Dried orchid blossoms

The name alone of this dish is enough to make me smile. In Chinese it’s simply “dried orchid blossoms,” with no other clues as to what is involved. Does it look like an orchid? Or taste like a flower? Or even possess a single petal? Nope.

What this is is a uniquely delicious dish with the most marvelous texture, something that I’ve never found in any other bean curd creation. The secret lies in the fancy knife work, which actually is not at all fancy once you get to know the secret.

We used to buy plastic bags of this when we strolled around downtown Taipei. Certain shops were known for their braised dishes – called lŭwèi 滷味 – and this is a code for the soy sauce marinade. Just about any protein can be turned into luwei, including meats, poultry, eggs, gluten, and bean curd, and the key to making something special lies in a) how the protein is prepared and b) what goes into the marinade.

Up close you can see the beauty

Soy sauce really is the common denominator, and the other usual suspects are ginger, green onions, spices like star anise and cinnamon, rice wine, and sugar. Meats and birds tend to be blanched before they are tossed in the pot, while eggs are hardboiled and peeled, but gluten and bean curd often have unique little steps added to the procedure. This makes complete sense when you think of how many Buddhist vegetarians and vegans there are in China and how Chinese people love to eat, so something had to be done to make meals delicious even if they are meatless.

The luwei braise

Case in point: Dried Orchid Blossoms. They really are nothing more or less than pressed bean curd, those leathery little squares that honestly have little flavor on their own. But with the proper preparation – as here, of course – they turn into something amazing. Again, the key is knowing how to cut these into intricate latticework, as they become not only beautiful, but this opens up each morsel to the hot oil, which in turn puffs the bean curd up into a glorious sponge.

The marinade is open to interpretation. Use whatever spices and aromatics you like. Make it spicy, make it mild, make it how you want. If you are a strict Buddhist, leave out the wine and aromatics. Whatever you do, be sure and add a bit of sweetness to the mix, as this plays well off the slightly sour taste of the bean curd.

I heartily recommend making this a day or two ahead of time, if you can stand the wait. The flavors deepen as the squares soak up the marinade, and each bite becomes memorable. So, make more than you think you want. No matter how much you make, you will end up wanting every last bit, believe me.

Intriguing shapes, delicious all around

Dried orchid blossoms

Lánhuā gān  蘭花乾

Jiangsu

Serves 8 to 12 as an appetizer or snack

Bean curd:

24 ounces | 680 g pressed white bean curd (dòufŭgān 豆腐乾), at least ¾ inch | 1.5 cm thick

Boiling water, as needed

Frying oil, as needed

Marinade:

¼ cup | 60 ml regular soy sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

¼ cup | 60 ml mild rice wine

Around 1 tablespoon rock sugar, plus more to taste

1 stick cinnamon

2 star anise

3 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed

5 slices fresh ginger

4 green onions, trimmed but left whole and tied into knots

Parallel chopsticks, vertical cuts

To serve:

2 green onions, trimmed and finely shredded, optional

Chile sauce of any kind, optional

1. Cut the squares apart, if needed. Place the pressed bean curd in a pan and cover with boiling water. Bring the water to a full boil, dump everything into a colander set in the sink, and then place the squares on a clean tea towel to dry off.

2. To shape the dried orchids, first find a pair of chopsticks that are about one-third the thickness of the bean curd. Place a chopstick on either side of one of the squares. Make vertical cuts from the top down to the chopsticks about ¼ inch | 0.5 cm  apart. Turn the square over and place the two chopsticks at a right angle to each other and set the square inside. Starting from the inside corner of the angle, make diagonal cuts down to the chopsticks again about ¼ inch | 0.5 cm apart. When you reach the middle, turn the square 180° so that the uncut portion sits against the chopsticks, and then continue to cut this area on the diagonal. Once you are done, if you gently pull on either end of the square, it will open up into an accordion. This is called the “coir raincoat cut,” if you’re interested. Repeat with the rest of the squares until done.

Perpendicular sticks, diagonal cuts

3. Set a wok with about 2 inches | 5 cm of frying oil over medium-high heat. Slide 2 of the opened squares into the oil, making sure that they do not touch. Fry them on both sides until they are light brown and hard to the touch, which will take about 7 minutes. While they are frying, use your chopsticks to pull on them at each end to open them up, which will turn the squares into lacy rectangles. Remove them to a 2-quart | 2-liter saucepan. Repeat with the rest of the bean curd until all are fried.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan and add boiling water almost to cover. Bring the pot to a full boil and then lower to a slow simmer. Cook the bean curd uncovered for about 2 hours, gently tossing them now and then. Turn off the heat and let this sit covered overnight. They are best if refrigerated for a day or two so that the flavors really seep in, and they keep for at least a week in the marinade. To serve, cut the rectangles into ½ inch | 1 cm wide strips and serve with chopped green onions and chile sauce, if desired.

These are quite beautiful every step of the way. Here's a glimpse of them frying:

Summer on a plate: celtuce tops with sesame

This is just about as close to a summer salad as China gets, and it's one of my favorite recipes from Chengdu. 

The two basic things you need to aim for here in this dish are absolute freshness in the vegetable and nuttiness in the sauce. So, ideally, the day that you plan to serve this is the day that you buy your celtuce. That morning, bring the whole celtuce or celtuce tops home, trim and slice them up as directed, and rinse well before soaking them a couple of hours in ice water, as this will help to crisp them up even more.

Not everyone has the luxury of shopping when it’s best for the vegetables, so if circumstances force you to buy the celtuce a day ahead of time, rinse the vegetables in cold water, shake them dry, wrap them in a tea towel, place the towel in a plastic bag, and refrigerate. Then, trim and slice them as needed before soaking them in the two cold baths of saltwater and ice water to clean them thoroughly and restore their juiciness.

That second point I mentioned was nuttiness, and to achieve that, the sauce calls for three kinds of toasted sesame: paste, oil, and a seed garnish. Together these will supply you with a nice range of warm flavors.

Fresh celtuce heads

However, not all sesame pastes are made alike. If you don’t use either homemade or a good store-bought sesame paste, the flavor might be a bit off. The same thing goes with toasted sesame oil: as always, aim for the absolute best. Korean and Japanese brands are often excellent, and I always buy mine in large (56 ounce/1656 ml) cans because this is a staple in my kitchen.

But that doesn’t mean that only serious Chinese chefs need to be this persnickety about their ingredients. Even if you are just an occasional East Asian cook, buy only pure sesame oil. Look at the ingredient list, which should tell you that it is 100% sesame oil with no fillers, like cottonseed oil and the like. (Kadoya is my go-to brand, but others are available in Asian supermarkets and online.)

As for the sesame seeds, try to get them in bulk bins, where you can smell and taste them for freshness, and then toast them yourself, which will only take a few minutes. You can even go from there to making your own sesame paste. And that will change your world because the flavor is unparalleled.

I get the big tins

If your store-bought sesame paste or sesame oil lacks oompf, substitute a bit of good peanut or almond butter to ramp up the flavors. Or, you can use all peanut or almond butter here (in fact, any good nut butter would do as long as it’s toasty), if you prefer.

One thing that you must pay attention to when you make this is the emulsification of the dressing ingredients. Just as with a good handmade mayonnaise, you need to whip in air while incorporating the ingredients. Ice water is gradually introduced, too, which will lighten the sauce both visually and texturally.

This is actually the secret to making great sesame sauce, because if you leave out the ice water, the texture stays thick and viscous, but the slow addition of ice water smooths out the sticky paste and makes it thin enough to drizzle over the celtuce, while remaining thick enough to cling to the leaves. Finally, the two oils are beaten in and make the dressing stable. This step is not at all hard, but it will make this dish absolutely superb.

Do note that this will make twice the amount needed, but it stores well for a couple of days in the refrigerator and can be used for another round of celtuce or as a new-fangled salad dressing or for cold noodles Sichuan style.

Celtuce tastes very much like romaine lettuce, so if you don’t have access to celtuce, that’s your substitute. Try to use the hearts of the lettuce, as they will be tenderer and milder, as well as easier to serve and eat.

The genuine Chinese vegetable has other attributes, though, that make it well worth seeking it out. For one thing, it’s beautiful. For another thing, it’s crunchy beyond belief. The brilliant jade of the stems also makes them visually tantalizing. Those stems add another layer of texture and flavor to the leaves, so that your tongue and teeth have even more to play with as you ravage your way across the plate.

I have absolutely no control when faced with a perfect plate of celtuce tips with sesame dressing. And I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.

Silky and delicious

Celtuce tips with sesame dressing

Májiàng yóumàicài  麻醬油麥菜

Sichuan

Serves 4 as an appetizer

  

Celtuce:

1 head celtuce (around 6 ounces/150 g) that should be mainly composed of young leaves, along with tender stem tips

Ice water and ice cubes, as needed

2 teaspoons sea salt

Dressing:

4 tablespoons toasted sesame paste, well stirred

2 teaspoons powdered sugar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons pale rice vinegar

2 tablespoons ice water

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1½ teaspoons chile oil, or to taste

½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

 

Celtuce head cut up

1. Rinse the celtuce leaves thoroughly and trim off any tough or damaged parts. Cut the heads lengthwise into sixths or eighths so that you are left with long, thin, easily manageable wedges, and then cut the heads crosswise to make pieces about 3 inches/8 cm long. Set a serving platter in the refrigerator to chill.

2. At least 3 hours before serving, dissolve the salt in about a cup of cold water, toss the celtuce with this, and add more ice water to cover. Soak the celtuce in this saltwater bath for 15 to 30 minutes to cleanse it and reduce any lingering bitterness, then rinse and shake it dry. Finally, soak the celtuce in ice water to cover for at least 2 hours; toss in a good handful of ice cubes to make the leaves super crisp.

3. To make the dressing, use a whisk to beat together the sesame paste, powdered sugar, and soy sauce in a small work bowl until they are very smooth and creamy. Beat in the vinegar until it is smooth, and then slowly beat in the ice water in small dribbles as if you were making mayonnaise by hand, as this will give you the ethereally silky texture this sauce requires. Finally, beat in the sesame oil and chile oil until the dressing is once more smooth and very light. Taste and adjust the seasoning as desired.

4. Once you have the dressing ready, drain the celtuce and use a salad spinner to remove any remaining water, or else wrap the leaves in a dry tea towel. Arrange the leaves attractively on the chilled platter. Drizzle the dressing over the celtuce leaves, and then sprinkle the sesame seeds on the dressing; you can reserve some of the dressing, if you like, and offer it on the side. Serve immediately.

 

Bolting head of celtuce

Tip:

When choosing celtuce leaves, select heads that are stiff with undamaged leaves and freshly cut stems. These are often sold in sealed bags, so you sometimes have to wing it. Even so, try to feel around the middle of the heads to ensure that there are no flowering stems. If the celtuce has started to bolt, it will not be as sweet, and you’ll have fewer leaves since most of the plant’s energy will have been directed toward setting blossoms.

Toasted sesame paste

Májiàng 麻醬

Makes about ¾ cup (160 g)

Unlike the Middle East, which prefers its sesame paste raw, Chinese people like it toasted so that the full flavor of the seeds comes to the forefront. You can buy sesame paste in any Chinese market, but unless you get the right brand, you’ll most likely find it mixed with cottonseed oil or sugar or other unnec­essary ingredients.

Plain but delicious sesame paste

1 cup (140 g) toasted sesame seeds

5 tablespoons or so toasted sesame oil

Sea salt, optional

1. Use a small food processor or a good-quality blender. Pour in the seeds and add a few tablespoons of the oil.

2. Puree the seeds on high, gradually adding the rest of the oil until you have a relatively smooth paste. Season the sesame paste with salt, if you plan to use it like peanut butter, but for Chinese recipes it is best to leave it unsalted. Store the paste in a covered jar in the refrigerator.

Chinese style hummus

Hummus is very popular around our place. My husband and I are usually busy writing whenever lunchtime rolls around, and so I’m always happy to find something easy for those days when we are both famished and too busy to fuss with anything too complicated, but still long for something delicious. And that’s why hummus so easily fits the bill. 

But one day I started thinking about hummus (I’d never really given that much thought about it before, to be honest) and realized it could be made even more tasty – in my humble opinion – if it were given a Chinese twist or two. 

So, out with the tahini and in with the toasted sesame seeds. Rice vinegar takes the place of lemon, and fish sauce subs in perfectly for salt. Garnish it with your favorite chile oil (really, you want something with crunchy stuff here), toasted sesame seeds, and scallions or cilantro or both, and suddenly you have the best of both worlds.

Crunch, flavor, & nuttiness

I love this so much that I often make a breakfast sandwich by slathering way too much hummus between two slices of toast. Come lunchtime, and I’m more in the mood for vegetables, so out come the carrots, jicama, cucumbers, and whatever else is hanging around in the fridge.

This makes a lovely gift, too, and since you’ll have about five cups of the stuff, you might be able to bear parting with a cup or so if you’re feeling generous. If not, I totally understand.

By the way, the Chinese name for garbanzo beans – or chickpeas – is literally “raptor’s beak beans.” Check out the little beaks on these guys… they remind me more of parakeets (or budgies) than eagles, but I wasn’t the one in charge of handing out names that day.

Chinese hummus chez Huang

Huángjiā yīngzuĭdòu níer  黃家鷹嘴豆泥兒

Makes about 5 cups | 1200 g

Hummus:

Definitely parakeets

1½ cups | 300 g dried chickpeas (see Note)

1 teaspoon baking soda

Water, as needed

8 ounces | 225 g toasted sesame paste

¼ cup | 60 ml pale rice vinegar

6 cloves garlic

½ cup | 125 ml cool water

2 tablespoons fish sauce

To serve:

Homemade chile oil, preferably with crispy bits

Chopped scallions and/or cilantro

Toasted sesame seeds

Cucumber spears, carrots sticks, or what have you

1. At least one day before you plan to serve this, place the dried chickpeas in a medium work bowl and cover with cool water by at least 2 inches | 5 cm. Soak the beans overnight, drain them well, rinse, and place them in a medium saucepan.

Ginger & garlic - lots of it

2. Cover the beans with fresh water, add the baking soda, and bring them to a boil. As they get ready to boil, a massive cloud of foam will rise up, and you need to stir this down, scoop it off, or remove the pan from the heat – it doesn’t matter which you choose to do, as long as it doesn’t flood your stove and make a horrible mess. Lower the heat and simmer the beans until they are tender, about 5 minutes for relatively fresh beans.

3. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse. Place them in a food processor with the sesame paste, vinegar, garlic, water, and fish sauce. Pulse the beans until they are a fine paste, stopping the processor every once in a while to scrape down the sides. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Scoop the hummus into a container and refrigerate it if you are not using it right away. 

4. To serve, mound the hummus in a low bowl and drizzle it with chile oil. Garnish it with the scallions and/or cilantro and the sesame seeds. Serve it with whatever you like.

Note:

Fresh beans are a must hear  They cook up almost instantly that way, and they have a wonderfully creamy texture as a result. Garbanzo beans - aka chickpeas - are best bought in bulk, where they are cheapest. Just be sure to buy them from a place with a busy turnover, like a health food store or a Middle Eastern grocery. 

A high summer appetizer from Hangzhou

It's mid-summer, and so nowadays my refrigerator always has celtuce in it. 

This southern Chinese vegetable is crisp and refreshing, but for some strange reason no one knows about it but the Chinese.

I have written about celtuce many times before on this blog, but no matter. 

Today’s recipe is so simple and so downright delicious that I really cannot wait to tell you about this cool appetizer seasoned with little more than ginger juice and balsamic vinegar. Refreshment on a plate.

Four fine candidates

First of all, find yourself a Chinese market. That is about the only place you’ll be able to hunt these down. 

This time of year is the perfect time for celtuce (pronounced SELL-tuss, since it’s a smashed-up contraction of celery + lettuce… don’t blame me, I didn’t name it) or stem lettuce (only slightly more helpful) or wōsŭn just in case you need to ask a clerk to direct you to the right bin.

Now pick them up and feel those stems. They should be heavy and firm, as that means they’re juicy. They shouldn’t have a huge scab on the cut end, because that shows you they are relatively fresh.

The next thing you do is check out the leaves. Most will probably have been removed, but you should still see some at the very top. The leaves should be green and energetic rather than yellow and floppy. 

Peel down til you see pure jade

Now look at the very center of the leaves. No flower stem? Perfect. If it’s starting to bolt, all the energy will be directed into those blossoms and the stem will in turn be tough and stringy, as well as hollow and dry.

When you get home, rinse the stems lightly and pack them in a plastic bag before refrigerating them, as this will help perk them up a bit. Consider them as nascent flowers at this point.

Celtuce is really good in stir-fries, but I adore it raw. Now that it’s so hot out, keep this recipe in mind for an easy side for dinner. And if you have a good bunch of celtuce leaves on hand, too, nothing is more delicious than this Sichuan-style salad. Nose-to-tail dining for the vegetarian set!

Briefly salt the celtuce

Hangzhou-style fresh celtuce stems

Jiāngzhī wōsŭn 薑汁萵筍

Zhejiang

Serves 4 as an appetizer or side dish

Celtuce:

4 hefty celtuce stems

1 teaspoon sea salt

Sauce:

4 inches | 10 cm fresh ginger

2 tablespoons agave syrup or sugar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Freshly grated ginger

½ teaspoon sea salt

1. Cut off both ends of the stems and use a peeler to remove both the tough outer skin and the white webbing inside. Slice the stems into even batons of any size. Place them in a colander set in the sink and toss them with the salt. They will quickly look moist, which is a good thing. Let them sit there while you prepare the sauce.

2. Grate the ginger and use your fist to squeeze out all the juice. Mix this juice with the sweetener, vinegar, sesame oil, and salt.

3. Pat the celtuce dry with a paper towel and then arrange it on a rimmed plate. Pour the sauce around the celtuce so that the vegetables keep their beautiful jade color. And that’s it.

Crunchy taro scallion breads

It’s hard to improve on perfection, but sometimes you just have to try. 

Case in point: Taiwan’s fried scallion breads. I’ve covered those classic snacks before, in All Under Heaven, plus a pumpkin variation here on the blog, but today I’m here with a very fine variation, one that I’m sure you’ll love, too.

Three things make this recipe unique. 

First, I took a clue from the big raised scallion breads of the North (dàbĭng 大餅) and used yeasty bread dough instead of plain flour and water. This puffs up the pastries and makes them super light. Now, this is important because of factor two:

A really good taro root

The taro in here. It’s no secret. I love taro. There’s something about its sweet warmth that equals total food comfort to me. 

And so, whenever I find an especially good taro root, I peel it, cube it, and freeze it so that I can satisfy my cravings quickly and with little fuss. 

To make the mashed taro, just steam the taro until it’s soft all the way through, which should not take more than 15 minutes. Mash the cooked taro with a fork until it’s smooth, and that’s it. And because the taro is starchy, you also need factor three:

Steamed taro cubes

Olive oil. Yes, I know, this is not traditional, but my Chinese friends are coming to love it almost as much as me, not only for its flavor, but also for its health benefits. You don’t have to use extra virgin. Regular is perfect for this.

The olive oil lends a great creaminess to the taro and also crisps up the dough like nobody’s business. 

I’ve tried other oils here, and olive oil is the way to go. You can slip some toasted sesame oil into the filling, if you want, but sesame oil is so strongly flavored that it tends to out shout the taro’s subtle aroma.

Finally, be sure and sprinkle the fried breads with some really good salt. This makes each mouthful a joy.

For a complete breakfast, you can top the breads with a fried egg. 

Sprinkle on the fillings

To do this, wait until the bread is fried to a golden crisp, and then set it to one side. Add a touch more oil to the pan and crack an egg in there. Then, immediately squoosh the bread down onto the egg so that it cracks the yolk and welds to the egg. Fry the egg just until it’s cooked to your liking, and you’re ready to eat.

Crunchy taro scallion breads

Yùní cōngyóubĭng  芋泥蔥油餅

Taiwan

Makes 4

2 teaspoons bread yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

1 cup warm water

2 cups | 320 g Chinese flour  (or 1⅓ cups | 210 g all purpose plus ⅔ cup | 110 g pastry flour)

Fold the long edges over

About 1 cup olive oil, plus more as needed

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ cup | 100 g taro, cooked and mashed

½ cup | 50 g finely chopped green onions

½ cup | 120 ml water

Flaky salt, like Maldon

1. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar on the water and wait until the yeast foams, about 20 minutes. Place the flour in a large work bowl and mix in the yeasty liquid until you have coarse flakes, then turn it out on a board and knead until supple. (You probably won’t need more flour.) Lightly oil the bowl and toss the dough around in it to cover it with the oil. Place a towel or plastic wrap over the bowl and let the dough rise to twice its size, punch it down, and let it rise once more.

Coil the dough into a snail

2. Lightly oil your counter and a Chinese rolling pin. Have a pastry scraper ready, too. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Working on one at a time, roll the dough out into a rectangle, about 12 x 4 inches | 30 x 10 cm. Brush the surface with around a tablespoon of oil and sprinkle it with a quarter of the salt, taro, and green onions. Fold both of the long edges over the filling and then fold it once again down the middle to form a rope. Coil the rope around to form a ball, and then flatten this with your hand. Roll out the ball to form a disc that is about ½ inch | 1 cm thick. Repeat with the other pieces of dough and filling until you have 4 raw discs. The edges of the discs will look alarmingly tattered, but that’s actually good news, as these will fry up into incredibly crunchy bits. The raw discs can be frozen at this point, if you wish; you don’t need to defrost them before frying.

Raggedy is good here

3. Set a frying pan over medium heat and have a platter lined with parchment or tempura paper ready. Pour about ¼ inch | 5 mm of oil into the hot frying pan and then slide in one of the discs. Immediately pour about 2 tablespoons water around the edge of the dough and cover the pan, as this will steam-fry the bread and ensure that the center rises quickly. Remove the cover when there’s no more steam and fry it on one side until golden brown. Flip it over, fry until the other side is also golden brown, and then remove to drain on the paper. Fry the other discs in the same way, adding more oil as needed.

4. To serve, cut the discs into quarters and sprinkle with the flaky salt. Serve while hot. If you want, you can hold the fried breads in a 275°F | 135°C oven to keep them warm, although I have been known to scarf up the still-crispy cool ones when no one is looking.