Hunan's honey ham with lotus buns

Lately I’ve been writing about some great meals I've eaten during my life, and my biggest and saddest realization has been that so many of the almost iconic and classical dishes of China's greatest food cultures have completely disappeared. And I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

When I worked at the history museum and other cultural institutions in the early eighties, part of my job included interpreting at the various mainland-style restaurants the directors took foreign visitors to for lunch or dinner. 

One of the favorites was Peng’s Agora Garden (Péng yuán 彭園), a wonderful Hunan restaurant that gloried in the classics of this south-central province.

These banquets were nuanced balancing acts between the rich and subdued, the sweet and savory. One dish that knocked me for a loop was a plate of seasoned meatballs steamed in small honeydews called xiāngguā 香瓜 (“fragrant melons”) that were inevitably translated as “mushmelons.” 

Caramelization at work

Be that as it may, the crisp rinds acted as firm bowls, while the juices of their gentle jade flesh wove between the pork and aromatics into an exciting broth that turned preconceptions upside-down. Was this a fruit dish? Yes, but.

And that got me to thinking about why we never see these amazing foods anymore, even in China. It’s all about street snacks and simple restaurant cooking nowadays, or chile peppers and Sichuan peppercorns, all of which I love… don’t get me wrong. 

And yet, all of us – Chinese people included – are missing out on so much by concentrating on the dishes that are easy and accessible and overly seasoned.

Take today’s recipe, for example. This blows peoples’ minds whenever I serve it. 

Thin slices of lovely cured pork are steamed with slab sugar and lotus seeds, and then served as little sammies with the caramelized sauce. It’s the perfect finale for a meal. And it’s ridiculously easy: assemble and steam. Perfection achieved.

Secret weapon revealed

Why this isn’t known and beloved by every devotee of good cooking is beyond me. Perhaps it’s because Chinese ham can’t be imported. But then again, other types of cured pork can be used instead with great results. 

I’ve tried the gamut – prosciutto and Smithfield ham were obvious subs – but in the end I returned to Hunan and its long-term love affair with charcuterie for the perfect meat.

Smoked Hunan-style cured pork (Húnán làròu 湖南臘肉) works like a dream here. Unlike prosciutto or Smithfield ham, it is not too salty, and the flavor is subtle enough to offer the requisite balance of savory and the sweet in this dish. 

Two wonderful things about this cured pork is that a) it’s made in the U.S., and b) it’s available all year around in Chinese markets, where it is vacuum-packed in plastic. You don’t even need to refrigerate it until it’s opened, and so I tend to stock up on this whenever I find a great batch.

What do you look for? Glad you asked. The commercial offerings of this type of charcuterie are generally taken from what appears to be the lower part of the ham, so that you get is basically lean meat with a nice fat layer under the skin. 

However, the meat often becomes chopped up in order to meet the package’s stated weight of 14 to 16 ounces, so you need to paw around to find one that fits the bill.

You want lean AND fat

I try to find whole pieces that are at least 3 inches (7.5 cm) wide and an inch (2.5 cm) thick. Make sure that they have a wide ribbon of fat on one end that is topped by the skin. You won’t be able to eat that skin, but it will contain lots of flavor, so don’t toss it out. The same goes for the fat: it will help to make this dish divine.

Lotus seeds are the traditional accompaniment to the ham, as is the rock sugar. But I have messed around with this a whole lot during the ensuing decades, trying to achieve some of that intense flavor and, yes, even sensuousness of the original dish. 

And I think I’ve succeeded here. You find a whole range of flavors popping up, other than the usual sweet and salty: Shaoxing rice wine, the gentle heat of ginger juice, and the caramel edge of the slab sugar combine to make this dish truly magical.

Sandwich the meat inside some lotus leaf buns, drizzle on some of the sauce, and settle in for a luxurious meal.  

By the way, if you have a copy of All Under Heaven lying around the house, you already possess a recipe for honey ham. However, I’ve tweaked it a bit (I really can’t stop doing that – occupational hazard, I guess) so that it comes out even more luscious. Let me know if you agree!

A meaty flower

Honey ham

Mìzhī huŏtuĭ 蜜汁火腿

Hunan

Serves 6 to 8

6 tablespoons dried lotus seeds

Boiling water, as needed

Around 1 pound Hunan-style cured pork (see headnotes)

2 whole pieces Chinese brown slab sugar, or 2 walnut-sized pieces of rock sugar

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons ginger juice

20 lotus leaf buns, steamed and kept hot

Slab sugar and skin

1. For best results, start this recipe the day before you serve it so that the meat and lotus seeds have time to absorb the flavors of the sauce. This also makes your feast a whole lot more carefree.

2. Soak the lotus seeds in boiling water and then clean.

3. Remove the skin from the smoked pork and set it aside for later on in the recipe. Slice the meat against the grain into thin pieces, keeping as much fat on as possible, but removing any tough membranes.

4. Arrange the meat slices in an overlapping pattern in the center of a 4-cup (500 ml) heatproof bowl so they look like flower petals. Keep arranging the slices in the bowl in a flower pattern, and tossing any irregular scraps in the center, where they will be nicely hidden. Pile the cleaned lotus seeds on top. Arrange the 2 pieces of slab sugar on top of the ham, as well as the pork skin, and then pour the rice wine and ginger juice over everything.

5. Prepare a steamer and bring the water in it to a full boil. Place the plate in the steamer and steam for about 1 hour, until the meat is very tender and the lotus seeds are soft. Taste a lotus seed to ensure that it is cooked through.

A thing of beauty

6. For best results, let the bowl come to room temperature, cover, and chill overnight. About half an hour before serving, steam the bowl once more to heat it through, about 20 minutes. Remove the plate from the steamer and carefully pour the sauce off into a wok or pan. Bring the sauce to a boil and reduce it until it is thick and caramelized and bubbly.

7. Invert the pork onto a rimmed plate, arrange the lotus seeds around the edge, and then pour the sauce over the meat and lotus seeds. Serve with the hot steamed lotus buns. Have each diner open up a bun and insert a slice or two of the meat. These are to be eaten like tiny sandwiches; the lotus seeds can be picked up with chopsticks and eaten as a garnish.

Fast and easy Hakka charcuterie

(A quick note to my lovely blog readers: This is a repeat from around four years ago, but it is a dish that truly deserves your love. I'm finishing up the final proofreading for ALL UNDER HEAVEN, so that's my excuse for being a bit lazy this week. Anyway, this recipe is easy, delicious and shows a great way to make Chinese cured meat with minimal effort, so here you go...)

Charcuterie is considered by most of us in the West as a European concept. When we think of such marvelous inventions as sausages, cured meats, salted pork, and brined bits of pig, we almost instinctively bring up images of foods from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Germany, as well as Eastern Europe and a couple other places where the art of charcuterie is honored and has been honed to shiny perfection.

Asia is generally not thought of as a hot spot for preserved meats, but hidden away in China are some of the most mouth-watering preparations you've never seen.

And to those of you who love Chinese cuisine, this should come as no surprise, for her dried and preserved and brined and salted ingredients are what give these incomparable foods their uniquely Chinese flavor. For example, beans are salted and cured to make everything from fermented black beans (dòuchǐ 豆豉) to yellow bean sauce (dòujiàng 豆醬) to crispy bean sauce (dòusū 豆酥) to even soy sauce.

Really, this could not be easier

Vegetables are given a similar treatment to turn them into xianwei (aka umami)-rich condiments like "plum vegetable" (méicài 梅菜) and Tianjin's garlicky "winter vegetable" (dōngcài 冬菜), their flavors now nowhere anything like that of fresh leafy veggies, but more like pickles adept at the art of subtlety and subterfuge.

Like so many of these vegetal creations, meats - including just about everything that swims, crawls, or flies - can count on some the folks in some corner of China eyeing it for possible preservation. Although these techniques were initially designed to carry people through the coldest months of winter, nowadays when refrigeration and freezers make this little more than a past concern, cured things serve more than ever as easy and delicious ways to add depth of flavor to just about any dish.

When I lived in Taipei, one of my favorite haunts for hunting down these ingredients was South Gate Market. It had everything: fresh fish and meats, counters full of vegetables and fruit, stalls filled with women busy making local foods, bins piled with candy and dried ingredients, and a special section that arrayed dried and cured animal parts.

There really is no other way to describe it. These were animal parts in all their wondrous incarnations: split whole fish, strings of sausages, and smoky pork legs all held from the ceiling on long poles, especially in the weeks leading up to the Chinese New Year. Flattened dried octopus and squid were hung up in fantastical dioramas. Splayed chickens, ducks, geese, and even squab and quail hovered over the merchants like aromatic angels.

Depth through aromatic seasoning

And the best part was that the making of these delicious ingredients called on traditions from all over China. Yes, Nanjing is known for its great salted ducks and Guangdong for its sweet pink sausages and Hunan for its smoky pork, but people from other areas arranged their families' specialties too around the edges of the market in anticipation of the steady stream of customers that packed the aisles.

Not everyone bought their charcuterie, though. Some, like my late father-in-law, who was Hakka Chinese, enjoyed making their own, which is perfectly reasonable since these meats are often quite easy to make, as with today's recipe.

Without a doubt the master of the family kitchen, Gonggong was a great cook and loved the things that reminded him of his ancestral home in rural Guangdong. He used to make cured meats and sausages when the family still lived in Taiwan, and this is very similar to one of his recipes.

The meat has no saltpeter or curing salt in it, so it of course turns brown as it cures. The peppery crust, though, completely seasons the meat and seems to permeate every cell. This recipe will provide you with extra Ground Roasted Salt and Pepper, which you will soon find many uses for, as it is one of those seasoned salts that seem to complement just about every type of protein, including bean curd and eggs.

Spice-crusted salt pork Hakka style  

Dry-toasted salt & spices

Kèjiā xián zhūròu 客家鹹豬肉
Hakka

Makes about 1 pound, 

plus an extra ¾ cup or so of the Ground Roasted Salt and Pepper mix

1 pound natural pork belly

3 tablespoons white liquor (gaoliang; see Tips)

4 tablespoons whole Sichuan peppercorns

2 tablespoons whole white peppercorns

2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

½ teaspoon five spice powder

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

5 tablespoons sea salt

½ teaspoon sugar 

1.  Rinse the meat and pat it dry. Cut it lengthwise into 3 or 4 long strips. (You can keep any skin on, if you want, as it will be removed before you cook the salt pork.) Rub every inch of the meat with the white liquor and let it marinate while you prepare step 2.

Gorgeous pork belly with the skin on

2. Dry fry all of the peppercorns, five spice powder, fennel, and salt (but not the sugar) over low heat until the peppercorns start to pop and the salt turns a darker color. Cool the seasoned salt and then grind finely. Mix about 3 tablespoons of the seasoned salt with the sugar, and then rub this mixture all over the pork strips so that every single area is thoroughly coated. (The rest of the seasoned salt should be sifted and all of the larger grains tossed out; store the fine salt in a covered jar, where it will stay fresh for weeks.)

3. Place the coated pork strips in a plastic container or resealable plastic bag along with any of the white liquor and seasonings that are still hanging around. Cover the container or close up the bag and refrigerate for at least 4 days. Shake the pork around twice a day so that each area of the meat gets evenly cured.

4. Try a piece to see if it is done to your liking by cutting off an inch and rinsing it thoroughly. Slice it thinly and fry without extra oil; it should have a wonderful aroma of spices and liquor, and you will not need to add any additional seasonings. If you want to let it get more infused with the flavors, leave it in the cure for another day or two. When it's just as you like it, pour off all of the juices and liquor, but don't rinse off the pork. Just remove the amount of pork that you want to cook and keep the rest refrigerated. It will stay perfect for at least a week.

Tips

As always, use the best natural pork available. The pork can come with skin or without, as it doesn't matter here.

Try to get pork that is half fat and half meat. In Chinese, pork belly is known as wǔhuāròu 五花肉, or "five flower meat." What this means is that you should ideally have a nice layer of fat under the skin, then a layer of pink meat, then a layer of fat, then a layer of meat followed by a layer of fat. There might even be six layers if you are lucky, although four layers is fine, too. 

This layering in pork belly is what makes the cut so luscious when cooked right. As with Dongpo Pork, the fat acts as a buttery interlude between the thin layers of muscle, rendering them tender and juicy. 

The best white liquor for this and other cured meat recipes is, in my opinion, Taiwan's gaoliang liquor. The island of Kinmen (aka Jinmen) off the coast of Fujian is renowned for its gaoliang, and while it costs close to $30 for a bottle, it lasts a long time and possesses a wonderful fragrance. If you can't find it, use some other clear Chinese white liquor, or even gin or vodka.

Be sure and sift the leftover seasoned salt before you use it. Sichuan peppercorns, in particular, can be really annoying if left in largish pieces, as they become rock hard and end up feeling like sand between the teeth.

Nanjing salt water duck

Summer months in Taipei could be—and almost invariably were—brutal. The heat and humidity were completely enervating, and on days and nights like those it was very difficult to work up enthusiasm for food. 

But man (and woman) cannot survive on ice cream and beer alone, so the people who live in the more sticky parts of China (and I have to point out that this covers pretty much the entire country) have come up with some pretty amazing summer foods.

This simple yet breathtakingly delicious duck dish is one such example. You can’t find too many dishes easier than this, but few people seem to make it at home anymore, and I would like to change that. It is salted overnight, braised in no more than water, salt, and aromatics, and then refrigerated overnight, and that’s that.

I have come to like duck legs here in the States. For one, they are a heck of a lot cheaper than buying an entire bird, they slice up easily once cold, and they are almost all meat. 

If you do not have a heavy cleaver, get duck breasts, which can be easily removed from their cradle of bones and then simply sliced once cooked.

Rub salt and spices into the duck

Who knew duck was a great hot weather option?

Nanjing saltwater duck

Nánjīng yánshuĭ yā  南京鹽水鴨

Zhejiang
Serves 6 to 8

Duck and salt rub:

4 whole duck legs (legs and thighs attached) with skin on

2 tablespoons coarse sea salt

2 teaspoons five spice powder 

2 teaspoons ground Sichuan peppercorns

Braising liquid:

2 green onions, trimmed but left whole

1 star anise

5 slices fresh ginger

2 teaspoons sea salt

Filtered water

1. Start this two days before you wish to serve it. Rinse the duck legs, pat dry with paper towels, and pluck off any pinfeathers you find, as well as thin yellow skin. Place the legs in a plastic container. Sprinkle them with the salt and spices, and then rub these thoroughly into every part of the legs. Cover the containers and chill the duck legs for about 24 hours.

Sichuan peppercorns give a clean flavor

2. The next day, rinse the duck legs thoroughly in plenty of cool tap water, being sure to get rid of all the salt and spices. Place them in a small saucepan and add the braising ingredients, as well as water to barely cover. Bring the water to a full boil, then lower the heat to a bare simmer. Poach the legs for 30 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat. 

3. Let the legs cool in the braising liquid. Remove the cooled legs to a resealable bag and refrigerate overnight. Just before serving, use a very sharp heavy cleaver to hack the legs into ½-wide slices. Serve cold or just slightly chilled.