Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (29 page)

Garlic stems are also eaten as a vegetable and are happily becoming easier to find in Chinese shops. Juicy, aromatic and beautiful, they are almost irresistible when stir-fried with a little smoked bacon or some sliced mushrooms. They are usually sold in bunches, sometimes with little flower bulbs at their ends. Raw, they have a sharp, aggressive pungency, but they are mellowed by cooking. You can use the green sprouts that emerge from neglected garlic bulbs in your kitchen in stir-fries.

In the old days, when sniffy Englishmen viewed garlic eating as an unsavory continental habit, it’s not surprising that Westerners failed to make the most of wonderful possibilities of the Allium family. (Lord Macartney, the leader of the first British diplomatic expedition to China in 1793, dismissed his hosts as “foul feeders and eaters of garlic and strong-scented vegetables.”) Now, when people all over the world have woken up to the nutritional richness and sensory pleasures of the vegetable, perhaps it’s time for more of us to take to heart some of these delicious Chinese varieties.

STIR-FRIED CHINESE CHIVES WITH PORK SLIVERS
JIU CAI ROU SI
韭菜肉絲

This is one of the most common Chinese supper dishes, a simple stir-fry of slivered pork and fresh, bright chives that is eaten in many parts of the country. It’s a meal on its own with rice and perhaps a few stir-fried green leaves or a bowl of soup on the side. You can replace the pork with chicken, beef or lamb if you wish.

4 oz (100g) lean pork

4 oz (100g) Chinese chives

2 tbsp cooking oil

A few fine slivers of red bellpepper for color (optional)

½ tsp light soy sauce

Salt

For the marinade

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

1 tsp potato flour

Cut the pork evenly into thin slivers. Stir the marinade ingredients with 2 tsp cold water and mix well with the pork.

Trim the chives, discarding any wilted leaves, and cut them into 2½–3 in (6–7cm) lengths, keeping the white and green parts separate.

Add the oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame, swirl it around, then add the pork and stir-fry to separate the slivers. When they have separated but are still pinkish, remove from the wok and set aside.

Return the wok to a high flame, add the chive whites and red pepper, if using, and fry until they are nearly cooked. Add the chive greens and continue to stir-fry until hot and fragrant. Return the pork slivers and stir a few times more, seasoning with the soy sauce, and salt to taste. Serve.

VARIATION

Flowering chives with pork slivers

Replace the chives with flowering chives, snipping off and discarding their flower buds before you cut them into lengths.

CHINESE CHIVES WITH SMOKED TOFU
JIU CAI CHAO XIANG GAN
韭菜炒香乾

In one of the tofu workshops in the old Hunanese village of Zhangguying, where impoverished members of the once-wealthy Zhang clan live amid the grand, drafty halls of their ancestors, they smoke slabs of firm tofu on a grill suspended over a lazy, smoldering pile of wood embers. The tofu, caramel brown on the outside, satisfyingly meaty in texture and darkly aromatic, is one of the staples of Hunanese home cooking. It may be sliced, dressed in chilli oil and eaten cold as an appetizer, or stir-fried with sprightly celery or pungent vegetables as in this recipe. If you’re not vegetarian, a few slices of smoked bacon make a scrumptious addition to the dish. And you can, if you prefer, use plain or spiced firm tofu instead of the smoked variety, seasoning either with a little soy sauce as you go.

4 oz (100g) smoked or plain firm tofu

9 oz (250g) Chinese chives, trimmed and washed

2 tbsp cooking oil

Salt

1 tsp sesame oil

Cut the tofu into slices about ¼ in (½cm) thick, then into strips. Cut the chives into lengths to match the tofu.

Add the oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame, swirl it around, then add the tofu strips and stir-fry until tinged with gold. Add the chives and stir-fry until they are piping hot. Season with salt to taste, then stir in the sesame oil and serve.

VARIATION

Flowering chives with smoked tofu

Replace the chives with flowering chives, snipping off and discarding their flower buds before you cut them into lengths.

STIR-FRIED YELLOW CHIVES WITH VENISON SLIVERS
JIU HUANG LU ROU SI
韭黃鹿肉絲

Yellow or hothouse chives are Chinese chives that have been blanched like chicory or forced rhubarb, by growing them in darkness. Fragile and slender, they are a pale, pearlescent yellow and have a bewitching fragrance. In the past, they were considered a luxury food in China and they are still less common than regular chives. Look for them in larger Chinese shops in the West and be aware that they don’t keep well; they are best used within a day or two of purchase. A little vinegar brings out their fragrance. Yellow chives, like regular green Chinese chives, are almost always used as the accompanying ingredient in a dish. They are wonderful stir-fried with slivers of any kind of meat, or with beaten eggs.

Venison is a rarity on modern Chinese restaurant menus, but it is one of the grand old delicacies of China and mentioned in written records that date back more than two millennia. Many different kinds of deer are traditionally eaten in China and, although several species are now critically endangered in the wild and hunting them is illegal, some farmed venison is available. Apart from the dark, lean meat of the deer, its tail, tendons, penis and immature antlers are all highly prized as tonic foods. (I had a surprising experience once with a couple of Sichuanese chefs at London’s Borough Market: I was showing them a venison stall and all they really wanted to know was what the deer farm did with the penises. At their insistence, I tried to impress upon the rather bemused stall-holder their advice that if the owners dried all their wonderful free-range deer penises and shipped them to China, they could make a fortune.)

5 oz (150g) venison steak

4 oz (100g) yellow or hothouse chives

½ fresh red chilli, or ½ Sichuanese pickled chilli

½ oz (15–20g) piece of ginger, peeled

3 tbsp cooking oil

For the marinade

1 tsp Shaoxing wine

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp potato flour

½ tsp dark soy sauce

For the sauce

⅛ tsp salt

¼ tsp potato flour

½ tsp Shaoxing wine

¾ tsp Chinkiang vinegar

¼ tsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp chicken stock or water

Cut the venison evenly into fine slivers across the grain and place in a bowl. Stir the marinade ingredients with 2 tsp cold water and mix with the venison. Cut the chives into 2½–3 in (6–7cm) sections and the chilli and ginger into slivers. Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl.

Add 2 tbsp of the oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame and swirl it around. Add the venison slivers and stir-fry to separate. When they are changing color, remove from the wok and set aside.

Return the wok to a high flame with the remaining oil. Add the chives, ginger and chilli and stir-fry for about 30 seconds until hot and fragrant. Return the venison and stir a few times. When everything is hot and the venison just cooked, give the sauce a stir and pour it into the center of the wok. Stir in the sauce, then serve.

VARIATION

Stir-fried yellow chives with chicken or pork slivers

Simply substitute an equal weight of chicken breast or pork for the venison in the recipe above. I like to omit the chillies if I am making the dish with chicken, because I love the pale delicacy of the colors.

GOLDEN CHINESE CHIVE OMELETTE
JIU CAI CHAO DAN
韭菜炒蛋

The Chinese name for this dish is “eggs stir-fried with chives,” but it’s really a kind of omelette, made in a wok and served in chopstickable pieces. The pungent, garlicky green chives go particularly well with eggs.

I learned to make this simple peasant dish at the Dragon Well Manor restaurant in Hangzhou, where they often serve it to show off their wonderful free-range eggs. You can use the same method to cook eggs with yellow hothouse chives, wild garlic leaves or spring onion greens.

3 eggs, the best and freshest you can get

2 oz (50g) Chinese chives

Salt

2 tbsp cooking oil

Beat the eggs together in a bowl. Chop the chives finely and stir them into the eggs. Add salt to taste.

With a wok scoop on hand, add the oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame, swirl it around, then add the eggs and chives and stir-fry until the eggs are nearly set. Then stop stirring and use the wok scoop to press the eggs into the sides of the wok to brown the bottom. When one side of the omelette is golden, flip it over and fry the other side.

Finally, break it up into chopstickable pieces with your wok scoop and pile up on a serving dish. Don’t overcook the omelette; the center should remain light and fluffy.

STIR-FRIED EGGS WITH YELLOW CHIVES
JIU HUANG CHAO JI DAN
韭黃炒雞蛋

Eggs go particularly well with all kinds of oniony vegetables, and yellow chives are no exception. In this recipe, a tiny amount of starch is added to the beaten eggs, to absorb any water that comes out of the chives. You can add a handful of finely sliced spring onion greens in the final throes of cooking if you desire a hint of vibrant color, but I find something lovely in the pale colors of the two main ingredients alone, the delicate gleam of the chives against the golden fluffiness of scrambled egg.

4 eggs

1 tsp potato flour mixed with 2 tsp cold water

Salt

Ground white pepper

4 oz (100g) yellow chives

3 tbsp cooking oil

Beat the eggs. Give the potato flour mixture a stir and add it to the eggs, with salt and pepper to taste. Cut the chives into 2½ in (6cm) sections and stir them into the eggs.

Heat the oil in a seasoned wok over a high flame. Add the egg and chive mixture and stir-fry until the eggs have just set and the chives are hot and fragrant. Serve immediately.

STIR-FRIED GARLIC STEMS WITH BACON
LA ROU CHAO SUAN TAI
臘肉炒蒜薹

Once you’ve discovered garlic stems, you’ll never look back. The following recipe, which takes about 10 minutes to make, is for a dish I’ve often eaten in the homes of my Sichuanese friends. It’s utterly delicious. The bacon adds a fabulous umami kick to the sweet, pungent garlic and, with rice, it’s just about a meal in itself. I generally use smoked bacon, but unsmoked bacon is also fine, as is pancetta or Chinese wind-dried sausage. Add the rinds, if any, to the wok with the bacon for extra richness, then fish them out with chopsticks before serving.

You can use the same method to cook the more slender flowering chives, trimming off and discarding their flower buds before use (they take a little less time to cook than garlic stems).

9 oz (250g) garlic stems

3 slices bacon, thickly cut if possible

3 tbsp cooking oil

Salt

½ tsp sesame oil

If the bases of the garlic stems are a little fibrous, cut them off and discard. Then cut the stems into 1¾ in (4cm) sections. Slice off the bacon rinds, if necessary, and cut the bacon across the grain into thin strips.

Heat a seasoned wok over a high flame. Add the oil and swirl it around, then add the bacon and its rinds (if using as described in the headnote), and stir a few times to separate the pieces. Add the garlic stems and stir-fry until they are just tender and starting to wrinkle, adding salt to taste. Remove from the heat, remove the bacon rinds (if using), stir in the sesame oil, and serve.