresh mushrooms, or dried tofu skin. Even large cubes of tofu, which may be deep-fried beforehand.
The Peranakan along the Malacca Strait will augment the flavour with coriander seed ground into a paste with garlic, ginger, and shallots, which is sauteed in the pan before the meat is added.
The first version has a back-story, the latter versions have the weight of fond memories.
According to the accepted narrative, a scholar who had achieved a major ranking in the imperial system prepared a celebratory dish of fatty pork with mushrooms and chestnuts, cooked in cloth that held it together in a block-shape. Later versions simply placed the large chunk of meat skin-side down and fried it with sugar. At the point where the caramel might start burning, soy sauce and rice wine were added, along with chestnuts and mushrooms, plus enough water that when the pot was sealed it would gently steam till done. Properly made, the fatty flesh was tender enough to break with the diners' chopsticks.
Another tale states that a destitute man, in order to make a variation of a luxurious porridge which was traditionally served during a Buddhist parade festival, went into hock to purchase a very small but rather nice chunk of pork. Which, in the Chinese scheme of things, naturally means a cut with alternating fat and lean. He carefully coloured it by sauteeing it and adding sugar, wine, and soy sauce. When it was dark and marvelously fragrant, he put it in his family's pot of rice gruel. It made it so splendid that his neighbors came over to have some, in consequence of which his fortunes improved, and within a number of years he was reasonably well-off.
No, I have no idea when that festival takes place.
Sorry.
The reason why the character 封 is used in naming the dish is that it means to seal, like an official letter or parcel. The meat is darkly hued on one side, and left whole while cooking, creating the visual representation of a stack of documents or cahiers.
Plus, of course, it IS sealed on one side.
The word 焢, which in Hokkien (閩南語 "ban-lam gi") sounds exactly the same as 封，is a transcription of the dialect word for semi-pickling meat, thus both making it savoury and less perishable in a warm climate.
Note that 肉, which means 'meat', is pronounced 'bak' in Hokkien and other Min languages, being a phoneme derived from a different route than Mandarin 'rou' and Cantonese 'yiuk'.
Possibly related to a proto-Malayoid root-word for hog.
焢肉怎麼煮阿？
HOW TO PREPARE HONG BAK?
The Hokkiens of South-East Asia all follow a similar procedure vis a vis the meat itself, but differ enormously as regards additions, the only thing standardly being some pre-soaked black mushrooms.
My original version had the pork left whole, scored and browned on the skin-side, then seethed with a little Indonesian-style sweet soy sauce and a lot of sherry, whereupon I would add ginger slices, whole re-hydrated black mushrooms, whole star-anise, a cinnamon stick, and water to come half way up. Then I would stick it into the oven at low heat, with the lid on, for an hour or two, and ignore it while it cooked in its juices.
It always came out perfect, and butter tender.
You could easily cut it with chop-sticks.
It was a variation of the 封 style.
That was a long time ago.
譜：焢肉
RECIPE: HONG BAK
One and a half pounds of belly pork with skin on.
Half a dozen cloves garlic (or less).
Half a dozen soaked black mushrooms (or more).
Half a dozen slices ginger.
A small piece of cinnamon.
Smallish piece of dried tangerine peel (陳皮).
Two or three whole star anise.
Three TBS soy sauce.
Three TBS brown sugar.
One TBS oyster sauce.
A very hefty jigger of sherry or rice wine.
Half Tsp. ground coriander (optional).
A pinch of freshly ground pepper.
Oil.
Water.
Cut the pork into large chunks. Rub a little of the sugar on the meat, all over. Whack the garlic cloves with the flat of a cleaver to loosen the skin, which remove. Trim off the hard ends, but do not chop the garlic; it's fine the way it is.
Fry the garlic till fragrant, decant to a saucer; you'll add it back later.
On medium heat, colour the pork chunks well, allowing for a little caramelization. Now add everything else including the garlic, and enough water to nearly cover; the pot should be somewhat crowded.
Bring to a boil, turn heat low, and simmer for forty five minutes, stirring occassionally to prevent scorching.
If you are using a larger casserole for cooking, you may add some wedge-cut potato or broken tofu skin sticks (腐竹) to share the juices. In that case, increase the amount of ground coriander and add a little more soy sauce.
The oyster sauce is in lieu of the dried shrimp that many people would use for a faint savory touch.
You could also dust the meat chunks with a little flour before gilding them in the pan, which would enrich and thicken the sauce, but that seems rather pointless.
A slightly thin sauce is preferable when eating Chinese food.
Serve with steamed rice, of course, and your favourite sambal on the side.
NOTE: dried tangerine peel (陳皮) is called 'chenpi' in Mandarin, 'jan pei' in Cantonese, and 'tan peh' in Hokkien. It is often used for a hint of fragrance, and is considered beneficial to the digestion and the mucous membranes. Its use is not only culinary, but also medicinal, having a mild tonifying effect. In cooking it frequently shows up in duck dishes, as well as fatty pork stews, and soups.
Look for packages that promise 新會柑 ('Hsin-hui Tangerine', "san wui gam"), as even though the fruit is too sour to enjoy, these provide the very best dried peels. Unlike most other tangerine peel, it will be a blueish-green, sometimes verging towards brown, or even black.
Good peel keeps its fragrance for a very long time.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, June 08, 2014
SMELLS LIKE WOOD SMOKE, SMELLS LIKE COOKING FIRES
Friday evening after dinner, while wandering the neighborhood, two tunes alternated in my head. Remarkably they were both about food, though unrelated to anything that I am exceptionally fond of. Neither meat-filled glutinous rice packets steamed in long bamboo leaves (粽), nor sesame sprinkled flaky fried buns (燒餅), even if fresh out of the hot fat, are a particular must-have favourite.
Oh, yummy enough that they hit the spot, yes. But I shan't go out of my way to hunt them down.
A good rendition of bittermelon and black bean chicken or pork, on the other hand, is a different story. Delicious with rice, and the oily hot sauce that you will regret several hours later.
Seriously worth jumping for.
Oh indeed yes.
[Jung (粽): often called a 'Chinese Tamale', this is glutinous rice packed in a cone made of remoistened dried bamboo leaves folded over, with a sweet or savoury filling -- often fatty pork and peanuts or yellow beans -- closed up and steamed for several hours. Because of the bactericidal properties of bamboo, and the fact that the leaves have effectively sealed it, this keeps at room temperature longer than many other comestibles, and is often favoured for journeys or picnics. Shaobing (燒餅): a wheat flour layered dough bun, often pan-fried and topped with toasted sesame. Distinguish two main kinds: the sweet variety, most frequently with a red bean paste filling, and the savoury, which may or may not contain meat. It once was the quintessential cold-weather street food.]
[Source for both photos: Wikipedia. Of course.]
The image on the left is shaobing ready for sale, that on the right shows one jung divested of its wrapper, another waiting in anticipation of its own impending nudity.
Here's a bittersweet Hokkien ballad about selling glutinous rice packets by the side of the road to pay for school books.
燒肉粽 SIO BA TSANG
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjJX-WKloDI.]
The singer is mr. 郭金發 (Kwek Kim-Hoat), who made the song famous in the post-war years. It has also been done by Theresa Teng (鄧麗君), whose rendition I do not find as appealing.
Subsequent covers by other singers compete to render it the most heartrendingly depressing song ever. Full of funk, misery, and hopelessness. It is, consequently, a Taiwanese ever-green.
You're probably already familiar with my fondness for 1930's songbird Chou Hsuen (周璇), whose performances during the dark years of civil war and Japanese invasion brought brightness and cheer to a population desperately in need of precisely that. Her career could not have spanned a more appropriate time, her golden voice is the signature of her era.
Her she is in a sprightly ballad about buns.
賣燒餅 MAI SHAOBING
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oaisTrZQAM.]
Neither sio ba tsang nor shaobing are available anywhere near here. Sio ba tsang (Cantonese pronunciation: 'siu yiuk jung') is something slightly more northern, as the natives of LingNan do not do it the same way as the Min peoples, shaobing (Cantonese pronunciation: 'siu beng') is so far north as to be almost on the moon. Or in any case, beyond the mountains and the rivers. Further utterly far away.
Are they even Chinese there?
No, I have no idea why those tunes came back to me. As I said, I had already eaten well. Bittermelon and black bean chicken over rice.
It would not have been the pipe either. Although it was filled with an old-fashioned and evocative English-style recipe, such as I smoked in the eighties and nineties. Heavy on Latakia, light on flue-cured.
Smells work subconsciously on the memory.
Latakia perhaps more than most.
Fragrant recall.
Okay, maybe that WAS it.
I shall compound more of that tobacco mixture.
It's stench is magic to my mind.
Marvelous.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Oh, yummy enough that they hit the spot, yes. But I shan't go out of my way to hunt them down.
A good rendition of bittermelon and black bean chicken or pork, on the other hand, is a different story. Delicious with rice, and the oily hot sauce that you will regret several hours later.
Seriously worth jumping for.
Oh indeed yes.
[Jung (粽): often called a 'Chinese Tamale', this is glutinous rice packed in a cone made of remoistened dried bamboo leaves folded over, with a sweet or savoury filling -- often fatty pork and peanuts or yellow beans -- closed up and steamed for several hours. Because of the bactericidal properties of bamboo, and the fact that the leaves have effectively sealed it, this keeps at room temperature longer than many other comestibles, and is often favoured for journeys or picnics. Shaobing (燒餅): a wheat flour layered dough bun, often pan-fried and topped with toasted sesame. Distinguish two main kinds: the sweet variety, most frequently with a red bean paste filling, and the savoury, which may or may not contain meat. It once was the quintessential cold-weather street food.]
[Source for both photos: Wikipedia. Of course.]
The image on the left is shaobing ready for sale, that on the right shows one jung divested of its wrapper, another waiting in anticipation of its own impending nudity.
Here's a bittersweet Hokkien ballad about selling glutinous rice packets by the side of the road to pay for school books.
燒肉粽 SIO BA TSANG
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjJX-WKloDI.]
The singer is mr. 郭金發 (Kwek Kim-Hoat), who made the song famous in the post-war years. It has also been done by Theresa Teng (鄧麗君), whose rendition I do not find as appealing.
Subsequent covers by other singers compete to render it the most heartrendingly depressing song ever. Full of funk, misery, and hopelessness. It is, consequently, a Taiwanese ever-green.
You're probably already familiar with my fondness for 1930's songbird Chou Hsuen (周璇), whose performances during the dark years of civil war and Japanese invasion brought brightness and cheer to a population desperately in need of precisely that. Her career could not have spanned a more appropriate time, her golden voice is the signature of her era.
Her she is in a sprightly ballad about buns.
賣燒餅 MAI SHAOBING
[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oaisTrZQAM.]
Neither sio ba tsang nor shaobing are available anywhere near here. Sio ba tsang (Cantonese pronunciation: 'siu yiuk jung') is something slightly more northern, as the natives of LingNan do not do it the same way as the Min peoples, shaobing (Cantonese pronunciation: 'siu beng') is so far north as to be almost on the moon. Or in any case, beyond the mountains and the rivers. Further utterly far away.
Are they even Chinese there?
No, I have no idea why those tunes came back to me. As I said, I had already eaten well. Bittermelon and black bean chicken over rice.
It would not have been the pipe either. Although it was filled with an old-fashioned and evocative English-style recipe, such as I smoked in the eighties and nineties. Heavy on Latakia, light on flue-cured.
Smells work subconsciously on the memory.
Latakia perhaps more than most.
Fragrant recall.
Okay, maybe that WAS it.
I shall compound more of that tobacco mixture.
It's stench is magic to my mind.
Marvelous.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
HOKKIEN OYSTER OMELETTE -- 蠔仔煎蛋
Sometimes you just know where the cook is from by what he suggests you eat. Despite a propensity to gout, one obeys, knowing that the man has one's best interests at heart. He's a poet with a wok. Which, given that in recent years I haven't traveled much, I enjoy remembering, as it was a fabulous restaurant in an otherwise rather ghastly place.
The tropical zone has cockroaches the size of a cookie. No, they are not edible. One of those big fat bastards is an infestation, the geckos are terrified of him. Her.
There are also snakes there. And even minor scrapes easily become infected, due to the heat (100°F) and humidity.
Everybody should visit the tropics.
It's edumacational.
[Why is spell-check telling me to change that word? It's standard everyday English, fercrapsaeks.]
As a side note, that's where I first started powdering my feet (and socks, and the inside of my shoes) preventively. Powdered feet are happy feet. Yes, my shoes look like I work in a pizzeria, but trust me, my dogs are just about twirling in ecstasy.
They are white and dry.
Silky too.
Few dishes are as iconic as the Hokkien oyster omelette.
蠔煎 O-CHIAN
[蠔仔煎蛋 HOU-CHAI JIN-DAAN]
A dozen large fresh oysters, shucked.
Two TBS rice flour.
One TBS cornflour.
Half a cup (eight TBS) water.
Three cloves garlic, minced.
Three eggs, beaten.
One TBS sherry or rice wine.
One TBS soy sauce (regular or ketjap manis).
Generous pinch of ground white pepper.
Some minced chives and cilantro.
Oil.
Rinse the oysters in cold water, making sure to remove all shell fragments, and pat dry. Beat the eggs with the white pepper sprinkled in.
Mix cornflour and rice flour, pour in the water slowly while stirring to make a fairly thin batter. Gild the garlic in your skillet add the rice wine to seethe, and remove to a small plate. Add more oil to the pan, and when it's hot, pour in the thin batter and cook briefly till half set before adding the beaten eggs. When the omelette is semi-firmed but still deliquescious, add the oysters and garlic, drizzle the soy sauce over, and loosen the omelette with a spatula. Cook a few seconds longer, then garnish liberally with the minced chives and cilantro, and decant to a plate.
Wherever you find Hokkien Chinese, you will find an oyster fry. In many places the oysters are rather small, and the egg is mixed with sweet potato flour. This version allows for a crispier taste underneath the eggs because of the batter, and I prefer large oysters to tiny ones.
As with all Singapore - Penang - Glodok streetfoods and late night eats, squeeze some lime juice over, and eat with sambal. Lots of sambal.
The last time I had oyster omelette, I was cooking for myself, so I only used seven oysters and two eggs. Yes, I ended up with gout. And consequently had very interesting dreams during the night.
But it was worth it.
So worth it.
NOTE: the shorter name (蠔煎 'o chian') is more commonly used in Hokkien, which is the language of Fujian province, and of many of the overseas Chinese in South-East Asia. It simply means 'oyster pan-fry'. The longer term (蠔仔煎蛋) is more Cantonese (hence the Yue transliteration 'hou chai jin daan'), and includes the words 'oyster' (蠔), a common diminutive suffix (仔), 'pan-fry' (煎), and 'egg' (蛋).
Sambal is 'laat chiu jeung' (辣椒醬), which is an essential element of your larder. Unless you're from the fly-over states; in that case you probably use 'faan ke jeung' (番茄醬 tomato ketchup).
I understand it is often hot (100°F) in the fly-overs.
But not nearly educational.
Sorry.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The tropical zone has cockroaches the size of a cookie. No, they are not edible. One of those big fat bastards is an infestation, the geckos are terrified of him. Her.
There are also snakes there. And even minor scrapes easily become infected, due to the heat (100°F) and humidity.
Everybody should visit the tropics.
It's edumacational.
[Why is spell-check telling me to change that word? It's standard everyday English, fercrapsaeks.]
As a side note, that's where I first started powdering my feet (and socks, and the inside of my shoes) preventively. Powdered feet are happy feet. Yes, my shoes look like I work in a pizzeria, but trust me, my dogs are just about twirling in ecstasy.
They are white and dry.
Silky too.
Few dishes are as iconic as the Hokkien oyster omelette.
蠔煎 O-CHIAN
[蠔仔煎蛋 HOU-CHAI JIN-DAAN]
A dozen large fresh oysters, shucked.
Two TBS rice flour.
One TBS cornflour.
Half a cup (eight TBS) water.
Three cloves garlic, minced.
Three eggs, beaten.
One TBS sherry or rice wine.
One TBS soy sauce (regular or ketjap manis).
Generous pinch of ground white pepper.
Some minced chives and cilantro.
Oil.
Rinse the oysters in cold water, making sure to remove all shell fragments, and pat dry. Beat the eggs with the white pepper sprinkled in.
Mix cornflour and rice flour, pour in the water slowly while stirring to make a fairly thin batter. Gild the garlic in your skillet add the rice wine to seethe, and remove to a small plate. Add more oil to the pan, and when it's hot, pour in the thin batter and cook briefly till half set before adding the beaten eggs. When the omelette is semi-firmed but still deliquescious, add the oysters and garlic, drizzle the soy sauce over, and loosen the omelette with a spatula. Cook a few seconds longer, then garnish liberally with the minced chives and cilantro, and decant to a plate.
Wherever you find Hokkien Chinese, you will find an oyster fry. In many places the oysters are rather small, and the egg is mixed with sweet potato flour. This version allows for a crispier taste underneath the eggs because of the batter, and I prefer large oysters to tiny ones.
As with all Singapore - Penang - Glodok streetfoods and late night eats, squeeze some lime juice over, and eat with sambal. Lots of sambal.
The last time I had oyster omelette, I was cooking for myself, so I only used seven oysters and two eggs. Yes, I ended up with gout. And consequently had very interesting dreams during the night.
But it was worth it.
So worth it.
NOTE: the shorter name (蠔煎 'o chian') is more commonly used in Hokkien, which is the language of Fujian province, and of many of the overseas Chinese in South-East Asia. It simply means 'oyster pan-fry'. The longer term (蠔仔煎蛋) is more Cantonese (hence the Yue transliteration 'hou chai jin daan'), and includes the words 'oyster' (蠔), a common diminutive suffix (仔), 'pan-fry' (煎), and 'egg' (蛋).
Sambal is 'laat chiu jeung' (辣椒醬), which is an essential element of your larder. Unless you're from the fly-over states; in that case you probably use 'faan ke jeung' (番茄醬 tomato ketchup).
I understand it is often hot (100°F) in the fly-overs.
But not nearly educational.
Sorry.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, May 29, 2011
HOKKIEN LANGUAGE SONGS - A VERY BRIEF INTRO
Several years ago I knew more Hokkien speakers than I do now. They're rather rare in SF, less so in the Netherlands and South-East Asia. Most of the Chinese in the Philippines are of Hokkien ancestry, and the same goes for several communities in Java.
The Hokkienese language is quite unintelligible to speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as other Sinitic tongues, deriving from an older linguistic stratum and having developed as a separate regiolect for close to two thousand years.
So even though related languages are spoken in parts of neighboring Canton province (Teochow and a few others), one really should think of Hokkien as reflecting a different Chinese cultural world.
SONGS
This cultural and linguistic otherness is quite evident in their songs. Many of the Taiwanese songs show a Japanese influence from the long occupation of the island, while mainland Hokkien songs have folksong elements. Cantopop has had little impact, neither has the Mandarin nightclub repertoire from 1930's Shanghai. But Hokkien 'popular music' on each side of the Taiwan Strait reflects an awareness of the other.
Increasingly, cross-fertilization will enrich repertoires, but probably not erase distinctiveness.
Teresa Teng (鄧麗君 January 29, 1953 – May 8, 1995) sang in Hokkien as well as in Mandarin (and several other languages).
鄧麗君:
望春風 BAN CHUN HONG
Here miss Teng sings a lovely romantic ballad - 'observing the spring breeze'. The visual is what you would expect for karaoke, namely two handsome people (neither of whom is miss Teng) enacting the content of the song in a rather pablumish and saccharine way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsC_Te6XkBs&feature=player_embedded
The themes of the song are familiar to any student of Chinese lyric, being the yearning of a young girl for a husband / lover / companion, coupled with the freshness of Spring symbolizing youthful emotions and feminine beauty, as well as the fear of ending up without ever experiencing romance. Some of the verbal imagery is tongue-in-cheek, and a few of the metaphors are innocently suggestive.
The old-fashioned atmosphere in the video above is quite different from the gloomy modernism in the following video (miss Jiang Hui and Ah-Tu singing 'Dream's Love talk').
江惠 & 阿杜:
BANG TIONG Ê TSING HWE 夢中的情話
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ca3x1TveiU&feature=player_embedded
The language is more straightforward, and instead of a plaintiveness, the emotional content is on the borderline of despair. The video is gloomily beautiful.
Equally modern is this offering by miss 黃乙玲 in which angst, seediness, lonesomeness, and a heat wave combine in a typical Taiwanese social environ. Lang sying ê gwa - song of life.
黃乙玲:
LANG SYING Ê GWA 人生的歌
Unhappiness, unfulfilled longing, heartache - and restaurant work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dzebYfqtvo&feature=player_embedded
A very elegant offering, and the video itself is quite interesting too.
The visual language shows both Japanese and Hong Kong influences, the ending is particularly Chinese, and fits in with the underlying narrative.
NOTE: Hokkien-hwe (Fujianese, FuJian-Hua) is referred to as 'Amoy Dialect' by many educated Chinese in the Philippines, but also known as 'Min Language' (閩話) elsewhere. The characters that spell out the name of Fujian province (福建) are pronounced 'Hok Kien'.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The Hokkienese language is quite unintelligible to speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as other Sinitic tongues, deriving from an older linguistic stratum and having developed as a separate regiolect for close to two thousand years.
So even though related languages are spoken in parts of neighboring Canton province (Teochow and a few others), one really should think of Hokkien as reflecting a different Chinese cultural world.
SONGS
This cultural and linguistic otherness is quite evident in their songs. Many of the Taiwanese songs show a Japanese influence from the long occupation of the island, while mainland Hokkien songs have folksong elements. Cantopop has had little impact, neither has the Mandarin nightclub repertoire from 1930's Shanghai. But Hokkien 'popular music' on each side of the Taiwan Strait reflects an awareness of the other.
Increasingly, cross-fertilization will enrich repertoires, but probably not erase distinctiveness.
Teresa Teng (鄧麗君 January 29, 1953 – May 8, 1995) sang in Hokkien as well as in Mandarin (and several other languages).
鄧麗君:
望春風 BAN CHUN HONG
Here miss Teng sings a lovely romantic ballad - 'observing the spring breeze'. The visual is what you would expect for karaoke, namely two handsome people (neither of whom is miss Teng) enacting the content of the song in a rather pablumish and saccharine way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsC_Te6XkBs&feature=player_embedded
The themes of the song are familiar to any student of Chinese lyric, being the yearning of a young girl for a husband / lover / companion, coupled with the freshness of Spring symbolizing youthful emotions and feminine beauty, as well as the fear of ending up without ever experiencing romance. Some of the verbal imagery is tongue-in-cheek, and a few of the metaphors are innocently suggestive.
The old-fashioned atmosphere in the video above is quite different from the gloomy modernism in the following video (miss Jiang Hui and Ah-Tu singing 'Dream's Love talk').
江惠 & 阿杜:
BANG TIONG Ê TSING HWE 夢中的情話
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ca3x1TveiU&feature=player_embedded
The language is more straightforward, and instead of a plaintiveness, the emotional content is on the borderline of despair. The video is gloomily beautiful.
Equally modern is this offering by miss 黃乙玲 in which angst, seediness, lonesomeness, and a heat wave combine in a typical Taiwanese social environ. Lang sying ê gwa - song of life.
黃乙玲:
LANG SYING Ê GWA 人生的歌
Unhappiness, unfulfilled longing, heartache - and restaurant work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dzebYfqtvo&feature=player_embedded
A very elegant offering, and the video itself is quite interesting too.
The visual language shows both Japanese and Hong Kong influences, the ending is particularly Chinese, and fits in with the underlying narrative.
NOTE: Hokkien-hwe (Fujianese, FuJian-Hua) is referred to as 'Amoy Dialect' by many educated Chinese in the Philippines, but also known as 'Min Language' (閩話) elsewhere. The characters that spell out the name of Fujian province (福建) are pronounced 'Hok Kien'.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, January 17, 2011
THE VULGAR CLASSES
For a while during the early eighties I associated with a number of Filipino Chinese. There was a commonality of circumstance and enterprise between us, and there were advantages for them to having a connection in the United Sates who could arrange things.
I would like to think that it was mutually rewarding, except that it wasn't.
Not entirely.
華菲人與福佬
FILIPINO CHINESE & FUJIANESE
["Wa-fuy lang u Hoklo"]
One thing about Filipino Chinese that grated was the snobbism characteristic to their class.
Their appreciation of fancy Western brand name goods (especially designer merchandise) and a worship of America, while simultaneously insisting that white people smell bad ("except you") combined with an over-the-top top-of-the-heap arrogance towards the natives, whether in Manila or San Francisco - all added up to us not always seeing eye to eye.
The one notable exception was a family that lived in a run-down villa in Quezon City. Yes, they also insisted that Caucasians smelled horrid ( in the tropic climate, where it feels like with every step you're wading further into hot jello, there may indeed be quite a whiff to whitey) and they too were commercially connected at every level of kinship to other Chinese. But there the similarities ended. Bookshelves all over, and every table seemingly a reading desk. It was a domicile remarkably free of status-shopping clutter, and easy on the eyes in consequence.
All members of that family had an old-fashioned Chinese appreciation for scholarly pursuits melded with the love of reading that was once common in the Western World, plus more PHDs than you could shake a stick at. They also owned an exceptional collection of calligraphy; several of them were themselves masters of the brush.
But they were utterly anomalous to that time and that place, quite at odds with most members of their tribe. It was a privilege to be in their circle. Exceptional in many ways.
Chinese Filipinos can be wonderful people to know.
Unless you really know them.
Then they're fascinating.
And somewhat repellant.
Watching the boiler-room heat of Manileño-Hoklo social interactions is best done from a little distance.
[Hoklo (福佬): a person from the southern part of Fujian (福建), whose dialect is most likely the Amoy (Hsia Men 下門) dialect of Minnanhwa (閩南話).]
商旅家同自己人
MERCANTILE WANDERERS & US FOLKS
["Sangly keh tng kakilang"]
The best and brightest prospect for many wealthy Filipinos, ESPECIALLY Filipino Chinese, is the eventuality that they or their relatives will move to the United States. Which many of them actually do in order to finish their education. Not that they particularly value education for itself, but an American degree has much more status than a piece of paper from any institution in the Philippines.
It opens doors in Manila, it opens the door to the United States.
[The piece of paper, that is, not the education. In many ways the concept of education, especially education for education's sake, is entirely foreign to Filipinos and Filipino-Chinese. Hence the huge number of lawyers, and near complete dearth of historians, philosophers, philologists...... ]
With clever maneuvering, the erstwhile student becomes a permanent resident, and then moves yet another relative into the country.
A Filipino family with many American members is in the cat-bird seat.
Their stateside kin will be able to provide them with American labels and brand name merchandise. Plus valuable connections and introductions.
The only fly in the Filipino Chinese ointment is that Filipino Chinese are mostly Hokkien. Home is always and ultimately Fujian province, their social focus remains Manila and the wealthy Chinese business community, and their perception of status stays firmly centered on being able to maintain wealth, and influence among the lesser Philippine mortals.
Marrying-out, for many Filipinos, is the purest sign that one has arrived in the United States, that one also belongs in America, and that the family has become successful in both environments.
It is the best thing that ever happened.
For Filipino Chinese, it is also the worst.
Definitely déclassé, in any case.
While the Hokkienese-bourgeois value system remains constant for multiple generations in its Philippine hothouse, it frequently dissipates in ONE generation once transplanted to the United States - the formerly pure Hokkien Business Bloodline becomes diluted with other genetic and cultural material (i.e.: 'white'), and the drive towards proper Filipino social supremacy falters.
Such social ineptness may be elided over by the immediate kin, but everyone else in Makati, Greenhills, and Binondo understands completely.
Having relatives who are chyap chying (雜精) instead of pure lanlang (咱人) marks both success and, ultimately, failure.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I would like to think that it was mutually rewarding, except that it wasn't.
Not entirely.
華菲人與福佬
FILIPINO CHINESE & FUJIANESE
["Wa-fuy lang u Hoklo"]
One thing about Filipino Chinese that grated was the snobbism characteristic to their class.
Their appreciation of fancy Western brand name goods (especially designer merchandise) and a worship of America, while simultaneously insisting that white people smell bad ("except you") combined with an over-the-top top-of-the-heap arrogance towards the natives, whether in Manila or San Francisco - all added up to us not always seeing eye to eye.
The one notable exception was a family that lived in a run-down villa in Quezon City. Yes, they also insisted that Caucasians smelled horrid ( in the tropic climate, where it feels like with every step you're wading further into hot jello, there may indeed be quite a whiff to whitey) and they too were commercially connected at every level of kinship to other Chinese. But there the similarities ended. Bookshelves all over, and every table seemingly a reading desk. It was a domicile remarkably free of status-shopping clutter, and easy on the eyes in consequence.
All members of that family had an old-fashioned Chinese appreciation for scholarly pursuits melded with the love of reading that was once common in the Western World, plus more PHDs than you could shake a stick at. They also owned an exceptional collection of calligraphy; several of them were themselves masters of the brush.
But they were utterly anomalous to that time and that place, quite at odds with most members of their tribe. It was a privilege to be in their circle. Exceptional in many ways.
Chinese Filipinos can be wonderful people to know.
Unless you really know them.
Then they're fascinating.
And somewhat repellant.
Watching the boiler-room heat of Manileño-Hoklo social interactions is best done from a little distance.
[Hoklo (福佬): a person from the southern part of Fujian (福建), whose dialect is most likely the Amoy (Hsia Men 下門) dialect of Minnanhwa (閩南話).]
商旅家同自己人
MERCANTILE WANDERERS & US FOLKS
["Sangly keh tng kakilang"]
The best and brightest prospect for many wealthy Filipinos, ESPECIALLY Filipino Chinese, is the eventuality that they or their relatives will move to the United States. Which many of them actually do in order to finish their education. Not that they particularly value education for itself, but an American degree has much more status than a piece of paper from any institution in the Philippines.
It opens doors in Manila, it opens the door to the United States.
[The piece of paper, that is, not the education. In many ways the concept of education, especially education for education's sake, is entirely foreign to Filipinos and Filipino-Chinese. Hence the huge number of lawyers, and near complete dearth of historians, philosophers, philologists...... ]
With clever maneuvering, the erstwhile student becomes a permanent resident, and then moves yet another relative into the country.
A Filipino family with many American members is in the cat-bird seat.
Their stateside kin will be able to provide them with American labels and brand name merchandise. Plus valuable connections and introductions.
The only fly in the Filipino Chinese ointment is that Filipino Chinese are mostly Hokkien. Home is always and ultimately Fujian province, their social focus remains Manila and the wealthy Chinese business community, and their perception of status stays firmly centered on being able to maintain wealth, and influence among the lesser Philippine mortals.
Marrying-out, for many Filipinos, is the purest sign that one has arrived in the United States, that one also belongs in America, and that the family has become successful in both environments.
It is the best thing that ever happened.
For Filipino Chinese, it is also the worst.
Definitely déclassé, in any case.
While the Hokkienese-bourgeois value system remains constant for multiple generations in its Philippine hothouse, it frequently dissipates in ONE generation once transplanted to the United States - the formerly pure Hokkien Business Bloodline becomes diluted with other genetic and cultural material (i.e.: 'white'), and the drive towards proper Filipino social supremacy falters.
Such social ineptness may be elided over by the immediate kin, but everyone else in Makati, Greenhills, and Binondo understands completely.
Having relatives who are chyap chying (雜精) instead of pure lanlang (咱人) marks both success and, ultimately, failure.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, October 31, 2008
PONG TEH
WET WEATHER STEW
It always surprises me how much the first rain of the season improves San Francisco. For several months we become used to the dense fragrance of the city, then a bit of rain washes it all away, and the air smells earthy and fresh again. It is a blessing.
Today is not cold, nor particularly wet. In fact, it feels rather like a smooth summer day, albeit one in a far moister climate than here. A warmer climate, too. And it smells like it also.
--- --- ---
Two dozen years ago, in a city inhabited mostly by Chinese.
Downstairs is a Kopi Tiam - a small restaurant specializing in coffee, milk-tea, snacks (including 香饼 Heung Peng - filled sweet buns), and a few home-style dishes. This one also had 肠粉 (Cheung Fan - steamed rice sheet noodles with savoury fillings), which I remember particularly because that is what I had for breakfast - they're very good if you drank too much the night before.
Unless you drench them with chilipaste and dark vinegar. Which I did. My stomach told me I was an idiot the rest of the morning.
After breakfast I went out and was rained upon. The water came down in a steady hard drizzle that cooled the air and made everything smell clean. There were many vehicles, few actual pedestrians. And despite the precipitation it seemed very bright outside.
By two o'clock I was desperate for something to settle my stomach, and I returned. Common sense dictated 河粉汤 (Ho Fan T'ng - river noodles in chicken and ginger broth with fresh herbs).
So naturally I made the worst choice possible and had something rich and heavy instead.
One of the dishes which has the soulfood ta'am for many people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia is a Hokkien dish that can be made with either chicken or pork. Or chicken AND pork. People with kashrus concerns will probably not want to consider the pork version. But do not worry - it tastes fine made with chicken, and you could even use duck. If the meat is fatty, serve a fresh pickle alongside. It is a very lovely dish.
PONG TEH
One pound fatty pork (ng-faa yiuk, 五花肉), cut in large cubes.
Sixteen dried black mushrooms, soaked in water to soften, then de-stemmed.
Two cups sliced bamboo shoots.
One onion, chopped fine.
Half a dozen cloves garlic, crushed.
A small thumb of fresh ginger, also crushed.
One tablespoon taucheo (salted yellow soybean, 豆瓣酱), mashed smooth.
Two tablespoons sherry or rice wine.
Two tablespoons ketjap manis (Dutch or Indonesian sweet soy sauce), plus a dash regular soy sauce.
Three cups water.
Three whole star anise.
A piece of cinnamon (approx one inch).
One or two whole cloves.
First gild the onion, then add the garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn add the taucheo and sherry and seethe a bit, then add the meat chunks and colour on all sides. Now add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and ketjap manis. Stir for a few minutes, add the whole spices and water. Simmer on low for about an hour and a half. Garnish with sliced chilies. Serve with steamed rice and warm crusty French bread for sopping.
Note: if you cannot find bamboo shoots (where ARE you living?!?!), you may substitute potatoes cut in chunks. Add them later, about half-way through cooking, as they will fall apart otherwise. Personally, I feel that doing so is simply making another version of Irish Stew. A fine product in its own right, which I almost never touch. I do not live in Ireland, and my mule has not passed away.
Another note: For a really Cantonese flavour, add a small jigger of oyster sauce. All treif tastes better with oyster sauce. And hot sauce.
--- --- ---
The kids of the family that owned the kopi tiam sat at a table in the back, doing their homework and being quiet, while the customers sat nearer the front, and enjoyed the cooling breeze - the entire front was open, like most such shop-house businesses.
From my table along the wall I could observe the entire place - the pimply young man with an oversized leather biker jacket out front, the Cantonese housewife talking animatedly with (in other words, shrieking at) the owner directly opposite, the elderly skeleton sipping hot milk-tea while reading his newspaper with one foot up on his chair at the middle table, and the three kids in the back, obediently bent over their books.
No fuss, no misbehaviour, no noise. Cute kids - so studious, so well-behaved!
But such deception.
All three of them had skinned knees, and dirt-scuffs on their school clothes.
Two hours earlier I had seen the nine year old chasing a boy down the street, screaming at the top of her lungs 'faan-pei ngoo-ah' (give it back), while trying to whack him with a bamboo pole. Classmates scattered before them as he tried to escape with her school bag. The little spit-fire eventually caught him.
She's probably grown up to be a real tiger by now.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It always surprises me how much the first rain of the season improves San Francisco. For several months we become used to the dense fragrance of the city, then a bit of rain washes it all away, and the air smells earthy and fresh again. It is a blessing.
Today is not cold, nor particularly wet. In fact, it feels rather like a smooth summer day, albeit one in a far moister climate than here. A warmer climate, too. And it smells like it also.
--- --- ---
Two dozen years ago, in a city inhabited mostly by Chinese.
Downstairs is a Kopi Tiam - a small restaurant specializing in coffee, milk-tea, snacks (including 香饼 Heung Peng - filled sweet buns), and a few home-style dishes. This one also had 肠粉 (Cheung Fan - steamed rice sheet noodles with savoury fillings), which I remember particularly because that is what I had for breakfast - they're very good if you drank too much the night before.
Unless you drench them with chilipaste and dark vinegar. Which I did. My stomach told me I was an idiot the rest of the morning.
After breakfast I went out and was rained upon. The water came down in a steady hard drizzle that cooled the air and made everything smell clean. There were many vehicles, few actual pedestrians. And despite the precipitation it seemed very bright outside.
By two o'clock I was desperate for something to settle my stomach, and I returned. Common sense dictated 河粉汤 (Ho Fan T'ng - river noodles in chicken and ginger broth with fresh herbs).
So naturally I made the worst choice possible and had something rich and heavy instead.
One of the dishes which has the soulfood ta'am for many people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia is a Hokkien dish that can be made with either chicken or pork. Or chicken AND pork. People with kashrus concerns will probably not want to consider the pork version. But do not worry - it tastes fine made with chicken, and you could even use duck. If the meat is fatty, serve a fresh pickle alongside. It is a very lovely dish.
PONG TEH
One pound fatty pork (ng-faa yiuk, 五花肉), cut in large cubes.
Sixteen dried black mushrooms, soaked in water to soften, then de-stemmed.
Two cups sliced bamboo shoots.
One onion, chopped fine.
Half a dozen cloves garlic, crushed.
A small thumb of fresh ginger, also crushed.
One tablespoon taucheo (salted yellow soybean, 豆瓣酱), mashed smooth.
Two tablespoons sherry or rice wine.
Two tablespoons ketjap manis (Dutch or Indonesian sweet soy sauce), plus a dash regular soy sauce.
Three cups water.
Three whole star anise.
A piece of cinnamon (approx one inch).
One or two whole cloves.
First gild the onion, then add the garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn add the taucheo and sherry and seethe a bit, then add the meat chunks and colour on all sides. Now add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and ketjap manis. Stir for a few minutes, add the whole spices and water. Simmer on low for about an hour and a half. Garnish with sliced chilies. Serve with steamed rice and warm crusty French bread for sopping.
Note: if you cannot find bamboo shoots (where ARE you living?!?!), you may substitute potatoes cut in chunks. Add them later, about half-way through cooking, as they will fall apart otherwise. Personally, I feel that doing so is simply making another version of Irish Stew. A fine product in its own right, which I almost never touch. I do not live in Ireland, and my mule has not passed away.
Another note: For a really Cantonese flavour, add a small jigger of oyster sauce. All treif tastes better with oyster sauce. And hot sauce.
--- --- ---
The kids of the family that owned the kopi tiam sat at a table in the back, doing their homework and being quiet, while the customers sat nearer the front, and enjoyed the cooling breeze - the entire front was open, like most such shop-house businesses.
From my table along the wall I could observe the entire place - the pimply young man with an oversized leather biker jacket out front, the Cantonese housewife talking animatedly with (in other words, shrieking at) the owner directly opposite, the elderly skeleton sipping hot milk-tea while reading his newspaper with one foot up on his chair at the middle table, and the three kids in the back, obediently bent over their books.
No fuss, no misbehaviour, no noise. Cute kids - so studious, so well-behaved!
But such deception.
All three of them had skinned knees, and dirt-scuffs on their school clothes.
Two hours earlier I had seen the nine year old chasing a boy down the street, screaming at the top of her lungs 'faan-pei ngoo-ah' (give it back), while trying to whack him with a bamboo pole. Classmates scattered before them as he tried to escape with her school bag. The little spit-fire eventually caught him.
She's probably grown up to be a real tiger by now.
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GRITS AND TOFU
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