Steamed Salted Fish & Pork

Here's a dish that if your mom hasn't cooked before, she can't be Chinese. Correction: Cantonese Chinese, or Chinese from this region. I know my Hub didn't eat this as a child but he loves this dish.

This humble home dish is so tasty and appetizing that all you need is a big bowl of plain rice and a simple soup, such as a winter melon soup, to leave you a very contented person. Two things however threaten this dish with extinction--the bad news about preserved food and salted fish being a stinky humble food that smells bad. But tastes great. I hardly buy salted fish, given all those tales about how people spray fish salting in the sun with insecticide to keep flies away. I am however very lucky to be bestowed with a big salted mui hiong (prized salted fish that's salted to a point where the flesh is soft and moist) by Peter, who knows his source of Sandakan salted fish. I prize this gift and eat it very sparingly.

Stories abound of students living in apartments overseas and police being summoned by neighbors after the stink of the fish aroused the neighbors' fury and disgust. If you think salted fish is bad, it is nothing compared to preserved prawns paste, a Malaysian staple called belacan. Once in a while I catch a whiff of that and my brain quickly process the information: if it's belacan, take a deep breath appreciatively and if it's somebody's rotting feet, stop breathing. Sometimes, I get confused.

If you dare cook this in an apartment, please do not fry the salted fish. Just steam it along with the pork and pray the smell doesn't seep out under your door. Most people don't fry the salted fish so that it sort of melts into the pork. I prefer to fry the salted fish precisely for the opposite effect: so that it doesn't melt into but just flavors the pork and I can choose to eat the pork or the fish with my rice.

I'm not sure if this is an acquired taste dish. Mui hiong salted fish is very savory sweet, behind all that saltiness. I know a Spanish friend who loves salted fish and pork. Must be the balcalhau she's missing. Those of you who know this dish will be drooling. It's impossible not to, it's that good.


Steamed Salted Fish & Pork (serves 4-6)
600g pork*
5 x 7 cm mui hiong salted fish (or more, up to you)
1/2 T very fine ginger strips
dash of white pepper
pinch of fine sugar
1 t sesame oil
1 T cornflour
1 t light soy sauce
1/4 t salt
1 egg (optional)
1/3 to 1/2 cup water

*Use shoulder pork with 10% fat on at least. You can either chop the pork until fine (the traditional way) or cut into thin slices (for this, a fatter cut would be best). The chopped pork is good with congee but the slices are very good with rice although old folks may prefer the chopped pork.

1. Cut the salted fish into 3/4 cm strips and fry with the ginger, or you can leave it unfried. It's good either way.

2. Mix all the seasoning ingredients with the pork. Egg is not usually added but I do that for a smoother taste especially since lean pork is preferred these days. I also like to add more water so that there'll be more gravy for the rice.

3. Pat the pork into a shallow heat-proof dish, top with the salted fish slices and steam at high heat for 20 to 25 minutes.

4. Serve hot with plain boiled rice.

CNY Vegetarian Zhai

CNY zhai

Today, the 15th day of CNY, is the last day of the new year celebrations. Endings are always tinged with some sadness while beginnings are exciting and hopeful. You get the feeling that after today it's back to normal routine and drudgery for the rest of the year, until 9 months from now in November when the kids return for summer holidays (for Oz students) and December when Christmas comes again. Ah well, that's how I mark my year, by my kids coming home and by the festivities.

This is a dish that is eaten on the 1st day of CNY, especially by the Buddhists who are vegetarians. Mom didn't cook this for the 1st day this year, so I thought it'd be good to have it on the last day of CNY especially after all the heavy meat dishes the last 2 weeks. Though not Buddhists, my parents made it a family tradition to eat this dish too on the 1st day of CNY, and Dad always sets the new year celebration into swing by frying the beancurd sticks and mung bean vermicelli after the reunion dinner on the eve. My younger bro, Joe, would always be the one assigned to grate tons of chinese radish for the radish cake on the eve. This year I sweet-talked Wey into grating the radish, and I hope he continues with this tradition.

Zhai was never a dish that I liked because it was, well, so zhai, so vegetarian. But now that I'm old(er), I'm beginning to appreciate this dish and once a year is good enough for me. My mom cooked it more as a stew and the reason why mom's zhai was more like a stew is because she cooked tons of it and we had to eat it day after day, and with each re-heating of the dish the ingredients became more flavored but softer. Maybe that's why I disliked the dish.

This is the first time I cooked zhai. It turned out pretty good but just before serving, I added the whole lot of fried mung bean vermicelli and they disintegrated into the stew and soaked up all the liquid. Next time I cook this (which would be next year), I would not fry the mung bean vermicelli. Mom's traditional version had no fresh veg in it so that it can keep for days (and weeks). It's really up to you but the basic ingredients are mung bean vermicelli, beancurd sticks, chinese dried mushrooms, dried lily buds, cloud's ears (an edible fungus), red dates (I forgot to add these) and red fermented tofu. You can cook a basic version without the fresh veg, keep it in the fridge and add the fresh veg such as carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, snow peas and enoki mushrooms when you heat up the dish. When you do that, it becomes the regular everyday zhai on the menu of most restaurants and food caterers, except that no fermented tofu is used.


CNY Vegetarian Zhai
50 g mung bean vermicelli, soaked & drained
50 g dried beancurd sticks, deep-fried until lightly browned, then soaked & cut 5 cm lengths
1 cup cloud ears, soaked & trimmed of stalks
1 cup dried chinese mushrooms
1/3 cup gingko nuts
1 cup loosely packed dried lily buds, soaked, trimmed & tied into knots
1/4 cup red dates, soaked
3 pieces red fermented bean curd + 2 T red beancurd sauce, mashed together
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t salt + to taste
2 cups chicken stock (important since there's no meat)

optional: veg such as chinese cabbage (in 3x3 cm pieces), carrots (thin slices) or broccoli florets

1. Put 2 T veg oil into a wok or pot and fry the garlic. Add the red beancurd mash, mushrooms and beancurd sticks and fry for a minute. Add 1 cup chicken stock and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Add the red dates, gingko nuts and another cup of chicken stock, cover and let it simmer for 10 - 15 minutes. Now add the cloud ears and lily buds and simmer again for 5-10 minutes.

3. Taste and add more stock or fermented beancurd and salt if necessary. Test the beancurd sticks. If they have softened and you are fine with the texture, increase the heat, add the mung bean vermicelli and extra stock or water if necessary. Dish up quickly or the vermicelli will become too soft.

4. If including fresh veg, fry it in a little bit of oil and salt, or blanch it, until half-done and add it to the simmering stew for a minute or so before adding the mung bean vermicelli.

Ma's Lion Heads (Shi Zi Tou)

Shanghainese lion heads meatballs

I'm talking about the famous Shanghainese meatballs, not real lion heads. If you've never heard of Shanghainese lion heads (shi zi tou), I don't blame you. I didn't know about them until I went out with a boy from Shanghai whose mom made scrumptious lion heads for her mom-in-law, who was in her 80s then, and didn't have much chewing power left in her teeth.

Lion heads are giant pork meatballs, seasoned, fried and braised in soy sauce and shao xin wine and traditionally served over chinese cabbage although my MIL uses bak choy too. This dish is to the Shanghainese what yong tau foo is to the Hakka. It is considered a humble everyday home dish and I think apart from old folks, most picky eaters of the juvenile kind will love it with plain boiled rice. Even if you don't belong to either group, you'll find lion heads very appetizing and tasty on a day when your taste buds are too jaded.

My MIL's lion heads are more cat heads now since we have all become more conscious about our weight. Her lion heads are now smaller than a tennis ball and one is just not enough. So don't make them too small or they loose their lion likeness although frankly, I've looked at lion heads from all directions with great imagination and still can't see their resemblance to the King of the Jungle.




Cat heads...adjust the amount of dark soy sauce to get the shade you want

Ma's Lion Heads
800g fresh shoulder pork, mostly lean with some fat*
1/8 t (or to taste) white pepper
1 egg
2 T cornstarch
2 T light soy sauce
1/4 t salt (depending on your taste)
2 t sesame oil (optional)
1 t minced ginger (optional)

*I've tried making with all-lean pork and the meatballs turned out very dry and firm. They should be soft and moist. I would suggest at least 700g lean meat: 100g fat if you are health-conscious but the meatballs would be slightly dry. If you dare, use more fat to get better tasting meatballs. It's best to use fresh pork and chop it (add the salt when chopping) rather than use ready-ground pork.

1. Mix all the above ingredients well, stirring in one direction forcefully 20-30 times so that the protein in the meat will firm up. Shape into 6-8 meatballs of 100 to 150 g each (I usually make them 120g each) and chill at least 1 hour.

2. Heat up 3-4 cups of veg oil in a wok, rub several slices of ginger (using a frying ladle) against the wok's bottom, then remove the ginger when the oil is hot. MIL insists this will give a flavor and make the wok non-stick.

3. Fry the meatballs in batches until quite browned and crusted outside (if not, they will break up when you braise them later) but not cooked inside. Remove onto kitchen paper.



4. Put the following into a pot, preferably a clay pot or glass dish like Corningware:

1 cup water or better still, chicken stock
2 T Kikkoman soy sauce (or a good light soy sauce)

1-2 T Lee Kum Kee dark soy sauce (1 T for light meatballs n 2 T for dark)

3 T Shao xin wine
1 piece (about 2 cm in diameter) rock sugar

Chinese cabbage or bak choy, in large pieces

5. When the sauce boils, add the lion heads. You may add a piece of fresh or the fried ginger if you like. Add enough water to just cover the meatballs. Cover the pot and simmer 1 1/2 hours. Thicken slightly with cornstarch if like although it is better to reduce and thicken the sauce by boiling at a high heat towards the end of the cooking time.

6. Fry some bak choy (use the small type & leave it whole) or Chinese cabbage (cut into lengths of about 10 cm) in a little bit of oil until it is cooked. Arrange the fried veg (do not add the liquid that comes out after frying the veg) in a claypot and top with the braised lion heads, then cover and heat until the sauce starts to boil so that the veg will have enough flavor. Serve with plain boiled rice. Traditionally 4 lion heads are served in one claypot.

If you are using Chinese cabbage, you can skip the frying and just put the cabbage into a clay pot, arrange the lion heads on top, pour the sauce over, lay more cabbage on top and braise until meatballs are done and the veg is soft. If you don't like the veg too soft, add it later but make sure not to break up the meatballs, and when you serve the dish, put the veg at the bottom of the plate. Take off the lid towards the end if there is too much liquid (from the veg, which would dilute the flavor and taste of the sauce) and boil at a high heat to reduce and thicken the sauce.

Su's Dinner

I learn so much from Su about entertaining guests at home. She not only cooks in quality and quantity, she serves her food with her best china and cutlery. Wine is in crystal glasses, coffee in fancy English bone porcelain and tea in the prettiest ceramic cups. Fresh flowers here and there, soft music and a comfy atmosphere among the guests make her dinner parties a real treat and joy to attend.

Tonight we celebrated her hub's birthday, and that of E. I was told to bake a cake, and I decided to make one each for the birthday boys. When I arrived, the dining table was overflowing with food. Including my tied pork leg, there were 13 dishes and 1 soup, which means you only need to eat one spoon of each dish and there'll be 13 spoonfuls of food (plus a bowl of peanut-chicken feet soup) in your stomach. After dinner, we moved on to the living room and had coffee, tea, the best chocolates (I forgot to check what it was but Hub was eating more than he usually did), CNY sticky cake sandwiched between taro slices and fried in a light batter (totally yummy) and my cakes, a green tea cake and a chocolate cake. And an assortment of fresh sliced fruits, which I passed because I felt my eyes were popping out.

I swear that this will be the last pig out for the next couple of months. Last Sat, my niece flew in with her family from Guangzhou and I had a barbie with my siblings and their families, the next day a no-holds-bar steamboat, and the next I had Louis, his wife Jas and two friends over for dinner to thank him for having Yi as his intern the last couple of months. Three big dins consecutively. I am so full of food, I don't think I'll be cooking anything but soups for the next few days. Until this Sunday, that is, when there will be another big reunion feast to celebrate the 15th day of CNY. No, make that two reunion feasts, one at MIL's on Sat and another at Mom's on Sunday. Oh. My. Goodness.


The buffet-like dishes of curry beef, cut white chicken (home-reared by Su's mom, so good I doggy-bagged the leftover), sweet & sour pork leg, soy sauce cinnamon chicken, koe rou (made by Su's mom, I could smell it from the gate), steamed pork mince and salted fish (my fav dish tonight, salted fish made by Su's incredibly capable 80+ year-old mom), fried long beans, fried Sabah veg with egg, fried kale, Thai-style grouper, mixed stir-fry of mushrooms, bamboo and waterchestnuts and my tied pork leg with Sichuan-style sauce. This is without doubt food overload--this amount was for 13 adults and 3 kids. Everything was yummy and there's so much you don't know what to focus on.


Wine in crystal glasses, fine chocs with coffee, my green tea cake, fragrant Chinese tea, a room scented with potpourri.


My favorite orchids, Phalaenopsis orchids, a bouquet of mixed florals that a guest brought for Su and a plate of sticky cake sandwiched between taro slices.

What I learnt from Su about dinner parties:

1. Have lots of help so guests can sit around like pigs after all that food. She had 2 maids and 1 butler. Okay, the butler was her hub. I must ask if she can spare him the next time I have a dinner party.

2. Presentation is just as important as the food, something Chinese dinners are short on. Use your fine tableware. It makes the meal more luxurious and special. Besides, what did you buy them for if not for entertaining? This I still have to learn. I usually use my daily tableware. My dinner presentation is too everyday fare.

3. Fresh flowers. Su is the other person I know besides myself who will splurge on flowers. Grow your own orchids, there'll always be at least one pot that is flowering. Orchids are so showy in a very classy way.

4. Keep the party small (10-15). It is more manageable, everybody gets to sit at the table and there is good interaction

Next post will be another dinner, at another great host's house. Stay tuned.

Lou Sang / Yee Sang (Tossed CNY Salad)

Malaysian CNY special, lou sang

Lou Sang is, as far as I'm told, NOT a Chinese traditional CNY dish. It is unique to the Chinese in West Malaysia and Singapore. My China Chinese friends and relatives have heard of the dish ("It's a Malaysian dish") but never eaten it until they came here. East Malaysians like me have not grown up eating it, and the few times I've eaten it are always in hotels and restaurants. As a result, I didn't like lou sang. I hated it in fact, because of the bright green and red colored deep-fried crisps and the overly-sweet dressing. Jo of A Feast however, swore by the goodness of home-made lou sang, and urged me to try making it once. This year, with relatives (we don't have many relatives here except for my siblings and my in-laws) visiting from China, I decided at the last minute to attempt this dish, for the meaning and the fun behind it.

Lou sang literally means "mixed or tossed raw". The word sang is very much an auspicious word in the New Year because it also sounds like 'alive' and the raw fish (usually salmon) represents the play on the word in this dish. The other ingredients are mostly vegetables that are finely cut, and crackers or crisps to give the crunch. It really is a salad, a la Chinese style.

To attack a lou sang, everybody gathers around the dish with a pair of chopsticks in hand and then dig into the salad, shouting good New Year phrases such as high ambitions, high luck and such, in reference to the strive for excellence during the New Year. The higher you toss, the higher your good luck so grab a stool and peak over everyone if you are desperately seeking luck.







This recipe was from Jo, but I've had to substitute some of the ingredients for convenience (used whatever I had) and because many were sold out. Despite that, my lou sang turned out very well, and now I am going to make this a must-do for my CNY celebrations. You really can substitute many of the ingredients, but the essential ones are pomelo, radish, crisps and raw fish. I added lettuce for the auspicious meaning this veg carries, as it is called sang choy, 'raw veg' which also sounds like 'alive veg'.The only ingredient I think would greatly improve the dish is taro crisps which is in Jo's recipe but not my dish because there weren't any taro KK. I think all were taken for making koe rou which is on nearly every table for CNY. I also forgot an essential ingredient: peanut nibs, which I was going to substitute with cashew nuts but at the last moment and in the chaos, I had totally forgotten about it. I did add the toasted sesame seeds just before tossing, phew.

Lou Sang/Yu Sang
Fresh sushi-grade salmon*
1 medium sized pomelo, separated into sacs
1 stalk of butter or Chinese lettuce, washed, pat dry & cut fine
2 carrots, shredded thinly & soaked in ice water
1 Chinese radish, shredded thinly & soaked in ice water
2 green mangoes, cut into fine strips
1 cup pickled papaya (get it from fruit stalls), in very thin strips
4 kaffir limes leaves, sliced very fine
1/2 cup spring onions, chopped cut or into fine strips
3 T cilantro, in short lengths
1 red chili, 0r 1/2 bell pepper, in thin strips
1-2 T young ginger, in very fine strips
5-7 pieces popiah/spring rolls wrapper, cut into 1cm x 3 cm strips and deep fried until crispy
a small taro, cut into thin strips and deep fried until crispy

*I used 3/4 kg, cut into thick slices

Sauce:
3 T plum sauce + 2 T hot water, sieved (omit & use more apricot jam if you don't have this)
1 T apricot jam
3 T lime juice
3 T honey
1 T sesame paste (I used peanut butter)
1 T sesame oil
1/2 t salt
--Put everything in a bottle and shake it like crazy. Adjust to your liking.

Topping: 3 T toasted sesame seeds
1/2 t 5-spice powder

--Put sesame seeds and 5-spice powder in a red packet

1. Arrange the various ingredients on a large (preferably round) platter, with the lettuce in the middle and the salmon on top of it.

2. Scatter the crisps on top and pour the dressing over. Finally, just when everybody can't wait to toss, sprinkle the contents of the red packet over the lou sang and start tossing and shouting your hopes and wishes!