Casserole for the Vernal Equinox

As the seasons slowly change and we drift from cold weather to warm and from rain to sun, lots of comfort food goes to the top of my needs. Too much change is in the air, and I want something simple and delicious to keep me grounded This simple casserole fits my needs perfectly.

Even better, I can do the drudge work ahead of time here. As eggplants always seem to want to dissolve into sludge before I’m ready to eat them, I cut them up into pieces and either deep-fry or bake them within a day or two of bringing them home. Either way, I slice the eggplants lengthwise and then cut them crosswise into halfmoons. Then, if I’m in the mood to bake, I toss them with oil and roast them until they are brown. Otherwise, I deep-fry them in small batches to achieve a similar level of caramelization.

The other main component is the bean curd. You can use whatever kind you like. For this kind of dish, I tend to prefer regular doufu, since it’s firm enough to withstand the braising without crumbling, and yet it’s tender enough to form a link with the eggplant. Because the eggplant has been fried or baked, I don’t fry the doufu, as this provides more visual and textural contrast.

Gorgeous Asian eggplants

The last-minute assembly is a great reason to have this on your short list of cool weather dishes. All you really need to do is toss everything together and bring it to a boil. If you simmer the casserole for a short time, the eggplant will stay chunky, which is nice. Or, you can simmer it slowly for an hour or so, by which point the doufu will turn spongy and the eggplant will break down into a silky sauce. And that is incredibly sexy. 

Eggplant and bean curd casserole

Qiézĭ dòufŭ bào 茄子豆腐煲

Cantonese cuisine

Serves 4

2 pounds (or so) Asian eggplant (aubergines)

Peanut or vegetable oil, as needed

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons minced ginger

½ cup | 125 ml mild rice wine (Taiwan Mijiu)

Half-moons

¼ cup | 60 ml oyster sauce or vegetarian oyster sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Water, as needed

14 ounces | 400 g regular bean curd

3 or 4 scallions, green parts only, coarsely chopped

1. Cut off the stem ends of the eggplant and then slice the eggplants lengthwise in half. Cut the eggplants crosswise into halfmoons about ¾ inch | 2 cm wide. If you want to roast the eggplant, toss the slices in some oil, place them in one layer on a rimmed pan, and bake them at 375ºF | 190 ºC. Toss them every 15 minutes or so, and remove when they are caramelized all over. To deep-fry them, put about 1 inch | 2.5 cm oil in a wok or frying pan and set over medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, fry the eggplant in small handfuls until caramelized. The eggplant can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated.

Delicious!

2. Pour the sesame oil into a sandpot or saucepan and set it over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger, and then stir until the fragrance is released. Add the eggplant, rice wine, oyster sauce, and sugar. Cut the bean curd into 3 equal slices, and then cut each slice into 4 triangles. Add the bean curd to the eggplant and pour in enough water to almost cover everything. 

3. Bring the liquid to a full boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to very low and simmer at least until the bean curd is heated through, about 20 minutes. Or, you can simmer it until the eggplant breaks down and the sauce is reduced to a thick syrup. Either way, keep an eye on the liquid so that the pan doesn’t boil dry and burn.

4. Just before serving, taste and adjust the seasoning. Toss in the scallions and heat for a minute or two to barely wilt them. Serve immediately with hot steamed rice.

My favorite Cantonese deli side dish

This is a classic side dish in Cantonese delis, the sort of thing that supplies a bit of veg to your plate of rice and, say, char siu or poached chicken. 

In and of itself, blanched lettuce with oyster sauce is absolutely delicious, but it’s even better when sidled up to something super flavorful and meaty like that.

If you’ve never had cooked lettuce, you are in for a delightful surprise. Only the Chinese could look at a big head of iceberg and transform it into something so perfectly delectable. 

A quick blanch rids the lettuce of its slightly bitter and boring edge—and the emphasis here is on quick, because you really do not EVER want to eat soggy lettuce, cooked or otherwise.

The brilliant part here is the sauce, and it’s usually what most people get wrong. You never stir-fry the lettuce with the sauce, as that leads to sogginess (see above). 

Cook like a deli chef!

Instead, you whip yourself up a simple warm salad dressing. 

Really, that’s all this sauce is. But it’s so utterly silky thanks to that undercurrent of the sea and garlic and slick of oil that it will reshape your thoughts on salad dressing. 

Blanched lettuce with oyster sauce

Háoyóu shēngcài  蠔油生菜

Guangdong cuisine

Serves 4 as a side

Lettuce:

1 head iceberg (or other crispy) lettuce, about 1 pound | 500 g

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon peanut or vegetable oil

1 quart | 1 liter boiling water

Sauce:

2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, finely minced

2 tablespoons oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee is the best)

1 teaspoon sugar

Rip the thing apart

1 teaspoon regular soy sauce

1. Rinse the lettuce, remove the core, and tear the head into pieces about 2 inches | 5 cm long—in other words, bite-sized. Ripping the leaves apart makes them crispier, and also gives them a whole lot more visual appeal. Plus, it feels good to just vent on a head of lettuce.

2. Have a colander set in the sink and a low serving bowl or rimmed serving dish ready. Add the salt and oil to the boiling water, and then stir in the lettuce. Blanch the lettuce for mere seconds—as soon as you see bright green, the lettuce is done. It should still be very crispy, but will have lost its raw edge. Dump the lettuce and water into the colander and let the lettuce drain thoroughly while you prepare the sauce.

3. Set a wok or frying pan over low heat and add the oil and garlic. Let the garlic sputter in the oil for a few minutes, since you want it to release its flavor without browning. When the garlic is translucent, stir in the oyster sauce, sugar, and soy sauce. Keep stirring this over low heat until the sauce bubbles and comes together. Immediately remove from the heat and add the drained lettuce. Toss quickly and serve. 

Here's what you want for the sauce

Notes:

Romaine lettuce also works just fine here.

As the lettuce sits, it will begin to dump lots of liquid into the bowl, for its cells are collapsing. That’s totally fine. You can pour off the liquid, if you like, as the sticky sauce will have coated the leaves very well by then.

If you want to go meatless, use vegetarian oyster sauce. Again, Lee Kum Kee’s version is the best.

Cantonese cheesy fried chicken

Guangdong is home to some of the best southern fried chicken around. Yes, Georgia and Alabama and all the rest of our own Deep South can fairly lay claim to superb fried birds.

But think about this: you marinate the chicken in a wine-infused cheesy sauce before coating it in cornstarch. Then, you fry it up nice and crunchy, then toss it with green onions and salt. Sitting down to a summer supper that stars this dish would be one even your beloved grandma would be proud to call her own!

You can use storebought nanru or use homemade. If you have never made bean curd cheese before, this is a good excuse to start. Think of brie crossed with red wine. Oh yes.

Toss in cornstarch one by one

Not much work at all here. This is pure deliciousness.

Cheesy fried chicken

Nánrŭ zhájī  南乳炸雞

Cantonese

Serves 6

12 chicken wings (about 2 pounds | 1 kg), preferably free range

3 cubes red bean curd cheese (nanru), plus 1 tablespoon of the sauce

¼ cup mild rice wine (Taiwan Mijiu)

1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger

Frying oil (used ok if it smells good)

1 cup | 180 g cornstarch

Coarse sea salt, to taste

1 finely chopped green onion

Fry till crunchy and gold

1. Start this recipe at least 7 hours before you plan to serve it to give the wings time to marinate. Pat the wings dry and cut them between the drumstick and the second section. Leave the wingtips on, if you like.

2. In a medium work bowl, mash the bean curd cheese with the sauce and rice wine. Add the ginger and the chicken, toss lightly, cover, and refrigerate for 6 hours and up to a day or so to fully marinate the wings.

3. Prepare a baking sheet by covering it with tempura or parchment paper and heat your oven to 275°C | 135°C. Just before serving, pour about 1 inch | 2 cm frying oil in a wok and set it over medium-high heat. 

Yes, you want this

4. Place the cornstarch in a work bowl and toss the wings in the starch, one at a time, so that they become fully covered. Lightly shake off any extra cornstarch, and then slide the wing into the hot oil. Don’t overcrowd the wok, so cook around 6 pieces at a time. Adjusting the heat as necessary, fry them on both sides until they are golden brown, around 7 minutes. Make sure no blood seeps out of the cut ends, as that means the chicken isn’t fully cooked yet. 

5. Transfer the cooked chicken to the baking sheet, sprinkle with some salt and green onions, and repeat with the rest of the chicken until done. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more salt, if you like. Transfer to a platter and serve hot.

Easy Cantonese hotdish

Leftovers can be the perfect starting point for a creative yet utterly delicious dinner. Case in point: what do you do with a handful of cooked mild fish? Turn it into sandwiches? Feed it to the cat? If you’re like me, you’ll happily transform this into a Cantonese casserole, otherwise known as a bao.

Good, cheap Hong Kong-style restaurants will often offer you a page filled with bao dishes because this is a lovely way to eat. In a way, this is very similar to a Midwestern hotdish because it’s a complete meal, served piping hot, and usually is constructed out of cheap cuts of meat combined with things like bean curd (aka doufu or tofu), mushrooms, vegetables, and an interesting starch, like taro.

Doufu sliced into batons

A bao is homey stuff. In fact, this should be the sort of thing a mom would make during cold weather when she’s rummaging around in the refrigerator drawers, looking for odds and ends to put together for dinner. 

It’s definitely not banquet food, and probably not something you’d serve to fancy company. Rather, look on bao as a way to feed your family with the least amount of money and effort.

Today’s recipe is like that. Use what you have and wing the rest. For example, I call for firm doufu here, but silken can be used instead—just be sure not brown it, but rather add it at the end along with the fish, since it only needs to heat through. Don’t like fish or just don’t happen to have any hanging around? No problem. Toss in some leftover roasted duck, shredded chicken, extra vegetables, or whatever you want. It’s all good.

Drain it on paper towels

The only thing you need to keep an eye on is the timing and the moisture. Certain ingredients like mushrooms, onions, taro, and firm bean curd need time to cook down, and this requires more liquid to the mix, since it boils away after a while. Tender things, though, should be added at the last minute, much like the green onions and leftover fish here. A minute or two is plenty of time for them to get heated up, but it’s not enough time for them to cook down into nothingness.

It’s really helpful if you have a small sandpot to work with, as just the looks of a lovingly used one is enough to get my appetite roaring. When you’ve had a workhorse of a sandpot for a couple of years, the bottom will look crazed and gunked up. That’s a good sign. It means that while the pottery cracked over time, the juices of whatever was inside the pot leaked out and formed a waterproof seal. I just love the way this happens and try to make my sandpots last for years until there is more gunk than pottery.

Fry up the bean curd for better texture

So, if you have a sandpot, wash it carefully by hand when you’re through and always let it air dry. Also, don’t give it too rigorous a scrubbing on the outside, but rather a simple swipe with the sponge, as you want to encourage that natural glue to keep the pot in one piece.

Cantonese bean curd and fish casserole

Dòufú yúpiàn bào 豆腐魚片煲

Guangdong

Serves 2 to 4

1 block (about 14 ounces | 400 g) firm or extra-firm bean curd

The gunk on my sandpot bottom

5 tablespoons | 75 ml peanut or vegetable oil

Half a yellow onion

6 thin slices ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup | 60 ml mild rice wine (like Taiwan Mijiu)

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups | 500 ml water

3 or 4 fresh black mushrooms

1 carrot

2 green onions

Leftover fish (about ½ cup | 100 g), or whatever you like

1. Cut the bean curd horizontally and lengthwise into quarters, and then slice it into batons. Lay the bean curd on a sheet or two of paper towels to wick up most of the moisture.

Simmer for an hour

2. Pour ¼ cup | 60 ml oil in a frying pan and set it over medium-high heat. Add half of the bean curd to the hot oil and immediately cover the pan with a spatter screen. Fry the bean curd on two sides until it is golden. Remove to a plate and repeat with the second half of the bean curd. Use any leftover oil for something else.

3. While the bean curd is frying, pour 1 tablespoon oil into a 4-cup sandpot or casserole and set it over medium heat. Slice the onions into thin strips and add them to the sandpot along with the ginger. Stir these around, and when the onion has softened, toss in the garlic. When the onions begin to take on a golden tinge, pour in the rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, and 1½ cups | 350 ml water. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and tear the caps into large wedges. Add the mushrooms and fried bean curd to the sandpot, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to maintain just a bare simmer, and cover the sandpot. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 1 hour. The casserole can be made ahead of time up to this point and reheated later on.

Add carrots, green onions, and fish

4. Add ½ cup | 125 ml water to the pot and bring it to a boil. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Peel the carrot and slice it on the diagonal before adding it to sandpot. Cover and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until the carrots are tender but still barely crunchy. Cut the green onions on the diagonal and break the fish into chunks as you desire, but try to remove any bones you find. Add the green onions and fish to the simmering pot, cover, and heat through for around 1 minute. Toss the fish gently into the bean curd and serve hot.

Lotus leaf fried rice

Long, long ago, back when I first became entranced with the magic of China’s cuisines, this is a dish that really stood out. It is simply visually exciting. And for some strange reason it's something you rarely see.

But the thing is, lotus leaf fried rice has to be one of the most spectacular things you can spring on your dinner guests.

It is insanely easy and open to all sorts of variations, depending upon what you like and what is hiding in the fridge or freezer. I have a couple of recipes for fried rice in All Under Heaven that could easily slide in here. Lots of charcuterie would work well, too, as would a completely vegetarian filling. 

However, this time of year I like to hone in on pure comfort. For me, that means the most famous of Guangdong’s roster of ­chow faan dishes: Yangzhou fried rice, but with a couple of Hong Kong-style tweaks. 

The delicious stars of this show

Instead of ham, you get that sweet roast pork called char siu. This is balanced by fresh shrimp for sweetness and snap, a healthy dose of dried black mushrooms for their insane aroma, and nutty fresh soybeans to add more than a touch of color and a solid nuttiness. 

I do, of course, include a good amount of eggs for their yellow and their butteriness, but I cook them only partially before tossing them with the rice, so that much of the eggs end up wrapping themselves around the individual grains. 

I've changed this a bit from my previously-published recipe because I love the tidy bit of clumpiness that sushi-style rice provides here, making the serving of this fried rice from big old lotus leaves a whole lot easier. You might ask why you'd want to go to the extra step of using lotus leaves here. Well, in addition to being so unexpected and pretty, they also lend a gentle perfume to the rice, a sort of echo of summers past.

Line a bowl with the leaves

Another reason to find this recipe nothing short of fabulous is that this can be made a couple of days ahead of time. Yup. All you have to do is fry up the rice and pack it in the leaves. 

Let the package cool completely, cover, and refrigerate. Then, steam the lotus-wrapped rice about 40 minutes before you plan to serve it so that it’s hot and fresh. The only caveat is that the shrimp should only be barely cooked through, since they are going to be steamed and, thus, heated once again just before serving.

You can find whole dried lotus leaves in any good Chinese market, as well as online. They keep pretty much forever if stored in a dry, cool place. But check out my other recipes that call for lotus leaves in All Under Heaven—you’ll find that these aromatic leaves somehow disappear quickly as they scent everything from congee to chicken to pork. And now fried rice joins the club. 

Time to celebrate…

Fry eggs in the well

Lotus leaf fried rice

Héyè fàn 荷葉飯

Guangdong

Serves 4 to 6

About 6 cups | 800 g cooked cold sushi-style rice (see Tips)

2 or 3 dried lotus leaf soaked overnight (see Tips)

8 ounces | 225 g (3 or 4 large) plumped-up black mushrooms

Around 4 ounces | 120 g char siu (sweet roast pork)

Around 4 ounces | 120 g fresh or defrosted raw shrimp, cleaned and deveined

¼ cup | 60 ml fresh peanut or salad oil

1 green onion, trimmed and chopped

1 cup | 150 g defrosted, shelled green soybeans (maodou or edamame), or baby peas (see Tips)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Fluffy fried rice

2 large eggs

Sea salt, as needed

Freshly ground black pepper

1. Start this at least one day before you plan to serve it, although you can also have this in the fridge ready to steam for a couple of days. This is a very forgiving and versatile and accommodating dish (see the Tips), and so consider making this ahead of time for a party. Be sure the cooked rice is fully chilled before you proceed, as this will give you much lighter and tastier fried rice.

2. Toss the cold rice with your wet hands to break down the clumps into individual grains. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and cut them into ¼ inch | 5 mm cubes. Cut the char siu and shrimp into similarly sized cubes.

Pile it into the leaves

3. Set your wok over medium-high heat, and add the oil when pan is hot. Stir-fry the mushrooms until they take on a slightly golden edge, and then use a slotted spoon to remove them to a medium work bowl. Brown the char siu before adding it to that bowl. Stir-fry shrimp for only a few seconds, until they barely turn opaque, and then add them to the work bowl along with the defrosted soybeans or peas.

4. Add the green onions to oil in the wok and quickly fry these until fragrant. Turn up the heat to high and add the cold rice. Toss it frequently as you fry it. When the rice takes on a golden tinge and starts to pop a bit, make a well in the center of the rice all the way down to the bottom of the wok. Pour the sesame oil in the bottom of the well and then the beaten eggs. Stir the eggs as they cook down then, and when they are almost set, toss the rice and eggs together, since this will allow some of the eggs to coat the rice, while other bits remain separate. Toss in the salt, pepper, and the rest of the ingredients until they are evenly distributed. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. (If you are making this ahead of time, wait until the fried rice has cooled down to room temperature before adding the shrimp. Wrap the rice in the lotus leaf as described in Step 5, cover the stuffed leaf with plastic wrap, and refrigerate it until about 30 minutes before serving.)

Poke holes in the leaves

5. Prepare a large steamer—an old wok with a trivet on the bottom works well— and have a heatproof 2-quart | 2-liter bowl ready. Wipe the lotus leaves clean on both sides. Center the leaves in the bowl (one on top of the other) with the cut stem side son the bottom and the smooth green sides facing you. Lightly pack all of the fried rice into the leaves and fold the edges of the leaves over the rice. Place an 8-inch | 20-cm wide plate over the bowl, and then flip the bowl over onto the plate. Use a chopstick to poke around 8 or so holes in the top of the leaf so that steam can escape. Set the plate in your steamer and steam the fried rice over high heat for about 20 minutes, or 30 minutes if it has been chilled.

6. To serve, cut a lid out of the top of the leaf and then set this jauntily against the rice. Serve the rice by scooping it out of the leaf at the table.

Tips

Cut open the top

Any good quality rice works well in this dish. I like California-grown sushi rice or Thai jasmine rice, but whatever you like will do. Be sure not to add any oil or butter or salt to this. You just want plain old rice here. 

Soak a couple of extra leaves here because it's hard to tell how perfect the leaves are while they're dry, and so sometimes they will look a bit ratty once they're plumped up. I like to use two leaves here just to ensure that the rice is safely contained. 

Vegans and vegetarians should feel more than welcome to substitute whatever looks good. A variety of fresh and dried mushrooms would be great, as well as braised doufu, more vegetables, and so forth. Really, just think of this as spruced-up fried rice and let your imagination take over.