Succulent Cantonese fried shrimp balls

You wouldn't think it at first, but American nuns do on occasion come up with some really remarkable Chinese food. 

I know, I didn't make the equation first, either. But then again, the only nuns I had had ever known in the Far East were stationed in Hong Kong, a pair of Maryknoll sisters who were more interested in education than cooking, although one of them had the most serious jones for Oreos that I have ever seen. I am not exaggerating. That was the one thing absolutely every visitor had to bring her from Stateside. Other than that, she was the most straight-up nun you have ever seen.

Light, crunchy & succulent

I also ended up wrestling with her over the check in a dim sum restaurant in front of many horrified and, I am sure, highly amused Chinese people. But that is another story for another time. I digress.

The point of my story was that I just ran across an old cookbook from the Fifties written by some American Benedictine nuns who had been stationed in Beijing and Kaifeng (Henan province), and they spent all of World War II in a Japanese concentration camp. Pretty hardy women, if you ask me. 

After the war, they returned to Kaifeng, but the civil war pushed them to Shanghai, Taiwan, and finally to Japan, where they opened a cooking school to make ends meet. They eventually wrote that cookbook, The Art of Chinese Cooking, which is very much out of print but lots of fun to look at if you ever do run across it. And, if the name Benedictine is ringing certain culinary bells in your brain, that is probably because of the liqueur Bénédictine that was created by some of their monks in France. 

Main ingredients

I have been searching for ages for a good shrimp ball recipe, but none really made me delighted for one reason or another. And then I found this lovely little recipe. Granted, the original one has no seasoning other than salt, but this was, after all, written during the Eisenhower Administration, a time when garlic and ginger just weren't part of polite society.

How times have changed, and how happy I am that they have!

What the sisters did here that I like so much is to make the recipe half shrimp and half water chestnuts. It's a beautiful balance of crunch and juice, sweet and savory. I've then infused it with my usual arsenal of Cantonese aromatics -- ginger, garlic, green onion, pepper -- and then serve it with roasted ground Sichuan pepper and salt, which adds just the right bit of musty spice and salt.

Finely hand chop the shrimp

Do note that these shrimp balls are very different from the smooth, bouncy shrimp balls that you find in hot pots and soups; these are very delicate and are meant to be savored as little jewels, although you can tart them up with sauces, if you like. A light, sweet and sour sauce would be perfect over these, as would a faintly garlicky soy and rice wine sauce, and both should be gently thickened with cornstarch so that they cling to the shrimp balls.

This is yet another one of those little entrees that, once you master it, you can make it your own and transform it in infinite ways to fit your palate and the occasion.

Fried shrimp balls Cantonese style 
Guangshi zhaxiaqiu 廣式炸蝦球  
Guangdong
Makes about 30 shrimp balls

1 pound shelled shrimp (see Tips)
9 to 10 fresh water chestnuts, or half a jicama (see Tips)
White part of 1 green onion
1 clove garlic

The mixture

1 teaspoon finely minced ginger
1 large (2 tablespoons) egg white
1 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon rice wine
A few grinds fresh black or white pepper
3 or 4 cups frying oil
Ground roasted Sichuan pepper salt for dipping

1. Clean and devein the shrimp. Pat them dry and chop them finely with a cleaver or knife (see Tips). Place the chopped shrimp in a medium work bowl and keep the shrimp cool.

2. Wash, peel, and finely chop the chestnuts as directed here.  Add them to the shrimp.

Chopped water chestnuts

3. Finely mince the green onion and garlic, and add them to the shrimp and water chestnuts, as well as the ginger, egg white, cornstarch, salt, rice wine, and pepper.  Mix them together lightly so that the mixture is homogeneous but not mushy.

4. Have a paper-towel covered baking sheet placed next to the stove and heat the oven to 225 degrees F. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. You don't want the heat too high, as then the shrimp balls will brown quickly without cooking through. Test the oil by inserting wooden chopsticks in the oil; they should gently bubble around the edges. Add ping-pong ball size drops of the mixture to the oil (very appropriate, yes?), keeping them spaced apart while the shrimp is still raw, as they will stick together at that point. Adjust the heat so that the shrimp balls slowly brown in about 10 minutes. Remove them from the oil as they brown and place them on the paper towel and then in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the rest of the mixture until all of the shrimp balls have been fried. 

5. Serve the shrimp balls hot with little dishes of the ground roasted Sichuan pepper salt.

Tips

Fry the shrimp balls

Use wild caught shrimp rather than farmed shrimp. Always. Always. Always.

Don't use a food processor to chop the shrimp or the water chestnuts. You will end up with mush rather than have that exquisite texture that is the nature of shrimp and water chestnuts. Give them the chance to please you.

If fresh water chestnuts are not available, use jicama. If jicama is not available, do without. Do not use canned water chestnuts. Don't ask me again.

Fresh water chestnuts and Anhui frosted fruit fritters

Growing up in Middle America in the fifties and sixties, canned water chestnuts were in my tiny mind nothing less than pure exotica. They would find their way into the chow yuk we'd pick up at the neighborhood Chinese joint, be wrapped in bacon and broiled for the parents' bridge night, and were even tossed into Thanksgiving stuffing whenever fits of creativity took hold in the kitchen. I liked the crunch and was always happy to see them in whatever incarnation made its way to my plate.

But that was all before I tried fresh water chestnuts. And now I can never go back. It's sort of like canned peaches. I used to eat lots of them, too. 

That ended the day I bit down into a white Babcock still hot from the branch, the juices melting down my arm as the incredible perfume filled my head. One taste converted me forever and made me willing to wait for peaches until those few precious weeks of midsummer when they are at their absolute best. Fresh peaches and canned peaches seem like two different foods, now, completely unrelated to each other. And it is the same with water chestnuts: fresh is the only way to go.

Why am I crazy about fresh water chestnuts? The taste and the texture. Fresh ones taste subtly sugary, like fresh apples or crispy pears without the fruit overtones.  They crunch and bounce around my mouth with exuberance whenever they are surrounded with softer items, like ground meat, and they offer textural counterpoints to stir-fries, bits of understated sweetness that stand up well to heavily flavored sauces or vibrant ingredients. Canned ones... well, they taste like the can and feel tired rather than crispy. I know you can rinse them off with hot water to remove some of that canned taste, but I still end up flicking them out of my bowl in disgust. It's like canned potatoes... unless you are in a bomb shelter and have run out of everything else, I don't see why you would bother even opening up the tin.

Hidden candy

If you live in an area with lots of Chinese people, locating fresh water chestnuts should not pose too much of a problem.  These little tubers are not nuts, but the way, but come from the roots of a freshwater plant. Because of this, are not supposed to be stored dry, but rather covered with fresh water. 

When you get them home, rinse them off and put them in a covered container, and then pour fresh tap water over the water chestnuts to cover. Rinse the unpeeled water chestnut every day or so before covering them again with water. They will stay fresh and perfect for many days this way. But, as with just about every other vegetable, you should probably get around to eating them sooner rather than later.

Chinese markets often sell them covered in plastic on Styrofoam trays, and the most you can do in that case is press on them through the plastic and peer at the little guys to see whether mold has already made inroads or rot has eaten away at the tubers before you. What you are looking for in a fresh water chestnut is firmness all over. Any soft spots hint of decay, and you will often end up trimming away almost everything before you can find an edible morsel. So, toss out any that have any mushiness. Mold can be okay if it is only just beginning to grow on the water chestnut; the best way to check is to wash it thoroughly and then pare off the black skin; if it is yellow underneath, toss it out.  You can see by now that when you buy water chestnuts, it is best to err on the side of buying too many rather than risk not having enough. But they are gorgeous and delicious, and even if you do end up with too many, you can store them as suggested above or peel and eat them just about any way imaginable.

Sprouts ready to grow

Before we get to a recipe that highlights water chestnuts and some of the other ingredients we have been looking at lately, let's talk about what a perfect water chestnut should look like and feel like, and then how to peel them. First, a good water chestnut should feel heavy for its size. It will be hard all over with no spongy spots. The best and freshest examples have taut, shiny skins that sometimes might be flecked with mud, which is quite all right because it washes off easily. And at the tips of each tuber there will be little sprouts - usually a triad of half-inch long white needles - that the water chestnut is planning to send out into the pond water as soon as the weather warms up. The bottoms of the tubers will be dimpled and firm.

Before you peel the water chestnuts, have a work bowl set up next to your sink filled about halfway with cool tap water; the peeled tubers will be able to take a bath in there while you trim up the rest, and it will also help keep them from oxidizing. Hold a water chestnut with the fingers of one hand and use a potato peeler to trim away all of the smooth areas and then turn to a very sharp paring knife to strip off the sprouts, root end, and any dark or yellow areas. Plop the peeled water chestnut in the water, rinse it off, and either use it right away or refrigerate it covered with water.

Au naturel and peeled

Water chestnuts are almost always either sliced (you will generally get about a dozen slices from each chestnut) or cut into matchsticks or chopped or lightly smashed. They have the texture of a firm apple or potato, so this is not hard at all to do. 

Master the simple art of selecting, storing, and preparing water chestnuts, and you will have good reasons to enjoy these wonderful little guys at the drop of a hat. One such instance might be afternoon tea for some good friends, when a plate of the following tasty morsels from Anhui would be pounced on with delight. You can make these fritters ahead of time, since they need to served cool in order for the "frost" to form on the surface. The fritters themselves are little more than fruit, nuts, and sticky rice bound with egg, and the sweetness shows up as a thin but crunchy sugar envelope.

Finishing off a dish with a delicate sugar coating seems to be unique to Anhui, and its most famous example is most likely the delightful pork rib recipe called guashuang paigu, or "pork ribs dusted with frost." This appetizer is usually served before a lush Anhui-style banquet, the ribs served cool so that the frost can get crunchy and glitter opaquely on the meat. Perhaps we can take a look at that one soon, too. Anhui also has other dishes that refer to snow and frost, most likely because of the massive peaks that adorn its lower borders. Many of these dishes, though, refer to beaten egg whites, such as "searching for fish in the snow" (xue zhong zhao yu) or "white snow chicken" (baixue ji)... yet more delightful Anhui delicacies that deserve our attention!

Snowflake fruit fritters
Xuéhuā shuĭguŏ yuánzi 雪花水果圓子 
Anhui

Makes about 30 pieces

1 cup cooked short-grain sticky (a/k/a sweet or glutinous rice; see note below)

½ cup Chinese wolfberries (also known as gouqi, or goji berries), or raisins

½ cup walnut pieces

Boiling water

5 fresh, peeled water chestnuts (about ½ cup), finely chopped, or ½ cup finely chopped jicama

½ of a large, firm, peeled apple, finely chopped (about 1 cup)

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon chopped candied kumquats (see note below)

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cups fresh vegetable or peanut oil (don't reuse frying oil here, as it will detract from the delicate flavors)

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup filtered water

Frosted fruit fritters

1. Cook the rice, if you haven't done so already; this will take about 40 minutes if you are using a rice cooker, and there is no need to soak the rice first when you use a rice cooker. Cover the raisins and walnuts with boiling water to plump them up. Place the chopped water chestnuts and apples in a medium work bowl along with a half teaspoon of salt, and then let them soak in the salted water for about 5 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Drain the water chestnuts and apples thoroughly and place them in a medium work bowl. Drain and rinse the raisins and walnuts, chop them coarsely, and add them to the bowl along with the steamed rice and candied kumquats. Mix in the beaten egg and cornstarch with your fingers so that you can break up any lumps, and then roll the lumpy paste into about 30 elongated balls the shape of dates. 

3. Place a tray with a couple of paper towels next to the stove. Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high heat until a wooden or bamboo chopstick immediately bubbles all over when it is inserted into the oil. The balls will be begging to fall apart, so use the tip of your cleaver to pick up the balls one at a time and lower them gently into the hot oil; this way you can place the balls right in the oil without either burning yourself or disintegrating the fritters. Fry around 5 at a time, and let them brown on one side before carefully turning them over. Drain the fritters on the paper towels while you fry the rest.

Cleaver as spatula

4. Drain the oil from the wok and rinse it out. Lightly oil a large platter and place it next to the stove. Add the sugar and water to the wok and heat rapidly it over high heat. Just as it is about to change color from white to golden (you will see the edge of the sugar water take on a golden tinge), toss in the fritters, flip them quickly but very gently  in the sugar so that they become completely covered in the syrup, and then scoop them out onto the waiting plate. Separate the fritters so that they don't stick to each other, and chill them until a "frost" has formed over the fritters. Serve cold or slightly cool.

Note on the rice: Cook at least 1½ cups of raw sticky rice while you're at it, as it is difficult to prepare smaller amounts in a rice cooker; preparing the rice in a rice cooker doesn't require the rice to be soaked first. If you are using a stacked steamer, soak the rice in cool water for at least 4 hours and then steam it so that you don't end up with dry areas in the rice kernels. Measure out the cooked rice you need for this recipe and have the rest for dinner, make rice crusts, or freeze in a Ziploc bag for later.

Note on the candied kumquats: If you don't have candied kumquats handy, use either candied orange peel or some marmalade with the jam rinsed off.

Anhui's spicy walnut pork

Every single one of my Anhui girlfriends has a great appetite - and since all of my buddies have hollow legs, no matter where they come from, that is nothing special in and of itself - but what has continually amazed me has been that each one of them is a certified chili queen. 

Looking at Anhui on the map, this doesn't seem like Chili Central... this province is way up there in the northern area of China, safely distant from the spicy foods of such fiery hotbeds as Sichuan, Guizhou, and Hunan.  

Since I had never tried Anhui cuisine until relatively recently, I always found this puzzling.

But they do love their chili peppers, and following my induction into their inner circles as an honorary lameizi (literally "spicy sister", the Chinese name for that nineties female band called the Spice Girls), I have tried to reciprocate with offerings of chili oil liberally sprinkled over dishes, chopped chilies tossed into stir-fries, and dried chilies browned in oil before the rest of the ingredients have been added.  All have been met with a smile and the eternal challenge suggested by a devilish smile, "Is that as hot as you can get it?"

Walnut-filled pork nuggets

Now that I have tasted Anhui cuisine, I understand. While chili isn't the overriding flavoring for the greatest dishes that Anhui is justly famous for, their home-style foods are often as hot as hell, but with just enough sugar and vinegar and nuts to slap the taste buds awake and leave the lips numb, ready for the next assault.

Case in point is today's dish, Spicy Walnut Pork Anhui Style. At first I figured that this would be a ho-hum stir-fry of pork cubes scattered with walnuts, sort of a variation on the theme of cashew chicken. Wrong. This is one creative dish that looks difficult and clever, but is something that is easily put together. If time is going to be a problem, you can prepare everything up to the last step ahead of time so that only a few minutes are needed to whip up this dish. However, it is at its absolute best if the dish is sauced right after the meat is fried, because that way the walnuts are superbly crispy and offer a tantalizing contrast to the tender, juicy meat.

The Chinese name for this is Liu hetao rou.  The character "liu" is often used in the names of eastern Chinese dishes to let you know that it was given a gentle sweet and sour sauce at the end; hetao is the Chinese name for "walnuts," and rou means "meat," which in this province is almost always an indication that pork is on the menu. I've made this with pork loin, fresh bacon, and turkey breast, and they are all good. But if you are not afraid of pork fat, I have to strongly suggest that you try the fresh bacon, which fries up like crispy bacon should and imparts a heavenly texture to these morsels. Whatever meat you use, it is wrapped around blanched walnut halves, coated in a batter, and deep fried.

First, a word on water chestnuts and blanching walnuts:

Please please please use fresh water chestnuts. If they are not available, use sliced jicama. If you don't have that, use a crisp pear or apple. My feeling is that canned water chestnuts and bamboo shoots and baby corn taste terrible, have lousy texture, and just add tinny smells to the sauce. Fresh water chestnuts are plain delicious, and the next post will show how to select, trim, and store them. 

Plumped up walnut on the right

Walnuts should almost always be blanched for Chinese dishes, and the reasons are twofold: this plumps up the nuts so that there is a pillowy center surrounded by crunchiness, and the bitterness in the brown skin gets flushed away in a hot water bath. If you don't think there's much difference between a blanched and an unblanched walnut, do a taste test. Simply put, blanched walnuts have absolutely no bitter edge to them, they have a silky mouth feel, and even if you plan to fry or roast them, blanching them first puts them miles ahead of their unbathed brethren.

As for the chilies in this recipe, you can adjust the heat to whatever level you want, from zero to blistering, by using different peppers. Red bell peppers are completely mild, and if you use them, even children will be able to enjoy this dish without crying. But if you have chili heads stopping by, consider using at least some nice, red jalapenos or yellow Anaheims (if not the hotter varieties) to give this dish a good kick in the pants. It will turn this sauce from sweet-and-sour into pure wow.

Spicy walnut pork Anhui style
Liu hetao rou  溜核桃肉 

Tenderize with cleaver back

Anhui

Serves 4 to 6 as part of a multicourse meal

Walnuts:

A large handful fresh walnut halves (about 20)
Boiling water
Peanut oil

Pork:

4 ounces thinly-sliced pork loin
1 teaspoon sea salt
Toothpicks (about 20)
1 large egg
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Veggies and sauce:

4 ounces fresh water chestnuts (see note above), trimmed and sliced
3 red jalapeno peppers, or 1 small red bell pepper, or any other kind of pepper (see note above), seeded and sliced
4 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
4 tablespoons good dark vinegar
6 tablespoons sugar, or to taste
3 tablespoons rice wine (Taiwanese Mijiu)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Ready to roll up

1. Place the walnut halves in a heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water. Leave them in the water for at least 10 minutes, then drain and rinse. Pat the walnuts as dry as you can, since you will be frying them. 

2. Heat about 1 cup of oil in a wok over medium-high heat until a wooden or bamboo chopstick inserted in the hot oil is immediately covered with bubbles. Place a dry bowl next to the stove for the fried walnuts and have a slotted spoon handy. Add the walnuts to the oil in small handfuls and gently stir them in the oil until they are a golden brown. Remove them with the slotted spoon to the dry bowl, heat the oil up again, and repeat with the rest of the walnuts until they are all fried, and leave the oil in the wok.

Next step: batter

3. Slice the pork into pieces a little over 2 inches long and about an inch wide, and lightly salt the meat. (If the meat is too thick, lightly pound it until it is about a eighth of an inch thick.) Place one fried walnut half at the end of a strip of pork, roll up the meat around the nut, and then secure it with a toothpick. Repeat with the rest of the meat and walnuts until you are done. 

4. Beat the egg in a medium bowl and add the cornstarch to form a batter, adding a bit of water if it is too thick. Heat up the oil in the wok again using the chopstick test to get the right temperature. Coat each pork roll in the batter, shake off any excess batter, and fry the roll in the hot oil until a toasty brown. Remove to a plate and repeat with the rest of the pork rolls, being sure to fry only a few at a time so that they don't stick together. Take the toothpicks out of the rolls and discard them. The dish can be prepared ahead of time up to this point; remember, the walnuts won't be crispy if they are reheated.

5. If you made the pork rolls ahead of time, heat them in a single layer in a 325-degree oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until hot; otherwise, just proceed to fry the vegetables and make the sauce.

6. Drain all but about 2 tablespoons oil from the wok and heat it over high until it starts to smoke. Toss in the water chestnuts, peppers, and green onions, and quickly stir-fry them for a few minutes until they are no longer raw, but still crisp. Add the fried pork rolls and then the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and rice wine; toss them all together over high heat until most of the sauce evaporates. Taste the sauce and quickly adjust it with more soy sauce, vinegar, or sugar as needed. Sprinkle on the sesame oil, toss again, and serve.