My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen

by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

  My husband thought all of this was hilarious, until he became part of my travail. I was teaching a class in Peking Duck, and it is my custom that each student receive a duck and prepare it from scratch. My bonus is always that I keep the livers and make pate of them. Well, on this occasion I found that I had no red wine to add to the livers. I telephoned my husband and he said that he was busy and to just take the best. Which one, I asked. Take a very good wine, he said, because a good pate needs a good wine. When he came home that evening and saw that I had opened, and used completely, a 1982 Chateau Lynch-Bages, he wanted to know why. I told him I had followed his advice and opened a good one.

  “But that was very good,” he said.

  “How was the pate?” I asked.

  “Wonderful,” he replied.

  I smiled and turned away. Never again was there any question about driving to Chinatown, where my age was never in question, to buy wine and spirits to drink, or to cook with.

  I continued to fashion and to cook the many dim sum that I knew from my past. Those available in Chinatown teahouses were passable, but not always up to the standard I remembered. I learned early to make woo gok, which consist of mashed taro root folded around savory fillings, because these had been my husband’s discovery in Hong Kong. I made har gau, those pleated shrimp dumplings, and spring rolls, as well as lor bok goh, turnip cake, and sang maw mah tai goh, water chestnut cake, just as I had made them in Ah Paw’s New Year kitchen. Two of my earliest successes were with other dim sum traditions.

  Water Dumplings

  (SOI GAU)

  These are among the simpler dim sum to make, and quite attractive as well. As with many other dim sum, they can be fashioned from ready-made skins or wrappings, in this instance won ton skins. Though they are called “water dumplings,” they are actually boiled in water, then heated in stock and served in the resulting soup.

  FILLING

  12 ounces shrimp, washed, shelled, deveined, dried and cut into

  quarters then chopped into a paste

  12 ounces ground pork

  1½ teaspoons salt

  1 teaspoon grated ginger mixed with 1 teaspoon Chinese white rice

  wine, or gin

  ⅓ cup bamboo shoots, cut into ¼-inch dice

  2½ teaspoons sugar

  1½ teaspoons sesame oil

  1 tablespoon peanut oil

  1½ teaspoons light soy sauce

  2 tablespoons oyster sauce

  3 tablespoons cornstarch

  Pinch white pepper

  40 won ton skins, each cut with a kitchen shears into a circle 2¾ inches

  in diameter

  3 quarts water

  5 cups Chicken Stock (page 13)

  1 cup chives, cut into ¼-inch lengths

  Combine filling ingredients in a large bowl, mix well to combine thoroughly. Refrigerate 4 hours uncovered, or overnight, covered.

  MAKE THE DUMPLINGS: Work with the trimmed won ton skins, keeping a small bowl of water at hand. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of the skin. With a butter knife, brush water around the edges of the skin. Fold skin into a half-moon shape, press edges together with thumb and forefinger to seal. Place completed dumpling on a cornstarch-dusted cookie sheet. Repeat until all dumplings are made. As you work, keep reserved skins under a damp cloth to prevent drying out.

  In a pot bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Add dumplings and boil 5 to 7 minutes, until filling can be seen through skin. Run cold water over dumplings in the pot to stop the cooking process, then drain.

  In a pot bring chicken stock to a boil, add chives and stir. Add dumplings, stir. Return to a boil, turn off heat and serve immediately.

  MAKES 40 WATER DUMPLINGS

  A BOWL OF FINISHED WATER DUMPLINGS FROM A COOKING CLASS IN MY HOME.

  Cook-and-Sell Dumplings

  (SIU MAI)

  These dumplings are widely known by their Chinese name rather than by its translation. Their name, siu mai, usually pronounced quickly, means “cook and sell,” and is meant to indicate that these little basket-shaped dim sum are so good that they are eaten immediately upon serving, and not one is ever left unsold. Like the water dumpling recipes above, these dumplings are fashioned from won ton skins.

  FILLING

  8 Chinese black mushrooms, soaked 15-20 minutes in hot water until

  softened, washed, squeezed, dried, stems discarded and caps cut into ¼-

  inch dice

  ½ pound pork, coarsely ground

  ¼ pound shrimp, shelled, deveined, washed and cut into ¼-inch dice

  ½ teaspoon salt

  1½ teaspoons sugar

  1 teaspoon peanut oil

  1 tablespoon oyster sauce

  1 tablespoon cornstarch

  1 teaspoon sesame oil

  Pinch white pepper

  20 won ton skins, cut with kitchen shears into circles 2¼ inches in

  diameter

  Sufficient lettuce leaves to line steamer, trimmed

  In a large bowl, combine all filling ingredients. Mix, stirring in one direction, until consistency is smooth and even. Place in shallow dish, refrigerate 4 hours, uncovered, or overnight, covered.

  MAKE DUMPLINGS: Holding a round dumpling skin in one hand, place 4 teaspoons of filling in center and pat down to flatten. With your fingers fold up the skin while turning the dumpling and flattening the filling on top with a rounded butter knife. Continue turning and flattening until a basket-shape is formed. The diameter will be about 1¼ inches.

  Pack down, and smooth the top of the filling. Squeeze the dumpling lightly to create a “neck.” This helps to keep the dumpling intact during steaming. Tap dumpling lightly on work surface to flatten the bottom so that it will stand upright in steamer. Place layer of lettuce leaves in steamer. Place dumplings on leaves, allowing at least ½ inch between dumplings.

  Place 10 cups boiling water in wok. Put in steamer, cover, steam 7 to 9 minutes, until pork is off-white and firm. (See steaming directions, page 30.) Serve immediately.

  NOTE Won ton skins come in 1-pound packages, usually 60 to 80 skins per pound, depending upon their thickness. Any remaining unused skins may be frozen for future use. The siu mai may be frozen as well, after steaming. They will keep 2 to 3 months, wrapped first in plastic, then in foil. To reheat, defrost and steam 3 to 5 minutes.

  A JOURNEY COMES FULL CIRCLE

  The more I cooked, the more my sense of what I was doing developed. Ah Paw had preached over and over that foods needed to be balanced so that when ingested, their effect on the body would be balanced as well. The delicate relationship between ingredients had to be observed, as did the appearance of food, and its tastes. She had taught me to look and to feel as well as to taste. And I cooked what I had assimilated. I had no recipes, no cookbooks, nothing written down, only memories.

  “Tau gung gam liu,” she had said, waggling a finger at me, “You cannot take shortcuts.” Always, she said, “Cook with patience, and with your heart.” And, she would add, “Never substitute water for stock,” a more figurative way of repeating that never should I seek shortcuts.

  She had taught me that if I failed, I should try again. If what I set out to do was faulty, I should try a second time, and a third, if necessary. By the third time, she had said, it will turn out. Invariably it did. All of these sayings applied not only to cooking, but to life, Ah Paw said. “Dai sik lam,” or “Do not just sit and eat, and become lazy.”

  I believe all of this, and I try to live by it. When I cook, I adhere to the seasons. In winter, what I cook is intended to warm, to offset what is cold within us. In summer I cook foods that will cool. My Chinese foods are never eaten without thought. They have been shaped by more than 2,000 years of tradition, and I consider myself to be an inheritor, as well as a conduit, of this tradition. In my classes and in my writings I preach the purity of my cuisine. I guard it, and when I see it alloyed, it saddens me.

  I have received a fair amount of recognition. My books have been
praised and have won awards, and I have taught master classes, and have been the subject of articles on aspects of my cooking for major publications, national and international. I have been honored with lifetime achievement awards, and have conducted classes in my cooking all over the world, from Singapore to Helsinki. In addition to appearing on scores of television and radio programs, I have taught my cooking to many professional western chefs who desired knowledge of the Chinese kitchen.

  None of this would have happened without the constant presence of Ah Paw, who is with me always. This may sound maudlin, or contrived, but I assure you, it is not. Her lessons, drummed into my head as a little girl, have never been forgotten. And, as I have grown older, I have come to realize how truly wise she was.

  Over the years, I have come to think of her more frequently than I have the family into which I was born. When I learned of my mother’s death in China, in 1975, my first thought was of Ah Paw, and how she would have wept over the death of her daughter. Perhaps it was because I learned of my mother’s passing well after the fact, thirdhand, by telegram, sent by my father from Siu Lo Chun to his brother in Hong Kong, then on to me by sea mail. As I read my father’s words, together with a request to send $300 to cover her funeral costs, I barely cried for this mother whom I had not seen for twenty-five years, but I did conjure up a sadness that I believe Ah Paw would have felt, had she been alive, over the death of her only daughter.

  MY FATHER (RIGHT) AND MY NUMBER-FOUR UNCLE, SHE SOOK, IN CANTON IN LATE 1984, SHORTLY BEFORE MY FATHER’S DEATH. THIS IS THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OF MY FATHER.

  I did get to see my father in 1979 when, after China had opened its borders to Americans, my husband and I traveled to Guangzhou and by prearrangement met my father and a group of cousins in that city. I had not seen him for thirty years, since he left me in Hong Kong to return to Siu Lo Chun. He had been ill for some time, was enfeebled, and looked at my husband with some skepticism. But he warmed considerably when we showed him photographs of our three children. It was a short visit, without the permission of the Chinese government, and I left my father with photographs of his grandchildren, several boxes full of gifts, a radio and other things we thought he might wish for or need. I have a photograph of that meeting, which I keep. It turned out that that was the last time I would see him alive, for he died in 1985.

  I learned of his death well after it occurred when, in December of that year during a visit to Hong Kong, a cousin informed me of it. He was the last of my family to pass away. My brother, mother, and father were dead, as was Ah Paw. There were no more ties, only memories, and the more distinct were, and are, of Ah Paw.

  My thoughts of her are always pleasant. I picture her, afternoons, her hand on my supporting shoulder, as I help her walk to the small plaza of Sah Gau where she would sit and talk with other women of the town while I played. Often, I would merely pretend to play, for I would rather listen to her talk about her family members, including myself, and their health and wealth. She would talk about the next expected visit of her beloved nuns, and of the men in her family who had gone off to the United States to find money in its Golden Mountains and were sending support home.

  The talk would be of harvests, hopefully good, of zodiac years. If the year was of the dragon, how many women in the various families were expecting, for the dragon was a marvelous birth omen. If a year of the snake, it was the duty of all of the women in the plaza to carry the message to the women of their families that it was not a year to become pregnant, nor to give birth, for the snake was the worst of birth omens.

  WITH MY GRANDDAUGHTER, SIU SIU, AGE ONE.

  I remember her turning the pages of her astrological Tung Sing to determine which were the best days to travel, the best on which to plant, when to harvest, when to empty the ponds, when to take fish to market. The Tung Sing determined engagement and wedding dates, when the wedding cake was to be made and delivered to the groom’s family. When the dowry was to be delivered, in particular the dried mushrooms and abalone, the dried sharkfins and birds’ nests were to be delivered, for these were gifts of great honor.

  Ah Fei, she would say, “Learn, learn, always learn. Never stop.”

  I never have, and I am teaching my granddaughter to do the same. The first soup she ever ate was made from Tianjin bok choy and chicken, an Ah Paw soup. Her first congee came directly, via me, from her great-grandmother’s kitchen. Her first meat came from a chicken poached with Chinese herbs, later slices of roasted pork. Her vegetables were steamed in the Chinese way. Her first fruits were apples and pears, steamed, and pureed with their steaming juices.

  My granddaughter is eating well. She will continue to do so, and she will learn. From her Ah Paw.

  TEN

  FOODS OF MY CHINESE KITCHEN: INGREDIENT NOTES FROM A TO Z

  AS BEFITS A CUISINE WITH THE longest of histories, the basic foods of China have changed little over the years, even over the centuries. So it is with the ingredients that I first cooked with in my grandmother’s kitchen in Sah Gau, and which I use today. Certainly, methods of cooking are altered by advances in equipment, but the basic foods remain intact. What I cooked with then, I cook with now.

  This is of course an advantage when one wishes, as I do, to be part of an historical context. The main difference, and a happy circumstance it is, is that these traditional foods have become not only more widely available, but familiar. Huge supermarkets carrying Chinese and other Asian foodstuffs are commonplace these days. Even familiar supermarkets, because of growing demand, stock shelves with Chinese and Asian ingredients. Once rarities and difficult to find, these oils, spices, condiments, prepared and preserved foods from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and countries elsewhere in Asia are no longer exotic.

  A great many of these dried, preserved, pickled and otherwise prepared products are also available by mail order and through the Internet. Brands have also proliferated. Thus, securing the foods necessary to cook as I did in my grandmother’s kitchen, and as I do now, is not difficult. What follows is an alphabetical list of those foods to be found in the recipes in this book. I describe them generically, mentioning brand names only when I believe that the one named is far superior to any other.

  It should be noted that along with the growing number of brands and choices to be found, there have arisen many examples of fanciful, often misleading, labeling. A food can be described in many ways, so I urge caution when shopping. Alongside each ingredient is its name in Chinese characters. When shopping for specific foods, I suggest that you make a photocopy of the names of those items you wish, show this to the shopkeeper, and you will receive exactly what you wish.

  Here, then, are the foods of my kitchen, the foods of my grandmother’s kitchen, their descriptions, their properties, their care and storage. Cook with history.

  BAMBOO SHOOTS These are the pale yellow, spear-shaped beginnings of bamboo trees. Usually they are imported cooked and canned, and are quite good. Winter bamboo shoots are deemed more desirable because they are tender and less fibrous than older shoots. Can be labeled “winter bamboo shoots,” or “bamboo shoots, tips.” They are interchangeable. Occasionally fresh bamboo shoots are available in Chinese and Asian markets, but they can be tough, so I suggest you boil them before use. Bamboo shoots will keep, refrigerated, in a closed container filled with water, for seven to ten days. The water should be changed daily.

  BEAN CURD What the Chinese call daufu, the Japanese call tofu. The custardlike daufu are made from a soybean liquid, called “milk,” and comes usually in square cakes, about two and a half to three inches on a side. These cakes are often sold loose in Asian markets, and are preferable to those sold in packages or in large blocks. They come packaged in three distinct textures: soft, often labeled “silken,” firm or medium-firm, and extra-firm. Bean curd has little taste of its own; its versatility lies in its ability to absorb the tastes of those foods with which it is combined. Bean curd cakes may be kept for one week in a container of water, tightly closed,
refrigerated, with the water changed daily.

  BEAN CURD, RED WET PRESERVED These are cubes of bean curd, red in color, which have been allowed to ferment usually in a mix of salt, sugar, rice wine and the liquid from red rice, which gives the cubes their color. The cubes come in crocks and jars labeled variously “wet bean curd,” “red wet bean curd” or “fermented bean curd.” This bean curd is not spicy, but adds flavor and the distinctive red color to the barbeques and braised dishes in which it is used. Available in Asian markets, ask for it phonetically as Lam Yue.

  BEAN SAUCE This is a thick puree made from the soybeans that remain after soy sauce has been manufactured and poured off, and thus is fermented. They are mixed with wheat flour, salt and sugar, resulting in a coarse brown sauce that contains pieces of soybeans. There is also a mix labeled “ground bean sauce,” which means simply that they have been ground into a mash. You may also see jars labeled “yellow bean sauce,” or “brown bean sauce,” but they are the same. After opening, the jar should be kept refrigerated. The bean sauce will keep four to six months.