Happy Year of the Horse: have some savory fish candy

This Friday is the first day of the new lunar year, and for all of us who love China's cuisines, no better excuse exists for making a whole lot of good food and inviting a whole lot of good friends over to eat.

A great thing about this Chinese celebration is that it is not relegated to one big day. You get to start out with the night before, called Chūxì 初夕, when you put up new strips of red paper around the front door with lots of good omens written on them, light some firecrackers, and indulge in whatever is available.

If you come from a fractious family, an especially wonderful thing about the ensuing two weeks is that there can be no arguing or less than happy words, as these will bring about bad luck. So have your in-laws over and feel the bliss!

You also are not supposed to cook or use knives or scissors, which can be a bit of a bother as the food starts to run out after a couple of days (some Chinese friends combat this with day after day of the same hotpot), but if you do some advance preparations, this is a great excuse not to toil away for too long in the kitchen.

Gorgeous dried filefish

And so, I like to have stuff cooked and ready for the steamer, ingredients prepped and frozen for soups, bags of jiaozi stuffed and stashed in the freezer, and a bunch of containers stacked in the fridge filled with appetizers and bar snacks so that we can have tasty things on the table in a matter of minutes.

This is an especially good idea if you have lots of Chinese friends, because now is also the time of year when they will show up on your doorstep laden with food and drink and flowers, and you need to have something to offer them in return. A pot of tea and a big batch of sugared almonds is a terrific way to make them feel welcome at these times, and if they linger on toward dinner time, pull up an extra seat or two to the table and start flinging things into the steamer and soup pot.

One bar snack I like to make that is pretty much effortless is this, something I call “fish candy.” Made from a type of pufferfish called a “filefish” that has been completely boned, flattened, and dried, this is flavorful without being too smelly, and chock full of savory notes that are deftly balanced with a touch of sugar, salt, and sesame.

This is really popular in Taiwan’s beerhouses, as well in Korea... I am not sure where it started, to be truthful. All I know is that it is ridiculously easy, super tasty, and just the right thing to set before your friends alongside some cold beer or hot rice wine. After all, it does offer not only the prospect of happy taste buds, but also wishes for a prosperous new year (niánnián yŏuyú 年年有餘[魚])!

The ingredients

Fish candy

Kǎo dānjítúngān 烤單棘魨乾

Taiwan, Korea, and elsewhere

Serves 4

Half a package (2.5 ounces or so) of dried, pressed filefish (see Tips)

Spray oil

Sweet soy sauce

Unhulled or white sesame seeds

1. Heat a toaster oven to broil, with the rack set about 3 inches from the heating element. Rinse the tilefish and pat dry. Use kitchen shears to cut the discs into ½-inch strips.

2. Spray a small broiler pan with oil. Arrange the strips of dried fish on the pan so that they are in a single layer and barely touch each other.

3. Use a pastry brush to dab sweet soy sauce over all of the fish strips, and then sprinkle the sesame seeds evenly over the fish.

The package

4. Broil the fish until it is lightly browned and the soy sauce has turned sticky. Remove from the oven, arrange the fish on a platter, and let it cool for a few minutes, as this will give it enough time to turn from soft to chewy or crunchy, depending upon how long they were cooked. Serve with cold beer or hot rice wine.

Tips

Filefish is usually found in the refrigerated section of Korean and Chinese grocery stores near the other dried seafood. I prefer the Korean brands, as they have always been of excellent quality.

I do not speak or read Korean, but the package is often labeled as being jwipo (쥐포).

Deep fried calamari Taiwan style

Sometimes the simplest preparations are the best, and this recipe is no exception. Smaller squid, or calamari, reward just about any sort of quick cooking with delicious results.

Squid by themselves are full flavored, and so they can be prepared, as here, with little more than a dipping sauce to make them complete, or they can be cooked quickly with a big handful of savory elements, their texture and lovely briny flavor more than a match for even garlic, ginger, and chili peppers. Very soon I'll provide a recipe for the fancier preparation, but today we'll look at a particularly easy way to cook squid: deep frying with just a dusting of sweet potato flour.

As we've seen before, sweet potato flour is popular in southern China, and it is especially beloved in Taiwan, where it makes almost every deep fried protein a thing of beauty.

Sprinkle on sweet potato flour

Unlike the cornstarch used in the previous recipe for chicken wings, which fries up to a thin, smooth shell, sweet potato flour is thick and crunchy all by itself. No need to fuss around with a batter here; just toss the squid in an egg white and the flour, and then carefully drop them in hot oil. That's it.

There are, of course, little things you should be aware of in order to make this dish a success. But they are so few that even a beginner cook will be able to serve these with pride the first time around.

A couple of posts back we looked at the way to prepare squid, so if you haven't read that yet, now is a good time to check it out. Squid are, as I note, not that difficult to prep, and once they are ready, this dish can be on the table in a matter of minutes. Just be sure to have that beer chilled beforehand.

Deep fried calamari 
Suzha xiaojuan 酥炸小卷  
Southern Fujian, Taiwan
Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer or bar snack

2 cups (or so) cleaned calamari or smallish (6 inches or less) squid
1 egg white
Sweet potato flour (diguafen or fanshufen)
Frying oil

Calamari coated with flour

Sea salt or fleur de sel
Dipping sauces (see below)

1. Cut the tentacle "flowers" in half at their base if they are at all large. Then, cut the calamari tubes (or bodies) into rings that are about ¾-inch wide. Lay the calamari out on a couple sheets of paper towel and pat off any moisture.

2. Place the egg white in a work bowl and beat it until it is loose and foamy. Toss in the calamari and use your fingers to mix them around so that each piece is lightly coated with the egg white. Sprinkle some sweet potato flour on the calamari and toss them with your fingers, adding more flour as you go until each piece is nicely coated. Prepare a heatproof plate covered with either tempura paper or a couple of sheets of paper towel. Heat an oven or toaster oven to about 225 F.

Gently lower into the hot oil

3. Heat a couple of cups of oil in a wok or frying pan over medium heat until wooden chopsticks inserted in the oil immediately are covered with small bubbles. Hold a lid or spatter screen in one hand while you gently slide a small handful of the calamari into the oil. Immediately use that same hand to separate the pieces with your chopsticks, but keep the lid or screen between you and the hot oil so that any moisture in the squid doesn't pop into your face. Gently move the calamari around in the oil until they are separate from each other, and fry on both sides until golden and crisp. Remove the pieces to the paper covered plate as they are done, and keep the fried calamari hot by placing them in the heated oven. Repeat these steps to fry the rest of the calamari.

4. When all of the calamari has been fried, serve it hot with some dipping sauces and cold beer.

Dipping sauces

Ketchup with some finely diced raw garlic and a bit of soy sauce provides traditional Taiwanese flavors.

If you like mayo and spice, mix some sweet chili sauce into mayonnaise, preferably Kewpie brand. 

The photo at the top shows one of my favorite dipping sauces: lots of garlic lightly fried in a bit of fresh peanut oil, with balsamic vinegar and soy sauce added at the end.

Tips

Fry until golden

Get the calamari as dry as possible, as moisture will explode in the hot oil. Water tends to cling to the insides of the tubes, or bodies, of the squid, so lightly press down on them as you pat them dry.

After you get the hang of this, you can vary the flavors by adding things like five spice powder, chili powder, or other spices to the flour. Raw garlic shouldn't be in there, though, as it will burn in the hot oil and turn bitter; save it for the sauce.

Do not cook more than a small handful at a time in a wok, as otherwise the larger amount of calamari will lower the temperature and start sweating rather than frying. They will then take a longer time to crisp up -- that is, until all of the moisture evaporates -- and the calamari will toughen up. So, just fry up small amounts at one time.

If you are preparing lots of squid here, consider using a couple of wider, deeper frying pans, or even a deep-fry cooker.

Taiwanese beer house style sausage

In my previous column I talked about the wonders of Chinese sausage stir-fried with cabbage.  I'm now going to surrender to another taste memory that centers around lop chong, but this one is dated about 10 years later when I already was a seasoned denizen of Taipei.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the beer houses (pijiu wu) that used to line the upper reaches of Zhongshan North Road in the Tianmu district. And boy, was that the best time to live in Taiwan, for in addition to the incredible restaurants that studded almost every street in Taipei, the buzzing little hives of great food and cold beer known as beer houses were always on my permanent rotation list because it just was the best way to end the week, relaxing with good friends over savory nibbles that just kept on coming until we couldn't eat any more.

Julienned leeks form the bed

One of the most popular of these Chinese tapas was a truly simple dish: slices of grilled sweet sausages lightly brushed with a soy marinade and served on a toothpick with garlic.  This was one of those redolent dishes that everybody at the table had to eat, but we never complained... the sausages were crispy and juicy, the sauces sweet and salty, the raw garlic sharp and tasty, and it all mixed so well with our icy beers that we'd often order seconds.  This dish is also a beloved street food throughout Taiwan, with people walking down streets as they nibble on fat wieners roasted on sticks, much like corn dogs.

When we moved back to California, I worked on recreating this favorite dish, and over the years it morphed into its present state, one that we love to eat on warm summer evenings with, yes, a beer or maybe some cold sake or a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio. It's now sausages chez Huang, but enough of the original fingerprints are still visible to keep this firmly in the Taiwanese corner of Chinese cuisine.

What has changed here: first out was the garlic.  I love garlic in all its forms, but too many raw cloves can be overwhelming. However, I did want the suggestion of garlic, so I started serving the sausage on thin shards of fresh leek, which has much of the same herbal zing as its earthier relative without all the fumes.  I now cut up big pillows of leeks to serve under the main event because, more often than not, I want a big mouthful of that oniony goodness to cushion to meaty burst of the sausage.

Lop chong

Next, since I can't get ahold of the fat fresh wieners that seem to be made only in Taiwan, I now rely on Cantonese lop chong. However, they're dry rather than juicy, so instead of grilling them whole, I slice them thinly on the diagonal. This makes them easy to chew and also exposes more of the sausage. 

That last point is really important because slicing them into long strips allows more of the lop chong to brown and even burn a bit on the edges, so that it ends up crispy and smoky.  I like to bake the sausage slices at very high heat, rather than broil them, as the sugar in the lop chong blackens easily. And if you do this in a toaster oven, it will end up as an incredibly economical dish, plus using a small oven helps keep the house cool.  

Just arrange the slices in a thin layer on a broiler pan (which allows the fat escape and not catch on fire), bake the lop chong until it's browned and smells delicious, and that's pretty much about it.  I drizzle some soy sauce paste or oyster sauce over the leek shards, pile the sausage slices on top, and serve.

One variation on this that we adore is duck liver sausage (yagan chang) instead of the lop chong. This is a darker meat that when done right has the subtle boozy undertone of white liquor, or gaoliang.  No matter what type of sausage you use, keep an eye on it as it broils, turning it over often so that all the pieces brown evenly. Snap up any burned offerings for yourself.


Chinese sausage Taiwanese style 
Taishi kao xiangchang  台式烤香腸 
Southern Fujian, Taiwan

Serve 6 to 8 as a small plate or tapa

1 medium leek, white part only
6 Chinese sausages
Soy sauce paste or oyster sauce

1. Cut and rinse the leek as directed in this post. Shake the leek dry and cut it sharply on the diagonal into very thin slices.  Separate the rings, fluff up the pile, and mound it on your serving dish.

2. Heat your oven to 450 degrees F.  Rinse the sausages and pat dry.  Slice them thinly on the bias into long pieces.  Separate the slices and place them on a broiler pan.  Cook the sausage slices a few inches from the upper element, turning them every minute or so as they cook so that they brown evenly. Remove the pan from the oven.

3. Drizzle the soy sauce paste or oyster sauce over the leeks. (You can also serve extra in a small saucer on the side.) Pile the sausage slices on top of the leeks and serve with a cold beverage.

Jiangxi's three cup chicken with a Taiwanese twist

Taipei during the early eighties had a strip of little dives at the upper end of Zhongshan North Road, up in Tianmu where most of the foreigners lived. 

But unlike any of the other restaurants in the area, these "beer houses," or pijiu wu, mainly catered to a Chinese clientele that reveled in what can best be described as local and very Asian tapas. These little shacks were decorated with folk art, had bamboo paneling, and offered lots of good beer, but the real draw was the food.

On Friday nights when we didn't have to work late, we would meet friends at one end of the beer house section and slowly eat our way up the hill and back down, ordering small bites of whatever was the house specialty. Many offered Taiwanese seafood creations, like fresh little oysters in a fermented black bean and fresh chili sauce, or grilled shark, or whole boiled shrimp still in the shell. Other Taiwanese specialties were often on the menu, too, like popcorn chicken, and Chaozhou cuisine held its own against the cultural onslaught with its own seafood dishes and satay beef. All of it was meant to be washed down with the cold local pilsner, and all of it was extremely good.

The dish I looked forward to the most, though, was called Three Cup Chicken. Little morsels of chicken on the bone were served in a sticky, savory sauce with loads of crispy garlic cloves, fresh chilies and green onions, chewy ginger slices, and a big handful of basil leaves that perfumed the air as much as they did the chicken.

It wasn't that hard to figure out the basic recipe, since it's all in the title: three cups (wine cups, that is) of light soy sauce, sweet rice wine, and lard (or vegetable oil). With this basic ratio, it at first seemed that this would be little more than a matter of balancing out the other flavors so that the chicken ended up in a sticky, dark sauce redolent with garlic and ginger, decorated with the brilliant greens of scallions and fresh basil, and punctuated with scarlet chilies. What I finally figured out, though, was that somewhere along the way a very clever Taiwanese chef had substituted oyster sauce for the soy sauce, which provided a nice stickiness to the chicken and added another ever-so-slightly-fishy tang to the sauce. After reading up on the subject, I found out much to my surprise that the chilies and basil were notes that we should thank Taiwan for, too. And that is the Taiwan twist.

As with so many of the dishes here, you can balance the flavors to satisfy your tastes: the garlic can be cooked until it dissolves, or you can have barely cooked cloves livening up the party in your mouth. The white parts of the green onions can be added toward the end if you want more of a bite, and the chilies can be as hot or as mild as you like. It's easy to over-sweeten this dish, though, so try not to add more sugar unless it really needs it.

Jiangxi province

Three Cup Chicken hails from the little-known culinary gold mine called Jiangxi. An inland province to the west of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, Jiangxi is usually lumped in with Jiangsu and Zhejiang and considered part of eastern Chinese cuisine. Well, maybe. But as I've cooked my way through some of its marvelous dishes, I've come to feel that (as with so many such categories) more attention was probably paid to the name rather than to the actual culinary influences in the area. For example, Jiangxi has Anhui to the north and both Hubei and Hunan encircling it to the left, with a toe in Guangdong and only a small shoulder nestled up against Zhejiang. As one Chinese author noted, Jiangxi's cuisine has strong flavors and features lots of oil, neither of which are anything like eastern Chinese cuisine.

So where does that put Jiangxi? Directly into the loving arms of hearty Hunan style cooking. Granted, Jiangxi is generally not as spicy as Hunan's, but Jiangxi's food revels in garlic, chilies, and sesame oil, and it has a creative streak that demands attention.

This was brought to mind when I recently watched a cooking show from Jiangxi that was trying to determine the best dishes the province had to offer. One chef that was interviewed figured that Three Cup Chicken was a shoo-in because it really is to Jiangxi what clam chowder is to Boston. He then demonstrated his recipe, placing a chopped-up hen he had just killed into a sandpot along with a wineglass full of sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine. I was not the least bit surprised that his dish did not win. The poor chicken didn't even get browned first, and nothing else was flavoring the sauce. What a waste of a nice hen.

Back in my beer house days, though, the Three Cup Chicken we ate was always a gorgeous assembly of herbs and vegetables, with just as much plant in there as meat, and the sauce was reduced to a lovely sheen, its flavors absorbed in the meat and guaranteeing an explosion of flavor with each bite. Basil doesn't deal with heat too well, so it was always presented as a huge garnish that we diners could then mix into the chicken, allowing us the savor the fresh, almost licorice taste of this beautiful herb before the chilies and garlic and tender chicken made themselves known.

I recommend using boneless chicken thighs here, but if you like to nibble on bones, chicken wings would make an admirable substitute. Just trim off the wing tips of 2 or so pounds of free-range chicken wings (use the tips for stock), and then whack the wings in two. In fact, if you are serving this as a beer house type of tapa, that would be just the ticket. And if you'd like to try the more traditional way of preparing this dish, check out Diana Kuan's recipe, but leave out the basil.

And if you are not in the mood for chicken, try the salmon variation I just cooked up; it's equally delicious. Jiangxi is famous for its freshwater fish, but I think that this would meet with approval if salmon ever came to be part of Jiangxi's cuisine.

Fry chicken in the sandpot

Three cup chicken 
Sanbei ji  三杯雞  
Jiangxi via Taiwan

Serves 6 to 8 as part of a multicourse meal

2 pounds boneless chicken thighs or 2 pounds chicken wings (see note above)
4 inches unpeeled ginger
16 whole cloves garlic
¼ cup vegetable or peanut oil
¼ cup oyster sauce
¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine
1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil
The white parts of 4 green onions, trimmed and diced into half-inch rounds
2 to 4 fresh red jalapeno chilies (or any other red chili), trimmed and cut into thin rings or half moons
The greens of 4 green onions, trimmed and diced
1 cup (packed) fresh basil, with the large leaves roughly chopped and all the stems removed

Reduce the sauce 

1. Rinse the chicken and pat it dry. Remove any tendons and cut the breast into 1-inch pieces, but keep the skin on.  If you are using wings instead of thigh meat, trim off the tip sections (use the wing tips for stock) and whack the rest of the wings in two. Slice the ginger into very thin pieces (you should have about half a cup); peel the garlic cloves and trim off the hard ends, but leave the cloves whole.

2. Heat the vegetable or peanut oil in a sandpot or wok until it starts to shimmer. Add the ginger slices and fry them over medium heat, stirring often, until they are golden and crispy; use a slotted spoon to remove them. Add the chicken to the ginger-scented oil and stir it as you fry it until the chicken is golden all over.  Pour in the oyster sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil, and toss in the fried ginger and the whites of the green onions. 

Three cup salmon

3. Bring the pot to a boil, cover it, lower the heat to medium-low, and then simmer the chicken until it is tender and the sauce has reduced by more than half. Add the whole peeled garlic and continue to gently cooked the sandpot with the cover on until only the oil remains at the bottom of the pot.  (The dish can be made ahead of time up to this point and reheated just before you add the final ingredients.)

4. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings. Toss in the chilies and the green parts of the onions. Sprinkle the basil over the top, place the lid back on the pot, and serve immediately with lots of hot rice and cold beer.

Variation:  For Three Cup Salmon, use 2 pounds of boneless salmon filets, but leave the skin on. Rinse the filets and pat them dry with a paper towel before cutting them into 2 by 1-inch strips (more or less). Fry the salmon with the skin side down first, but don't move it around until the skin is golden. Then turn it only two more times so that the fish doesn't break apart. Proceed with the recipe as above.

Map courtesy Wiki Commons