Hakka Pestle Tea Rice/Ham Cha Farn/Looi Cha Farn

This dish is from the Chinese migratory Hakka dialect group and is several hundred years old. The Hakkas, especially this sub-group called Ho Poh , have a unique tradition regarding this dish as medicinal, a detox meal which is also reputed to boost metabolism and servet his supersalad, with 7 types of vegetables, on the seventh day of Chinese New Year just like the cantonese tradition of serving Yee Sang which most chinese are accustomed to.

Ham Cha Farn(salty tea), Looi Cha Farn(ground tea) or Thunder Rice, has a lot of variations. The tea used ,be it green or black signifies and determine the flavour and taste of the dish. It is sometimes kept simple by grinding the tea, add salt to taste and hot boiling water, to make a broth. However others may add roasted peanuts, sesame seeds or both together with the tea leaves and herbs like mint, basil, perilla and saw coriander, in the grinding process to make into an almost medicinal tea broth. This alters the flavour of the dish significantly. The taste however, is not for everyone. Some find it enervating and refreshing, others do not like the bitter or strong herbal notes.

The essential ingredients are Farn(Cooked Rice), which can be puffed rice (mee chang) or rice grains fried with garlic and a little oil, prior to cooking and three of the seven ingredients which will determine a good Ham Cha Farn/Looi Cha Farn are dried shrimps, choy poh(preserved radish) and firm tofu. These three are to be sauted and seasoned with sugar and white pepper..

To complement the tea and rice, a wide variety of carefully selected vegetables (including blanched long beans, cabbage, carrots, four-angled beans, chye sim, celery, are used. It should be noted that meat and fish is seldom added to this diah as the the main idea is to eat lots of vegetables, making this dish cheap, hearty , nutritious and a fibre-rich.

Continue for recipe HERE

Step-by-step Mui Choy Kau Yoke

A task which usually take 5 minutes was not so and it was so frustrating.  Anyway, how difficult or time-consuming it was, i made a promise to post the step-by step on How to make Mui Choy Kau Yoke and .........

the promise is kept

The step-by-step can be found HERE

Mui Choy Kau Yoke

This is a very popular dish in Asia which appears on the dinning table during any asian festivals.  It is very deliciously sinful, mouth watering. 

Taste the intense flavour and the fats of the pork melting in your mouth.  . The preserved Mui Choy (dried salted veggie but sweet) has a nice balance which is light tasting  and goes well with the meat soft texture.  This dish might not be so acceptable by healthy freaks who shy away from most fat but in this case the fat actually gets soaked up by the 'mui choy'  and become very 'mui', giving glory to it's name.  "Mui" in cantonese means 'soft' . 

Continue for recipe HERE

Chicken And Wood Ear Fungus Wine Soup

This dish is a confinement dish.  The chinese, especially the cantonese would cook this dish as a post-natal diet for the whole month of confinement after childbirth.  During pregnancy, a woman may feel bloated and feel like there is a lot of gas in the tummy. This is due to the softening of our body ligaments and etc to make way for the baby’s growth. To expel those gas from the stomach, one soothing food we can take is ginger but after childbirth, gas is bloating in abundance, ginger and more ginger in every dish will help, as food prepared with ginger develop a tendency to move outward.  The chinese do not encourage fresh fruits and vegetables, so ginger is the only source of fiber.  After delivery, the body is susceptible to 'cold' and must be kept warm, therefore wine is the best as it moves  upwards and pushes up the energy. Wood Ear Fungus helps to prevent various forms of bleeding and prevents blood clotting   All these practices are considered efficacious for curing the body's imbalance but especially as a preventive therapy against ailments in later years.  I, the renegade must remain cognizant and respectful of the indigenous beliefs and practices linking the events of reproduction and the health status of women.



Ingredients and Method

 
Recipe is the same as Chicken With Stone's Ginger Wine except peanuts are omitted, vegetable oil and glutinous rice wine were used instead of sesame oil and Stone's Ginger Wine.  This dish was cooked for my friends to enjoy the Home-brewed Glutinous Rice Wine. 

 

Serves

Home Brewing - Glutinous Rice Wine

I have to confess that i have shyed away from brewing glutinous rice wine at home for the longest ever, all because of all the superstitions pertaining to brewing wine at home.  I finally buck up courage together with inspiration from my friend, Claire and tried making 2 batches, one plain and one with red rice yeast.  Claire came to help and all we had to do was to blend the yeast and start assembling the rice for brewing.  I had prepped the rice earlier by cooking it in the rice cooker, so that it will be cooled enough for assembling when Claire arrived.  I was so excited that i forgot to take pictures of the assembling.  I did not take pictures perhaps i was skeptical that the wine will be a success as i know that i will break all rules and superstitions - I did not have a mouthful of sugar when i started making, i talked alot and made it in broad daylight,  i did not leave the pot under the bed with a rusty knife on top, i let the 2 pots(crockpots) sitting on the dinning table, perhaps if you make the wine in a glass bottle, it will be better to put it away from the light.  According to one of the myths - one should leave the pot alone without peeking, i, of course, have been opening the lids of both the pots and checking for green stuff growing and have been tasting the wine as days go by.  Despite of being so rebelious, the wine turned out so sweet and not too alcohlic.  The one with the red rice yeast tasted better than the plain one and had more wine, perhaps the extra yeast present in the red rice gave the extra kick and for the extra wine, i think i had sprinkled in an extra cup of water. The whole process was worth it and now my younger friends can have Rice Wine Chicken during their confinement, just inform me and i will brew some.

Ingredients:

8 cups/2.2 lbs/1 kg long grain white glutinous rice
1 pc wine yeast (bigger kind brought from Malaysia)
1 pc wine yeast (small kind available in any asian stores here in the States)
1 cup red rice yeast (also available in the asian stores here)
2 cups filtered water for sprinkling.

Method:

Wash the glutinous rice, drain, and place in rice cooker with enough water to cover the surface(it is just like cooking regular jasmine rice). Put to cook, and when rice is cooked, remove from the rice cooker, then spread it onto foil covered baking sheets and leave to cool completely.(make sure new foil is used to cover the baking sheets)  Rice must be completely cold before use.

Using a clean coffee grinder, grind the wine yeast and red rice yeast into powder.

To assemble:

Sprinkle a little wine yeast mixture on to a crockpot and then layer with rice(wet hands with the filtered water and flatten a handful and use it for layering). 

Sprinkle with more rice yeast all over the rice and then sprinkle with the filtered water.

Repeat the layering - rice, rice yeast and water until all the rice is done.

Lastly pour the remainder of the filtered water.

Cover crockpot with a clean cloth and then the lid.

Leave it to ferment for 7 days, then open lid and give mixture a good stir with a clean wooden spoon.

Cover crockpot with the clean cloth and lid and leave to brew for another 14 days(the total brewing time is 21 days - if you prefer a stronger alcoholic wine leave for another 7 days).

Wine can be harvested on the 21st or 30th day.

Prepare a sieve or a colander and line it with a clean cloth.  Put it over a pot to catch the wine.

Put the brewed wine mixture onto the cloth and let the wine dripped.(patience in letting the wine drip slowly will result in very clear wine).

When all the wine has dripped and the residue is quite dry, remove the residue and store it in a jar or air tight container for many more other recipes.

Bring the wine to a quick boil (my wine started to boil at 180f and of course it is cos i am one mile above sea-level)

Let the wine cool before bottling.

Wine is now to be enjoyed in any way you wish.

Serves

Bittergourd Omelette

I like bittergourd but the family don't. I will take the opportunity to cook it when i have company who enjoys the bittergourd as much as i do. This dish must be Hakka cos strangely my friends who love them are Hakka.

There are 2 types of bittergourd, one which is long and the other is a smaller fruit which is very much bitter. In choosing a less bitter fruit, that is the bigger ones, choose one which is pale and has bigger bumps. .

Ingredients:

1 bittergourd - cut into half and remove the seeds.

1 tsp salt

3 large eggs - beat lightly

1 clove garlic chopped

salt and pepper to taste

oil for frying

Method:

Slice the thinly and marinate with 1 tsp of salt. Leave aside for at least 10 minustes.

Squeeze the marinated sliced bittergourd, to remove as much liquid as possible.

Wash the bittergourd under tap water and drain dry.

Heat wok with 2 tbsp oil and when oil is hot, add in the chopped garlic and the bittergourd. Stir fry until bittergourd is cooked.

Add 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to the beaten eggs.

Pour eggs over bittergourd and fry until eggs are set and brown.

Serve hot.


Serves

Abacus Beads/Sueen Poon Chee

I love anything cooked with taro and this dish is one of my favorites, perhaps it's in my genes . This traditional Hakka dish is eaten during festive celebrations such as Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival for prosperity. sueen poon chee, or abacus seeds, are springy discs of yam, shaped after its namesake. I have tried many times trying to get the springiness by adjusting the ratio of yam to tapioca starch. I like more springy and have to sacrifice the taste of yam by using more tapioca starch. For this dish, the ingredients cooked with this abacus seeds have to be very flavorful.

Ingredients:

1 lb taro, cleaned, peeled and thinly sliced(i used frozen ones, thaw and slice)

12 ozs tapioca starch

3 tbsp cooking oil

5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1/4 cup dried shrimp, soak and coarsely chopped

11/4 cup shredded dried squid - soak

6 dried Chinese mushroom, soaked till soft and sliced

1/2 lb ground pork

1/4 lb chinese chives - cut into 1 inch in length

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce

1/2 cup chicken stock

Method:

Steam taro until soft and mash.

Place the tapioca starch in a large mixing bowl and add hot taro paste to it, stirring it in well

When the taro and starch mixture has cooled , knead it to form a dough.

Pinch off enough dough to roll into a ball , 1 inch in diameter. Press the ball between your thumb and forefinger so that it is depressed in the middle and shaped like an abacus seed.

Repeat until dough is used up.

Fill a pot with water to the three-quarter mark and bring it to a boil.

Place abacus seeds in the pot and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent the seeds from sticking to the bottom of the pot. When cooked, the seeds will float to the top. Scoop out the cooked abacus seeds and leave them aside to drain.

To a hot wok, add 2 tbsp oil and fry the garlic till golden brown before adding dried shrimp, shredded dried squid and mushroom. Stir fry the mixture , then set aside.

Add the remaining tbsp oil to the hot wok and fry the ground pork until it is cooked and no more pink.

Add in the cooked garlic, dried shrimp, shredded dried squid, mushroom, abacus seeds and the seasonings.

Add in the chinese chives and stir briefly.

Dish out and sprinkle with sesame oil.

Serve hot.

Serves