Fuchsia Dunlop's "Every Grain of Rice" review

Fuchsia Dunlop has been on the Chinese food scene for less than ten years, but she made such a big splash with her wonderful first book, Land of Plenty, that it is truly difficult to imagine thinking about Sichuan cuisine without her authoritative voice popping into my head.

But whenever I come to admire certain writers, the most difficult thing has been the wait between their books. You see, it has been five long years since her last guide to creating great Chinese food (the spicy foods of Hunan that time around), so I have been very impatient for her newest book to appear.

Every Grain of Rice (to be released February 4th) guides us through home cooking, mainly in areas south of the Yangtze River, and what a trip it is. Here is the beginning of my review for the online food magazine Zester Daily:

"British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop focused tightly on single regions of China in her first two cookbooks, Land of Plenty (Sichuan) and The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (Hunan). But in her latest endeavor, Every Grain of Rice, she expands her scope to easy comfort foods from a wide swath of China.

"Every Grain of Rice is the perfect introduction to cooking the way Chinese people do at home, with simple, clear instructions opposite lovely full-color photographs of almost every dish. For those who are just beginning to admire Chinese food, this book could nudge them over the edge into hopeless devotion.

"The beautiful photography is enticing, helpful and very welcome, for the lack of ample illustrations was one of the few quibbles I had with Dunlop’s first book, Land of Plenty. Drawing on her experience as the first foreign student at the acclaimed Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, her debut became an instant classic, enticing readers to succumb to the spell of central China’s chili-laden foods...."

Read the rest here.

Cabbage rolls aren't just Hungarian, you know

Recipes like this show how good food ideas spread across the world. Cabbage rolls are so popular in Hungary, for example, that they probably should have postage stamps or perhaps even a statue or two in their honor. In fact, just about every food culture has its own riff on cabbage rolls, so it is hard to say where this idea actually started. Maybe Genghis Khan’s hordes brought this particular version back from one of their forays into Eastern Europe, or maybe it made its way up a trade route in one or another direction… who knows.

China too has a long history of wrapping things in cabbage leaves before stewing or braising them in a savory sauce. That, along with Central Asia’s interpretation of this dish as dolmasi, has pretty much guaranteed that cabbage rolls would become a part of Northwest cuisines.

Cabbage rolls with the braised lamb

Much like those dolmasi, the main filling here is rice. But there the relationship pretty much ends, because – Chinese being Chinese above all else – they know how to turn plain old white rice into the stuff of dreams. 

Here, the filling is a savory lamb fried rice that is, truth be told, pretty darned stellar all by itself. Wrapping it in blanched cabbage leaves like little birthday presents adds a nice layer of moistness to each bite, and these are then complemented by rich morsels of lamb as interpreted in the traditional red-cooked braise popular throughout North China.

I have fussed around with the original recipe a bit, adding more flavor to the rice, spicing both it and the lamb with some chilies, and then frying each cabbage roll so that it stayed put on that short distance between the serving dish and a waiting mouth.

Red-cooked lamb with cabbage rice rolls 
Càibāo yánggāoròu 菜包羊羔肉 
Xinjiang

Serves 4 as a main dish, 8 as part of a larger meal

Lamb:

Onions & lamb

14 ounces good quality lamb, with or without bone (see Tips)

1 tablespoon oil

4 slices fresh ginger

3 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

3 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine or filtered water

4 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 tablespoon rock or white sugar

2 star anise

½ stick cinnamon

Boiling filtered water as needed

Rice:

2 ounces good quality lamb, boneless

2 tablespoons oil

½ medium onion, trimmed and peeled

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground chilies

½ teaspoon sea salt

Lamb fried rice

2 tablespoons oil

2 cups cold cooked rice (see Tips)

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Cabbage:

8 large napa cabbage leaves

Boiling water

Cornstarch

Frying oil

1. For the red-cooked lamb, rinse the lamb under cool tap water, pat dry, and cut into 1-inch cubes. Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high heat and add both the ginger and the green onions; stir-fry these for a minute to release their fragrance, scoot the aromatics up the side of the wok, turn the heat up to high, and then add the lamb. Sear the lamb on all sides until it is browned and then toss in the ginger and green onions with the lamb. Use the rice wine or 3 tablespoons water to deglaze the bottom of the wok, and then add the soy sauce, sugar, spices, and enough boiling water to cover the lamb. Bring the liquid to a boil and then lower it to a rapid simmer. Cook the lamb for about half an hour, or until the liquid has reduced to a thick syrup. Scoop the lamb and the sauce into a bowl.

Gorgeous blanched leaves

2. While the lamb is cooking, prepare the rice: rinse the 2 ounces of lamb under cool tap water, pat dry, and cut into small (1/4-inch) pieces. Clean out the wok and heat 2 tablespoons of oil over high heat, add the lamb, and fry it until it starts to brown; scoot the lamb up the side of the wok and add the onions. Stir-fry the onions with the cumin, chilies, and salt until the onions are also brown, and scoot them up the side to join the lamb. Add the rest of the oil to the wok, heat it over high, and add the rice, gently breaking up the clumps as you stir-fry it. When the rice is also browned, mix in the lamb and onions, adjust the seasoning (but don’t make it too salty), and remove the rice to a bowl. When it has cooled down a bit, add the cilantro.

3. Rinse the cabbage leaves, cut off any imperfections, and place them in a wide pan. Cover them with boiling water, bring the water to a boil again, and then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook the leaves until the ribs (white sections) are soft enough to bend easily, but avoid overcooking them. As soon as they are done, empty the boiling water into the sink and then rinse the cabbage leaves with cool running water until they are no longer warm. Drain them in a colander and pat each leaf dry with a paper towel.

4. Divide the filling into 8 piles and then proceed to stuff one leaf at a time: place a mound of the fried rice about a third of the way up from the base of the leaf. Roll the base of the leaf up and over the filling, by which time you should be in the frilly green area. Fold the edges of the green leaves over the two outer edges of the filling and then continue to roll the filling up in the leaf. It should look like a fat spring roll when you are done. Repeat with the rest of the leaves and filling until you have 8 stuffed cabbage rolls.

5. Clean out the wok and heat a couple of tablespoons of oil over medium heat. Dust each cabbage roll with some cornstarch, especially where the top part of leaf folds against the cabbage roll, as well as on the opposite side of the roll. Fry two rolls at a time, adding more oil as necessary. When the rolls are lightly browned, remove them to a large, heatproof bowl and arrange them like spokes around the rim. Scrape the red-cooked lamb and all its sauce into the center of the bowl. (This dish can be made ahead of time up to this point, covered, and refrigerated for a couple of days.)

6. About 20 minutes before serving, steam the bowl over high heat until the cabbage rolls are completely heated through. Serve hot.

Tips

Roll up rice in a leaf

You can use any cut of lamb you like here: leg, shoulder, loin, ribs, even the neck… anything will taste good. I have called for a total of 1 pound of meat, but use more if you have lots of bones in the lamb. Cut off a cup or so of boneless meat for the rice and use the rest for the red-cooked lamb.

Any kind of cooked rice is fine here: brown, white, long grain, short grain… this obviously is a very homestyle way of cooking that has been spruced up with the fancy cabbage rolls.

The original recipe does not call for spices in either the lamb or the rice, but I like the extra oomph they provide. I also have given the rice more flavor by browning both the lamb and the onions, as well as by crisping up the rice. 

I sneakily added rice wine to the red-cooked lamb, muy verboten in most Muslim countries, but hey, I'm in California. Use water if you must and follow the lead of your personal god. Mine just happens to be Dionysus. 

The post where a pork shank ascends to heaven

This luscious mound of boneless pork defies you to find the least bit of grease in it. Like all other great variations on braised pork shank that Chinese people have reveled in over the ages, this is a study in reductions: The fat and skin are reduced to quivering layers of jelly that disappear on the tongue. The tendons are reduced to barely gummy layers between the pillowy meat. And the sauce is reduced to a delectable syrup that clings to every cranny.

Popular throughout Shandong and Beijing, for the longest time the pinnacle of braised pork came from an old Beijing restaurant that has been around in many incarnations for a long time: Tianfuhao. As with so many of China’s legendary dishes, what is sold in this store today does not match its fame, but a story is attached that explains the shop’s long existence…

A young man from Shandong named Liu Fengxiang arrived in the capital and found himself at a small shop in the Xidan district run by a man from Shanxi. It sold pork braised in the northern manner, and Liu was hired to help out. However, business was never any good, as it was very small with few customers, so the man from Shanxi left for good, leaving Liu to run the place by himself.

Massage honey onto the skin

Later on, Liu was purchasing some supplies at the market when he happened to see an old store sign in an antiques shop. On it were three characters – tiān fú hào 天福號, or the shop blessed by Heaven – written in the powerful calligraphic style of Yan Zhenqing, so he bought it for his own place and changed the name of his store to Tianfuhao. Lo and behold, it was as if the old sign did indeed bring divine blessings with it, for passers-by recognized the stunning calligraphy and must have felt that this was a place with both history and status, so business improved dramatically.

As with any other shop of this kind where food has to be both made and sold by a skeleton crew, the pork was cooked at night so that there would be something to sell the next day. One night, Liu’s son was tending the stove, and he fell asleep while the pork shanks were bubbling away on the stove. When he woke up, the meat was just on the verge of falling apart, so his father salvaged the pork the best he could and readied it for the day’s customers.

It so happened that a high-ranking official in the corrections ministry passed by and bought one of those overcooked shanks to dine on that night. But instead finding complaint with the meat, the great man enjoyed its supreme tenderness and the way that the fat had left only a gentle robe of moistness around the trembling pork. The next day, he returned for more, praising Tianfuhao’s product to the skies.

The Liu family improved upon the recipe using this newfound knowledge until they felt it was at last perfect. And then one evening, just as they were about to close, that same official rushed in and told Liu Fengxiang that he had to make the best shank of his life that night because the official was going to present it to the Dowager Empress the next day. Elated and terrified, Liu knew that if she were to take a liking to his pork shank, his fame would be secured, so he made an array of his most famous dish that he tweaked as he went, so that he would have a variety to choose from in the morning.

Browned from honey & frying

Palace eunuchs appeared before noon, and Liu presented them with his carefully prepared pork shanks for the Dowager Empress’s lunch. Her response was to send some people to Tianfuhao that afternoon with a request for him to deliver more directly to the Forbidden City. And later on the old lady granted Tianfuhao with a warrant to supply its meats to the imperial household on a daily basis, a blessing indeed from on high.

Nowadays, Tianfuhao sells only braised pork shanks that are cooked in large vats, not slowly steamed in a slightly sweet sauce. It is that slow steaming that makes all the difference in the world, as it completely changes the texture of the pork. The meat gradually absorbs the layers of spice and caramel and wine, becoming a savory sponge offering little resistance to the teeth. Pork shanks are full of long tendons, but when cooked this way, they too dissolve into soft suggestions against the tender meat.

But it is the skin that is a revelation, for steaming allows it to render almost all of its fat while preserving its shape, and so you are left with a pillowy puddle that melts on the tongue and seems somehow many levels removed beyond merely sinful, a sort of glimpse at sensual nirvana.

Why do I go on and on about Tianfuhao here? It's because I served this shank the other day to some friends from Beijing, and they became positively rapturous about that heavenly little mound of meat, immediately recognizing it as being in the old style of Tianfuhao. We laughed as we dug in, shoving slithering slivers of juicy meat and pillowy skin into our mouths between sips of warm huadiao rice wine, enjoying one of the supreme pleasures of North China's many fabulous cuisines, a dish that makes me look forward to cold weather outside and the joy of having a handful of friends inside gathered around my dining table. 

Ready for the steamer

Rock sugar pork shank 
Bīngtáng zhǒuzi  冰糖肘子 
Beijing

Serves 4 to 6

1 pork shank (about 3 pounds with bone in and skin on, see Tips)

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 stick cinnamon

1 tablespoon whole Sichuan peppercorns

2 inches fresh ginger, smashed with a cleaver

2 green onions, trimmed and lightly smashed

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine

Filtered water as needed

1 tablespoon honey

½ to 1 cup frying oil

2 tablespoons rock sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons filtered water

2 to 3 green onions, trimmed and cut into thin julienne, as garnish

The bone & the boned

1. Start this at least 2 and preferably 3 or more days before serving. Rinse the pork shank and pat dry, but leave the skin on, as this will be intensely delicious by the end of the recipe. Use tweezers to remove any hairs; a chef’s blowtorch is useful for burning off anything that is stubborn. There are two ways to proceed with the bone: You can either leave the bone on the shank and remove the bone in Step 3, or you can use a thin boning knife to remove the bone from the raw meat. Place the shank in a medium saucepan and cover it with boiling water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat and then lower it to a simmer; cook the shank for about 10 minutes, dump out the water and scum, and rinse the shank thoroughly. Rinse out the saucepan well and place the shank back in there.

2. Cover the pork with enough boiling water so that it is submerged by at least an inch. Bring the pan to a boil over high heat and then reduce it to a simmer. Slowly cook the shank uncovered for about 1½ hours, adding more boiling water as necessary, at which point the pork should be tender and there should be a layer of fat on top of the liquid.

3. Turn off the heat and carefully remove the pork from the liquid; set it aside on a plate to cool down until it is easy to handle. At that point, if the bone is still in the meat, twist it until it comes loose and then pull it out; discard the bone. Defat the braising liquid and then pour it through a strainer to remove all of the solids. (The shank can be made ahead of time up to this point, and both the meat and sauce should be refrigerated separately.)

4. Wipe the shank dry with a clean paper towel. Warm the honey until it is runny and then smear it all over the skin (but not the meaty end). Warm the oil over medium in a tall pan with as small a base as possible (one that is about an inch wider than the shank is perfect), as the oil is going to explode all over the place if you are not careful. When the oil is hot enough to form bubbles on a chopstick, use long metal tongs to add the shank skin-side down into the oil and then immediately cover the pan with a spatter screen. Carefully turn the shank over in the oil as it brown until all of the skin is the color of maple syrup, adjusting the heat as necessary. Remove the pan from the heat. When the spattering dies down, use tongs to remove the shank to a heatproof bowl that is large enough to hold both it and a cup or so of liquid.

Torching off some hairs

5. Prepare a steamer that is deep and wide enough to comfortably hold the bowl with the pork shank. Tie the fennel seeds, cinnamon, and Sichuan peppercorns in a cheesecloth bag or tea ball, and then add them along with the ginger, soy sauce, and rice wine to the pork shank. Place the sugar and a few tablespoons of filtered water in a stainless steel pan and heat it over high, swishing it gently as needed, until it caramelizes, and then add this to the liquid. Pour a cup or so of the strained braising liquid over the pork, reserving the rest for something else. Steam the pork for about 2 hours over medium heat, adding more water to the steamer as needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more rock sugar, soy sauce, or wine if you want. Turn the pork over and let it steam another 2 hours, and then turn off the heat and let the pork cool down in the sauce. Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight or up to a couple of days.

6. Steam the pork for about another 2 hours before serving. Remove the shank to a serving bowl. Pour the sauce into a small saucepan and adjust the seasoning a final time. Bring the sauce to a bowl, lower the heat to medium, and stir in the cornstarch slurry. Cook the sauce while stirring constantly until it is thick and glossy. Pour this over the shank and garnish with the julienned green onions. I like to serve the hot pork with a small sharp knife on the side so that guests can admire it whole before someone slices it into wedges. Grab some of the skin while you can, as it will induce moans of pleasure, and the pork should be a rosy pink with luscious layers of melted tendons that are sticky and in perfect contrast to the juicy, flavorful meat.

Tips

Buy the absolute best pork you can find. The skin should cover the entire shank, and the fat should be an even layer.

Heritage pork is, as always, my favorite, since it has great flavor and the pigs have been raised with care. Second – though close – is good free-range, organic pork.

Steamed into submission

It might be very difficult to find good pork shanks in a Western butcher shop, so cultivate a relationship with a professional butcher who buys whole pigs and so can save you the bits you want.

The shanks are sometimes sold already boned, which is all right; this might lessen the cooking time, so keep an eye on it during the last 2 hours and adjust the heat and cooking time accordingly. Butchers like to just slice it up the side, since carefully removing the bone by cutting at either end takes a bit of time and finesse. If you do have a shank that is cut up by the butcher, do not despair, as it will taste equally good.

Make this a few days ahead of time, if you wish, as the rest will only improve the flavor of the meat. Steam it as directed for 2 hours before serving. 

Cooking the pork without any salt at the beginning is key to keeping the meat tender.

A surprisingly amazing salad from Xinjiang

At first glance, this looks like it could be little more than a boring salad. And if you are not in any way a huge fan of cilantro, this probably looks more like fluffy green death on a plate.

But you would be deceived.

I put this together as an afterthought when I realized that my dinner of lamb kebabs and pilaf ran the visual gamut of brown to beige. Something colorful – a preferably bright emerald – was needed to perk up the plates. 

I had been sidetracked by other things while cooking, and vegetable matter had slipped my mind, so when I hastily flipped through a Chinese cookbook specializing in the Northwest, this beautiful recipe popped out at me. 

And, to my delight, I had everything on hand, so into the mixing bowl went everything and out came the most startlingly delicious salad I've tried in a long time.

Tossed cilantro and peanuts 
Huāshēngmĭ bàn xiāngcài 花生米拌香菜
Xinjiang

Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer, 2 to 3 as a side salad

½ cup fried or toasted peanuts 

1 bunch very fresh cilantro (see Tips)

The main ingredients

½ red sweet pepper

1 teaspoon regular soy sauce

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons any kind of mingyou, but Shallot Oil is highly recommended

1 tablespoon Toasted Sesame Seeds, optional

1. If you have not prepared the peanuts yet, cook them now and let them cool off completely before mixing them with the rest of the ingredients.

2. Rinse the cilantro carefully in cold water, shake it dry, and remove any less than stellar leaves and stalks. Trim off the ends and cut the cilantro into 1-inch pieces before placing them in a mixing bowl. Trim the pepper, removing the inside ridges and seeds, and the cut the pepper into pieces about the same size as the peanuts; add this to the cilantro along with the cooled, cooked peanuts. (The salad can be made ahead of time up to this point, covered, and chilled. Toss in the dressing just before serving.)

3. Toss the cilantro, pepper, and peanuts with the rest of the ingredients; taste and adjust seasoning. Serve as an appetizer or side salad.

Some hairy-chested sprigs

Tips

Use the freshest, most virile bunch of cilantro you can find. By this I mean that the stalks should be really crisp and tender, as if it were picked at the peak of freshness. There should be no spoilage, of course, and the leaves ought to be tender yet feel very much alive. As cilantro is the star of this show, use the best bunch you can find.

If you really and truly cannot stand cilantro, parsley would be an admirable substitute. 

Lamb & raisin pilaf from China's great northwest

Fragrant rice medleys stretch all the way across the main body of Asia, from the buttery rice and noodle pilafs of Armenia, the pilavs of Turkey, and the Persian polows that hover around the eastern edge of the Mediterranean and start trickling east into the desert regions of Central Asia, where the Uzbekis know it as palov and the Russians as plov, down through South Asia and the brilliant yellow pulaos of India and palaus of Afghanistan, and then curling back up over the Himalayas into western China, where the Uyghurs call it polo.

All along the way, the name stays very similar – pilaf, pilav, polow, palov, plov, pulao, palau, and polo, plus an assortment of alternate spellings in between – but when it gets to China, such foreign nomenclature is tossed out the window in favor of a description that goes right to the heart of the matter. 

The Chinese refer to this West China creation as zhuafan, or “grabbed rice,” because this is one of the few Chinese rice dishes that are not eaten with chopsticks, but rather with the fingers of the right hand in the Muslim manner.

Echoes of Central Asia therefore remain, and it is of course completely halal. This is an ideal accompaniment to any of the local lamb dishes, as bits of that meat dot the rice along with fruit and vegetables to provide visual and aromatic contrast: onions, golden raisins, and carrots.

The standard recipes I looked at called for a sort of fried rice, with cooked rice browned in the fat from a lamb’s tail and then simply tossed with all of the other ingredients. It was good, but I transported the traditional way of cooking pilafs in Armenia (and, for good measure, risottos in northern Italy, not that I'm starting a thrash here about the origins of Italian food) to Xinjiang and gently browned the onions, lamb, and raw rice in a combination of oil and butter (lamb tails are rather hard to find around here, I've found to my considerably dismay) before being simmered in a broth; the raisins and carrot are added toward the end so that they get to keep some of their personality.

This is easy and delicious, as well as a happy contemplation on a food that must have traveled a distant, winding path over countless years along ancient caravan routes as traders dined on golden piles of rice in walled oases, fell in love, and brought the recipe home as a treasured souvenir.

Uyghur pilaf 
Zhuāfàn 抓飯 
Xinjiang
Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish 

3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

Long grain brown rice

½ medium onion, chopped into ½-inch dice

4 ounces (about ½ cup) lamb, chopped into ½-inch dice (see Tips)

½ teaspoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup raw long-grain rice (see Tips)

Boiling filtered water as needed

½ cup moist golden raisins

1 medium carrot

1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high until it starts to shimmer and then add the onion, lamb, salt, and pepper. Lower the heat to medium and fry the onions and lamb until they just start to turn brown on the edges. Scoot the meat and onions up the side of the wok or pan away from the heat.

2. Raise the heat to medium-high, add the butter to the pan, and when it is melted pour in the raw rice. Stir the rice over the heat until it starts to turn golden and smell nutty. Mix the rice with the lamb and onions. Pour in 1 cup boiling water and stir the water into the rice. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook the rice gently uncovered, stirring once in a while and adding more boiling water as needed.

3. While the rice is cooking, rinse the raisins and drain them. Peel the carrot and cut it into thin lengths about the width of the raisins. Then, cut across the carrot strips to make pieces that are about the same size as the raisins.

4. When the rice is almost done, toss in the raisins and carrots so that the carrots are just barely cooked at the same time that the rice is done. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more butter if you like. Cover the pan, remove it from the heat, and let it steam from the residual heat for about 10 minutes before you serve hot.

Lamb neck meat

Tips

Any cut of lamb can be used here as long as it is of good quality. Remove any sinews or silver skin so that you are left with only tender morsels.

Vegetarians can, of course, eliminate the lamb and substitute some tasty variety of mushroom cut in ½-inch dice.

Use long grain rice, not short grain, which is too starchy for this dish. I like brown rice here, as it adds an extra level of nuttiness to the pilaf.

The amount of water used varies according to the type of rice used, the heat of the stove, and so forth, so just keep an eye on the pilaf as it cooks and add a bit more boiling water as needed to keep the rice moist and fluffy.

Bitter melon turns nutty & even more delicious

I am sure that by now my proselytizing of the Gospel of the Bitter Melon has become about as welcome as finding a Jehovah's Witness permanently planted on your doorstep. 

I know. I understand. But wait: just one more recipe and story, and I'll stop talking about bitter melons. (Besides, the season is about over, so it's not like I'm being especially big about this.)

Today's dish turns the bitter melon on its head, making it nutty and flavorful with the minimum of ingredients and fuss. 

I wasn't expecting much the first time I had this at a Taipei restaurant many years ago. The reasons were simple:

The sole main ingredient

First, I never had been too crazy about bitter melon. Just about every cooked bitter melon dish I had tried up to that point had been stewed or fried the vegetable to death so that it was both mushy and still bitter, a deadly combination.

Second, I never got past the first point.

True, raw bitter melon entranced me from the moment we first met. It was true love. And even today I wait for late autumn for many seasonal ingredients, but for none with more anticipation than the lovely pale fruits that surface for a few short weeks and allow me to make my beloved Hunan-style Hidden Dragon Bitter Melon Appetizer.

Fried in one layer

Someone brilliant, though, devised today's intensely simple dish that doesn't even need to be seasoned, especially if it is being served with a sauce-draped entree that will offer opportunities for occasional dips into other flavors.

Dry-fried bitter melon also is remarkable in that the seeds stay inside the gorgeous jade green slices, offering a nutty textural contrast that is stunning beyond description. The seeds toast up in the thin sheen of oil that is busy cooking the flesh, and they end up not only eminently edible, but also incredibly delicious.

I love these so much the way they are that I don’t even need to salt them unless they are being served in all their glory. In that case, a restrained sprinkle would set off their aromas like nothing else.

Dry-fried bitter melon 
Gānbiān kŭguā 乾煸苦瓜 
Sichuan

Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

2 pale green bitter melons between 10 and 12 inches in length

Peanut or vegetable oil

Sea salt, optional

Smoky & nutty

1. Rinse the bitter melons and trim off both ends, as well as any bruises. Cut the melons crosswise into ½-inch slices.

2. Heat a flat skillet over medium-high until it starts to smoke, and then drizzle in a tablespoon or so of the oil to just barely slick the surface. Put in only as many melon slices as will barely cover the bottom of the skillet. Fry the slices until they are browned and speckled, and then turn them over to cook the other side. Remove to a serving plate and repeat with the rest of the bitter melon slices until they are all cooked. Serve hot, with or without a sprinkle of salt. 

The best zhajiang noodles in the world. Period.

Popular throughout most of northeast China, zhajiang noodles are almost like pasta Bolognese: this is basically a rich meat sauce balanced on top of chewy strands of dough. But there the comparison pretty much ends.

Zhajiang mian means “deep-fried sauce noodles,” which has always confused me. When I have given Chinese cooks the third degree about this, the answer is always that the sauce is “deep fried” before it is mixed with the meat. And I've invariably retorted, “But the sauce is ‘pan fried’ [jian], so this should be jianjiang mian, right?” and the reply I get is always a shake of the head and a frown, because the name simply doesn't make any sense. (It’s sort of like when Chinese people ask me to break down the meaning of hot dogs [regou, literally “hot dogs” – nothing lost in translation there], and I have to tell them that we really and truly don’t dine on puppies in the States, despite all misleading names to the contrary.)

It wasn't until very recently that I figured out the solution. You see, most folks think of this as from Beijing, and zhajiang noodles is believed by most to be the name this dish was originally christened with. But actually, I discovered, it comes from Manchuria, where it is known by the name zajiang mian 雜醬麵, or “mixed sauce noodles.” Zha and za sound very much alike, and perhaps there was some confusion upstream. Who knows what happened... all I know is that I now can sleep well at night.

Pork plus the secret ingredient

We've enjoyed endless variations on this dish, but I have to say that the recipe below is the best I have ever tasted. But as with great simple foods elsewhere, perfection demands a couple of very important requirements:

First, the pasta should be handmade and fresh. No dried noodles here, please. In fact, you should use pulled noodles, not rolled ones, because the stretching of the dough creates little tears along the strands that grab onto the sauce and then convey it to your eagerly awaiting mouth. 

All of that pulling and bouncing that goes on in creating lamian means that the gluten has been excited into a state of near hysteria (or as close to hysteria that pasta can get), which makes it astoundingly chewy and vibrant. And another thing: make the pasta flat and wide, if you can, because you really want the noodles to make a boisterous presence against all of that powerfully seasoned sauce. (More on pulled noodles and how to make them in the very near future...)

Second, don’t drown the noodles with sauce. You want a good balance of sauce to pasta so that your tongue is initially hit with the salty/sweet/meaty taste of the zhajiang, and then this is complemented by the subtly sweet noodles that act sort of like palate cleansers. The cucumber garnish does much of the same thing, but it is raw and slightly tannic, which provides even more contrast. (The brilliant emerald color satisfies the eyes, too.) Some people like to sprinkle green onions on top, and I would not be opposed to a few shards per bite, but don’t overdo it.

Frying the sweet wheat paste

Third, add the secret ingredient of this recipe, eggplant, as this ends up as creamy bits of heaven that make the meat even meatier. 

The idea for this addition came from the wonderful Chinese writer Liang Shih-chiu, who recalled in an essay called “Noodles” (Miantiao) that “our family once was taught by a lofty personage to add cubed eggplant when the sauce was almost done… and the secret lay in doing one’s best to make the sauce on the noodles not too salty.”

He was right on the money.

Zhajiang or zajiang, Beijing or Manchuria, this is soul-satisfying stuff.

Zhajiang noodles  
Zhájiàng miàn 炸醬麵 
Manchuria, Beijing

Serves 2 to 3 as a lunch or snack

Noodles and eggplant:

1 pound fresh, wide noodles, preferably hand-pulled

8 cups boiling filtered water

2 small eggplants

¼ cup peanut or vegetable oil

Sauce:

1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil

8 ounces good quality ground pork

Gravelly meat and aromatics

½ medium onion peeled and cut into ½-inch dice

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tablespoons plain rice wine (mijiu)

6 to 8 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons sweet wheat paste (see Tips)

1 tablespoon regular soy sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

¼ cup hot filtered water

Garnish:

1 Japanese, Persian, or pickling cucumber, trimmed and julienned

1 green onion, trimmed and julienned, optional

1. Prepare your own noodles or use storebought fresh ones, preferably something wide and chewy like paparadelle. Shake the noodles out onto a tea towel and loosen the strands. Cover them with a clean tea towel to keep them from drying out. Have the unsalted water in a pot on the stove with the lid on to keep it hot.

2. Clean and trim the eggplants and then cut them into ½-inch dice (about 1 cup) without peeling. Heat the oil in a wok on medium-high and fry the eggplants until they are browned all over. Remove them to a dish.

3. To prepare the sauce, heat the oil in a wok over medium-high and add the ginger, pork, onion, and garlic. Lower the heat to medium and cook them – stirring occasionally – until the onions are translucent. Raise the heat to medium-high again and fry the mixture until it has some browned edges.

Korean sweet wheat paste

4. Pour the rice wine in and stir it around quickly to stop the caramelization. Scoop the mixture up one side of the wok. Raise the heat to high; pour in the sesame oil into the bottom of the wok and add the sweet wheat paste. Stir the paste around in the oil to break it up into a smooth layer and to fry out any raw flavors. Add the soy sauce and sugar. Mix the meat mixture into the sauce and toss these around on the heat. Add the hot water and stir the sauce around to incorporate the water. Lower the heat to a simmer and let the sauce gently cook for 10 to 15 minutes; add the eggplant, taste and adjust the seasoning, and cook the sauce for another 3 minutes.

5. Just before serving, cook the noodles until done but still nice and chewy. Use a Chinese spider or slotted spoon to remove them to noodle bowls, but don’t pour out the noodle water. Ladle the sauce on top of each mound of noodles and garnish with the cucumbers and the optional green onions. Serve a soup bowl of the hot noodle water on the side to each person. Your diners should toss the noodles with the sauce and garnish so that there is a nice balance of fresh, sweet, salty, chewy, and soft in each bite.

Tips

Look, Ma, no beans!

Zhajiang is traditionally made out of steamed breads (plain mantou) that have been allowed to mold. These are then mixed with seasonings and the resulting mush ferments into a thick, rich sauce of the deepest, darkest brown.

The problem is that zhajiang is often translated as “black bean sauce” (see the photo to the right) or “sweet bean sauce” or something on that order, but no beans were injured during the making of this sauce. It should be called “sweet wheat paste,” as it is gently sweet and nicely savory. Check the ingredient list as here: it should mainly be wheat, water, caramel, and salt. If any beans or bean powder or soy sauce are mentioned, it should be as an afterthought.

The best brands are made in Korea, for my money. Excellent quality, balanced flavor, good texture… what’s not to love?