Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (30 page)

VARIATION

Stir-fried garlic stems with mushrooms

This vegetarian version of the recipe above makes the most of the sumptuous harmony between the flavors of garlic and mushrooms.

Prepare 7 oz (200g) garlic stems as described above and cut the caps of 4¼ oz (125g) button mushrooms into thick slices, discarding their stems. Stir-fry them together in 3 tbsp oil, until the garlic stems are tender and starting to wrinkle and the mushrooms a little golden and marvellously aromatic, adding salt to taste. (Take care not to over-salt: garlic stems do not easily absorb flavors, so the salt will tend to concentrate in the mushrooms.) You can cook Chinese flowering chives with mushrooms in the same way but they take less time to cook than garlic stems, so add them to the wok after stir-frying the mushrooms for a minute or two (trim off and discard their flower buds before you begin).

You may substitute any other kind of mushroom for the button mushrooms, if you fancy. You will find this variation photographed as part of a meal
here
.

EGGPLANT, PEPPERS & SQUASHES

Sleek purple eggplant, fried or grilled, are my most adored vegetable, and Sichuanese Fish-fragrant Eggplant one of my favorite dishes of all times and all places. They are so addictively good that I rarely wish to cook eggplant in any other way but, if you insist, you’ll also find in this chapter a couple of rather good recipes from Hangzhou and Shanghai. In general, there is little deep-frying in everyday Chinese home cooking. There are of course exceptions, such as in the case of eggplant, where an encounter with hot oil brings out a divine buttery quality in their flesh. Chinese eggplant are longer and thinner than the common Mediterranean eggplant, with paler purple skin: if you find them fresh in a Chinese shop, do buy them for their delicate color; Mediterranean eggplant, however, can be used equally well in these recipes.

While hot chillies are favored in certain parts of China, other kinds of peppers are used all over the country. Green bell peppers and sweet red bell peppers (often known as “lantern peppers” because of their resemblance to traditional Chinese lanterns) may be stuffed or stir-fried. Often, they are used to provide a bit of color and crunch to a mixture of ingredients in a wok, or simply stir-fried with one other main ingredient, such as pork, beef, or firm tofu.

The Chinese eat a great variety of squashes. Some of them, such as cucumber, which is generally used in cold dishes but may also be stir-fried, are common in the West. Others, less familiar—such as winter melon, fuzzy melon and bitter melon—may be tracked down in Chinese supermarkets, while Chinese cooking methods may be used to prepare slightly different Western varieties, such as zucchini, to delicious effect. One kind of gourd, the waisted calabash, is an ancient lucky symbol and may be dried and carved with intricate designs, or tied with red cord and hung as a decoration. Though it is rarely eaten, it lends its form to some Chinese dishes, such as steamed calabash-shaped dumplings and “calabash eight-treasure duck,” a boned duck that is filled with glutinous rice studded with various delicious morsels and tied into a calabash shape before being steamed and deep-fried.

The following section includes recipes for cooking some of the squash varieties that are more easily available. You will also find several cold cucumber dishes in the chapter on appetizers, and some ideas for Chinese winter melon in the soup chapter.

FISH-FRAGRANT EGGPLANT
YU XIANG QIE ZI
魚香茄子

This dish, almost more than any other, expresses for me the gorgeous layering of flavors that is the signature of Sichuanese cooking. Pickled chillies, either on their own or with fermented fava beans in the famous Sichuan chilli bean sauce, give the dish its warmth and luster; garlic, ginger and spring onions add a luxurious kick of flavor and a hint of sweet and sour serves to harmonize all the other tastes. The same sauce, minus the eggplant, can be poured over steamed or deep-fried seafood or chicken; while a similar combination of flavorings can be used to cook slivered pork, or as a dressing for cold, cooked peas or fava beans. They call this complex flavor “fish-fragrant” because it draws on the seasonings used in Sichuanese fish cooking, so it is supposed to recall to those who eat it the taste of fish.

If you prefer not to deep-fry, just salt the eggplant, brush them with oil and shallow-fry them or roast them in the oven, then make a fish fragrant sauce and pour it over them in a serving dish. The eggplant won’t absorb the flavors of the sauce quite as well this way, but they’ll still be delicious. (If you roast or shallow-fry them, then cook them in the sauce as in the classic recipe, they’ll disintegrate, which is why it’s better to pour the sauce over.) Leftovers, if you have any, taste wonderful either hot or cold. Some cooks add ground pork to the dish for extra savoriness but, when it’s so delicious as it is, why bother? For me, the beauty of this dish lies in the way it transforms such a humble vegetable into something extraordinary.

If you can get it, Sichuanese pickled chilli paste (without the fava beans) gives a sauce with a brilliant red color and a fresh, almost fruity aspect to its flavor. Some cooks use a mixture of pickled chilli paste (for its bright beauty and fruitiness), and chilli bean paste (for its rich savoriness).

1¼ lbs (600g) eggplant

Salt

Cooking oil, for deep-frying (1½ cups plus 2 tbsp/400ml will do if you are using a round-bottomed wok)

1½ tbsp Sichuanese chilli bean paste, or Sichuan pickled chilli paste, or a mixture of the two

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 tbsp finely chopped garlic

⅔ cup (150ml) chicken stock

2 tsp sugar

¾ tsp potato flour mixed with 1 tbsp cold water

2 tsp Chinkiang vinegar

4 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

Cut the eggplant lengthways into three thick slices, then cut these into evenly sized batons. Sprinkle them with salt, mix well and leave in a colander for at least 30 minutes to drain.

In a wok, heat the oil for deep-frying to 350°F (180°C). Add the eggplant in batches and deep-fry for three to four minutes until slightly golden on the outside and soft and buttery within. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Drain the deep-frying oil, rinse the wok if necessary, then return it to a medium flame. When the wok is hot again, add 3 tbsp of oil. Add the chilli bean paste and stir-fry until the oil is red and fragrant, then add the ginger and garlic and continue to stir-fry until you can smell their aromas. Take care not to burn these seasonings; remove the wok from the heat for a few seconds if necessary to control the temperature (you want a gentle, coaxing sizzle, not a scorching heat).

Add the stock and sugar and mix well. Season with salt to taste if necessary. Add the fried eggplant to the sauce and let them simmer gently for a minute or so to absorb some of the flavors. Then stir the potato flour mixture, pour it over the eggplant and stir in gently to thicken the sauce. Add the vinegar and spring onions and stir a few times, then serve.

HANGZHOU EGGPLANT
ROU MO QIE ZI
肉末茄子

When I told the Hangzhou chef Hu Zhongying that I was interested in local home cooking, he took me into the kitchens of his restaurant, the Hangzhou Jiujia, and asked one of the chefs there to demonstrate this everyday dish, in which tender eggplant are flavored with a rich, fermented sauce and a scattering of ground pork. It’s wonderful, even for a loyal fish-fragrant eggplant devotee like me. Vegetarians can use the same method, omitting the pork and substituting water or vegetarian stock. (Please note that the photograph shows the vegetarian version of this dish.) In China, they never salt their eggplant before frying, but I find that this Mediterranean method gives a better, less oily result.

14 oz (400g) eggplant

Salt

Cooking oil, for deep-frying (1½ cups/350ml will do)

2–3 oz (50–75g) ground pork, ideally with a little fat

2 tsp finely chopped ginger

1 tbsp sweet fermented sauce

2 tbsp chicken stock

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

1 tsp light soy sauce

½ tsp dark soy sauce

½ tsp sugar

¼ tsp potato flour mixed with 2 tsp cold water

2 tbsp finely chopped spring onion greens

Cut the eggplant lengthways into ¾ in (2cm) slices, then cut the slices into ¾ in (2cm) strips. Cut these into 2–2½ in (5–6cm) lengths. Sprinkle with a little salt, mix well and leave in a colander to drain for 30 minutes or so.

Heat the oil for deep-frying to 350–400°F (180–200°C). Shake the eggplant dry and deep-fry, in a couple of batches, until slightly golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on paper towels.

Drain the deep-frying oil, rinse the wok if necessary, then return it to a high flame. When the wok is hot again, add 1–2 tbsp oil, swirl it around, then add the pork and stir-fry over a medium flame until the meat has lost its pinkness and the oil has cleared again. Add the ginger and stir to release its fragrance. Add the fermented sauce and stir until it smells delicious, too. Add the stock, Shaoxing wine, soy sauces and sugar, return the eggplant, and mix well.

Toss the eggplant in the sauce, then give the potato flour mixture a stir and pour it into the center of the wok, moving briskly to stir it in. Add the spring onions, stir a few times, then serve.

SHANGHAI HOME-STYLE EGGPLANT
JIA CHANG QIE ZI
家常茄子

I’ve often picked up cooking tips through the generosity of shoppers in Chinese markets, who have taken the trouble to help me identify all the produce on display and explained how they like to cook the different ingredients. This recipe was a gift from a lady shopper in a Shanghai market. It’s terribly easy and very good to eat. I’ve given quantities for a single eggplant, because it’s the kind of dish you might want to rustle up for lunch for just a couple of people, but you can double them if you wish.

1 decent-sized eggplant (11 oz/300g)

Salt

1 cup plus 2 tbsp (300ml) cooking oil

4 tbsp chicken stock or water

½ tbsp light soy sauce

½ tsp dark soy sauce