I would like to share with you another blog of mine - which is all about Chaoshan culture 潮汕文化. I started this blog in 2007 and have not added any new posts. I have checked and amended the two posts in this blog today and I will be writing more posts about our Teochew culture in this blog. Please visit my Chaoshan culture blog.
Sunday 28 July 2013
Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 Steamed Radish Cake 蘿蔔糕
Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 or also known as 蘿蔔糕 is known as a carrot cake in Singapore. It is a gluten
free and meat free cake but it has dried prawns. You can eat this when you have yum
cha 飲茶 in Chinese restaurants.
Yum cha 飲茶 is a Cantonese word which means to have dianxin 點心 in a Cantonese restaurant, eating little snacks and drinking tea. The actual direct translation of yin cha 飲茶 is to eat light refreshments while drinking tea. In the old days, people would pay for the tea and have these dianxin 點心 free as tea is very expensive, even today. Do you know good Chinese tea is as expensive as gold?
There is a joke amongst us Chinese about bad tea. We say we are punished when we are served bad tea to drink and we also say this bad tea is restaurant grade tea. So, when I go and have yum cha 飲茶 I often bring my own tea leaves and ask them to brew tea from my tea leaves.
Yum cha 飲茶 - Cantonese - In Mandarin it is yin cha - in Teochew we just say ziah dê 食茶 - and a Teochew in Swatow, China who says "yum cha" 飲茶 like the Cantonese
Dianxin 點心 - Mandarin - In Cantonese is dimsum - in Teochew we say diamsim. We all use the same characters 點心.
Yum cha 飲茶 is a Cantonese word which means to have dianxin 點心 in a Cantonese restaurant, eating little snacks and drinking tea. The actual direct translation of yin cha 飲茶 is to eat light refreshments while drinking tea. In the old days, people would pay for the tea and have these dianxin 點心 free as tea is very expensive, even today. Do you know good Chinese tea is as expensive as gold?
There is a joke amongst us Chinese about bad tea. We say we are punished when we are served bad tea to drink and we also say this bad tea is restaurant grade tea. So, when I go and have yum cha 飲茶 I often bring my own tea leaves and ask them to brew tea from my tea leaves.
Yum cha 飲茶 - Cantonese - In Mandarin it is yin cha - in Teochew we just say ziah dê 食茶 - and a Teochew in Swatow, China who says "yum cha" 飲茶 like the Cantonese
Dianxin 點心 - Mandarin - In Cantonese is dimsum - in Teochew we say diamsim. We all use the same characters 點心.
Chinese people eat Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 during Chinese New Year because they believe it will bring them lots of money - as it sounds like cai dao 財到 in Mandarin, which means "prosperity has arrived".
When the
cake goes cold, you could slice it and fry it until crispy and eat it with
Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油. However, I prefer eating this cake steaming hot from the steamer with diam zion 甜醬 a sweet sauce.
Ingredients
300 grams
Rice flour - In Taiwan this rice flour is known as 在來米粉 and in HK is known as 粘米粉.
30 grams glutinous rice flour + 30 grams potato flour
2 Chinese rice bowls of stock [500 ml] 高湯 or 清雞湯
2 Chinese rice bowls of stock [500 ml] 高湯 or 清雞湯
700 grams
of roughly grated bêh cai tao 白菜頭 This white turnip / carrot / raddish is
called bêh cai tao 白菜頭 in Teochew
and other Chinese calls this radish 白蘿蔔. Japanese call this daikon, meaning big root, and its Latin name is Raphanus sativus longipinnatus.
80 grams echalion
shallot 紅蔥頭 finely sliced and fried. Some
people scatter iu cang 油蔥 fried shallots on top of the cai tao guê and some people also scatter
roasted peanuts on the top of the cake too.
I keep my simple and I add none of these iu cang 油蔥 or peanuts as I am going to cut the cai tao guê and fry them on both sides eat them with Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.
1
continental spring onion 蔥 [60 grams] white part only, thinly sliced.
30 grams of
dried Chinese mushrooms 香菇 hio gou– about 5 pieces, soaked overnight in cold water until
soft, stem removed, diced and sautéd until fragrant
50 grams of
dried prawns 蝦米 he bhi, soaked overnight or for at
least 20 minutes, sautéd until fragrant
80 grams of
kêng cai bhuah 芹菜末 Chinese celery / Chinese parsley, finely
sliced – use only the stems and not the leaves
2 tbsp cooking oil
Salt 鹽 to taste and not too much
1 tsp of Sarawak white ground pepper
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| Prepare all your ingredients to make cooking easier |
You can also add lah deung 臘腸 Chinese preserved sausage, if you are into high fat preserved meat with lots of added E numbers. I am not into eating this kind of food and I have therefore omitted this ingredient.
I steam this Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 in whatever I have in my Westernised kitchen. I use a 18 cm spring form baking tin, line it
with parchment paper, spray with olive oil on the tin and wrap the
whole baking tin in tin foil to stop water entering the Cai Tao Guê 菜頭餜 and cover the top like as if I am steaming a Christmas pudding. I just do not have a large Chinese steamer
made from aluminum, which you see in Chinese shops. The likely hood of me buying one is also
zero. I have an induction hob and I need
iron based pots to work on my hob!
I think you
should just use whatever you have in your kitchen and not go out and buy more
clutter which you will only use perhaps make this cake once or twice a year.
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| A lined 18 cm spring form baking tin |
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| The cake is steamed in my stock pot which sits on a tripod like steaming Christmas pudding |
Method
1. Fry the shallots until lightly brown
in about 2 tbsp of cooking oil and then add the diced mushrooms and after
frying for about a minute or two, add
the soaked, drained dried prawns and fry until fragrant and then add the sliced
spring onion.
2. After a few minutes of sautéing the
above, add the grated radish, the Chinese celery / parsley and the two bowls of
stock and simmer slowly, add salt and pepper to taste and taste for seasoning.
3. Switch off the heat and then fold in
the flour and make sure that there are no lumps of flour in the cake mixture.
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| The cooked radish before the rice flour is added |
4. Pour this cake mixture into a lined
tin, wrap up with aluminium foil and also cover with foil to stop water
entering into the cake. The general
instruction is to steam for 50 – 60 minutes but I am steaming mine for one and
a half hours. It does not harm the cake
if you over steam it. However, it would
be a disaster if I were to under cook the cake.
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| The cake mixture in an 18 cm spring form tin |
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| The cake tin is wrapped in tin foil to stop water getting into the cai tao guê |
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| At the end of the steaming period and the cake is revealed for the first time |
Tuesday 23 July 2013
Teochew fried rice vermicelli noodles 潮州炒米粉 Chaozhou Chao Mifen "Teochew ca bhi hung"
炒米粉 chao
mifen or in Teochew is said as "ca bhihung" is a typical dish one
finds in South-East Asia - in Malaysia, Singapore amongst the Teochew people.
I have no idea if Teochew people in Chaoshan 潮汕 actually cook this dish and I therefore did a search on Google
on” 潮州炒米粉” and found lots of
examples of this dish. So Teochew people
do make and eat “ca bhi hung” 炒米粉. I therefore want to share this gluten free,
meat free fried rice vermicelli with all those gluten free friends around the world.
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| This pan of ca bhi hung was serve to guests for lunch today |
This is not the same dish you get in
London Cantonese restaurants which is written as 星洲炒米粉 – Singapore fried noodles and
where you find the whole dish has been baptised with curry powder! None of my Singaporean Chinese friends know
of this very strange dish. I think this
must be an imagination of Cantonese chefs here in London thinking we are all
stupid and ignorant.
My Teochew friend from
Singapore, Brenda Lim, first gave me this recipe years ago. Brenda taught
me to fry a vegetarian rice vermicelli dish and later on my first cousin,
Margaret Goh, from Canada showed me how to improve the texture of this fried noodle
by adding water to the wok as I fry the noodles.
If one has acquired enough gongfu
功夫 [skill] in frying this rice vermicelli noodle, then the noodle should be very long. A Penang auntie, Li Langley, also
gave me one of her secrets in making excellent “ca bhi hung” 炒米粉, and this is not to serve the rice noodles immediately after frying
but allow it to rest for a short period.
And it is this resting which allows the noodles not to break when
served. I would rather die than to serve
this noodle to some 鬼佬 or 鬼婆 who would take a knife and start
cutting the noodles in front of me. The
Italians would love such long noodles as they can handle long pasta. So, if you want to give your Chinese friend a
great insult then just cut the blessed noodles with a knife and watch their
faces! LOL! Apparently, cutting noodles for a Chinese is
a symbol of cutting short one’s life and one should always be respectful
towards other people’s culture.
One can add lots and lots of
different types of vegetables and in this recipe I will be using qincai 芹菜 - a Chinese celery,
carrots, Napa cabbage which is called dabaicai 大白菜 in Mandarin and others. People like Chinese food because of the crunchy
vegetables – and similarly, we have lots of vegetables in this “bhi hung” just
to add crunch into the dish, according to my friend Brenda Lim.
Today's recipe will not be a
vegetarian rice noodle because of one of the guests loves prawns, lots of prawns, but
it will be gluten and meat free noodles.
I also found a lovely topping
for this fried vermicelli – for those people who love chilli hot food – and
this topping is dried Burmese balachaung, much better than fried shallots and
garlic anytime!
This recipe is written for Dr
Marie Wilson, who has been like a mother to me, and who has often asked me for
this recipe.
Teochew people like their food
to be pale in colour and hence we do not make our noodles looking black or
brown. So if I cannot add soya
sauce or oyster sauce or MSG or Maggie seasoning sauce into these noodles. So, what can one do to make the noodles tasty? The answer lies in homemade stock.
Ingredients - 8 servings
- vegetable oil for frying 菜油
- 400 grams of peeled prawns 蝦仁 marinated in 2 tsp potato flour, a little salt, a little soya sauce, a dash of sesame oil, a shake of Sarawak white ground pepper, one egg white in the fridge. Prawns are added to give the “bhi hung” taste and flavour, according to my friend Brenda Lim. If you have some spare soaked dried prawns, then do throw these in too – but remember to fry them first in a little oil to enhance its flavour.
- 40 grams of dried prawns, which has been soaked in hot water
- 375 g dried rice vermicelli noodles soaked in cold water until soft, drained – this can be done hours ahead of time and the drained “bhi hung” stored in the fridge until required in a sealed plastic bag
- 1 Echalion shallot – finely sliced
- 1 large onion - julienne 洋蔥絲
- 2 medium size carrots [240 g] – julienne 紅蘿蔔絲
- 2 stalks European celery - julienne - this will give the dish a crunchy texture
- 100 grams of white part of a leek - julenne
- 100 grams French beans - sliced
- 1 branch Chinese celery julienne qincai 芹菜絲 – washed, cleaned and julienne
- 5 leaves of Napa cabbage julienne [200 grams] dabaicai 大白菜絲
- 250 grams fresh bean sprouts washed and tailed 豆芽
- Salt to taste to be added into the stock 鹽 – my friend Brenda Lim said do remember not to add salt into the “bhi hung” directly as it will cause some parts of the “bhi hung” to be salty whislst the rest bland and so it is better to add fish sauce or soya sauce to the stock directly. If you do not have these, then add salt to the stock.
- Sarawak ground white pepper to taste to be added into the stock 沙撈越白胡椒粉
- 350 ml Freshly home prepared stock 上湯 – add according to need to make the rice vermicelli noodles soft
For those who are able to eat
gluten – you can add a little light soya sauce into
the home made stock, if you wish – and this is optional. For those gluten free people, you can add a
tablespoon of fish sauce to the stock to give it flavour and taste. If you do this, then please do not add any
salt as the fish sauce is very salty. For those who do not eat meat, you can
make your stock from dried anchovies which could be purchased from Tesco in the
African section or any Chinese supermarket. As for me, I am neither adding soya sauce or fish sauce to the dish - I am just using salt and pepper - and very little pepper. One should not even think about adding oyster sauce or else it would spoil the dish.
Pictures of the vegetables and other ingredients
Garnish / topping
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| I am sure the above meets the 5 vegetables and fruits target for today! |
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| It is a good idea to get ready all the ingredients to allow the cooking process to proceed without much problems, even for an experienced cook. |
Garnish / topping
Sesame oil – a good dash
2 large eggs – beaten and fried
like an omelette and then julienne for garnishing When I am whisking the eggs prior to pan frying the omelette, a add about a tablespoon of home prepared stock, a little salt and ground white pepper to the eggs to give it some taste.
Burmese balachaung – if you do
not have this, than freshly fried shallots and garlic
1
continental spring onion [green part only sliced finely] 蔥
Chinese celery leaves - finely sliced - you can coriander leaves if you want
Method
1. Marinate
the prawns in egg white, a little light soya sauce, potato flour, a little salt
and ground white pepper and sesame oil for twenty minutes or better still over
night in the fridge
2. Soak
the rice vermicelli until soft in cold water, drain and set aside. I have soaked the "bhi hung" last night in cold tap water, drained the noodles and put in a bag and place this in the fridge overnight.
3. Wash
and peel the carrots and julienne
4. Soak,
wash and julienne the rest of the vegetables
5. Lightly sauté
the prawns in a little vegetable oil and set aside and similarly sauté the dried prawns and set aside
6. Then
fry the sliced shallots and white part of the spring onion until fragrant and add in the julienne of carrots and
onion and sauté until the carrots are soft
7. Add the
Chinese celery, Napa cabbage and bean sprouts, give a good stir and then the
soften, drained rice vermicelli
8. Slowly
pour the home made stock into the wok while tossing the rice vermicelli with
the rest of the vegetables. When the
rice vermicelli is cooked, add in the cooked prawns and season well
9. Cover
the wok with a cover and let the rice vermicelli rest for 10 minutes before
placing it on a large serving dish and garnish with the toppings listed above.
10. Serve
with Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.
Monday 22 July 2013
Teochew hung guê 潮州粉餜
When you visit a Chinese restaurant and have "yum cha" 飲茶 [remember this is eating "dimsum" 點心 and actually mean drinking tea] you may have eaten a steamed dumpling and in the menu it is written as "Chiuchow Fun Guo" 潮州粉果.
For the start, the "guo" character 果 [said in Cantonese] is the wrong character. This character means fruit - and the chef must have limited Chinese and some people use this character guo3 粿. This character guo3 粿 means cooked rice for making cakes. In fact the correct character is guo3 餜, which means a cake AND 粉餜 "hung guê", which is said in Teochew, means a cake made out of flour - not wheat flour but gluten free flour.
Originally, this Teochew steamed dumpling has no meat in it. However, some people started to add meat into this dumpling. This recipe shown in this posting will have no meat. My sister informs me in Malaysia this dumpling is called 菜餜 "cai guê" which means "vegetable cake".
In addition, some people make this dumpling's wrapper with tapioca flour but in Chaoshan 潮汕, Teochew people would never use tapioca flour as there is plenty of sweet potato flour and Teochew people call this flour "huang1 ze5 hung2" 蕃薯粉. The first character "huang" 蕃 means foreign things, like "huang gia 番仔 for foreigners, "huang lai" 蕃梨 for pineapple - a foreign apple. Enough of Teochew lessons! LOL
Potato flour in HK is labelled as 生粉. In Taiwan, it is also called 太白粉 or 蕃薯粉. I have used potato flour from Polish shops and I have made successful "hung guê" with Polish potato flour. I am sure if I were to use potato flour from Tesco or Asian or Middle Eastern shops, it would also work.
The picture below shows the various types of potato flour I have in my cupboard. The middle nearest to you is shengfen 生粉 - and following clockwise is fanshu fen 蕃薯粉 or "huang ze hung" in Teochew, then a Polish potato flour mąka ziemniaczana and the last one on the far right is taibaifen 太白粉 - all potato flour and you can use any of these.
I will therefore be using potato flour to make the wrapper together with modified wheat starch 澄粉 which is gluten free. This wheat starch is the most important flour for making a crystal wrapper and this flour is responsible for the dumpling wrapper to be transparent, crystal like.
This dumpling recipe is for all my gluten free friends out there who are suffering so much because there is so much added wheat to most products. This is a gluten free dumpling and I hope my gluten free friends will try out this recipe.
Filling Ingredients for 36 - 40 hung guê
50 grams Teochew salted raddish diced 50 克 潮州菜脯丁 This is a must and it is worth hunting for this dried salted raddish and I notice these are always available in Chinese shops I visit in London.
40 grams dried prawns 40 克 蝦米 soaked and roughly chopped or pounded. You can even buy dried prawns nowadays in my local Tesco! If you are unable to source dried prawns, then use fresh prawns instead.
20 grams Chinese dried mushrooms - washed, soaked in hot water until rejuvenated and soften, diced. 20 克 香菇丁
Normally no Teochew would add mushroom into "Hung Guê" because this is a rather expensive ingredient. I am adding Chinese mushrooms because it will give a wonderful fragrance to the filling.
1 small carrot finely diced 一個小紅蘿蔔丁
Again carrot is not a normal vegetable added into "hung guê" - and I am adding carrot to add colour into the filling. What is interesting is Teochew people call carrots "ang5 cai3 tao5" 紅菜頭 and not 紅蘿蔔.
The above is a picture showing the diced carrots, diced and lightly fried mushrooms and prawns. They are in the same size ramekins - all roughly equal proportion in volume.
280 grams yam bean diced or mang guang 280 克 沙葛丁 If you are unable to find yam bean in your local shops, then try using fresh water chestnuts as a substitute. It might make the dumpling a little too sweet if you were to use water chestnuts but the filling will be delicious and crunchy.
I am unable to add peanuts, a traditional ingredient, because one of the guests is unable to eat peanuts. Do remember this was previously a poor man's dumpling and peanuts are very cheap in the Chaoshan 潮汕 area. If you decide to add peanuts, then you need about 50 grams of roasted peanuts with its skin.
60 grams diced Chinese celery If you want other variation, then you can add qincai 芹菜 which is said as "kêng5 cai3" in Teochew and it is Chinese celery and is very fragrant.
You can also add jiucai 韭菜 which is called "gu2 cai3" in Teochew, which is Chinese garlic chives. 75 grams of Chinese chives should be sufficient. It is raining this morning and I am not in the mood to go and harvest Chinese chives in the rain - optional
1 diced spring onion - white bit part only
1 Echalion shallot finely sliced
If you are a Malaysian or Singaporean Teochew, then you will know what is 紅葱 "ang5 cang1". It is a small red shallot which is either planted in Thailand or India. I see these "ang cang" sold in Indian shops and of course Chinese food shops here in London. However, you can use Echalion shallot or any other types of shallot, which you find in your local supermarket, if you want the filling to have a powerful shallot flavour. If you are an original Teochew person from Chaoshan 潮汕 then you will just use the white bit of a spring onion and skip the "ang cang" / shallot.
Did you know that as spring onions are sold in the UK all year round and supermarkets are calling spring onion as salad onion nowadays. For those who are not into highly fragrant food, keep clear from "ang cang" and use the white part of continental spring onions. ^_~
Here are some pictures of the prepared ingredients
If you wish, you can add a tablespoon of oyster sauce and half a tablespoon of light soya sauce. However, if you cannot eat gluten, then you need to keep it simple and omit these or find soya sauce and oyster sauce which are gluten free.
salt - if you were to season the filling with half a tbsp of soya sauce and 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, then do not any salt as it would get too salty
a sprinkle of Sarawak white ground pepper - in my humble opinion, Sarawak pepper is best for cooking Chinese food
NO Sugar - we Teochew people do NOT add sugar into our food. So, if you want to experience an original taste then do not add sugar and allow the sweetness from the vegetables to prevail. This means that you have to source fresh vegetables.
Sesame oil - a dash is sufficient - added at the end for flavour - do not add too much, just a dash is enough and this is only added when you have turned off the heat.
2 tbsp freshly home made stock - add according to need. However, do remember the filling needs to be relatively dry or else it will be difficult to wrap the "hung guê".
2 tbsp cooking oil for sautéing the vegetables
Method for preparing the filling
Soak the dried prawns and mushrooms in separate bowls. When these are rejuvenated, hand press them dry and retain the water which has been used to soak these ingredients.
Roughly chop or pound the prawns and then fry in oil, drain and set aside.
Dice the mushrooms, fry in oil and set aside.
Fry the diced shallots, if used, and diced spring onion in 2 tbsp of cooking oil.
Sauté the diced carrots and diced raddish and then add the diced yam bean and fry until cook.
When the yam bean and carrots are cooked, then add the prawns and mushrooms and finally the Chinese celery.
Season well and set aside and allow to cool and any liquid drained. Technically, if sautéed well, there should not be any liquid from the vegetables.
The filling can be cooled in the fridge overnight if needed. However, it must not be used if still warm or hot.
The above filling will make around 36 - 40 "hung guê". However, you can store the filling in an air tight heat proof glass dish and make "hung guê" until you have mastered the art of making the dough and wrapping "hung guê". It requires gongfu 功夫 [skill] to wrap good "hung guê" and this requires practice. Hence, you might have to make it for a few days before you master how to wrap beautiful "hung guê" which does not break apart when steamed and handled with chopsticks!
Wrapper Ingredients
⅓ cup [38 g] modified wheat starch ⅓ 杯 澄粉
⅓ cup [53 g] potato flour ⅓ 杯 地瓜粉
< ⅔ cup boiling hot water [140 - 145 ml] - Therefore the water use is about 87.5 - 90% of the total volume of flours used.
This proportion is important if you are using other size cups to measure the two types of flour and water. Therefore once again - the volume of flour is the same, and the water is about 87.5 - 90 percent of the combined volume of flour in ml.
½ tsp salt - depending with taste
2 tsp vegetable cooking oil
Mix the salt and oil into the modified wheat starch and then pour boiling water into the modified starch and stir vigorously with a pair of chop sticks and then add the potato flour and knead until smooth. Wrap in cling film and set aside for 5 minutes. Make into a long roll and cut into 12 equal pieces and flatten the dough into a round disc and wrap into little hung guê.
It is also possible to divide the long roll of dough into 8 equal pieces and you will eat larger hung guê. In fact, I prefer the larger hung guê and in future I will divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and make larger hung guê! LOL
Steam the hung guê for 8 minutes and leave them in the steaming basket for another 2 minutes with the heat turned off.
Serve the steaming hot hung guê with Coleman mustard gai4la4 芥辣 and Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.
What have I learnt
This is what I have learnt from handing this dough. First of all, you need to knead the dough while it is very hot. If you have a Kenwood Chef, perhaps with a dough hook, you could knead the dough while it is boiling hot. I like using my hands so I can feel the texture of the dough and be aware if I need to add more wheat starch.
Secondly, if you were to make the dough in the morning and then wrap in the evening, then the steamed dumpling's skin will break easily after steaming, like those in second rate Chinese restaurants. So make only what you need and do not make extra as you cannot keep the dough.
If you were to oil your hands with vegetable cooking oil then handling this dough will be a lot easier and you will find it does not stick to your hands or work top.
I find granite top to be best in ensuring the dough takes its form easily. Other tops will do as well - there is no need for you to go out and buy a granite top!
If you have a Chinese chef knife - a large Chinese chopper, you will find it very easy to flatten the dough into round discs ready for wrapping. Otherwise, you need to use a small rolling pin like everybody else.
When you steam the dumplings and the heat / steam is too hot, the dumplings' wrapper will break easily as well. Getting the temperature right is a skill you need to master. Hence,steaming with bamboo baskets is best as there is so much leakage for the steam that there that it will naturally not be too hot to steam excellent dumplings.
If you do not add salt into the dough mixture, then the wrapper will be tasteless. So, I would add a little salt if I were you.
Traditionally, lard was added into the wrapper mixture, but nowadays nobody in their right mind cooks with lard and hence vegetable cooking oil is optimal.
This "hung guê" is an example of shui jing jiao 水晶餃 and another example of a shui jing giao 水晶餃 is xiajiao 蝦餃 and perhaps you would know this dumpling by its Cantonese name "ha gao" 蝦餃 or steamed prawn dumpling. Shui jing 水晶 means crystal and this means if you were to make the wrapper well, and after steaming, you will be able to see its filling.
Teochew people, especially those from Swatow 汕頭 are famous for their "zui zia giu" 水晶球 or "zui zia bao" or 水晶包. Any Chinese people, who know about food, will know this, like the way Cantonese people are famous for their prawns dumpling - ha gao 蝦餃 or xia jiao.
"Hung guê" is just another version of this "zui zia giao" 水晶餃 which we Teochew people are famous for, thanks to the Cantonese who has made this dumpling famous around the world.
26 July 2013 Friday - I read my old notes last night and saw a few years ago I used a different proportion for the two flours and decided this morning to try using these proportions.
80 grams Tênghung 澄粉 wheat starch
40 grams huang ze hung 蕃薯粉 potato flour
3/4 cups of boiling hot water 滾水 gung zui
1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp oil
I really found no difference in the wrapper and the texture of the skin is still kiu kiu.
Kiu kiu - in Taiwan cooking shows which I see on YouTube, I notice they use the letter Q for kiu in the subtitles and I suppose there is no Chinese character for this word and I must check my Teochew dictionaries. There is also no English word to describe this texture. The best I heard was rubbery - but who would describe the texture of their food as rubbery as this gives a very negative context. Like so many words in the English language which has been translated to English, I think kiu kiu should be included in the Oxford English dictionary.
28 July 2013 Sunday - there are many ways to wrap hung guê and here is an example of how it could be wrapped. I wrapped this recently and hope you like the shape.
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| These hung guê were to serve to guests last evening |
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| These hung guê were served to guests for lunch as a starter |
For the start, the "guo" character 果 [said in Cantonese] is the wrong character. This character means fruit - and the chef must have limited Chinese and some people use this character guo3 粿. This character guo3 粿 means cooked rice for making cakes. In fact the correct character is guo3 餜, which means a cake AND 粉餜 "hung guê", which is said in Teochew, means a cake made out of flour - not wheat flour but gluten free flour.
Originally, this Teochew steamed dumpling has no meat in it. However, some people started to add meat into this dumpling. This recipe shown in this posting will have no meat. My sister informs me in Malaysia this dumpling is called 菜餜 "cai guê" which means "vegetable cake".
In addition, some people make this dumpling's wrapper with tapioca flour but in Chaoshan 潮汕, Teochew people would never use tapioca flour as there is plenty of sweet potato flour and Teochew people call this flour "huang1 ze5 hung2" 蕃薯粉. The first character "huang" 蕃 means foreign things, like "huang gia 番仔 for foreigners, "huang lai" 蕃梨 for pineapple - a foreign apple. Enough of Teochew lessons! LOL
Potato flour in HK is labelled as 生粉. In Taiwan, it is also called 太白粉 or 蕃薯粉. I have used potato flour from Polish shops and I have made successful "hung guê" with Polish potato flour. I am sure if I were to use potato flour from Tesco or Asian or Middle Eastern shops, it would also work.
The picture below shows the various types of potato flour I have in my cupboard. The middle nearest to you is shengfen 生粉 - and following clockwise is fanshu fen 蕃薯粉 or "huang ze hung" in Teochew, then a Polish potato flour mąka ziemniaczana and the last one on the far right is taibaifen 太白粉 - all potato flour and you can use any of these.
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| Various potato flours |
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| Gluten free wheat starch |
Filling Ingredients for 36 - 40 hung guê
50 grams Teochew salted raddish diced 50 克 潮州菜脯丁 This is a must and it is worth hunting for this dried salted raddish and I notice these are always available in Chinese shops I visit in London.
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| Teochew salted radish |
40 grams dried prawns 40 克 蝦米 soaked and roughly chopped or pounded. You can even buy dried prawns nowadays in my local Tesco! If you are unable to source dried prawns, then use fresh prawns instead.
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| Dried prawns |
20 grams Chinese dried mushrooms - washed, soaked in hot water until rejuvenated and soften, diced. 20 克 香菇丁
Normally no Teochew would add mushroom into "Hung Guê" because this is a rather expensive ingredient. I am adding Chinese mushrooms because it will give a wonderful fragrance to the filling.
1 small carrot finely diced 一個小紅蘿蔔丁
Again carrot is not a normal vegetable added into "hung guê" - and I am adding carrot to add colour into the filling. What is interesting is Teochew people call carrots "ang5 cai3 tao5" 紅菜頭 and not 紅蘿蔔.
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| Diced carrots, prawns and mushrooms |
The above is a picture showing the diced carrots, diced and lightly fried mushrooms and prawns. They are in the same size ramekins - all roughly equal proportion in volume.
280 grams yam bean diced or mang guang 280 克 沙葛丁 If you are unable to find yam bean in your local shops, then try using fresh water chestnuts as a substitute. It might make the dumpling a little too sweet if you were to use water chestnuts but the filling will be delicious and crunchy.
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| Yam bean |
60 grams diced Chinese celery If you want other variation, then you can add qincai 芹菜 which is said as "kêng5 cai3" in Teochew and it is Chinese celery and is very fragrant.
You can also add jiucai 韭菜 which is called "gu2 cai3" in Teochew, which is Chinese garlic chives. 75 grams of Chinese chives should be sufficient. It is raining this morning and I am not in the mood to go and harvest Chinese chives in the rain - optional
1 diced spring onion - white bit part only
1 Echalion shallot finely sliced
If you are a Malaysian or Singaporean Teochew, then you will know what is 紅葱 "ang5 cang1". It is a small red shallot which is either planted in Thailand or India. I see these "ang cang" sold in Indian shops and of course Chinese food shops here in London. However, you can use Echalion shallot or any other types of shallot, which you find in your local supermarket, if you want the filling to have a powerful shallot flavour. If you are an original Teochew person from Chaoshan 潮汕 then you will just use the white bit of a spring onion and skip the "ang cang" / shallot.
Did you know that as spring onions are sold in the UK all year round and supermarkets are calling spring onion as salad onion nowadays. For those who are not into highly fragrant food, keep clear from "ang cang" and use the white part of continental spring onions. ^_~
Here are some pictures of the prepared ingredients
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| Get the ingredients ready in little dishes / ramekins before sautéing |
salt - if you were to season the filling with half a tbsp of soya sauce and 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, then do not any salt as it would get too salty
a sprinkle of Sarawak white ground pepper - in my humble opinion, Sarawak pepper is best for cooking Chinese food
NO Sugar - we Teochew people do NOT add sugar into our food. So, if you want to experience an original taste then do not add sugar and allow the sweetness from the vegetables to prevail. This means that you have to source fresh vegetables.
Sesame oil - a dash is sufficient - added at the end for flavour - do not add too much, just a dash is enough and this is only added when you have turned off the heat.
2 tbsp freshly home made stock - add according to need. However, do remember the filling needs to be relatively dry or else it will be difficult to wrap the "hung guê".
2 tbsp cooking oil for sautéing the vegetables
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| The ingredients being sautéed |
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| After adding diced Chinese celery |
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| After everything has been added, sautéed and create a space to make sure if there were any liquid, it would drained to the middle of your wok |
Method for preparing the filling
Soak the dried prawns and mushrooms in separate bowls. When these are rejuvenated, hand press them dry and retain the water which has been used to soak these ingredients.
Roughly chop or pound the prawns and then fry in oil, drain and set aside.
Dice the mushrooms, fry in oil and set aside.
Fry the diced shallots, if used, and diced spring onion in 2 tbsp of cooking oil.
Sauté the diced carrots and diced raddish and then add the diced yam bean and fry until cook.
When the yam bean and carrots are cooked, then add the prawns and mushrooms and finally the Chinese celery.
Season well and set aside and allow to cool and any liquid drained. Technically, if sautéed well, there should not be any liquid from the vegetables.
The filling can be cooled in the fridge overnight if needed. However, it must not be used if still warm or hot.
The above filling will make around 36 - 40 "hung guê". However, you can store the filling in an air tight heat proof glass dish and make "hung guê" until you have mastered the art of making the dough and wrapping "hung guê". It requires gongfu 功夫 [skill] to wrap good "hung guê" and this requires practice. Hence, you might have to make it for a few days before you master how to wrap beautiful "hung guê" which does not break apart when steamed and handled with chopsticks!
Wrapper Ingredients
⅓ cup [38 g] modified wheat starch ⅓ 杯 澄粉
⅓ cup [53 g] potato flour ⅓ 杯 地瓜粉
< ⅔ cup boiling hot water [140 - 145 ml] - Therefore the water use is about 87.5 - 90% of the total volume of flours used.
This proportion is important if you are using other size cups to measure the two types of flour and water. Therefore once again - the volume of flour is the same, and the water is about 87.5 - 90 percent of the combined volume of flour in ml.
½ tsp salt - depending with taste
2 tsp vegetable cooking oil
Mix the salt and oil into the modified wheat starch and then pour boiling water into the modified starch and stir vigorously with a pair of chop sticks and then add the potato flour and knead until smooth. Wrap in cling film and set aside for 5 minutes. Make into a long roll and cut into 12 equal pieces and flatten the dough into a round disc and wrap into little hung guê.
It is also possible to divide the long roll of dough into 8 equal pieces and you will eat larger hung guê. In fact, I prefer the larger hung guê and in future I will divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and make larger hung guê! LOL
Steam the hung guê for 8 minutes and leave them in the steaming basket for another 2 minutes with the heat turned off.
Serve the steaming hot hung guê with Coleman mustard gai4la4 芥辣 and Teochew chilli oil 潮州辣椒油.
What have I learnt
This is what I have learnt from handing this dough. First of all, you need to knead the dough while it is very hot. If you have a Kenwood Chef, perhaps with a dough hook, you could knead the dough while it is boiling hot. I like using my hands so I can feel the texture of the dough and be aware if I need to add more wheat starch.
Secondly, if you were to make the dough in the morning and then wrap in the evening, then the steamed dumpling's skin will break easily after steaming, like those in second rate Chinese restaurants. So make only what you need and do not make extra as you cannot keep the dough.
If you were to oil your hands with vegetable cooking oil then handling this dough will be a lot easier and you will find it does not stick to your hands or work top.
I find granite top to be best in ensuring the dough takes its form easily. Other tops will do as well - there is no need for you to go out and buy a granite top!
If you have a Chinese chef knife - a large Chinese chopper, you will find it very easy to flatten the dough into round discs ready for wrapping. Otherwise, you need to use a small rolling pin like everybody else.
When you steam the dumplings and the heat / steam is too hot, the dumplings' wrapper will break easily as well. Getting the temperature right is a skill you need to master. Hence,steaming with bamboo baskets is best as there is so much leakage for the steam that there that it will naturally not be too hot to steam excellent dumplings.
If you do not add salt into the dough mixture, then the wrapper will be tasteless. So, I would add a little salt if I were you.
Traditionally, lard was added into the wrapper mixture, but nowadays nobody in their right mind cooks with lard and hence vegetable cooking oil is optimal.
This "hung guê" is an example of shui jing jiao 水晶餃 and another example of a shui jing giao 水晶餃 is xiajiao 蝦餃 and perhaps you would know this dumpling by its Cantonese name "ha gao" 蝦餃 or steamed prawn dumpling. Shui jing 水晶 means crystal and this means if you were to make the wrapper well, and after steaming, you will be able to see its filling.
Teochew people, especially those from Swatow 汕頭 are famous for their "zui zia giu" 水晶球 or "zui zia bao" or 水晶包. Any Chinese people, who know about food, will know this, like the way Cantonese people are famous for their prawns dumpling - ha gao 蝦餃 or xia jiao.
"Hung guê" is just another version of this "zui zia giao" 水晶餃 which we Teochew people are famous for, thanks to the Cantonese who has made this dumpling famous around the world.
26 July 2013 Friday - I read my old notes last night and saw a few years ago I used a different proportion for the two flours and decided this morning to try using these proportions.
80 grams Tênghung 澄粉 wheat starch
40 grams huang ze hung 蕃薯粉 potato flour
3/4 cups of boiling hot water 滾水 gung zui
1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp oil
I really found no difference in the wrapper and the texture of the skin is still kiu kiu.
Kiu kiu - in Taiwan cooking shows which I see on YouTube, I notice they use the letter Q for kiu in the subtitles and I suppose there is no Chinese character for this word and I must check my Teochew dictionaries. There is also no English word to describe this texture. The best I heard was rubbery - but who would describe the texture of their food as rubbery as this gives a very negative context. Like so many words in the English language which has been translated to English, I think kiu kiu should be included in the Oxford English dictionary.
28 July 2013 Sunday - there are many ways to wrap hung guê and here is an example of how it could be wrapped. I wrapped this recently and hope you like the shape.
Who is little Charlemagne?
Little Charlemagne is my ten year old baby - my pride and joy.
I speak to him in Teochew 潮州話 and he follows instructions in English too. The only Teochew word he knows how to say is ain3 慾 which means "I want" in English and yao4 要 in Mandarin.
I then have to ask him 慾乜個 which in Teochew PêngIm 潮州拼音 is ain3 mig4 gai5 or what do you want in English and in Standard Chinese is 要什麼 ? He cannot understand instructions in Mandarin and therefore there is not much point in me speaking to him in Mandarin.
Do you think my baby is clever?
Charlemagne was a Norwegian Forest Cat but he is no longer so - he is a Norwegian Jungle Cat because he is like a tiger baby - a grey baby tiger and tigers live in jungles and hence Norwegian Jungle Cat! LOL Little Charlemagne is 10 years old - his birthday was on 3 April this year, Easter Wednesday and we had a wonderful tea party. He is 10 kilogram and still growing! LOL
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| Picture taken July 2013 |
I speak to him in Teochew 潮州話 and he follows instructions in English too. The only Teochew word he knows how to say is ain3 慾 which means "I want" in English and yao4 要 in Mandarin.
I then have to ask him 慾乜個 which in Teochew PêngIm 潮州拼音 is ain3 mig4 gai5 or what do you want in English and in Standard Chinese is 要什麼 ? He cannot understand instructions in Mandarin and therefore there is not much point in me speaking to him in Mandarin.
Do you think my baby is clever?
Charlemagne was a Norwegian Forest Cat but he is no longer so - he is a Norwegian Jungle Cat because he is like a tiger baby - a grey baby tiger and tigers live in jungles and hence Norwegian Jungle Cat! LOL Little Charlemagne is 10 years old - his birthday was on 3 April this year, Easter Wednesday and we had a wonderful tea party. He is 10 kilogram and still growing! LOL
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