Category Archives: Asian Culinary Culture

Anything to do with Asian cuisine, recipes and culture.

Suckling Pigs and Chinese Wedding Banquets

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Stephanie Yuen (Chinese blogs: http://taiyangbao.ca/author/stephanieyuen/?variant?zh-hans )

Ever wonder why the first course of a Chinese wedding banquet is a platter of crispy-skin suckling pig?The first course at a Chinese wedding banquet - roasted suckling pig

In the old days, the suckling pig was a symbol of ‘virginity’, referring to the purity of the bride who before the wedding night has never courted anyone; and from that night on she is the ‘woman’ of the groom.  Evidently and thanks to the widely practiced ‘freedom of the body and mind’ and ‘woman’s liberty’, the symbolic meaning no longer holds true.   

Thankfully, Chinese stick to their wishful thinking regime and ritual practices, the suckling pig still leads its way, in the form of a platter, at most Chinese banquets. As far as the goodness of us epicureans’ glutton enjoyment is concerned, who (sorry, my vegan friends!) would want to forfeit the succulent texture and the symphony of flavour of the suckling pig?

A plate of perfectly roasted suckling pig

According to Richmond’s BBQ King Chow Hung who runs ‘Master Hung’s BBQ House’ on Garden City (at Blundell), the perfect weight of a suckling pig is around 8.5 kilos. Those with short snouts, short tails and small ears are the best. Authentically, suckling pig is roasted by hand over open fire of wood and charcoal which takes approximately 3 hours to complete the roasting. Today’s high-tech equipment taking over the sweating labour and manual skills, this also becomes a history.

While it is very likely to see suckling pigs hanging in the vertical oven inside the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant or BBQ store, the flavour and texture withheld nicely, but of course, it will never be the same as the hand-held roasted ones. The crackling (crispy skin) of a young pig is so divine and delicate; it is what the real gourmand goes after.  The skin should never be chewy or dried if roasted to perfection. To keep the skin crispy, ask the store clerk to slit open a tiny opening at the four corners of the take-out box when purchasing an order or two of the Crispy skin roasted pig.

These days, you can even pre-order a whole suckling pig for special occasions, parties and celebration. The price tag runs from $150 to $200 per pig.

Oh yes, you can make your own home-version of the roasted pig (not suckling pig). Master Hung has given me his easy-to-do recipe to be shared with readers of my newly released ‘East Meets West’, available every where, including Barbar-Jo’s Books To Cooks on W. 2nd (Burrard & Fir).

 

My first Asian-recipe cookbook – East Meets West

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Stephanie Yuen

                                                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sincere thanks to the chefs and friends who never stop to send me their encouragements and supports from day 1, and to my colleagues,  friends in the hospitality industry and readers who want to know when and how to get hold of a copy! You are the true inspiration!

Well, here is the information!

Official book title: East Meets West

Traditional and Contemporary Asian Recipes from Acclaimed Vancouver Restaurants

http://www.dmpibooks.com/author/stephanie-yuen

March, 2010 came the first email from Lucy, Senior Editor at Douglas & McIntyre inviting me to meet with her to discuss a book project. The luncheon meeting took place soon after. Yes, we agreed that it’s time for the great food cityVancouver to dedicate a cookbook to local Asian restaurants and chefs!  We agreed to meet to discuss further details upon my return from a working trip to Hong Kong andMalaysia in May.

June, 2010: Lucy and I met again and drafted out a synopsis for the book. And that, officially kicked off my 20-month long book project – the 200+ pages cookbook!

July, 2010: Embarked on a recipe-seeking journey. Many desired recipes, including regional ones were those I tasted and always enjoyed, some are signature dish, some are newly-created master pieces.

September, 2010:  Sent out verbal and/or email invitations to Asian chefs for their favourite recipes and to Western chefs for their unique Asian-themed recipes. As a matter of fact, quite a few recipes were obtained through way of stenography – chef dictated and I scripted! Love chatting with the chefs who gave me tons of cooking tips!

October, 2010: Visited restaurants and chefs to deliver the invitations in person. Though there were more than expected refusals, there’re lots of welcoming smiles and opened-arms.

November, 2010: Received the first lot of recipes and started working on the  editorial and recipe-testing.  Thank goodness, my kids and their friends, neighbours and their friends were always-ready tasters! 

The rest, as they say, is history!!

While online pre-order is already available, ‘East Meets West’ will be published April, 2012.

 

 

Let the magic of BBQ Duck enchant the New Year tables

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Peking duck is a delightful party food great for New Year celebrations, at home!

Stephanie Yuen

No matter how it’s done – roasted, curried, braised or barbecued, with or without the bone – duck has always been my meat favourite.  So when it comes to holiday celebrations or festive meals, there has to be one or couple duck dishes.

When there is more time on hand, I would start off from scratch.  The best place to buy frozen ducks is at Asian supermarkets where they charge less than $20 for one.  After defrosting and cleaning the duck, prepare a double soy marinade by mixing brown sugar, a tablespoon of red wine and 2 oz each of light and dark soy sauce and brush evenly on the inside and outside of the duck, and marinate for at least 6 hours and hang it dry overnight (place a large bowl underneath to catch the dripping).  The next day, deep fry the whole bird till golden brown.  While waiting for the duck to cool down, stir fry 1 cup of glutinous rice, 1 each of diced lap cheung (Chinese sauce), deiced shitake mushroom and 1 tbsp of dried shrimp till the rice is semi-cooked. Stuff inside the duck and steam for 4 hours.  Yes, this is one time and effort consuming recipe, but the tender fall-off-the bone duck meat and the amazing-flavoured sticky rice are worth every minute!

What about one very easy, fun-to-do and great party food (each duck is good for around 10 people) and very appealing duck recipe – a DIY 2-course Peking duck: Duck skin wrap and lettuce wrap.

To kick start, go to your favourite Chinese BBQ shop and purchase a BBQ duck; make sure you tell the butcher not to cut or chop the duck. You also need 1 head of lettuce, a bundle of green onions, 1 Japanese cucumber, 1 carrot, 1 medium onion, 1 red pepper and 6 shitake mushrooms. Don’t forget to pick up a package of 10” flour tortilla！For seasoning, you’ll need both light and dark soy sauce, hoisin and oyster sauce, and a small amount of peanut sauce.

Place the duck on a large plate once home. Line a baking pan with tin foil and put the wire rack on top of the foil.  Use a pair of scissors and a paring knife, remove the skin while cutting into 2” X 1.5” pieces and place them onto the rack.  Cover lightly with wax paper or foil, put aside. Remove as much meat from the duck, the carcass is great for making congee (or soup), so save and freeze it. Dice the meat and put in a bowl. Put aside.

Cut 4 pieces of tortilla into 4 even quarters, stack and foil-wrap them and put aside. You can prepare more later when needed.

With the help of a pointed knife, carefully take the lettuce leaves apart.  Try to keep the leaves intact since they will be used as containers for the 2nd course.

Julienne the white parts of 3 green onions and the cucumber; put them into 2 separate bowls. Small-dice and place everything else in separate bowls.

While start serving your guests with dips and cheese, preheat the oven to 300F. .

For an easy peking duck sauce, just squeeze it out of the hoisin sauce bottle. But for a better-tasting sauce with the right texture, this is a good time to make your own. Bring 2 oz of water, 1½ Tbsp of brown sugar, 2 oz of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of hoisin sauce in a saucepan on medium high heat to a soft boil, stir in 1 tbsp of sesame oil. Turn off heat and empty sauce into a serving bowl.

When the oven is ready, remove the wax paper or foil cover, place both the duck skins and the foiled-tortillas inside and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. While waiting for the skins and tortillas to be re-heated, why not cook the duck meat?

Place wok on high heat. Bring 2 tbsp of cooking oil to a medium boil. Add diced carrot, onion, red pepper and mushroom respectively at 10-seconds intervals and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add 1 tsp each of hoisin, oyster sauce, dark and light soy sauce, brown sugar, cold water and mix well.  Add duck meat and sauté for another minute, empty into a large bowl and serve with lettuce leaves and peking duck sauce.

Place a whole tortilla on a large round plate.  Remove duck skins from the oven and transfer the skins onto the tortilla (to absorb the grease) and serve with the quartered tortilla.

Enjoy these fun duck courses and help yourselves to a delicious, healthy and happy 2012!

Cheap and Cheerful – Bubble Tea Cafe

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These days, they are everywhere! Big or tiny; fancy or enclosed; bubble tea cafés are so popular they might well be one of the top competitors to other beverage joints.

As daunting as Starbucks in N. America, bubble Tea café is the place to hang out for the young generations, especially high school kids that are still underaged to go boozing in public. Perhaps this explains why the Drink Menu outlists the food menu most of the time. To these youngsters who somehow roam freely even at mig-night, these fancy drinks are make-shift cocktails without the alcoho. Look at the names: ‘Blue Baby’,‘Passionate Love’ or ‘Young Girl’s Dream’, obviously, the fantasy and pleasure is far beyond what’s in the drink!

And yet, to call these cafés ‘bubble tea café’ is somewhat misleading, since they offer a genre of Taiwanese snacks as well. In fact, more and more bubble tea cafés categorize themselves as Taiwanese bistros and have successfully expanded their client base to include families and boomers.

Taiwanese cuisine; influenced by Japanese culture and aboriginals; is also an adaptation ofFujianand Hakka cooking. The Japanese gives them an artistic approach found in room décor, the wares, the plating and the sculptured icy drinks. Set meals, come with soup, side dishes rice are often served Bento-style. Taiwan-aboriginals’ rural form of food preparation and the usage of roots, herbs and wild vegetables; along with authentic Fujian and Hakka recipes, turn out intense flavoured soup, noodles, meat and seafood, along with other one-of-a-kind dishes and comfortating table-top hot-pots.

Don’t worry about exotic dishes, though they will be some, but 90% of the menu items are Joe and Jane proof.  Dishes like Minced pork on rice, Wok-fried live clams, Taiwanese chicken nugget, assortment of noodle soups, original beef noodle soup loaded with deliciously braised shanks, grilled pork chops, pan-fried vegetables and fried rice…the list goes on and on. There has to be a dish or two that appeals to even the fussiest diner.

And the best reason to dine in a bubble tea bistro? Extremely wallet-friendly!  How friendly?  What about $10 – 12 for a eat-till-you-drop  shared multi-course dinner?