Ken Hom’s steamed fish Cantonese style
Steaming fish is a great southern Chinese tradition, and it is my favourite method of cooking fish. Nothing masks the fresh taste of the fish, which remains moist and tender at the same time, and you can savour the combination of the other ingredients.
Serves 4
firm white fish fillets 450g, such as seabass or cod, or a whole fish such as turbot
coarse sea salt or plain salt 1 tsp
fresh ginger 1½ tbsp, finely shredded
spring onions 3 tbsp, finely shredded
light soy sauce 1 tbsp
dark soy sauce 2 tsp
groundnut or vegetable oil 1 tbsp
sesame oil 2 tsp
fresh coriander sprigs, to garnish
If you are using a whole fish, remove the gills. Pat the fish or fish fillets dry with kitchen paper. Rub with the salt on both sides, then set aside for 30 minutes. This helps the flesh to firm up and draws out any excess moisture.
Next set up a steamer, or put a rack into a wok or deep pan, and fill it with 5cm (2in) of water. Bring the water to the boil over a high heat. Put the fish on a heatproof plate and scatter the ginger evenly over the top. Lower the plate of fish into the steamer or on to the rack. Cover the pan tightly and gently steam the fish until it is just cooked. Flat fish will take about 5 minutes to cook. Thicker fish will take 12-14 minutes.
Remove the plate of cooked fish from the pan and sprinkle with the spring onions and the light and dark soy sauces. Heat the two oils together in a small pan. When they are hot and smoking, pour the hot oil on top of the fish and garnish with the coriander sprigs. Serve at once.
From Complete Chinese Cookbook by Ken Hom (BBC Books, £26). Click here to buy a copy for £20.80
Jihua Li’s home style cabbage
Serves 1
vegetable or olive oil
Sichuan peppercorns 2 tsp
garlic 2-3 cloves, minced or sliced
spring onion 1, chopped
dried chilli 3-4, crumbled or cut into small pieces
green chilli to taste
sweetheart cabbage ½, torn or cut into 5-7cm pieces
soy sauce 2 tsp
sugar 1 tsp
Put 3-4 teaspoons of vegetable or olive oil in the wok, heat with max power. Put the Sichuan peppercorns into the wok. Leave it for half a minute or until the peppercorns turn dark, use a strainer or skimmer to remove the Sichuan peppercorns.
Add the garlic, spring onion, dried chilli and green chilli, stir fry for a few seconds and then add in the cabbage pieces. Stir fry until it becomes tender.
Add the soy sauce and sugar. Continue to stir fry for 20 seconds or so. The dish is now ready!
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Yan-kit So’s Mongolian lamb fire pot
This Mongolian dish, which has long since become part and parcel of Peking food, ranks second in fame only to the Peking duck.
Serves 6 as dinner
lamb ½ leg, ideally spring lamb, about 1.2kg
cellophane noodles 100g
Chinese celery cabbage 1, about 800g, trimmed
dried egg or buckwheat noodles 225g
For the dip
sesame paste 120ml, well stirred in the jar
fermented red bean curd 2 cakes, or about 4 tbsp plus 2 tbsp own juice
Shaoxing rice wine or medium dry sherry 90ml
sugar 3 tbsp
thin soy sauce 120ml
hot chilli oil 3-4 tbsp
sesame oil 3-4 tbsp
fish sauce 4 tbsp
coriander leaves 100g, chopped into small pieces
spring onions 10-12 large, cut into small rounds
Ask the butcher to bone the lamb for you. If possible, freeze for about 3-4 hours so that the meat becomes firm and easy to cut into paper-thin slices.
Meanwhile, soak the cellophane noodles in plenty of boiling water in a bowl. Leave for a minimum of 20-30 minutes to expand. Drain. Make 2-3 cuts with scissors to shorten them. Transfer to a serving bowl.
Slice the celery cabbage at 2.5cm intervals. Put on to a plate.
Plunge the noodles into plenty of boiling water, return to the boil, then continue to cook for several minutes until they are soft yet al dente. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Put on to a plate or into a bowl.
Prepare the dip: put the sesame paste into a fairly large serving bowl and gradually add about 120ml of water to dilute, stirring until smoothly blended. Add about 45-60ml (3-4tbsp) water to the red bean curd and blend to a creamy consistency. Pour into the serving bowl, then add the wine or sherry, sugar, soy sauce, the oils and fish sauce and stir until well mixed.
Take the lamb out of the freezer. Trim excess fat and cut into as paper-thin slices as you can manage. Ideally, each slice should be about 10 x 4cm. Arrange them on several serving plates in single layers but overlapping each other. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to eat.
Put all the ingredients on the dining table. Pour boiling water into a fire pot to come about half way up the sides, and bring back to the boil. (If you don’t want to use a traditional charcoal-burning fire pot, use a heatproof bowl and burner or an electric pot.) The feast is now ready to commence.
To serve, provide each person with a pair of bamboo chopsticks (not plastic or lacquered ones), a small wire strainer made specially for fire-pot feasts (optional), a bowl and a small plate.
To eat, everyone spoons some sauce into their bowl and adds some coriander leaves and spring onions. Everyone picks up 1-2 slices of lamb at a time, puts them into the strainer (or uses chopsticks) and immerses them in the water in the pot. Remove after a few seconds (or longer if very well done meat is preferred). The meat is then dipped into the sauce before eating.
After about half of the lamb has been consumed and the water in the pot has become a tasty broth, put in the cabbage and cellophane noodles in stages for everyone to share. Dip them into the sauce before eating. Whenever necessary, replenish the water in the pot.
After about three-quarters of the lamb has been consumed, put in half or all of the remaining noodles. Dip into the sauce then eat them.
At the end of the feast, the broth in the pot is shared. Each person spoons some into their bowl, mixes it with the remaining sauce and then drinks it.
From Yan-kit’s Classic Chinese Cookbook by Yan-kit So (Dorling Kindersley, £16.99). Click here to buy a copy for £13.59
Jeremy Pang’s ma po tofu
The literal translation of this dish, “old pocked woman tofu”, may not sound particularly appetising, but stick with it as the result is a lovely, spicy, broth-like dish that highlights how good tofu is at absorbing flavour. Served with rice on the side, it’s the ultimate one-wok-wonder.
Serves 4
onion 1 small
garlic 2 cloves
fresh bird’s-eye chillies 2
coriander a small handful
firm silken tofu 300g (fresh or packaged tofu are both fine to use)
preserved black beans 2 tsp
Sichuan peppercorns 1½ tsp
pork mince 400g
Chiu Chow chilli oil 2 tbsp, the oil from the top of the pot only
For the marinade
sesame oil 2 tsp
granulated sugar a pinch
light soy sauce 1 tbsp
For the sauce
chilli bean paste or hot chilli paste 2 tsp
light soy sauce 2 tbsp
rice wine 3 tbsp
chicken stock 400ml
Dice the onion. Finely chop the garlic, bird’s-eye chillies and coriander. Cut the silken tofu into 2cm cubes.
Wash and drain the preserved black beans, place them in a sealable plastic bag with the Sichuan peppercorns and bash them with a rolling pin until lightly crushed.
Place the meat in a bowl, add the marinade ingredients and massage together well with your hands. Mix the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl.
Build your wok clock: place your diced onion at 12 o’clock, then arrange the garlic, chilli, crushed black beans and peppercorns, meat bowl, sauce bowl, tofu cubes and coriander clockwise around your plate.
To cook, heat the Chiu Chow chilli oil in a wok over a medium-high heat until smoking hot.
Add the onion to the pan and stir fry for 1 minute until the onions are lightly browned and starting to soften. Add the garlic, chilli and black bean and peppercorn mix to the pan, followed immediately by the marinated pork. Stir fry for a further 2 minutes, until the pork mince is separated and browned, then pour over the sauce and bring to a vigorous boil.
Add the diced tofu to the wok, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring gently so as not to break up the tofu pieces too much. Continue to bubble away until the sauce has thickened and reduced by a third but the dish is still nice and brothy. Remove from the heat.
Serve in a large bowl and scatter over the finely chopped coriander to garnish.
TIP
If your sauce isn’t thickening up properly, mix together ½ tablespoon of cornflour with 2 tablespoons of cold water and stir it into your sauce before folding in the tofu. Alternatively, if you happen to over-boil your sauce, just add a little hot water to thin it out.
To make this dish vegetarian, swap the minced pork for finely chopped soaked shiitake mushrooms.
From Chinese Unchopped by Jeremy Pang (Quadrille, £20). Click here to buy a copy for £16
Jeremy Pang’s clay-pot chicken and mushroom rice with chilli and garlic sauce
Steam in cooking does not always have to come from water boiling in a pan. In this Hong Kong dish the steam is created from the rice, and there is an art to getting the chicken into it at the right time in order to have it cook through perfectly and give you the textures you’ll want – a crispy layer of rice on the bottom of the pot, followed by fluffy, steamed rice in the middle and succulent meat on top.
Serves 4
For the chilli and garlic sauce
vegetable oil ½ tbsp
fresh red chilli 1 large, roughly chopped
garlic 2 cloves, bashed and peeled but kept whole
dark soy sauce 6 tbsp
granulated sugar 1 tbsp
chicken thighs 400g, boned, skinless
dried shiitake mushrooms 8, soaked and drained
jasmine rice 280g
water 340ml
ginger a thumb-sized piece
spring onion 1
vegetable oil 1½ tbsp
For the marinade
sesame oil 2 tsp
light soy sauce 2 tbsp
Shaoxing rice wine 2 tbsp
granulated sugar 1 tsp
cornflour 1 tbsp
To make the chilli and garlic sauce, heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Add the chilli and garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds, then add the soy sauce and sugar to the pan, bring to a boil and cook for a further 30 seconds, until the sauce has caramelised slightly but is still runny. Pour into a ramekin ready for later.
Cut the chicken thighs into 5mm slices and put in a bowl. Cut the drained, soaked shiitake mushrooms into fine slices and add to the chicken slices. Add the marinade ingredients to the bowl and, using your hands, rub them together until all the marinade has been absorbed.
Rinse the rice 2-3 times to get rid of any excess starch, then drain the rice through a sieve. Measure out the water for cooking in a jug. Finely slice the ginger and spring onion.
Build your wok clock: place your ginger at 12 o’clock, then arrange the rice, water, marinated chicken bowl and spring onion clockwise around your plate.
To cook, heat the vegetable oil to a medium heat in a clay pot or heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the slices of ginger to the oil and stir fry for 30 seconds until fragrant.
Add the washed rice to the pan and fry it in the oil for 1 minute, stirring to coat the grains evenly, then pour over the water. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, add the chicken and mushroom mix and cook, covered, over a low heat for 20 minutes.
Remove the lid and check that the chicken is cooked (it should be light brown or white in colour, with no pink), and that the rice has formed a crisp, golden brown layer on the bottom of the pan. If it needs it, leave it to cook for a few minutes longer.
Once cooked, spoon into bowls and garnish with the spring onion. Serve with the chilli and garlic sauce.
TIP
If you hear light ‘crackling’ noises from the base of the pan during the last stage of cooking, this is a good sign that the rice is crisping up on the bottom of the pan. If, however, you smell burning, turn the hob off at this point and serve the dish immediately.
From Chinese Unchopped by Jeremy Pang (Quadrille, £20). Click here to buy a copy for £16
