Beans & rice Chinese style

Chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) are not usually associated with China’s cuisines. In fact, until I started cooking out of the classic cookbook Suiyuan shidan I had no idea that there was even a Chinese chickpea recipe to be had. But lo and behold, they were not only eaten in the Zhejiang region 250 years ago, but they must have been around long enough before that to develop a healthy following, for the two garbanzo recipes in that book are quite good.

One that has turned out to be a favorite in our house is chickpea congee. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but just like down-home rice and beans, this is a healthy and delicious combination. The chickpeas lend a gentle nuttiness to the rice porridge, their mealy texture mingling very nicely with the silky rice. It’s hard to explain, but its simplicity is part of its charm.

The author of the Suiyuan, Yuan Mei, described this dish in his usual concise manner: “Crush chickpeas for the congee; fresh ones are the absolute best, although older ones will work. Add Chinese yams [shanyao 山藥] or fuling 茯苓, and it will be outstanding.” (Fuling—also spelled fu ling—is a type of fungus that looks something like a little coconut. Wolfiporia extensa also has medicinal properties, and it is generally only found in Chinese herbal shops.)

I cannot wait until fresh chickpeas hit the market later on in the year, as I now know exactly what to do with them!

Mash up the chickpeas

If you read Chinese, you might notice that the word for chickpeas in Chinese is, literally, “chicken bean,” and as the old English word “pease” meant beans, this looks like the name might have been adopted from some European folks. It’s strange, though, as chickpeas are such a vital part of Arabian and Indian cookery that they didn’t cause there to be a Chinese riff on the word “hummus” or “gram.” Oh well, a linguistic puzzle to gnaw on. (Chickpeas have another Chinese name, yīngzuĭdòu 鷹嘴豆, or “eagle’s beak bean,” that also has me scratching my head.)

Mr. Yuan's suggestion that Chinese yams be added is inspired because they add a delicious lightness to the porridge and subtle textural contrast with the rice 'n beans. Just like the beans, though, they should be cooked until they are v-e-r-y soft in order to make this recipe perfect. I cut them into bits about the same size as the chickpeas so that they cook quickly; see the Tips below for more information on this relatively unfamiliar tuber.

This is a gentle, nourishing dish that is perfect for breakfast or a late night snack, although I would not refuse it at other times during the day. Serve it with whatever you like. I usually surround big bowls of it with small savory things like the tribute vegetable in the previous post, some brined eggs, fried eggs, Chinese sausages, fermented bean curd cheese, toasted peanuts… even leftovers seem to shine when cossetted by such a velvety porridge. Sweets lovers could toss some of those peanuts on top along with a sprinkling of sugar or honey (maybe even a pat of butter). Fried crullers (youtiao) are excellent, too. I mean really, the list is endless.

Chickpea congee

Jīdòu zhōu  雞豆粥

Zhejiang

Serves 2 to 4

  

½ cup broken jasmine rice

½ teaspoon peanut or vegetable oil

¼ teaspoon sea salt

8 cups filtered water

1 cup cooked chickpeas (canned or ones you soaked and cooked yourself)

Optional: 1 cup finely diced peeled Chinese yam (see Tips)

1. Rinse the rice in a fine strainer, drain well, and place this in a 3-quart pot. Toss the damp rice with the oil and salt, and then let it marinate for at least an hour.

2. Pour in the water, stir, and bring the pot to a full boil before lowering the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook the rice for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Chinese yam's hairy legs

3. If you are using canned chickpeas, rinse them in a strainer under tap water. Lightly mash about half of the chickpeas and then add all of them to the pot. If you want to add the Chinese yams, do that now, too. Stir and cook the porridge a while longer until it has thickened and both the chickpeas and yams are super soft and creamy. Serve just barely hot, but not steaming. Reheat any leftovers in the microwave.

Tips

Find Chinese yams in most East Asian stores, where it sometimes is sold under its Japanese name, nagaimo. It has numerous health benefits, so it is often added to nourishing soups. These can grow to enormous lengths, but usually are sold in more manageable sections of a foot or so long.

That lovely goo

To prepare these yams, rinse off the sawdust (that's what they are packed in to keep them dry), and then use a potato peeler to remove the thin skin. The insides are smooth, white, and very slippery, and will exude a mucilaginous goo that can appear quite alarming, as there are few things that do this, other than David Bowie in "The Man Who Fell to Earth." 

Rinse off the goo, if you want, to get a better grip, but be aware that more will appear, especially as you cut it more. Unlike things like taro, though, this is not a skin irritant, but rather just looks incredibly weird. Even so, you can eat it raw, as it is mild and crisp.

Magical mystery tour... what IS this vegetable?!

If you are looking at these photos and do not have a clue as to what this vegetable is, join the club, as that was my first reaction when I ran across a healthy mound of the stuff at a dry grocer’s in Oakland Chinatown. At first I thought it was dried long beans, but no. Then I thought, seaweed? A quick sniff disproved that. Flummoxed, I asked the Hunanese owner.

           

“It’s gongcai,” he answered. “What’s it made out of?” “Gongcai,” was the answer. “I understand that, but what is gongcai?” He looked at me with an expression of exasperation and said in a quieter voice, “A dried vegetable.” After a few minutes, a couple of gears in my brain started to slowly turn and I sort of realized what it was I was looking at in those bins, as I had read of this thing called “tribute vegetable,” but had never eaten or even seen it before.

            

The shop owner reassured me that it was very tasty, very crunchy, and very easy to make. No cooking required, even. And they were beautiful arrayed with red ribbons around their bases, like dried-out bouquets. He told me how he made them, and so I took them home and found yet another thing to love about China’s dried ingredients.

            

Dried & plumped up

But one thing still puzzled me: what vegetable had been dried to make this? Googling did not help much, nor did all sorts of Chinese dictionaries. I soaked them, stared at the long, plump lengths, had an inkling of what it actually was, but nothing to confirm it.

And then one day as I was reading through the classic Chinese cookbook Suiyuan shidan 隨園食單, I found the following entry for a veggie known in the West as stem lettuce or celtuce: “There are two ways to eat stem lettuce: fresh with a sauce, which is light, crisp, and delightful, or cured as a dried ingredient, and which when sliced before eating is quite delicious. This must be mild for it to be good, as it has a disgusting flavor if heavily salted.” And that sealed it as far as I was concerned.

Celtuce (from Wikipedia)

When fresh, it is called either wōsŭn 萵筍 or wōjù 萵苣 and has the taste of romaine lettuce without the bitterness; both the stems and leaves are edible, but when dried only the stems are used. However, these stems, when peeled into strips and dried, are known as “tribute vegetable.”

As the Suiyuan author, Yuan Mei, points out, this should be salted with a gentle touch, as the heavy flavors of soy sauce would drown the fresh taste of this veggie. Too much salt would also pull the moisture out and leave you with a soggy pile. So, use only a smidgen of soy, but balance out the flavors with a bit of sesame oil, ginger juice, and sugar, as well as a nice dollop of black vinegar. This is fantastic with any sort of congee or as a cold appetizer.

Ready to eat

Tossed tribute vegetable

Liángbàn gòngcài   涼拌貢菜

Serves 6 to 8

1 bunch dried tribute vegetable (gongcai)

Cool tap water, as needed

1 tablespoon good soy sauce

1 tablespoon fresh ginger juice

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons good black vinegar

Optional garnish: cilantro and toasted sesame seeds

1. Start this in the morning so that it has time to marinate and chill for a couple of hours. Keep the stem ends of the tribute vegetable bundled, if at all possible, as this makes their trimming go much faster.

Making ginger juice

2.  Soak the dried vegetable in a pan of warm water, changing it a couple of times until the water no longer takes on any brownish color; this may take a couple of hours before the stems become a rather uniform pale green. Rinse the vegetable under running water, gently wring it dry, and then chop off all of the tough ends, as well as any raggedy leaves. Remove the tie at the stem end, if there is one, and then carefully pick over the vegetables, removing any less-than-perfect bits and detritus.

3. Rinse the vegetable again, if needed, and shake dry. Cut across the leaves to make 1-inch lengths. Place these in a medium work bowl.

4. Toss the vegetable with the rest of the ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Toss before serving as an appetizer or side dish.

Tips

Season gently

You can find tribute vegetable in some Chinese grocery and dry goods stores. In grocery stores, it will be packed in a plastic bag, but in dry goods stores it usually is stacked in bins.

Stronger aromatics like garlic and green onions can be added, as well as chili oil, but do this only at the last minute, as you want these tastes to remain on the surface of the vegetable and provide contrast to the sweet centers. Also, chopped garlic and green onions will take on an off flavor if allowed to sit too long.

Celtuce photo courtesy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtuce