The Food Canon : January 2021

Cooking for the coming Chinese New Year (2021)

Chinese New Year Tuesday, January 26, 2021

So, what are you cooking for this coming Chinese New Year? With the guests restrictions, the menu should be paired down, either in variety or quantity. Added to that, crossed-causeway family reunion is also not possible and that may change your plans.

The reunion dinner will still be special, especial for the older folks - as each reunion dinner continues a chain of tradition that stretches back as far as they can remember.

Eating out will not be a practical option for larger families. Remembering these may help as we prepare our cooking. The reunion dinner is always about family favourites. Each family have their own "festive dishes" that everyone grew up with. These will be in line with your heritage; may it be Hakka; Nonya or Hokkien. In fact, when I ask a family what is usually tabled for their reunion dinners, I can guess the cultural background of the matriarch of the family.

I detail here some of the dishes I am planning to cook for our reunion dinner and the rest of the CNY.

Stir Fry River Prawns in Black Bean Sauce

I can hardly think of a Wong Reunion dinner without this dish. This is one early recipe which I have posted on my blog. In the earlier days, river prawns were wildly caught and it is sweeter compared to farmed ones. These days, we have to make do with the latter. Try to buy them as fresh as possible and put them into the freezer immediately once you reach home. NTUC do sell them too during this period along within some wet markets. If you can get river prawns, sea-farmed ones like crystal prawns or wild-caught Angka will worked well too. Or the large imported frozen ones.

Lo Han Chai or Chap Chye

This is a family favourite. There are different versions of this, depending whether you are Nonya, Hokkien or Cantonese. My mum like to use white fermented bean curd (Fu Yi) and wongbok instead of cabbage for this. Wongbok has a firm texture which holds well and won't absorb the stock the way cabbage will do, which makes for a soggy dish when eaten the next day.

This is an all-day dish and you can easily cook new batches by adding fresh ingredients to the leftovers. You can find the recipe here. Best eaten with sambal belachan on the side.

Steamed Chicken

Rub into the whole chicken with some salt and steam for about 40 to 45 minutes. Then served it with fresh red chilli sauce and a beautiful ginger garlic sauce (recipe here). Get the best chicken you can lay your hands on. Anxin or another type of "Kampung chicken" will work. The fattier and meatier large chicken broiler will work too. If you have leftovers, fry it up with some garlic, soy sauce and thick black sauce. If there is still leftovers after this, add to your Chai Buay. :) You can see why my Mum always make this for reunion.

Treasure Dish or Pencai

While it is easier to just order this in from restaurants, it is not difficult to prepare this at home if you are an experienced cook. It will also cost a lot less. You will have better control over the freshness and assemble it a la minit and serve it warm. I will normally steam my own egg tofu (recipe here) and to that add mushrooms, clams, abalone, sea cucumber and green veg. Some prawns will a nice orange hue to the dish. Be flexible and use your imagination.

As for the stock or sauce, prepare it beforehand a few days before the dinner. Use one whole chicken and some lean pork to prepare the stock. Check out this post on preparing the superior sauce and how to prepare the abalone.

Prepare each ingredient beforehand. Then just before dinner, assemble and pour in the warmed sauce.

Jiu Hur Eng Chye (Braised turnip with dried cuttle fish)

This is another favourite reunion dish. It pairs very well with fresh iceberg lettuce and sambal belachan. It also keep very well for the next few days when fridged. I will be blogging the recipe soon.

Deep fried Hakka Pork ("Char yoke")

This was another perennial favourite and is probably the only dish that reveals our secondary Hakka roots. For some reason, Hakka culture is normally eclipsed when it collides with Hokkien or Cantonese and it was certainly our experience of that living in West Malaysia. Check the recipe here.

Waxed Meat Platter

Cantonese waxed meat is easy to prepare, whether steamed or pan fried. It keeps well for nibbles in the next few days.

Chai Buay (lead photo)

No CNY is complete in our family without Chai Buay or Choi Keok. It is the essential "leftover dish" cooked with the Mustard Green veg which is rare and expensive come CNY. And so, please book your mustard greens early. It may be hard to find fresh ones given the difficulties of this season. An alternative is to used the salted mustard greens ("Ham Choy"). You need to soak them a few times to remove the salt.

Check my recipe here.

Nonya Curry Chicken

Curries are also family favourites for the 1st and 2nd day of CNY. Curries keep well and cna be served all day.

Check the recipes for Curry Chicken and Beef Rendang.

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Another of my Mum's favourite dish is Braised Pork Knuckles (Yin Tai). Check out this post.

Have fun planning and cooking and may you have a wonderful family reunion and a great CNY celebration in the midst of the restrictions.

Photo from a previous CNY Reunion in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

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Auntie Ruby's Nonya Curry Chicken

Auntie Ruby Tuesday, January 26, 2021

I know I am biased. Every boy grows up loving the curry his Mum made and I am no exception. Mum’s version is the best. I have memories of eating it with white bread, sucking clean every bone and wiping up every bit of the curry. Hers is a Nonya version and it is sometimes called Curry Kapitan.

These are the reasons why I like it:

The meat is cooked just right; firm and yet tender to the bite. If you see the meat falling off the bone, it is a clear sign that the curry is overcooked and that won’t be my mum’s.
There is sufficient oil in the curry which adds to its smooth mouth-feel. It is supposed to be a curry, not soup. Her curry is drier and not swimming in coconut milk. Note that spices are oil-soluble.
The wonderful fragrance of spices and herbs is a clear sign that the curry was made from fresh spices and herbs.

Let’s start with some basics about what makes for a good curry.

You need a good-tasting chicken. I normally get the fresh ones from the wet market and avoid the frozen variety from the supermarts. Free-range chicken will, of course, taste better. Spices need to be fresh. Use fresh spice powder mix or toast and grind seeds. As for chilli paste, I will normally make paste from dried chilies or buy ready-made fresh paste from the market. Shallots or onions are essential to give body to this curry.

As for potatoes, get the yellow fleshed ones, please. They are tastier and have a nice, crumbly texture.

A wok or a wide-mouthed, traditional curry claypot will work well for cooking this dish, ensuring even cooking throughout and a curry that’s thickened through condensation.As you can imagine, if accompanied by a veg like cucumber and bread or rice at the dining table, this chicken curry is a complete meal.

In this recipe I will omit adding spices like cumin or coriander seeds as these take it towards the Indian direction. My mum's lean towards the Nonya version which allow the lemon grass and turmeric to shine through.

Auntie Ruby's Curry Chicken Recipe

Ingredients:
1.5 kg (3.3 lb) chicken

1 kg (2.2 lbs) potato

Paste

3 lemongrass bulbs

20 shallots (or 3 large onions)
10 cloves garlic
1 tbsp chopped turmeric (or 1 tsp turmeric powder)

10 candlenuts (buah keras)

Dry Spices

1 cinnamon stick

2 star aniseeds

30 dried chillies or equivalent chilli paste

240 ml (1 cup) cooking oil 2 tbsps salt
1 tbsp sugar
240 ml (1 cup) water
200 ml coconut milk
1 sprig curry leaves

Preparing the paste

Clean out the inside of the chicken thoroughly. Cut the chicken into small to medium pieces. Keep the skin and fats on.
Blend the bulbs of the lemongrass, shallot, candlenuts, garlic, and turmeric finely.
Soak the dried chillies in warm water for 15 minutes and blend finely.
Peel the potatoes and cut into about 21⁄2-cm chunks.

Cooking the curry

Heat up the oil in a wok or wide, deep pot, then add the paste, dry spices and chilli paste.
Simmer on low flame for 20 minutes. Stir to ensure there is no bottom burning. If needed, add some water to bring down the heat and add moisture to the simmering paste. Add half the salt and sugar.
Put in the chicken and stir. Add the 240 ml of water and simmer. After 10 minutes, add the potatoes and curry leaves. Stir occasionally to ensure there is no bottom burning.
Then, add the coconut milk. Taste and adjust with salt and sugar according to what you like.
After about 40 minutes of cooking, the chicken meat should be done.

If the chicken has lots of fat, there may be too much oil for your liking. Just remove some and keep it for use on another occasion.

You can add salt according to taste along the way but be careful as the curry gets saltier as the water evaporates. The safe bet is a conservative amount right at the beginning and a final adjustment towards the end. A red layer of oil should surface during the last phase. Use a shallow spoon to remove some of it.

The end result is a tasty curry sauce, dry, nicely textured, slightly oily and certainly not watery. The meat does not fall off the bone.

This dish can take different ethnic directions according to the spices you use (e.g. cumin and fenugreek for a more Indian taste), adding ingredients like tomatoes, ginger etc. I have a curry cookbook and it is amazing to read about the many types of curry chicken one can make.

This dish goes well with fried bee hoon, white rice, yellow rice (nasi kunyit), naan, prata and of course, white bread.

The members of the one big happy curry family. Cheap and easily available at your local market.

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Braised Pork Knuckles (Yin Tai)

Chinese New Year Wednesday, January 20, 2021

I have promised that I will post some braising recipes. Check it out for tips for the home cook.

Slow poached Yin Tai (Cantonese for Braised Pork Knuckles) was a regular feature at our Chinese New Year reunion dinners. It was one of my mum's favourite festive dish.

Unlike the German Roasted Pork Knuckles, where the skin needs to be crackly and crispy, this Chinese version goes the opposite direction. The skin and fats need to be soft, creamy and yet firm enough to be picked up with a pair of chopsticks.

If you are trying to diet (and that is a forbidden word during Chinese New Year), knuckles done this way will literally bring you to your knees. It is spectacular as the skin and fats are the first things you see. In fact, cooked and presented correctly, it should be the only thing you see at first. And when it is placed on the table, the whole thing shimmers. No kidding. Like the shimmering glass of water on the car's dashboard in the movie Jurassic Park, it will make for a spectacular effect as the dinosaur approaches.

If you look carefully, you can also see an image of yourself after the shimmering stops. You dig in with your chopsticks, shattering your portrait. You let it melt in your mouth. The flavor and texture hits you as the unmentionable swirls in your chops – rich, creamy, fruity, spicy and aromatically complex.

Swine can be better than wine, as they say.

The key is to a braise it very slowly on low fire.

This dish may look complicated at first sight but just think of Toyu Bak and that you are cooking one large lump of pork belly. Pork knuckles is not something you can just walk up to the butcher and buy, especially during the CNY period. You must order it beforehand. I heard that turkeys ran out last Christmas because no one travelled anywhere and more were cooking at home. I won't spread rumours that pork will run out but it is not difficult to figure out that pig knees may be in short supply. I know there are wild boars running around but...perish that thought. Just go to your butcher early.

Try to use the best soy sauce you can lay your hands on. You can also braise some dried mushrooms alongside.

Ingredients
1 pork knuckle, skin on
3 tbsps rock sugar
3 slices ginger
6 cloves garlic

10 white peppercorns (crushed)
240 ml (1 cup) light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsps Chinese rice wine
580 ml (2 cups) water
Salt and sugar to taste
2 tbsp oil
2 tsps cornflour made into a slurry with 2 tbsps water

For garnishing

Butter lettuce leaves or iceberg lettuce
Coriander leaves

Method

Add the rock sugar and simmer over low heat till it melts. You are caramelising the sugar.
Add the ginger, garlic and spices and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the pork knuckle (skin up) and the rest of the seasoning. Pour in the water to cover the knuckle. The whole knuckle need to be covered.
Simmer for 2 hours or till it is soft enough. The meat should not be falling apart on its own. To test for doneness, the fork should go smoothly into the skin.
Add the cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce.
Adjust the taste with salt or sugar if needed.

Place the pork on some lettuce leaves and garnish with coriander leaves. Serve it hot with chili sauce on the side.

For Thermomix users:

This is recipe is great for Thermomix because the pork knuckle will fit nicely. But you need to use the blade cover or find a way of keeping the blades from moving if you do not want to end up with shredded pork.

Follow steps 1 to 4 to stir fry the ingredients and make the sauce. Put the knuckle skin up into the TM pot. Braise it at 98˚C for 1.5 to 2 hours. Note that the heat transference in TM is more efficient than the wok. Check periodically. If the fork go into the skin smoothly, you know it is done. At some point, I will shoot a video on cooking this in the Thermomix.

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Soy Braised Dishes and Braising Tau Kwa

Chinese Monday, January 18, 2021

With CNY round the corner, I thought I should start blogging a bit more actively again. Actually I am doing this more for my own sake as blogging, like journaling, help me to keep track of my cooking journey.

I will be releasing a few post on braising recipes. For the CNY table, if you are a Sinma person, you are likely to be braising a dish or two.

When you think about it, Soy Sauce Chicken, Braised Duck ("lor ark"), Dong Po Pork, Braised Pork Trotter, Braised Pork Knuckles (Yin Tai), Toyu Bak etc uses the same ideas or techniques of soy sauce braising.

The thing I like about these recipes is that they always come with a company of side dishes. Along with the braised meat, you can use the same sauce to braise Tau Kwa ("hard" tofu), hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, peanuts and so on. They fill up the dining table nicely for a family dinner evening. Add some chilli sauce or sambal belachan and fresh cucumber or lettuce to complete the dinner. And rice of course. You won't need much else.

Master your braising dishes and you will have a plethora of recipes to work with.

For starters, you do need to use good soy sauce. I have tried various types here. Unless you are willing to pay more for a good local one like Kwong Woh Hing's (it is really good), my favourites sauces are those from Malaysia. They are good and more importantly, cheap. This way your heart won't hurt so much when you pour your soy sauce in generously for the braises. Good soy sauce brewing simply needs land and sun. Like golf, you simply must be willing to pay more if you go local. I have wrote a post describing the soy sauces I normally use. I have also mentioned how they were favoured in some blind tasting events and trumped the local brands.

The good news is that even if you can't travel up country, you can buy their sauces online here or here.

I have blogged aplenty about these braising recipes.

I return to my family favourite Toyu Bak. Please read up on this and also some tips here on "slow and low" braising. I will add here some notes on braising good Tau Kwa.

By Tau Kwa I mean the firmer tofu which is suited for braising or stir-frying. If you want it firm and fresh, the supermarket variety just won't do. From the images and videos here, you na se that the tau Kwa I'm using here has a smooth texture which is a sign of freshness. You have to buy them from wet markets for those that were made in the same morning. As the seller will advise, just soak it in water in a bowl (or plastic which ain't green!) and leave it in the fridge if you are cooking it later in the day. Even if you are cooking it the next day, it should still be fresher than those which are found on supermarket shelfs.

You braise your pork belly first of course. Scoop from the surface some of the oil onto a heated pan. Place the whole Tau Kwa gently on the pan. After about 5 minutes, scoop some sauces from the ToYu Bak into the pan. You are searing and steaming it at the same time. Drizzle some dark soy sauce and light soy sauce. Place the lid and gently braise it for about 15 minutes (check video below). After that, leave it in the sauce and heat it up again before you slice and serve.

Trust me, if you have done it well, the sliced tau kwa will vanish in no time.

I will be blogging other braising recipes soon. Stay tuned.

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The Food Canon

Cooking for the coming Chinese New Year (2021)

Stir Fry River Prawns in Black Bean Sauce

Lo Han Chai or Chap Chye

Steamed Chicken

Treasure Dish or Pencai

Jiu Hur Eng Chye (Braised turnip with dried cuttle fish)

Deep fried Hakka Pork ("Char yoke")

Waxed Meat Platter

Chai Buay (lead photo)

Nonya Curry Chicken

Auntie Ruby's Nonya Curry Chicken

Auntie Ruby's Curry Chicken Recipe

Braised Pork Knuckles (Yin Tai)

Soy Braised Dishes and Braising Tau Kwa

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