1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (198 page)

You will occasionally see fish cheeks sold on their own in fish markets, but since few fishmongers go through the unprofitable trouble of extracting the cheeks from small fish, the majority of those in markets are from larger fish such
as cod, salmon, halibut, hake, striped bass, and northern pike. Canny fishmongers sometimes pluck them from whole fish to keep for themselves, so obtaining a pair requires special diligence—double checking to see that your whole fish has an intact head—the rewards of which are heavenly, tender bites that taste of the sea, only sweeter. As for how to prepare them, given their near universal appreciation in the world’s seafood repertoire, you have innumerable recipes to choose from.

Where:
In Shanghai
, Jesse Restaurant, tel 86/21-6282-9260;
in New York
, Barchetta, tel 212-255-7400,
barchettanyc.com
;
in San Luis Obispo, CA
, Goshi Japanese Restaurant, tel 805-543-8942,
goshis.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Complete Game and Fish Cookbook
by A. D. Livingston (1996);
Mrs. Chiang’s Szechwan Cookbook
by Jung-Feng Chiang with Ellen Schrecker and John Schrecker (1987);
Nobu Miami: The Party Cookbook
by Nobu Matsuhisa (2008);
saveur.com
(search halibut cheeks with baby leeks);
allrecipes.com
(search halibut cheeks with ginger orange sauce).

Resembling a cartoon mushroom from a children’s book, China’s adorably diminutive, dark-capped straw mushroom (
Volvariella volvacea
) is charming to behold. Also called a paddy straw mushroom, as it grows best in the straw left over from the cultivation of rice, the versatile fungus bears an appealingly earthy flavor. Although mushrooms may be one of the world’s earliest cultivated foods, mentioned in Chinese documents as far back as the later Chou dynasty (approximately 900
B.C.
), the petite earthen straw mushroom is a latecomer, believed to have been farmed starting in the early nineteenth century.

Historians speculate that straw mushrooms were most likely cultivated first at the Nanhua Buddhist monastery in northern Canton, where monks are documented as having grown them on fermented rice straw. They must have caught on quickly because by 1875 boxes of the Nanhua mushrooms were presented as gifts to Chinese royalty. Widely cultivated today (mainly in southern China and Southeast Asia, where the mushrooms thrive in the hot, steamy climatic conditions) and grown on straw as well as on bales of wool, the mushrooms have retained their status as a delicacy. But because they are tricky to store, fresh straw mushrooms are very rare and are hard to find outside of China and Southeast Asia. They are mostly sold dried or canned, almost always in their “egg stage”—the period before the caps emerge from beneath a tissuelike covering. Mushrooms in this state are said to better absorb the juices of foods they are cooked with, providing an unrivaled burst of flavor to soups and stir-fries.

Mail order:
amazon.com (search dynasty whole peeled straw mushrooms; dried paddy straw mushrooms).
Further information and recipes:
The Chinese Kitchen
by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo (1999);
The Shun Lee Cookbook
by Michael Tong (2010).
Tip:
Canned straw mushrooms should be drained and rinsed before use, and dried mushrooms should be rinsed repeatedly in cool water before they are soaked for one hour. (Keep in mind that the flavor of the dried mushroom is far more intense than that of the canned.)

Fish scales turned into edible art.

Noted for mild and sweet flavors and intricately garnished gourmet dishes, the city of Suzhou, about sixty miles west of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province, claims a delectable, beautifully fried carp as its own. The golden fish, which represents good luck and abundance, is plump with fat and has richly meaty flesh encased in large, flaky bronze scales—attributes that lend themselves perfectly to this intricate preparation. The “squirrel” in the name of this dish (
sung-shu-yu
) comes from the furry look of the finished carp and the way its tail curls as it fries in hot oil. To attain that texture, the skin of the whole cleaned fish is scored all over in a diamond pattern. Dredged in cornstarch, it is then deep-fried in a wok, and turned as needed while the scored scales unfurl into a spiky furlike coat. Other freshwater fish, such as pike, whiting, and perch, can be prepared this way, but because they are generally smaller than carp, the result is less dramatic.

The finished dish is crunchy and mellow, flavored with scallions, salty ham, dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and garlic, all simmered in pan juices; as a tantalizing final touch, a garlic sauce or a zesty, sweet-and-sour blend of sugar, rice wine or sherry, and pungent minced fresh ginger seals the deal. In Suzhou kitchens, squirrel fish will be elaborately garnished with pink shrimp, green grapes, and bright-yellow squares of cooked, pressed egg yolk.

Where:
In Chicago
, Yan Bang Cai, tel 312-842-7818,
yanbangcaichicago.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Chinese Cookbook
by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee (1972);
ifood.tv
(search squirrel fish).

A sweet treat usually offered as an appetizer.

While we recognize candied walnuts and pecans as a hallmark of the upscale composed salad, they are also a favorite appetizer in many Chinese restaurants. Particularly beloved in Beijing, they are a traditional offering at
multicourse banquets as one of the little dishes that kicks off the meal, along with relishes and pickles. But chunky walnuts or pecans candied to a crunchy, sweet, and glossy dark golden brown may be added to main-course chicken, shrimp, and beef dishes to delicious effect as well.

Their preparation is simple. The shelled nutmeats are first quickly boiled, to remove any bitterness. While still hot, they’re tossed with sugar and, finally, stir-fried in a wok. Beyond their applications in Chinese food, their welcome sweetness and texture make them great to have around to munch at cocktail hour, to garnish fancy salads, or to top ice cream and other enticing desserts.

Further information and recipes:
The Breath of a Wok
by Grace Young (2004);
nytimes.com
(search chinese sugared walnuts);
cookstr.com
(search candied walnuts).

With its gentle flavors and colorful dishes, the cuisine of the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou resembles that of Shanghai, around 100 miles to its northeast. Hangzhou is well loved and much visited for its exquisite scenery, which includes not only mountains but the celebrated, island-studded West Lake, historically of great value to local commercial fishermen; as a result, a number of dishes sprung up in Hangzhou with “West Lake” as inspiration.

The very best known of these is a frothy white soup that is both delicate and richly flavorful, with lovely, silky drifts of poached egg white floating amid a mix of diced black mushrooms, cushiony chunks of whitefish or carp or tender crumbles of ground beef, peas, and sometimes fresh herbs, all in a broth fragrant with soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, and onions. Light, nourishing, and wholesome, the dish is an inspired, sophisticated variation on traditional egg-drop soup.

Where:
In New York
, Congee Village at two locations,
congeevillagerestaurants.com
;
in Philadelphia
, Tai Lake Restaurant, tel 215-922-0698,
tailakeseafoodrest.com
;
in San Francisco
, Ton Kiang Restaurant, tel 415-752-4440,
tonkiang.net
;
in Daly City, CA
, Koi Palace,
koipalace.com
;
in Vancouver
, Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant, tel 604-321-6862.
Further information and recipes:
How to Cook Everything
by Mark Bittman (2003);
seriouseats.com
(search chichi’s west lake soup);
nytimes.com
(search minimalist hearty soup).
Tip:
Chinese chefs whisk the egg whites with long cooking chopsticks as they are drizzled into the soup, thereby aerating them to form pillows of silky froth, as opposed to strands of boiled egg.

Given the omnipresence of this spicy, pungently salty, carmine-red sauce on Chinese restaurant menus and in gourmet food shops, one might suppose it were an antique condiment in the manner of soy, oyster, and hoisin sauces. But in fact, the pricey XO is a newcomer to the Chinese pantry. Most experts set its origins in the late 1970s or early ’80s in Hong Kong, when, during a particularly flush period, it was common for guests in the city’s upscale supper clubs to order XO-grade Cognac by the bottle. In a quest to emulate Cognac’s luxuriousness, a Hong Kong chef concocted this dark and beguiling mixture, which would soon appear on the menu at several haute restaurants. Very little about the sauce is either exact or simple, and each restaurant has its own formula. A few “secret ingredients,” however, are universal, including dried scallops, dried shrimp, bits of Yunnan ham (see
listing
), soy sauce, and fish sauce. Other additions might include lemongrass, chile peppers, and lots of garlic. What it rarely, if ever, includes is Cognac.

The sauce lends an appealingly sharp, salty yet complex flavor to soups, casseroles, and stir-fries, as well as seafood, meat, poultry, vegetable, rice, and noodle dishes.

Because it is made with expensive ingredients and is very concentrated, restaurants in China sometimes add an extra charge for dollops of XO sauce, especially on humble dishes such as rice rolls or dim sum dumplings. Inventive chefs with fusion on their minds add it to all sorts of pan-Asian dishes, as well as to seafood salads, barbecue sauces, marinades, and seafood cocktail sauces. Most professional chefs and many ambitious home cooks simmer up their own XO at a wise savings over the bottled variety. It is wise to make small batches, as the intensely flavored sauce is generally used sparingly and loses its spunk after two months.

Mail order:
amazon.com (search lee kum kee xo); for Chili XO sauce, Yank Sing, tel 415-957-9990,
yanksing.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Momofuku
by David Chang (2009);
saveur.com
(search xo sauce);
marthastewart.com
(search xo sauce);
epicurious.com
(search beef and snow peas xo sauce).

Sometimes luxury and oddity go hand in hand. A savory case in point is bird’s nest soup, an ancient Chinese delicacy that has been coveted for more than six hundred years. Since the days of the Ming dynasty, Chinese cooks have prized
the nests of the tiny swiftlets who attach themselves high up on the walls in the Vietnamese and Thai bat caves along the coasts of the South China Sea. Also found in similar caves in Borneo and throughout Indonesia, the nest constructions are no ordinary feats: The swift-lets make them mostly out of strands of saliva that dry and harden when exposed to air, thus adhering to the cave walls.

The birds nest in the spring, and each summer small groups of harvesters, usually folks whose relatives have been in the business for many years, climb the cave walls on bamboo ladders and delicately carve out the teacup-size, whitish structures. It’s a dangerous business, and one that doesn’t scale, which is why birds’ nests are so expensive, sometimes costing upward of thousands of dollars per pound, and why bird’s nest soup itself can be so costly—upward of $40 or so per bowl, and into the hundreds of dollars. It is particularly renowned in the traditional Cantonese restaurant Man Wah, in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong, where the different versions served range from about $120 per serving to close to $600.