Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (37 page)

SHANGHAINESE RICE WITH SALT PORK AND BOK CHOY
XIAN ROU CAI FAN
鹹肉菜販

This is a typically Shanghainese supper dish, made with salt pork and Shanghai green bok choy. I first ate it in the wonderful Fu 1088 restaurant, which occupies an old mansion in the French Concession. There, it was served in a black clay pot. My Shanghainese lunch companion said it reminded her of her childhood, when she ate it often, but she thought her family’s version was made with salted mustard greens rather than fresh bok choy, or perhaps with a mixture.

Anyway, it’s a delicious and terrifically simple dish. Don’t pay too much attention to the quantities; you can add more or less meat and vegetables as you please. Use Shanghainese salt pork if you have it (soak it for five to ten minutes in hot water if it’s very salty, then rinse), or pancetta, or bacon. Just make sure the meat is fatty rather than lean, as the fat helps to flavor the rice. I’m sure this method would also work well with other green vegetables, particularly broccoli and kale. And of course you can make it with Chinese preserved mustard greens too, rinsing them before use if they are very salty. If you are eating this instead of plain steamed rice with a few Chinese dishes, you don’t need to salt it. If you are eating it as a one-dish meal, add salt to taste.

This recipe serves two to three.

2 oz (50g) salt pork, pancetta or bacon

11 oz (300g) Shanghai green bok choy

2 tbsp cooking oil or lard, plus a little more if you are using a clay pot

1 cup (200g) Thai fragrant rice, rinsed

If you are using a clay pot, heat it with a little water over a very low flame, or warm it in an oven, so it won’t crack. Bring a kettle to a boil.

Cut the meat into very fine dice. Coarsely chop the bok choy.

Heat the oil or lard in a wok over a high flame. Add the pork and stir-fry briefly until it is cooked and fragrant. Add the rice and stir-fry until it smells delicious. Then add the bok choy and stir-fry for another minute or so.

If you are using a clay pot, pour off the water used to warm it, dry the inside of the pot and rub it with a little oil or lard. Place the rice mixture in the clay pot (if using), and add enough hot water from the kettle to just cover the rice. Bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and cook over a very low flame for about 20 minutes, until the rice is cooked and a golden crust is developing at the bottom of the pot. (If you are using a rice cooker, simply put the rice mixture into the cooker, cover with water and set it to cook.)

Serve the rice with some nice bits of
guo ba
(the golden crust at the bottom of the pot).

VARIATION

The same ingredients can be used to make a fine fried rice: simply stir-fry the salt pork and greens as described above, add some cooked, cooled rice and stir-fry until wonderfully fragrant, seasoning with salt to taste.

SOUPY RICE WITH PORK AND GREENS
SHANG HAI PAO FAN
上海泡飯

“Soaked” or soupy rice (
pao fan
) is cooked rice that has been reheated in water or stock, but not long enough for the grains to disintegrate as in a congee. You may add to it any ingredients you like: chicken, fresh pork, salt pork or bacon, with greens or other vegetables in any proportions you like. I often make it as a way of using up leftovers, not only of rice (white or brown), but any odds and ends I might have in the fridge: orphaned vegetables, cold cooked beans, the remains of a roast chicken . . . At one of my favorite restaurants in Chengdu, they heat up yesterday’s rice in chicken stock and add plenty of sliced greens before serving for a very rich “soaked rice.”

All the quantities and even the ingredients in this recipe are extremely flexible. The following amount of rice is enough for two. You will see two bowlfuls of soupy rice in the background to the
photograph of Chicken Livers with Chinese Chives
.

2 dried shiitake mushrooms

A slice or two of bacon

5 oz (150g) Shanghai green bok choy

1–2 tbsp cooking oil

4–5 slices of peeled ginger

1 scant cup (200g) cooked, cooled rice

4 cups (1 liter) chicken stock

Salt

Ground white pepper

Soak the mushrooms for 30 minutes in hot water from the kettle, until soft.

Remove and discard any rinds from the bacon and cut into slivers. Cut the mushrooms into slivers and slice or chop the bok choy.

Heat the oil in a wok over a high flame. Add the bacon and stir-fry until fragrant. Add the ginger, stir a couple of times, then add the mushrooms. Stir a few more times, then add the greens and stir-fry until wilted. Add the rice and stock and bring to a boil.

Simmer for a couple of minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve (if you are serving the rice, Chinese-style, with a selection of other dishes, you probably won’t wish to add salt).

CONGEE
ZHOU
粥

All cultures and all individuals have their comfort foods. In China, one Jin Dynasty official is said to have become so consumed with longing for the water shield soup and ground perch of his native region that he abandoned his post and returned home. But perhaps the most universal of comfort foods is rice congee, which is like a caress of the mouth and stomach, as soothing as baby food. At its simplest, it is just rice cooked slowly, in plenty of water, until the grains dissolve into a voluptuous, satiny mass. Because of this long, lazy cooking, the Cantonese like to say that someone who spends hours talking on the phone is “making telephone congee.”

Plain congee can be made with water or stock: chicken stock is particularly good. Eat it on its own, with fermented tofu or other relishes, or with any Chinese dishes. For a more nutritious congee, cook the rice with pre-soaked mung beans, peanuts or dried lotus seeds. Plain congee made with water is the perfect antidote to gastronomic excess, and recommended for invalids. In the Cantonese south, where congee is dearly loved, they add all kinds of ingredients: one restaurant I visited in Hong Kong offered nearly 60 kinds. They had a vast potful of plain congee in the kitchen, and a cabinet full of ingredients to be added to it in a smaller pan. This recipe serves four.

¾ cup (150g) Thai fragrant rice

½ tsp salt

2 tsp cooking oil

Rinse and drain the rice. Mix it with the salt and oil and set aside for 30 minutes. Rinse and drain.

Bring 2½ cups (2.4 liters) of water to a boil in a thick-bottomed pan over a high flame, add the rice, return to a boil, partially cover the pan and simmer gently for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally. The rice grains will burst open; by the end of the cooking they will have largely melted into the water to form a soft porridge.

The congee can be eaten plain (good if you are feeling delicate), or with seasonings and other ingredients of your choice.

VARIATIONS

Congee with other seeds and grains
The congee can be cooked with many other seeds and grains: in this case omit the oil and salt, cook the rice for an extra 30 minutes and season with sugar before eating if desired. Mung or azuki beans, as well as lotus seeds, should first be soaked overnight, then cooked with the rice. Peanuts and walnuts, as well as black glutinous rice (which will color the congee a deep purple) can simply be cooked with the rice. Dried Chinese dates and wolfberries may be added towards the end of cooking time.

Congee with pork ribs, preserved duck eggs and ginger
Blanch pork ribs, chopped into bite-sized pieces, for a few minutes to remove any bloody juices, then rinse well. Cook them with the rice. Half an hour before serving, add chopped preserved duck eggs and slivers of ginger. Scatter it with ground white pepper and finely sliced spring onion greens and mix well before eating.

Dandelion leaf congee
My Sichuanese friends Yu Bo and Dai Shuang recently served me a congee made with dandelion leaves, added towards the end of the cooking time . . . a rather lyrical spring version on the congee theme.

Congee with chicken and shiitake mushrooms
Soak some dried shiitake mushrooms in hot water from the kettle for 30 minutes. Slice some raw chicken and marinate in a little soy sauce, finely chopped ginger, cooking oil and potato flour mixed with water. Slice off and discard the mushroom stalks and slice the caps. Add the mushrooms and chicken to your hot congee and boil for about five minutes. Cover and leave to steep for another 10 minutes or so before serving with a garnish of spring onion greens, sesame oil and pepper.

RICE-COOKED VEGETABLES AND RICE-COOKED PORK
FAN WU CAI
飯吾菜

One of the traditional ways of cooking rice in China is in a
zengzi
, a bamboo or wooden steamer. The rice is boiled for a few minutes to “break its rawness,” then tipped into a
zengzi
and steamed until cooked. In the countryside, it was common to cook other food over the rice, inside the
zengzi
. One way of doing this is to place the cut ingredients with oil and seasonings in a bowl, then lay the bowl directly on the rice, or on a bamboo frame suspended over it. Another way, known as
fan wu
, is to steam food directly on the rice.

I first encountered this in Hangzhou, at the Dragon Well Manor, a restaurant specializing in artisanal foods and old-fashioned cooking methods. There, I ate
fan wu
eggplant, the whole vegetables steamed directly on the rice, then torn and served with a dip of rich soy sauce and garlic. I also tasted
fan wu
pork belly: thick slices of meat, served again with a dip of soy. I was smitten both by their tastes and by the economy and simplicity of the cooking method, which works equally well with an electric rice cooker.

Because of the unadorned nature of food cooked this way, fine ingredients are essential. If you have a garden, it’s a wonderful way of enjoying the subtle flavors of freshly gathered vegetables.

Thai fragrant rice

Thin Chinese eggplant, whole and washed

or

Mediterranean eggplant, cut lengthways into quarters or small pieces, depending on size

or

Water bamboo (wild rice stem), peeled and quartered

or

Very tender, fresh bamboo shoots, peeled and sliced

or

⅜ in- (1 cm) thick slices of raw pork belly, with skin if you please

or

Whatever you like (obviously it must require no more cooking time than the rice)

To serve

A really good soy sauce (I prefer an organic tamari)

Finely chopped garlic, to taste

If making traditional steamer rice, follow the instructions
here
, but lay your ingredients directly on the rice before steaming.

If using an electric rice cooker, measure the rinsed rice and water into the rice cooker. Lay the food on top. Steam.

To serve, remove the food from the rice and lay neatly in a dish. Dress with soy sauce and garlic if desired, or serve the soy sauce and garlic separately, in a dipping dish.

The photograph opposite shows
fan wu
eggplant with a soy-and-garlic dressing, and thick slices of belly pork with a dip.

NOODLES