Pure comfort food from North China

This is a dish from up near Beijing that has become a staple of Taiwan’s military family school of cooking, for it is cheap and delicious. 

Shàozĭ dòufŭ is the sort of thing I practically subsisted on when I was perennially broke that third year. 

I would usually have it as part of a kèfàn 客飯 meal, which is an inexpensive entree served with rice, tea, and soup. A real bargain!

Something like this is pure comfort food, especially when served over hot steamed rice. It’s a complete meal in itself and is the perfect thing to make whenever the weather is lousy, you’re not feeling well, or you just need a bit of TLC.

Bean curd with ground pork

Shàozĭ dòufŭ  紹子豆腐

Northern Chinese cuisine

Serves 4

1 square medium or medium-firm bean curd (around 14 ounces | 400 g)

Boiling water, as needed

1 teaspoon salt

4 ounces | 60 g ground pork

1 teaspoon cornstarch

¼ cup mild rice wine (Taiwan Mijiu)

3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

Good quality doufu a must

1 teaspoon ground Sichuan peppercorns

Half a yellow onion, peeled and diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

6 small or 2 large wood ears, either fresh or soaked until plump, cut into thin strips

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1½ tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup | 250 ml boiling water

1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with ¼ cup | 60 ml cool water

1 scallion, trimmed and chopped

1. Cut the bean curd into small squares (about ½ inch | 1 cm all around). Bring 4 cups | 1 liter water to a full boil in a medium saucepan and add the salt. Gently slide the bean curd into the water and bring the water to a boil again. Gently pour the bean curd into a colander set into the sink, as your aim here is to destroy these cubes as little as possible.

Short on looks, long on taste

2. While the bean curd is draining, put the pork in a medium work bowl and mix in the cornstarch and rice wine until they are both absorbed.

3. Over medium heat, add the oil to the wok and fry the Sichuan peppercorns, onions, garlic, and ginger until the onions turn slightly translucent. Toss in the wood ears and pork and fry until the pork is no longer pink.

4. Make a well in the center and pour in the oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Stir these around to cook them slightly, and then add the boiling water. Slide the bean curd on top of the pork and add the black pepper and cornstarch slurry. Reduce the heat to low, and from then on simply shake the wok to stir things around, as this will help keep breakage down to a bare minimum. When the bean curd is heated through and the sauce has thickened, shake in the scallions. Serves 4.

Chinese chili chez Huang

Whenever the husband gets into a funk, I find that a really easy way to snap him out of it is to feed him. Just about anything will do, but something homey from his childhood will actually make him bounce downstairs. Today’s recipe is one such remedy.

However, we’ve been together for an eternity by now, and so I’ve put my own stamp on his mom’s classics. Here, for example, I use good old Mexican pinto beans because I’m a California girl. And a smattering of ground chiles. And he loves it. And he loves it even more if I serve this with cornbread, which also was not ever on his mother’s To Do list.

Cross-cultural pollination at work. You’re welcome.

This is super easy to throw together if you soak the beans the night before. And you always want to soak your beans overnight because their texture is so much better that way.

In fact, if you are rather unused to cooking with dried beans, here are some suggestions for getting an incredible meal out of an ingredient that is usually pretty cheap, very nutritious, and mind-blowingly good:

Barely cooked pinto beans

First, get fresh beans. Yes, they are dried, but they can’t be old. Old beans never soften up completely, no matter how hard you try, and so end up with the wrong texture and never taste marvelous. So, buy your beans from a busy market and use them up quickly. Then, whenever you clean out your cupboards and run across some old beans, turn them into pie weights or give them to some kids to turn into an art project… anything but cook with
them.

New-crop dried beans will turn soft and creamy when
treated with care, and their cooking time will also be very short. Pinto beans are particularly silky in this dish precisely because they are so fresh, were soaked overnight, and then briefly simmered with a spoonful of baking soda, which helps to cut down on the gassiness. At least, this works for me, and I’m not going to argue about it.

Second, boil them only until they are tender, but not yet soft, for they will need to retain enough character to put up with further cooking once they join the pork, onions, and broth.

Lots of garlic

And finally, don’t add salt until the very end, when they have already achieved the right degree of tenderness, because salt will toughen them up.

If you do these three things, you’ll find that beans are a delight and will end up cooking them a whole lot more often.

Chinese chili chez Huang

Huángjiā dùn dòuzi  黃家燉豆子

Northern Chinese with a twist

Serves 6

About 1 pound | 500 g new harvest dried beans, pinto recommended

Water, as needed

3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

1 yellow onion, peeled and diced

1 head garlic, each clove peeled and lightly smacked

About 1 pound | 500 g ground pork, best quality you can find

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

5 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 quart | 1 liter lightly salted broth or water

1 piece of rock sugar. about the size of a ping-pong ball | 30 g

1 tablespoon ground chiles of any kind, plus more to taste

Browning adds great flavor

1. Start this at least a day before you plan to
serve this. Pick over the beans, place in a large work bowl, cover with cool
tap water, and soak overnight.

2. The next day, drain the beans, place them in a large pan (at least 1 gallon | 4 liters in size), and cover with water. You want this large size because the beans will foam up as they come to a boil, and the high walls will help keep your stove from becoming an ungodly mess. Sprinkle in the baking soda, but do not add salt. Bring the pan to a full boil, lower it to a gentle simmer, and skim off the foam if it threatens to escape. Simmer the beans only until they are tender, around 10 minutes. Drain and rinse the beans in a colander.

3. Set a wok over medium heat and add the oil. Fry the onions gently for a few minutes before adding the whole garlic cloves. Cook these only until translucent, and then make a nest in the bottom of the wok. Break the pork into this nest and fry the pork until it has lost all pink color. Toss the onions and pork together and continue to fry and toss these until they turn golden. 

A sprinkle of chile powder

4. Pour in the rice wine, and after a few minutes add
the soy sauce, stock or water, rock sugar, and ground chiles. Bring this to a full boil, and then lower the heat and simmer these together for around 30 minutes. 


5. Add the cooked beans, simmer for about 10 minutes, and then adjust the seasoning as desired. When the beans are soft and creamy, remove the wok from the heat. Let the chili sit for a couple of hours
or overnight to allow the beans to absorb the flavor. Reheat before serving. This is great over rice or with cornbread, and it freezes very well.

Smoked pork cheeks chez Huang

Pork jowls, pork cheeks… whatever you want to call them, these are bacon-y parts of the pig that you rarely can ever find in a supermarket, or even in a high end butcher’s shop for that matter. I find this truly odd. Every pig on the planet is going to have two of these lovely chunks of meat, so where do they all go?

As for the other parts of the pig, you usually can’t find pork belly with the skin on that often, either, but at least that gets turned into bacon. But those cheeks? They look very much like the belly and have the same delicious layering of meat and fat—ribbons of red muscle interwoven with strips of white lard. I do wish Americans would get wise to this great cut of meat. Italians are sensible folks who turn this into guanciale by curing it. (Ergo, I love the Italians.) So, pester your butcher to start offering this.

Bouncy, bouncy

To get started, you will need to find yourself a good butcher shop and put in an order for jowls. Not everyone will be able to accommodate you, so look around. The delivery of this cut of meat might take a while, so do not even think about making this on the spur of the moment. While you’re doing that, order two or four pig’s ears, since we soon will have spectacular recipe for that, too. As always, make sure the pig comes from a responsible farmer who gave it a great life. And order more, if you love this, and then freeze the meat, either raw or already prepared.

Today’s recipe is one that I developed myself, and it is one that I adore. I braise the cheeks in a highly seasoned broth before smoking them. The results are out of this world. What happens is this: the salt and herbs and spices in the broth work their way into the meat and fat and skin of the cheeks over the course of about three hours. The pork cools off and firms up, and then it is smoked over tea and rice, which makes this much like the most subtle, creamy bacon you ever imagined in your wildest dreams.

That's four cheeks

The good news is that the cooking doesn’t take much time at all… you just let the chunks simmer away, and later on you plop them into the smoker. That’s it. And before you serve them, the cheeks are sliced into thin strips that are then steamed, which encourages most of the fat the exit the cells, leaving behind that extraordinary Chinese concept called yóuérbúnì, or buttery without being fatty.

You should set aside a bit of time for the prep work, though. There’s no two ways about it. Cheeks come with the skin attached, and that is definitely what you want, but pigs are hairy creatures, and the enjoyment of their skin will require a bit of effort on your part. No free lunch and all that.

Arm yourself with Chinese food tweezers (or a pair of needle-nose pliers plus regular tweezers), as well as a razor of some sort. You will have to carefully pluck out all the hairs. This is not hard at all, especially if you do this after you’ve blanched the jowls, since this tightens the skin and makes the hairs stick up a bit. But it will require you to relax, find yourself a comfortable chair and some good light, and then you will be busy plucking out as many hairs as you can find. After that you can shave off any renegades.

I like to serve this meat steamed, which will render out most of the remaining fat. The meat turns into silk at that point. I serve it over cucumber ribbons, which have a slight sweetness and bitterness that contrasts perfectly with the smoked meat. As a final touch, I like to make a garlicky vinaigrette. Perfection.

Smoked pork cheeks chez Huang

Huángjiā xūn zhū sāibāngziròu 黃家薰豬腮幫子肉

Northern Chinese

Serves 12 to 16 easily

Massive dose of flavor

Pork:

4 pork jowls with the skin on, about 4 pounds | 1.75 kgs

6 star anise

6 pieces dried licorice root

2 tablespoons Sichuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

½ stick cinnamon

½ cup white liquor (like gaoliang), or gin

2 tablespoons sea salt

6 slices fresh ginger

Smoke:

¼ cup black tea leaves

¼ cup raw rice

1 tablespoon sugar

Spray oil

Love demands sacrifices

Vinaigrette (per jowl):

4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon regular soy sauce

1. At least 3 days and up to 2 weeks before you plan to serve these, rinse the cheeks thoroughly and place them in a medium saucepan. Cover them with water and blanch the pork for 10 minutes, and then wash both the pork and the pan clean. Let the cheeks cool off until they are cool enough to handle easily. Use Chinese tweezers or a combination of needle-nose pliers and regular tweezers to remove as many of the hairs as you can. Shave off any fuzz. Rinse the cheeks again.

2. Place the cheeks back in the saucepan and cover them with water. Add the rest of the ingredients up to the ginger. Bring the liquid to a full boil and then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Slowly cook the cheeks until you can pierce them easily with a chopstick, about 3 hours. Remove the meat, shake off any spices, and discard the broth. Cool the pork and refrigerate it overnight.

Out of the smoker

3. To smoke the pork, place the tea, rice, and sugar in the bottom of your smoker. Spray the rack and lid with oil. Arrange the pork on the rack skin-side up. Set the smoker over medium-high heat and then adjust the heat to maintain a good stream of smoke, but so not that the smoke smells bitter, as this will lend a sour taste to the meat. Allow the pork to smoke for 20 to 30 minutes, turn off the heat, and let the cheeks sit in the smoker for another 10 minutes to absorb more smoke. When the pork is cool, transfer it to a container and refrigerate overnight, where it will be fine for a week or two, although it also can be frozen.

4. Just before serving, cut the meat on a diagonal across the grain. Set the slices in a heatproof bowl. Steam the pork for 30 minutes or more, and pour out the fat that accumulates into another bowl. (This fat is excellent for things like flatbreads, so keep it, if you can. It will stay in good shape as long as it is refrigerated in a closed container.) The pork is ready when the fat looks translucent. Serve as is or arrange it on a mound of cucumbers cut into thin ribbons.

5. To make a simple Chinese vinaigrette, lightly chop the garlic. Set your wok over medium heat and add the oil. Swirl it around, and then add the garlic. Sauté the garlic until it smells amazing, and then add the vinegar and soy sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning. Pour this over the cucumbers and serve immediately.

Fried gold thread buns

Happy Year of the Dog!

This is one of the first banquet foods that completely blew my mind during that initial year in Taiwan. Why fried buns like this aren’t sold everywhere in the world is beyond my comprehension. 

For, they are like doughnuts, but not as sweet. and they're like beignets, but better. And, if I'm going to get all poetic on you, these are like the toast and jam the angels must dine on. And if they don’t, I would like to know why.

Gold thread buns are a variation on silver thread buns (also known as yínsījuăn 銀絲卷), which are a variation on mántóu 饅頭, or plain steamed buns. 

Silver thread buns are, I admit, much more common just about everywhere in Taiwan and North China. And you can make them easily from this recipe by simply not adding the sweet potatoes in Step 3. It’s that simple. And this will give you something that is honestly amazing.

Steamed gold thread buns

But the sweet potatoes here are so good. They make these buns look like a gorgeous cross between sushi and eggs. Plus, that mild vegetal sweetness transforms into something magically aromatic in here.

These buns are also all about texture, for the dough threads offer up a silky quality that teases the tongue underneath the tensile outer dough wrapper. 

Mashed sweet potatoes

And that’s the reason why these buns are so beloved at big northern-style banquets, at least back when I was a student in Taipei. This was treat food reserved for holidays and weddings, not something you could get every day. And yet, even then, these hadn’t reached the absolute pinnacle of dream food status, at least in my book.

No, for that you had to fry them. And serve them with a little dish of sweetened condensed milk on the side. Yes, I understand your trepidation, since we just don’t serve bread with condensed milk in the West, but stick with me here. Try this. It’s an insane level of delicious. 

Ask your Taiwanese friends whether they’d like to try a batch and watch them start to drool as their eyes roll back into their heads. Yup, they are that good.

Wrap the mash in the dough

Fried gold thread buns

Zhá jīnsījuăn 炸金絲捲

North China

Makes 24, serves 6

1½ teaspoons bread yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1¼ cups | 300 ml warm water

Spray oil

3 cups | 450 g Chinese flour (or ⅔ all purpose flour + ⅓ pastry or cake flour), plus extra for kneading and shaping the dough

1 tablespoon softened unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup | 70 g cooked and mashed red sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or carrots

Butter up the "threads"

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar or coconut sugar

2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil, divided in half

Vegetable oil, as needed

Sweetened condensed milk, homemade or store bought, as needed

1. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water, stir them in, and wait until the yeast has a heavy head of foam, about 30 minutes. While the yeast is blooming, set up your steamer. You’ll need two baskets lined with steamer paper. Spray the paper with oil. Cover the baskets, fill the pan with water, and bring the pan to a full boil with the baskets on top. This will warm up the baskets and make them ready for the buns.

Arrange the "threads" on the white dough

2. Measure the flour into a medium work bowl and pour in the yeast mixture, butter, and salt. Mix these together to form a flaky dough, and then turn this out onto a clean work surface. Knead the dough with a bit more flour until it is as soft as an earlobe and no longer sticky. Divide the dough into approximately two-thirds and one-third. Set the large ball of dough back in the bowl and cover it with a towel to rest while you prepare your “gold threads.”

3. Pat the smaller ball of dough into a cup-like shape on a heavily floured surface and pile the mashed sweet potatoes and brown sugar into the center. Use a pastry scraper in one hand to corral the dough while you knead it with the other. Add more flour as necessary until you have a soft dough that is no longer sticky.

4. Scrape your work surface clean and then smear it lightly with oil. Flatten the orange dough out into a thin rectangle, about 18 x 9 inches | 45 x 22 cm in size. Use a pastry brush to smear half of the melted butter over the dough. Fold the dough in thirds, so that you have a packet about 6 x 9 inches | 15 x 22 cm in size. Roll this up from one of the wide edges into a cylinder about 9 inches | 22 cm long. Use a sharp knife to cut the cylinder into thin strips, about ⅛ inch | 0.3 cm wide. Lay these strips out flat on a clean work surface, brush the rest of the melted butter on them, and let them rest while you prepare the bun wrappers.

5. Scrape your work surface clean and lightly flour it. Divide the white dough in half. Working on piece at a time, roll one piece out into a thin sheet, about 20 x 7 inches | 45 x 11 cm in size. Pick up a small bunch of the orange dough threads and pull on them gently so that they turn into strings. Don’t worry if some of them break—no one will notice later on. Lay these strings lengthwise down the center of the white sheet of dough. Repeat with the orange dough threads until you have used up half of them.

6. Fold one long end of the dough over the orange dough threads and then continue to roll it up and over the orange threads to form a long rope. Pinch the end of the dough into the cylinder to seal it. Then, lightly roll the dough with the palms of your hands to even it out, and then gently pull on it to make it around 10 inches| 25 cm long.

7. Trim off the ends and cut the rope into 12 even pieces. Roll each one of the little buns to return it to a nicely round shape (see photo on the upper right). Set these on the oiled paper in the steamer and steam the buns over high heat for about 10 minutes. Once the buns have cooked through, nudge each one loose from the paper while they are still hot. Repeat with the rest of the orange and white doughs until you have formed 24 small buns. These can be frozen at this point, refrigerated and then reheated, or eaten immediately. But for pure sensory overboard, go to Step 8.

Frying up the buns

8. To fry these buns, set a 1 quart | 1 liter pan over medium-high heat and fill it with about 2 inches | 5 cm oil. The oil will be ready when chopsticks inserted in the hot oil are immediately covered with bubbles. Slide in 4 or so buns. Do not overcrowd them, as they will fry up fast, and you don’t want them to stick to each other. Turn the buns over as they brown. When they have turned a golden brown all over, remove to a plate lined with paper. Serve immediately with a saucer filled with sweetened condensed milk.