Bitter melon soup

I love bitter melon paired with meat. The bitter perfectly balances out with the fatty texture of pork or salt beef. This Cantonese soup is very easy to make. In The Netherlands the easiest pork bones you can buy is in the form of ribs. Cook the pork ribs in the usual way: boil the ribs in water, discard the water and start again with fresh water. When you have bones with a lot of blood, soak the bones in water for a couple of hours.

When the soup is simmering add 1/4 cup dried barley, red dates and sliced ginger. Simmer for an hour or so until the meat almost falls off the bone.

You can slo use candied honey dates. Same fruit (red jujubes) but sweeter. Both are used in medicinal soups.

Add sliced bitter melon, but not too much. For a liter of broth I used 1/4 of bitter melon. Simmer until the vegetable is cooked. Season with salt and MSG.

That’s it!

Chinese cabbage stir fry

There are two easy stir fry recipes I fall back on when pressed for time. Both contain Chinese cabbage as the center piece.

Chinese cabbage and dried prawns 包心菜炒蝦皮

Soak fermented dried prawns in warm water. Reserve the water.
In the meanwhile slice fresh ginger and spring onion. Separate the white from the green. Cut the cabbage in small pieces.

Heat oil in a wok. Throw in the white part of the spring onion and ginger. Add the shrimp. Fry for a minute or so. Add the cabbage and shrimp water. Wok until the cabbage is tender. Add the green part of the spring onion, adjust for salt and ready.

Szechuan spicy cabbage stir fry 手撕包菜

Whisk together 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp Chinese vinegar, 1 tsp sugar and salt. Set aside.

Heat oil in a wok and add dried chili peppers and szechuan peppercorns. Add chopped garlic. Add cabbage cut in bite sizes and the soy-vinegar mixture. Wok on high heat. You can add freshly fried peanuts to this dish.

Sichuan Mapo Tofu

This is taken from Chef Wang Gang’s YouTube-channel.

• Prepare 400 gram firm tofu. Cut in 1,2 cm cubes.

• Chop 50 gram beef into a fine grind .

• Chop 15 gram pickled ginger and 20 gram pickled Sichuan chili.

• Chop one garlic sprout, or thin spring onion (for garnish).

• Take 10 gram dried chili and 5 gram dried green Sichuan pepper.

I love Chef Wang’s mise en place.

Cooking

1. Heat oil in a wok and add the dried chili and green Sichuan pepper for 15 seconds. Knife chop these ingredients in a fine powder (traditional ‘knifed’ chili).

2. Add some water in the wok, a little salt and boil the tofu for 1 minute. Drain.
   

3. Add oil to (rapeseed oil) the wok and stir fry the beef until dry. Add some chili bean sauce (doubanjiang), the 15 gram ginger, 20 gram chopped chili and some fermented black beans. Fry until the oil comes out. Add 5 gram ‘knifed’ chili. Mix and add some water. Add salt and MSG. Add the tofu and boil for 3 minutes.

4. Add starch water to thicken the sauce in several stages. Add a splash of scallion oil before plating.

5. Garnish with traditional ‘knifed’ chili and garlic sprout.

Preserved vegetable soup 四川菜汤

I found this recipe on the My taste, his taste blog. Many months ago I bought some Chinese preserved vegetables but didn't find the time to use the vegetables. This soup seemed pretty straightforward. Before you can use the vegetables soak them in water for half an hour and rinse. Cut into 1 cm pieces and set aside. The vegetables are Chinese mustard greens, or jiè cài (芥菜) in Mandarin and gai choy in Cantonese. Pickled they are called haam choy. 四川菜汤 means: Sichuan (四川) vegetable (菜) soup (汤).

The other vegetables you need are a couple of tomatoes, 2 to 3 carrots and a red or green chili. For meat pork spare ribs are perfect. First cook the spare ribs for a minute in boiling water, drain and rinse. Cut the spare ribs in separate pieces. See below.

Add 2 liters water to a pot, add the preserved vegetable, carrots and tomatoes and boil. Add the ribs and simmer for half an hour. Add the chili and crushed white pepper (black will do as well) and simmer for another half hour. Since the preserved vegetables are salty wait until the last moment to adjust for salt.

You can keep this soup in the fridge for many days.

Soy sauce chow mein 豉油王炒麵

Chow 炒 means “frying” and mein 面 is a type of wheat noodle. As a Cantonese dish Soy Sauce Chow Mein is called 豉油王炒麵 which translates to pan-fried noodles with premium soy sauces. If you have thin egg noodles you are all set to go. Cooking time is about 10 minutes.

150 gram thin egg noodles (dried, or fresh: steamed or unsteamed)
4 tbs oil
3 scallions, white and green parts separated in 4 cm pieces.
1 medium onion
150 bean sprouts
1,5 tbs dark soy sauce
1,5 tbs light soy sauce
1 tbs sesame oil

Boil the dried noodles in water, 2 minutes should suffice. If you have fresh noodles, 10 seconds is enough. NOTE: you can buy fresh unsteamed noodles and steam the noodles instead of boiling. Drain.

Heat half the oil in a wok. Add the scallion whites and onion and cook for 3 minutes until golden. Add the bean sprouts and wok for another 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and clean the wok.

Heat the remaining oil in the wok and add the noodles. Wok undisturbed for 2 minutes. Add both soy sauces, toss. Add the vegetables back into the wok and the green part of the scallions and toss for another 2 minutes.

Drizzle with sesame oil before serving.

Tofu and eggplant claypot 肉末茄子煲

The Chinese name for this dish is 肉末茄子煲 ("Minced Meat and Eggplant Claypot"). It is simple to make.

To prepare this dish you finely dice: fatty pork, paprika, mushrooms and garlic. The eggplant should be sliced while rolling the eggplant on the cutting board. Use a long light purple Asian eggplant instead of European eggplant.

Heat a wok and fry firm tofu in 5 mm slices on medium heat until slightly brown.

Heat the wok again and add the diced pork. Stir fry the eggplant for 5 minutes in the pork lard. Season with oyster sauce, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce for color. Add a bit of water. Add the paprika, mushrooms and garlic. Stir fry and add starch for thickening the sauce. Add some scallion oil 葱油 as a last step.

Add the vegetable mixture to the claypot and sprinkle with spring onion. Heat the claypot on a fire for a short time to make this dish sizzle.

Photo: video still from YouTube.

Bāo zǐ fàn, clay pot rice

The basics are simple. Pre soak a cup of rice. Brush the clay pot with oil, add the rice and add 1,5 cup of water. Bring to a boil. Wait until the rice is roughly 50 -75% cooked. Add a selection of the toppings. Cook until the rice on the bottom of the pot is crispy. In the last 10 minutes tilt the pot so the sides also get crispy. When the toppings and the rice is cooked, add spring onion and pour a mixture of oyster sauce and soy sauce on top. Just before serving mix everything together.

Marinade for chicken:

• Sesame oil

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine 绍兴酒

• Salt to taste

• pepper to taste

• 1 tsp corn flour

Sauce:

• 1 tbsp oyster sauce.

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce or seasoned soy sauce.

Toppings:

• Boneless chicken, marinated (see above).

• Lap Cheong

• Shitake mushrooms

• Dried fish

• Egg

• Bok choy

• Fresh ginger, julienned

• Spring onion (garnish)

Chinese clay pot Hong Kong style

Clay pot rice (煲仔饭, bao zai fan) 

It’s a simple recipe. Soak long grain rice for 30 minutes in a clay pot and bring to a boil. After a couple of minutes add sliced ginger and add sliced Cantonese sausages (lap cheong) and Chinese cured pork (lop yuk). Simmer for another 10-12 minutes and turn the fire off. Instead of (or next to) meat you can make a vegetable version with mushrooms, Bok Choy, carrot, cauliflower or green beans.

There are many types of sauces. The following is just one possibility. Prepare the sauce from the following ingredients:

1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon seasoned soy sauce (蒸鱼豉油)
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

Just before serving add the sauce and garnish with green onion.

Serve with boiled Bok Choy on the side.

Dim sum 點心 dipping sauces

Not far from my home there is a Chinese takeaway which sells pretty good dim sum dumplings. All I have to do myself is prepare the right dipping sauce. Classic and simple is a soy based ginger dipping sauce. I like this sauce for pork shumai (烧卖) dim sum.

Ingredients for soy ginger sauce:
2 tbsp light soy sauce.
1 teaspoons minced ginger.
A pinch of white pepper.
Sesame oil to taste.

Alternatively you can serve a dipping sauce with black vinegar for Xiaolongbao (小籠包) dim sum.

Ingredients for Xiaolongbao (小籠包) sauce:
1 tablespoon light soy sauce.
3 thin slices of julienned ginger.
1 teaspoon black vinegar.

For shrimp dumplings har gaw (蝦餃) you need a lighter sauce without soy sauce.

Ingredients for ginger and rice vinegar sauce:
2 teaspoon ginger chopped finely.
1 ½ tablespoon rice vinegar.

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