Cooking up a Dragon - Snake Soup

Recently, I bought a book from www.paddyfield.com called, "Cooking up a Dragon" which is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Hong Kong cuisine. The book contains recipes from a cross-section of Hong Kong ranging from tiny Dai Pai Dongs to Haute Cuisine offered in 5 Star Hotels.

When I first received the book, I eagerly flicked through each page until, to my absolute amazement, I found a recipe for SNAKE SOUP submitted by none other than the famous snake shop "Shia Wong Hip" in Sham Shui Po.

Now, not really wanting to go out of my way to buy my own special snake or snakes just to make this recipe (ok, still a bit petrified from my last snake shop experience), I decided to visit the shop today to see if I could actually pluck up the courage to try this famous delicacy. I arrived just before lunch time and studied the snakes in a cage out front before scanning the shop itself... lots of gweilo photo's on the walls, small uninspiring tables and stools, and the familiar wooden crates that I had seen previously at the snake shop in Sheung Wan. Ok, this is all right now let's see about hygiene. There was one Chinese gentleman busy tucking into his steaming bowl of soup and I actually saw another lady getting hers so was relieved to see that porcelain bowls and spoons were actually taken out of a steamer that sterilised the crockery and utensils. Not really wanting to get a dose of food poisoning, in addition to feeling sick after tasting the soup, I felt a lot better that at least I wouldn't get sick from the lack of hygiene.

Not knowing enough Cantonese to ask the lady for a spoonful rather than a bowl we played charades until she understood that I didn't actually want a regular bowl but just a taste. She removed a porcelain spoon and small bowl from the steamer then started filling it until it measured about half a cup. The soup and crockery was extremely hot, so I sat down, waited for a bit then took a tiny amount from the side of my bowl, sipped it then waited for the "yuck" factor to arrive. BUT, funnily enough it DIDN'T and all I could taste was a delicate sweet soup with hints of ginger and citrus. Although, I could see strands of snake in my bowl and the colour was a murky brown, the taste wasn't overpowering and the snake actually tasted a bit like chicken although I would go on to say that chicken meat is a bit stronger. I continued to sip my delightful snake soup and after I had finished went over to pay but the lovely lady motioned me to put my money back in my purse, gave me a hug and with a big smile ushered me out on to the street.

Shia Wong Hip is located at G/F 170 Apliu Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong Tel: +852 23869064

Note: If you buy the book you can substitute chicken for snake... phew! Also, click on the title to this post to see "Le Gourmet TV" footage of "Shia Wong Hip". The lady holding the snakes,"Chau Ka-Ling" is the lovely lady and restaurant owner that refused to take my money.

Also visit http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071220-snake-video-ap.html

Copyright © 2008 - 2009 All Rights Reserved

The Old Streets of Sai Kung

In the old streets of Sai Kung I discovered a little shop called "Wo Cheong Hou" located on the G/F No. 14 Main Street Sai Kung, New Territories. Inside, perched on a stool, sat a little old man called Mr Mak who is one of the last remaining iron mongers in Sai Kung if not Hong Kong. Displayed proudly all over one wall were photo's of Margaret Thatcher, her entourage and Mr Mak when she had last visited his shop. Out front were Mr Mak's hand made buckets, watering cans, metal boxes and the like and towards the back an assortment of mail boxes.

On Hong Kong island I normally find that the locals are quite reluctant for me to take their photo but when I asked Mr Mak he immediately straightened his back, adjusted is glasses and obligingly struck a pose. Mr Mak absolutely made my day! And, I have to say that I felt very honoured to be able to take his photo as I was not only capturing a remarkable man but also a part of Hong Kong's history. Mr Mak is 93 years old, still works very hard and credits his good health to his diet and exercise. He explained that there aren't too many products on the market like his anymore because the youth of today aren't interested in learning a trade that's not profitable enough. So after spending a lovely half hour with Mr Mak and one of his neighbours I proudly walked away with a smile on my face and my shiny new mailbox tucked under my arm.

Next stop down the street and around the corner was a little tea shop called "Tea & Zen". Here I spent a good couple of hours talking to Raymond and his wife Debbie (the owners), Clarence and Maria. I learnt what I was doing wrong when I was making my pu-erh (bolay) tea and I also received a Cantonese language lesson. We then talked a little about global politics, cultural differences and photography all the while sipping our pu-erh. Then, much to our delight and unbeknown to us, Maria had visited one of the street stalls and had come back with brown paper bags full of Chinese egg puffs, which were absolutely delicious. It was a wonderful afternoon and I walked away with some pu-erh tea to replenish the stock in my cupboard. Must remember to put 5 gm pu-erh in a small teapot (10 gm for a larger one) and to flush the tea leaves twice before steeping in boiling water. After the tea has steeped for about 30 seconds you can then pour the tea into a glass jug and leave the tea leaves dry in the pot until you are ready to make more tea. You can do this up to about ten times at one sitting before disposing of the tea leaves.
Copyright © 2008 - 2009 All Rights Reserved

Yuen Yick Oyster Sauce & Shrimp Sauce Manufacturer Peel Street

Luckily, I visited Yuen Yick Oyster Sauce & Shrimp Sauce Manufacturer just as some shrimp sauce was being bottled. I can't speak Cantonese but it looked like father and son were bottling the sauce.

Lin Heung Tea House Cooking Demo

Chicken with Preserved Black Beans

Yesterday, Wednesday 18 February 2009 I experienced a rare opportunity to watch a chef from the Lin Heung Tea House demonstrate three dishes i.e. Pork Cartilage in Special Sauce; Beancurd with Minced Pork and Black Olives; and Chicken with Preserved Black Beans. The cooking demonstration was held at the Towngas Cooking Centre in Causeway Bay.

Lin Heung Tea House, 160-164 Wellington Street, Central is a famous Hong Kong dim sum establishment that has withstood the test of time and is believed to be between 85-100 years old. Of all the tea houses that have existed throughout Hong Kong's history only two remain in operation today, namely the Lin Heung Tea House and the more up market Luk Yu Tea House.

There are plenty of websites that go into dim sum etiquette and descriptions about the Lin Heung Tea House but few if any other recipes on the internet from this tea house. The recipes provided by Towngas were very basic and lacked essential information but with excellent translation/s throughout the cooking demonstration, I was able to compose fairly detailed instructions for each dish.

Chicken with Preserved Black Beans

Ingredients:

1 fresh chicken not previously chilled if possible cut into 2 cm pieces

3 cloves garlic minced

3 tael (80 gm) shallots (small brown ones)

2 tael (80 gm) Pearl River Bridge preserved black beans with ginger

Enough red chili and green pepper for colour and according to taste (chopped)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

50 ml water

Seasonings:

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Drizzle of dark soy sauce for colour

A little salt

Method:

1. Pat chicken pieces with cornstarch and toss well with fingers until well combined.
   
2. Blanch the chicken in oil. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok, swirl oil around and then when hot add the chicken pieces. Continuously move the chicken around and up the sides of the wok using a medium heat (not high). Using a towel, hold the side of the wok handle, pick up the wok and swirl. You will notice that as the chicken blanches it starts to develop a golden crust. When blanched remove from wok.
   
3. Sauté the shallot, garlic and preserved black bean, red chili and green pepper in the wok then add 50 ml water.
   
4. Add chicken and fry well. Add a drizzle of dark soy for colour then add seasonings.
   
5. Cook on low heat until the sauce is absorbed and the chicken dries out. Serve.
   

Tips:

1. Chop chicken using the saw cutting and push cutting technique so that you have approx. 2cm chicken pieces with bone in. The only bone you need to remove is the thigh bone. To do this slice along the leg bone then using the push cutting technique cut the bone nearest where the chicken’s foot would have been then pull the thigh bone out to remove.
   
2. In a restaurant, the chef would blanch the chicken in quite a bit of oil but for home use only 3 tablespoons of oil is required. Note that it is important to continuously move the chicken around in the wok.
   
3. Important to make the chicken dry with not much sauce so that the flavour is good.
   
4. Whole chicken can be replaced with chicken breast.
   
5. No need to cook with lid on wok.
   
6. Add enough red chili and green pepper according to taste.
   

Beancurd with Minced Pork and Black Olives

Ingredients:

1-2 packs silken tofu (tofu for steaming)

4 pieces preserved black olives cut roughly but not minced

6 tael (240 gm) raw minced pork blanched until cooked

3 cloves garlic minced

Approx. 2 small red chillies diced

Seasonings:

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon cornstarch

Method:

1. Open tofu packets and drain off liquid. Slice tofu and arrange on a plate or platter.
2. Mix well oyster sauce, sugar and cornstarch. Stir in black olive, minced pork, garlic and chilli. Place the mixture on top of the tofu.
3. Steam for 5 minutes, serve.

Tips:

1. Each packet of tofu was slightly bigger than a 250 ml rectangle tub of butter. Each packet of tofu when sliced thickly yielded 8 slices. Make sure that you drain the tofu really well before adding the seasoning, pork and olives to prevent the tofu becoming watery. If you sprinkle salt over the tofu when you remove it from the packaging water will seep out straight away and you can drain this off before continuing with the recipe.
   
2. Olives are preserved and are not the western variety. Packets can be bought from Asian grocery stores or again from the Hong Kong wet market/s.
   
3. Unlike the pork cartilage, blanch the minced pork in hot water until cooked. The chef had already done this and had stored the very dry mince in a plastic container. Make sure that after you blanch the pork mince that you use a sieve to drain the meat until it becomes dry.
   

Pork Cartilage in Special Sauce

Ingredients:

1 catty (600 gm) pork cartilage (ends of ribs are best as they contain nice fat, size of each piece was approx. 1.5 cm)

2 tael (40 gm) fresh ginger (optional) this is in addition to other spices below

Seasoning:

1 x 450 ml bottle Amoy All Purpose Marinade

35 gm rock sugar (more if you are making your own marinade as the All Purpose Marinade is sweeter)

Spices:

7-8 bay leaves (dried)

2 cardamom pods

5-6 licorice roots (slices dried)

4 spicy sand ginger (dried)

Method:

1. Blanch pork cartilage until you can see all the scum/dirt coming off. Make sure that when you blanch the pork cartilage that you put it in the saucepan on the stove with cold water as this prevents the pork from cooking - as would be the case if you had blanched the pork in boiling water. Remove pork and drain.
2. Place pork cartilage in a clay pot, pour in half the bottle (approx. 225ml) of the Marinade, add 350ml water, spices, ginger (optional) and rock sugar.
3. Bring to boil then simmer on low heat with lid on for 1.5 hours then serve.

Tips:

1. The Amoy All Purpose Marinade is strong so it needs to be diluted with water.
   
2. The special secret is to add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar to the clay pot when the pork cartilage is simmering as this will speed up the cooking process and reduce the cooking time by approx. 30 minutes.
   
3. When blanching the pork cartilage, put cold water in the saucepan, add the meat then bring to the boil or the meat will cook first if put into boiling water and become tough.
   
4. Continue to check the pork as it is simmering; if the clay pot becomes dry add more water.
   
5. To check tenderness, insert a chopstick into the pork and if it goes right through then it is tender and ready to be served.
   
6. The pork cartilage can be replaced with chicken wings (no need to add vinegar as chicken cooks more quickly than pork).
   
7. After you cook the pork cartilage you can keep the marinade and re-use it a few more times (similar to a master sauce/ lu stock).
   
8. To make your own marinade for this recipe use a mixture of light and dark soy sauce with spices and sugar instead of using the All Purpose Marinade. Combine 100 ml normal soy sauce (light), 150 ml premium strong and sweet flavoured soy sauce, 200 ml water, approx. 35 gm rock sugar (more depending on taste), 4 teaspoon of caster sugar, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce and the spices listed above.
   
9. If you have difficulty buying the spices for the marinade you should also be able to buy them already made up from the wet market (Hong Kong) or Asian grocery stores. The “Marinade Stuff” I bought from Choi Hop Lee, Condiments and Asiatic Products, G/F 4 Bowrington Road Wanchai HK also included star anise, cassia bark, cloves, dried tangerine peel and white peppercorns in addition to bay leaves, cardamom pods, licorice root and sand ginger.
   
10. Note that rock sugar and caster sugar have different flavours.
    

My absolute favourite was the Pork Cartilage in Special Sauce and then the Chicken with Preserved Black Beans.

Photo of Spices - top left bowl contains blanched minced pork and the bottom left bowl contains the preserved olive. The loose spices are bay leaves, licorice root and dried sand ginger.

Copyright © 2008 - 2009 All Rights Reserved

Mahjong

Today, I met up with some of my class mates from the YWCA to play a few rounds of Hong Kong style mahjong.

None of us had played since before Christmas so we were all a bit rusty.  Just glad that we weren't playing for money as I would have had very deep pockets by the afternoon.

Just a little bit potty!

Here is the gorgeous little Chinese knot teapot that I made! Took quite a while to make (considering it was my first attempt) and was a tad tricky in parts but got there in the end. I haven't had time to put a little button knot on the lid but I'll get to that later.
Copyright © 2008 - 2009 All Rights Reserved

Chinese Tea Pots

On Monday 16 February 2009 I am off to visit the founder of the Shrimp and Dragonfly Guild of Hong Kong to learn how to make a Chinese Knot Tea Pot. We'll have a few laugh's about expat musings and will then probably tie our fingers up in knots. Should be lots of fun and I hope to provide a photo of the result.

Lamma Island Hong Kong

Today, we visited Lamma Island which is the 3rd largest island in the territory after Lantau and Hong Kong Island.  From Hong Kong Island, we caught the ferry from Central Pier No. 4 to Yung Shue Wan, had a seafood lunch then walked along the 'Family Trail' towards Hung Shing Ye Beach.  After, stopping at the beach to admire the view, we continued to Sok Kwu Wan Pier where we caught the ferry back to Hong Kong island.   Had a great time but not so sure that the trail is suitable for families as it is quite steep in parts!

Local Food Sampling Tour Hong Kong

On Monday 22 September 2008 I attended a Local Food Sampling Walking Tour of Hong Kong which was lots of fun. This tour was definitely for the adventurous and not for the squeamish so from my rough scribbles this is how the day went.

From Jordan Exit A we turned right, crossed Jordan Road then walked down Parkes Road. Our first stop was at the Australia Dairy Company, 47 Parkes Street, Jordan, Kowloon, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2730 1356. This establishment has a reputation for the best scrambled eggs and steamed milk pudding in Hong Kong and at certain times of the day you will see people queuing out front eager to satiate their appetite. Don’t expect a warm and fuzzy welcome however, as with many Hong Kong restaurants the waiters also have a reputation for being rude but somewhat speedy with their service. Being an aussie through and through, I personally couldn’t see any relationship with the land of oz but giving them the benefit of the doubt maybe they used Australian milk? The prices of their food however indicated otherwise and I just hope that their products aren’t tainted with melamine? Although, we didn’t sample any food here I will certainly put this one on my ‘to do’ list at some time… just hope I live to tell the tale.

We continued down Parkes Road then turned right into Bowring Street. Here there were market stalls selling food, linen and clothing. We stopped at a local ‘jook’ (congee) shop (with butcher next door) - sorry, I don’t have the name as there was nothing English about this place - and sampled some Fish Slice Congee (Yue Peen Jook), Pork Congee (Sow Jook), Thousand Year Old Egg Congee and Zah Leung (Pear & Chinese Donut wrapped in Rice Noodles). Congee is like rice porridge and is extremely popular with the Chinese at breakfast. The fish and pork congee was absolutely delicious and had shredded ginger and spring onion sprinkled on top but I passed on the Thousand Year Old Egg Congee. Although, I’ve tried Thousand year old egg before there was a bit of the ‘yuk’ factor involved. Thousand year old eggs are black, have a rubbery texture and tend to stick to your chopsticks. As far as taste goes, well I’m not even going to go there! Zah Leung however was fabulous! It seemed to be sweet, salty, crisp but also soft all at the same time and was a delight to taste. Pear and Chinese donut are wrapped in a sheet of vermicelli rice noodle and served with either soy, plum or peanut sauce – yum!

We continued down Bowring Street (which cut through Woosung and Temple Street) then turned right into Shanghai Street and headed back towards Jordan Road. When we got to Jordan Road we turned left and continued to walk until we arrived at a Vegetarian Restaurant. Here we sampled ‘Loh por beng’ (wife cake made of winter melon paste) and ‘Fah seng hap to beng' (peanut almond biscuit). We crossed Jordan Road, sampled two types of tea i.e. ‘Tie Guan Yin tea’ and ‘Jasmine flower tea’ at a tea shop on the other side of the road then continued along Shanghai Street. From here we turned left into Nanking Street then continued along Reclamation Street.

Reclamation Street is very colourful and full of little street stalls selling fruit and vegetables and the like. It was along here that we stopped to sample dim sum at the Reclamation Street Cooked Food Market. Here we had Cha Siu Bau (Steamed Pork Buns), Steamed Meat Bun (a bit of a mixture) and Beef Balls with Bean Curd Skin to mention but a few for lunch along with Hong Kong style drinks - Lemon Tea, Yin Yeung (tea and coffee mix), and Hot Ginger Coke.

After lunch, we continued along Reclamation Street past the Yau Ma Tei Wet Market complex until we ended up in Kansu Street (near the Jade market). We turned right then continued along Kansu Street where we stopped at a local food vendor stall to sample 'Yue Daan' fish balls ('laht'spicy and 'ng-laht' non-spicy). Although, I’ve tried better fish balls, the spicy fish balls were better of the two. After sampling the fish balls we continued along Kansu Street then turned right into Woosung Street. On the corner of Kansu and Woosung Street there is a large dried seafood stall with everything that you can imagine – we tend to call them ‘stinky shops’ as they are a bit on the nose. As we walked along Woosung Street we saw Dai Pai Dongs (local hawker food stalls) and more restaurants including one called ‘The Curry House’ which is home to whole head goat curry!

Our next stop was at a Herbal Tea Shop on the corner of Woosung Street and Pak Hoi Street. Here we tried two sweet teas - 'foh mah yun' and 'ng fa cha', and also one bitter tea 'ya seh mei' (24 flavour tea). Although ‘bitter’ tea is supposed to be very good for you it really wasn’t my cup of tea! Excuse the pun. Much preferred the sweet sesame tea. Whilst sitting at this Herbal tea shop there was a very large copper vat out front. When we asked what was in the vat, much to our horror, we found out it was turtle soup! Up until now my only experience with turtle soup was singing the song from ‘Alice in Wonderland’:( Of particular note though, there is the Woosung Street Food Market across the road, with English menus and although very basic they serve up delicious stir fried prawns with lots of garlic and chilli. Make sure you visit this one as it really is worth while.

After our turtle soup experience we continued along Woosung Street then turned left into Nanking Street. By this stage we were too full but if you want to try great fish balls then the Aberdeen Fish Ball Co. is the place. From Nanking Street we turned right into Parkes Street and ended back at Jordan Road and at our last food sampling shop ‘Healthy Dessert’.
I am sure that every girl has a compartment in their tummy especially for dessert so we absolutely had to fit this one in. Here we had a yummy mango pomelo dessert with coconut milk which finished the tour perfectly! Would I do the tour again and/or be more adventurous with my food choices in Hong Kong – absolutely!

p.s check out the google map in my side bar for a better idea of places visited.