recipe: hou si

Just when I thought that I was well aware of the Chinese New Year menu - I learned about a new dish this year. And as luck would have it, I heard about it from multiple sources so I was able to take the best of what I heard and combined it.

It was a bit hard finding a recipe for this, but I think this dish is quite simply called hou si, which is just the name of the dried oysters in the center of this dish but in reality it is so much more. The ingredients themselves are quite basic - the quantities listed below make about 60 hou si by my count, and they freeze well and can be refried or heated up before serving.

Ingredients A:

• 500g ground pork
• 20 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked to soften (~ 2 1//2 cups)
• 1 carrot, diced (1 3/4 cups)
• 5 stalks spring onion, sliced thinly
• 40 water chestnuts, peeled and diced (~ 3 cups)
• 2 tbsp rice wine
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp salt

Ingredients B:

• self-raising flour, sifted (for dusting)
• 60 dried oysters (~ 2 cups)
• caul fat - usually sold at butcher shops at wet markets

The most unusual thing in this recipe is the caul fat - which is sold in a bundle that looks like a wet t-shirt. You'll need to rinse out the caul fat, and pick out any bits of bone or flesh that are clinging to it. 

Combine everything in ingredients A together until evenly distributed - this is the stuffing of the hou si. 

Spread out a corner of the caul fat thinly so that it is completely flat. Put a tablespoonful of the stuffing on the caul fat...

... add a dried oyster...

... and cover with just under another tablespoon of stuffing. Cut out the fat so that there is a 1.5 inch border on the sides...

... and fold sides inwards to make a compact package - it needs to be tight, so the fat doesn't open when the stuffing expands during frying. 

Arrange the hou si in a neat pile. You'll need a flat wide space to flour the hou si before frying. 

Heat up some vegetable oil in a deep pan for frying - you will need at least 2 inches of oil.

While the oil is heating up, pour out some sifted flour and lightly toss each hou si so it is covered in a thin coating of flour. This helps absorb any moisture on the  surface of the hou si, which stops the oil from splattering.

Once the oil is hot enough, a wooden chopstick pressed against the bottom of the pan should cause bubbles to form. Gently drop each hou si into the oil, being careful to keep some space in between each hou si.

As the hou si fry, the oil will darken from the fried flour - this is normal. When the hou si is a golden brown, remove from the oil and let drain on a paper towel before serving. If freezing, let them cool completely before storing.

recipe: lotus root soup

I always find soups so comforting. When its raining or snowing outside, all I want is a big bowl of steaming hot soup as I sit in my sweatpants and hibernate. I used to make soup all the time when I was in Boston, but I realize that a lot of people think that the ingredients are hard to come by, especially overseas. The best resource at those times - Chinatown. If you look hard enough, you'll find most things you want on the dusty shelves.

Case in point - lotus root. Readily available in wet markets here, it is probably easy to miss as it's usually coated in a thin film of the mud that it grows in. 

Two weeks ago, a friend ordered a dish of chicken just because there was lotus root in it. Needless to say, I had to eat all the chicken, while she ate the lotus. I realized then that she missed it so much, that I should illustrate how easy it is to make this soup - which is such a staple.

The beauty with most Chinese soups is that they require very few ingredients. The following are all that is needed:

• small piece of dried squid
• ~10 dried oysters
• 1kg of pork bones
• 2-3 segments of lotus roots

First the oysters and squid are fried in a few tablespoons of oil so that they become lightly toasted and fragrant.

In the meantime, blanch the pork bones in boiling water. When the flesh on the surface changes to an opaque white, pour out the hot water and rinse the pieces under cold tap water. Add them to the oysters and squid and cover with about 1 litre of boiling water.

While the stock is boiling, scrape off the thin outer skin of the lotus root. Wash and slice the lotus root into segments. Each half can be cut into about eight pieces - cross-wise or length-wise as you prefer. I prefer length-wise because they take up less space in the pot.

Once the lotus root is added to the soup, it still needs to be boiled for at least another hour - the lotus root slices will turn into a darker purplish color before it is ready to be served.

recipe: nasi ulam

Nasi ulam is more of an assembly job I guess. Since what I do is use an assortment of herbs mixed with white rice, it's not nasi kerabu, which is typically dyed blue with pea flowers and has kerisik (toasted coconut) added to it.

What to eat with it? Sometimes I add a rendang or some other stew-y dish with lots of gravy which I can pour over the rice - the rice can be quite dry to some people. Or it could be as simple as fried salted fish with a fried egg on top.

I have used four herbs/veggies this time around:

• long beans
• laksa leaves
• basil
• bunga kantan or torch ginger flowers

I first wash up all the veggies and leave them to drip dry - you don't want to run the risk of chopping up the veggies and having it all turn into a green mush, so make sure the leaves are very dry before you pick them off the stems.

The easiest thing to chop up first are the long beans. Just cut into shorter lengths and run the knife through them into 1/8th pieces.

Next is the torch ginger. Just peel off any brown petals, and slice thinly. Torch ginger has a really unique smell which I haven't been able to place - its very distinctive, but not sweet or floral.

As I mentioned, the basil and laksa leaves are just picked off the stems, and I use the knife to cut the leaves. Cut and not shred! This is also another reason why I wouldn't put the leaves into a food processor, even though it might speed things up - the chances of everything ending up in a pulp is too great! Sniff the laksa leaves as you slice them - they have a wonderful lemon-y scent.

Mix all the veggies with some cooled cooked rice. If the rice is too hot, the heat from the rice will end up "cooking" the leaves, and turn them into an unattractive black color.

I always feel quite virtuous when I cook this - it's like having a default salad with your meal without even realizing it! Super healthy and tasty!

recipe: pumpkin soup

I was scrounging around in my fridge, and decided to make a meal of the remains in the veggie drawer. Unusually, there is no meat in this dish, but I feel that the savoriness of the mushrooms and the vegetables more than make up for it.

This soup is really quick to put together - there are only three ingredients:

• pumpkin (around 1/6 of a whole pumpkin)
•  leeks (two, outer stems removed)
• chinese mushrooms (rehydrated by soaking in water)

All the ingredients are cut up into 1/2 inch cubes. I kept aside a few mushrooms and 1/2 an inch of the leeks for garnishing.

I sauteed the pumpkin first in a few tablespoons of oil, to get a bit of browning on the edges.

Note: one of the most appealing parts of this recipe is that you can make the entire thing in the same pot - less washing up!

Then I added the mushrooms and leeks and continued to saute the veggies until they softened.

What you get afterwards is essentially baby food - not super appealing at this point. After this, I used an immersion blender to puree the ingredients into a smooth paste. I added some hot water to smoothen it to the  consistency I wanted.

For garnish, I sliced the leeks and mushrooms really thinly, and fried them in olive oil till they were crispy. The resulting soup was sweet, and light, since there wasn't any meat-based stock added to it.