Chinese Watercress Soup

I grew up on soup. My mother made sure we had soup with every dinner. On the days when we wouldn't, dinner seemed incomplete. The slow-cooked taste of simmer low-fire Cantonese, or lou fo tong (老火湯, lǎohuǒ tāng), is a smell and flavor that brings me back to my childhood. Some people have chicken pot pie, others have roast beef. Cantonese soups are my comfort food, this being one of my favorites. 

Ingredients:

1 lb pork neck bones
2 bunches watercress, washed and drained
3 dried honey dates (蜜枣)
6 dried red dates (红枣)
3/4 cups Chinese South Almonds ( 南杏)
Salt to taste

Directions:

Take your soup pot and fill three-quarters (3/4) full with water and put it over high heat. Bring a second (smaller) pot of water to a boil. Put the pork neck bones into the water and let it boil for 5 minutes; this helps get rid of all the bloody water and any excess fat and discharge from the meat. Your end product will be a clearer, cleaner broth.

Turn off the heat and drain the water from the bones. Rinse several times with water until the water runs clear and all the grit is off the bones. Then add the bones to the large soup pot. Add the dried honey dates and the Chinese south almonds to the pot. Wait for the pot of water to come to a boil. If the pot is already boiling, give the ingredients 5-10 minutes in water before adding the watercress.

Lower the flame to a medium/medium-low heat and simmer the soup for 30-40 minutes. The watercress will turn brown and less appealing than the vibrant green when it first enters the pot but the soup you are left with is full of earthy flavor and super delicious!

Asian Braised Pork Belly

With my family background and my mother's love of home cooking, I grew up eating all sorts of food and a lot of it became a fusion of what she knew, what she liked, and what we had in the house. This braised pork recipe is my mom's, a mixture between filipino, vietnamese, and chinese maybe? Mostly made with things she always had in the pantry for an easy dish she could throw into a pot and leave for a few hours while she ran other errands.

 

Ingredients: 

1 lb pork belly

2 teaspoon vegetable oil

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 inch piece of brown rock sugar (1 tablespoon brown sugar)

2 teaspoons black pepper

Directions:

Take the pork belly and but into 1 1/2 inch cubes. 

Heat the vegetable oil in a small bottom heavy pan or dutch oven pot (with cover) over medium high heat. When oil begins to ripple, brown the pork belly in the pan for 2 minutes just to get the fat to soften a bit. Add garlic to the pan and continue to brown from another 2 minutes. Keep a watchful eye on the heat; do not like the garlic burn! 

Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and freshly cracked black pepper to the pot. Let the liquid come to a boil and when the sugar is completely dissolved, add enough water to cover the pork belly. Cover the pot and let the pork belly simmer for an hour. 

After the first hour, check the pork. If the pot looks dry, add more water to the pot and simmer for another hour. Turn off the stove and let the pork cool in the sauce for 5 minutes before serving. Best served on top of white rice with a little of the sauce spoon on top of it and a side of vegetables. 

Lion Head Meatballs

In the spirit of Chinese New Year, I made a Chinese traditional dish at home last night. A braised pork meatball in a soy based sauce with napa cabbage and glass noodles. If you're wondering why I didnt't make this dish on New Years Day, it's because my parents are buddhist and I grew up eating vegetarian meals on the day of. But also because I was down in Chinatown having two seperate dinners with friends... That's just how much of a fattie I am.

After talking on the phone with mom for about an hour about the correct way to make these Lion Head Meatballs, I decided that I had absorbed as much as I could and I would wing the rest. However, she made sure to emphasize the two most important parts. Water chestnuts are necessary and re-chopping the already ground meat is essential, both for the correct texture.


Ingredients:

1 lb fatty ground pork
1/2 head napa cabbage
1 small package of glass noodles
1/3 cup water chestnuts, chopped
1/2 inch knob ginger
4 scallions
1 egg
1 T sesame oil
2 T vegetable oil
5 T soy sauce
3 T ShaoXing wine (dry sherry)
2 1/2 T cornstarch
1 can chicken stock (14oz)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 inch rock sugar (1 T brown sugar)
Salt & Pepper

Put the ginger and scallions in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add 1/3 cup of water to the mixture and set to the side to allow flavor release into water. Chop the ground meat with a cleaver for 20-30 minutes until the meat has a paste like consistency. Then strain the scallion/ginger infused water into the meat and incorporate with a little more dicing.

Put the meat into the bowl and mix in 2 tablespoons of the soy, 1 tablespoon of the ShaoXing wine, and 2 tablesoons of the cornstarch.  In a seperate bowl slightly beat an egg with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper. Do not over beat the egg. Mix the egg mixture and sesame oil into the meat with your hands.

Heat a pan with the vegetable oil over medium high heat and start forming meatballs in your hand about the size of your palm. Toss the meatball from one hand to the other with a little force. This helps give the meatball nice chew besides the soft fall apart quality (according to my mom). Then start placing each formed ball in the pan. You should get 6 meatballs from this recipe. Do 3 at a time in the pan, giving space between each meatball as they brown. Give each side 3-4 minutes.

In a round bottom pot (like the Asian clay pots) arrange the largest napa cabbage leaves on the bottom of the pot coming up the sides. If they are too long cut them in half. Place the dry noodles in pot with the garlic and the rock sugar. Traditionally thin glass noodles are used in this recipes but I find they fall apart and dissolve after the cooking process so I use much thicker glass noodles. Here is where preference comes into play. In my mind, recipes are guidelines that should be Place the meat balls on top of the noodles.

Pour the remaining soy sauce and ShaoXing wine over the meatballs. Then add the can of chicken stock to the pot and fill the can with water and add that too. If you have any leave napa cabbage left, you can place those on top of the meatballs. Bring the pot to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Mix the last 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch with a splash of water and pour the slurry into the simmering pot. Cover for another 5 minutes and turn off heat. Serve hot.