My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen
Page 17
AT THE END OF HER BIRTHDAY party, Ah Paw always had a small lesson, one that stressed respect and honor for elders, family or otherwise. “The older one becomes, the more respect should be shown,” she would say. And she would point out that with age came experience and knowledge. “Always remember that an older person has eaten more grains of salt than you have eaten grains of rice,” she would say before sending me off to bed.
The national feast of the Autumn Moon, or Jung Chau Chit, is celebrated with one of China’s more enduring sweet, the moon cake. The festival, which centers upon the moon and its mythology, goes back more than 1,500 years to the time of the Tang Dynasty. It is said that a heavenly archer, as a reward for shooting down nine of the ten scourges besetting the earth, was given an herb of immortality. His wife found the herb, ate it, then fearing the anger of her husband, fled to the moon. She arrived breathless and choking, and coughed up the herb, which landed on the moon, becoming a jade rabbit upon impact. On the night of the Autumn Moon people walk the streets carrying elaborate lighted paper lanterns, and search the sky for the full moon, on which they are certain can be seen the image of that good luck rabbit.
The moon cakes, or yeut bang, date as far back as the festival itself. These cakes, of heavy sweet fillings, such as lotus seed or red bean pastes, often with nuts, around cooked salted duck egg yolks, and covered with a thin layer of wheat flour dough, can be obtained only at this time of the year. Bakeries work feverishly to make sufficient amounts of them, and call attention to the number of yolks they contain: the more yolks, the more expensive and, the luckier. At Ah Paw’s house we never made these because of the great effort needed, and because they were so plentiful in the town bakeries. But we bought many, many boxes of them, for ourselves and for visitors, and ate them to excess for their overly sweet richness.
To this day I buy them by the box each October and eat them with great enjoyment, telling myself that I am faithfully observing the Autumn Moon Festival.
Our family’s observance of the Winter Solstice was celebrated at home. It was, and is, very much a Chinese version of Thanksgiving, a happy time remembering with pleasure good harvests of the past year. Temple offerings were made to Shen Nung, the God of Agriculture, in hopes that he would again smile upon our fields and crops in the coming year. Known commonly as Lop Dong, or the beginning of winter, the dinner we ate in thanksgiving was substantial, and included some of the favorite dishes of Ah Paw’s household. Because the weather had cooled by this time, we were able to obtain dishes denied us in summer months, such as salted pork, fresh or cured bacon and lop cheong, pork and pork liver sausages, and of course Ah Paw’s favorite, Buddha’s Delight, and a thick cake of glutinous rice studded with candied fruit called 8-Treasure Rice.
Part of our Winter Solstice feast was always the communal hot pot.
Hot Pot
(DAH BIN LO)
The preparation known as the hot pot exists throughout China, in many guises. Its name, dah bin lo, translates loosely as “gathering around the table,” and connotes a central dish of boiling broth in which meats and fish are cooked in small bits to be eaten communally. In Ah Paw’s house this was a most festive dish, reserved only for the winter because it was so warming.
A small portable clay stove, fired by charcoal, was brought from the kitchen to the dining table. Over its flame was placed a clay pot of boiling water with ginger and scallions, in which we cooked our foods. As with other special dishes from Ah Paw’s kitchen, this required some work, but the enjoyment far outweighed the effort.
1 pound pork loin, cut in half lengthwise, then sliced into thin half-moons
¾ pound chicken cutlets, thinly sliced
1 pound shrimp (about 20) shelled, deveined and washed
1 pound filet sea bass, thinly sliced
1 pound spinach, old leaves discarded, stalks separated, washed 3 or 4
times to remove grit, drained
1 bunch mum greens (1 pound) washed, drained and stems removed (or
cabbage, cut into 1-inch by 3-inch sections)
2 bunches watercress, washed, drained
4 ounces (2 packages) bean thread noodles soaked in hot water 15
minutes until soft, cut into 6-inch strands
4 cakes firm bean curd, cut into ¼-inch slices
8 cups cold water
1 piece ginger, 1½ inch thick, lightly smashed
4 scallions, trimmed, cut into 2-inch sections
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons peanut oil
Prepare meats, vegetables, bean thread noodles and bean curd, arrange in individual dishes around a portable stove that will hold a large pot. (An electric fry pan will substitute well.) Place water, ginger, scallions, salt and peanut oil in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Lower heat to simmer for 10 minutes, then bring pot to the table and place on portable stove.
At this point you may eat as eclectically as you wish, placing whichever meat, fish, seafood, bean curd or vegetable of your choice into the broth and cooking it. I recommend using small, strainerlike spoons fashioned of wire, which are available in Asian markets. Or you may use slotted spoons. Accompany what you eat with either or both of the following dipping sauces.
Sesame Dip
4 tablespoons sesame seed paste
4 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shao-Hsing wine, or sherry
1 tablespoon Chinese red rice vinegar, or red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
Vinegar Dip
2 tablespoons Chinese red rice vinegar, or red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese white rice wine, or gin
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon sugar
Combine ingredients for each sauce.
Divide dipping sauces into individual small soy sauce dishes, to serve.
SERVES UP TO 8
THE SOLSTICE WAS THE BEGINNING OF our winter, admittedly not very cold, but much cooler than the green, warm springs and summers, even autumns, of southern China. I had learned to cook the cooling foods of summer with Ah Paw, to steam papayas and pears, to double-boil squashes and melons, sweetening them with honey and dates. And winter brought its own rewards. I learned from Ah Paw of the heat that could be brought into the body with double-boiled pork soups, with stews and other dishes braised in the wok, of ginseng root boiled with chicken, of squabs roasted in a covered wok, and that peculiar breed of tough, black-fleshed chicken simmered for hours, so that only its flavor was left, the chicken discarded. And winter was notable as well because in just weeks Ah Paw would consult her Tung Sing and our busy New Year month would begin.
EIGHT
FROM GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE
FOR ALMOST SIX YEARS, UNTIL THE New Year of 1950, I had gone from my home in Siu Lo Chun to my grandmother’s house in Sah Gah so often that it had become my second home. Thus it should not have been unexpected that, in that year in which I was to become twelve, when I decided to leave China, that I would depart from Ah Paw’s house.
It was in that winter of 1949 that I made up my mind. I had been on school holi- day for the New Year, spending most of my time, as usual, cooking in my grandmother’s kitchen, helping her servants to primp her house. I decided I was not returning to school. I told Ah Paw of my choice. This reasonable woman did not, as I knew she wouldn’t, suggest that I was being contrary. She simply asked me why.
I told her that at my school learning had stopped, that I and the other 350 students in our school spent little or no time in the classroom. Instead, we were walked from village to surrounding village where we danced and sang songs telling of the greatness of the People’s Republic of China. By this time, after four years of civil war, Chiang Kai-Shek and his Kuomintang government had fled the mainland for Taiwan and the country was under the control of Mao Tze-Tung. We sang of that change of government, and of the revolution, and when we did go to our classrooms, it was to write
letters to soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, praising them and telling them we appreciated their bravery.
I had already told my mother that school was a waste of time for me, that I did not intend to return, and that I wished to go to live with Ah Paw. My father was in Hong Kong at this time. My brother, Ching Moh, said that any decision was my own and agreed that I could go to my grandmother. He believed, I found out later, that after a visit to Ah Paw, I would choose to return home, and to school. So, when my grandmother asked my reasons, and I gave them to her, she nodded, agreed that I had made a good decision and said her home was of course mine, so long as I had decided not to return to school.
POSING WITH A FAMILY FRIEND’S PACKARD SEDAN IN HONG KONG, 1950.
It was while I was in Sah Gau that I discovered that many people had fled, or were fleeing the town, and their country, for refuge in Hong Kong, then still an autonomous Crown Colony of Great Britain, which, it was said, was welcoming refugees by the thousands. My father was there. So my next bit of reasoning was that I would go to Hong Kong. I told this to Ah Paw, and her only reply was that I should return home and get the permission of my mother and brother.
MY BROTHER, CHING MOH (LEFT), WITH A FRIEND AND MY COUSIN BUN YUEN (RIGHT), JUST MONTHS BEFORE MY BROTHER WAS KILLED IN 1952.
Back in Siu Lo Chun I sat with my mother and brother and told them I wanted to go to Hong Kong where, I reminded them, my father was. My mother, Miu Hau, had no objection. In fact she said, “If you do not go to school you will become a farmer in the fields. Go.” My brother asked me to give him a good reason for wanting to leave, and I told him of the new textbook that had been given out in our school which read, “We do not want our father. We do not want our mother. We only want New China.” He agreed that I could go.
There was another occurrence at home that helped sway my brother. On that day when I spoke to my family, I was bitten on the face by a stray dog. My brother and his friends tracked down the dog, killed it and took some bile from its liver to treat the bite so there would be no infection. My brother thought this might be some omen and said, “Maybe you should go to Hong Kong.”
“Yes, yes,” I agreed, telling him I would continue to treat the dog bite with the bile.
I took two of my dresses, packed them into a square cloth, knotted, and walked back to Ah Paw’s house, where I was given my usual space in her bedroom, which I then regarded as only temporary quarters. A cousin, who lived in Sah Gau, agreed to take me with her to Hong Kong three days later, and I spent most of my days running to my many friends in town telling them I was going to Hong Kong. Alone? they would ask, and when I said yes, they would call me brave. But I never felt brave.
In the evenings Ah Paw would talk to me. She told me she had confidence in me, that she had done her best to see to it that I was mature for my age, that I would speak up when I had to. Be strong, she said. When you want something, make sure you work hard to get it, no matter how hard the work is. “Things are not easy in the world,” she cautioned. “You are a girl. Be careful with men. You are young now, but you are growing up. Never drink, never. You never know what will happen when you drink.”
She went on. “If people offer you money, and you have not done anything to earn it, never accept it. There is always a reason if someone gives you money. If you take it and spend it, you will have to do something for it. This will rob you of your independence.” As she spoke, she would, between pronouncements, look at me and kiss me on my forehead.
On the morning of the fourth day I left Ah Paw’s house for the last time.
My cousin and I went by bus to Canton. There we got on a train, the Canton-Hong Kong Railway, which customarily went directly to Hong Kong. Not this time. The Kuomintang had bombed the tracks before they left. So we left the train at Lo Wu, changed to another and finally arrived in Hong Kong, where my father met me. He brought me to live with him in the home of my number-five aunt, Ng Ku Cheh, in Kowloon.
The front portion of my aunt’s house was a small grocery, which my father helped tend. He was also a very good cook, had given me my very first rudimentary cooking lessons when he was home and he often cooked for my aunt and her family when they were busy in their shop. He was aware of my cooking efforts at my grandmother’s house, insisted that I help him, which I did, and in the nearly five months that we lived and worked under the same roof, he undertook to impart to me whatever cooking knowledge he could.
Much of it was philosophical. He repeatedly said that it was as important to eat with one’s eyes as it was with one’s mouth. He placed great importance upon how a dish should appear when being presented. He stressed that when cooking, even if from a book, that I should keep an open mind and not simply and slavishly follow words alone. “Cook the way it has been written, but keep an open mind. If you keep walking only in a straight line, nei wui jong doh chung, you will go hard into a wall,” he told me.
Follow the classical manner, he stressed, but warned that I not be a mindless imitator. I listened.
Fried Rice with Sausages and Shrimp
(LOP CHEUNG SIN HAR CHAU FAN)
This fried rice is my father’s variation on a theme. He did not use barbecued roast pork, nor did he use the sweet river shrimp that I remembered from my grandmother’s kitchen. This chau fan relied upon the slight sweetness of the lop cheung, together with saltwater shrimp. Because these shrimp were dead, not live as the sweet river shrimp of Sah Gau had been, he taught me to make a marinade that would add flavor to the shrimp. I still consider this variation of fried rice my father’s version, and I make it quite often in my kitchen.
MARINADE
½ teaspoon grated ginger mixed with 1 teaspoon Chinese white rice
wine, or gin
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
½ teaspoon light soy sauce
Pinch white pepper
¼ pound shrimp, shelled, deveined, washed, dried and each cut in half lengthwise, then in half again
SAUCE
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons Chicken Stock (page 13)
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sesame oil
3½ tablespoons peanut oil
4 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
4 Chinese sausages (lop cheung), cut into ⅓-inch dice
4 cups cooked rice
1 tablespoon coriander, finely sliced
3 scallions, finely sliced
Combine all ingredients for marinade. Add shrimp and allow to rest for 20 minutes. Reserve.
Mix all ingredients for sauce and reserve.
Heat wok over high heat for 45 seconds. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil, coat wok with spatula. When a wisp of white smoke appears, add beaten eggs, scramble. Turn off heat and use spatula to break up eggs into small pieces. Set aside.
Wash wok and spatula. Heat wok over high heat 45 seconds. Add remaining peanut oil, coat wok with spatula. When a wisp of white smoke appears, add ginger and garlic and stir. When garlic turns light brown, add sausage, stir-fry for 3 minutes. Make a well in the center of the mixture, add shrimp and marinade, stir for 1 minute. Add cooked rice and stir together thoroughly 5 minutes until rice is very hot. Stir sauce, drizzle around rice. Mix well, until rice is coated. Add reserved eggs and mix together well. Add coriander and scallions, mix thoroughly. Remove to a heated plate and serve immediately.
SERVES 4
Lemon Rice Noodles
(LING MUNG MAI FUN)
In Hong Kong I found a wider use of cooking with citrus than I had experienced before. This dish of rice noodles, which I mixed with grated lemon skin (I didn’t know the words rind or zest at the time) and lemon juice, was an invention encouraged by my father. It is fresh and different from a customary rice noodle dish.
3 tablespoons Scallion Oil (page 16)
1�
� teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons grated lemon rind
½ cup Barbecued Pork (page 43), shredded
8 ounces rice noodles, fine, like angel hair, soaked in hot water 15-20
minutes until pliable, drained, loosened with chopsticks and cut into 4-
inch lengths
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
4 teaspoons hot chili sauce (Tabasco preferred)
1½ teaspoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons scallions, finely sliced
Heat wok over high heat 45 seconds. Add scallion oil, coat wok with spatula, then add garlic and salt and stir. When garlic turns light brown, add lemon rind, stir. Add pork, stir for 30 seconds. Add noodles, lower heat and mix all ingredients together. Add lemon juice, toss. Add hot sauce, mix well. Add sesame oil, mix well again. When noodles are well coated, turn off heat. Add scallions, mix well, transfer to a heated platter and serve immediately.
SERVES 4