As a tribute to my Chinese roots and to my mother, Chinese food is the order of the day. My hope is that these dishes will offer two things that Panda Palace cannot: an honest glimpse of Chinese food culture and that homemade, DIY goodness no take-out can approximate.
Chinese food, especially that of the well-known and admired Canton school, prides itself on accentuating the intrinsic flavors of fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. Heavy sauces, spices and dressings are used in moderation, if at all, and only to set off original flavors, never to disguise them.
But Chinese food is definitely not bland-you have your rich red-cooking technique (used below), not to mention the pungent flavors of Sichuan in western China, which had been much influenced by India's love affair with spice.
It is also common for a stir-fry to be flavored with nothing more than a spoonful of sugar and salt. Many Asian vegetables have pleasant, unique aromas, so such a light treatment allows the diner to savor them as the Western palate savors the uncooked greens in a fine mesclun salad.
This first recipe, however, is not a light vegetable dish, but rather a meat dish that uses a centuries-old Chinese recipe. The red-cooking technique essentially means simmering any meat in a mixture of sugar, soy sauce, and water. Spices such as Sichuan peppercorns and star anise can also be added to accentuate the flavor of red meats. It yields delicious results, as you will see when you make...
Red-Cooked Fish
Cooking Time:30 minutesMakes 3 servings
* 1 lb. firm white meat fish fillet (I like pollock)* 1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil* 2 tablespoons soy sauce* 1 cup water* 1? teaspoons sugar* 3 stalks scallions* ? inch ginger* 3 cloves garlic
1) Chop the scallions into 2-inch long stalks. Slice the ginger and the garlic. It helps to curl the fingers of your non-knife hand under while holding down the ingredients. It would be nice to retain your fingers for years to come.2) Heat up the oil in a large skillet. Fry the fillets until lightly browned on both sides (about five minutes per side for an inch-thick fillet). Carefully pour off the excess oil.3) Sprinkle the chopped scallions, ginger and garlic over the fish. Also, add the soy sauce, water and sugar.4) Cover the skillet and let ingredients simmer on medium-low heat for 12 minutes, flipping the fillets halfway through. Lastly, give the sauce a taste, and add soy sauce if needed.
The next recipe is a common way to enjoy Chinese vegetables. You can experiment with other Asian vegetables such as Chinese spinach (a.k.a. water convolvulus), mustard greens and flowering Chinese cabbage. Boston's very own Chinatown (and it's huge C-Mart, in particular) is a great resource for the epi-curious, so why stop at bok choy?
Stir-Fried Bok Choy
Cooking time: 20 minutesMakes 4 servings
* 3 heads of bok choy* 1 ? teaspoons olive or vegetable oil* ? cup water* 1 teaspoon sugar* ? teaspoon salt* oyster sauce (or vegetarian mushroom "oyster" sauce)
Whenever working with vegetables, wash them first. Bok choy, in particular, tends to gather soil inside the folds of its leaves, so peel them apart and give each a good rinse.1) Cut each leaf into 2-inch-long segments.2) Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok for stir-frying. Stir-fry is a technique developed for fast cooking because back in the olden days of China, firewood was hard to come by. They discovered that a quick blast of high heat is enough to cook food cut into small pieces, so turn that stove to high and put the veggies in all at once. Toss them around with a spatula for about five minutes. Add sugar and salt during the process.3) Add water and cover, reducing heat to low. Let ingredients simmer for 7-8 minutes until the veggies are tender but still slightly crisp. Serve with a drizzle of oyster sauce.Now make that requisite pot full of white rice, pick up those chopsticks, and nosh away!
