Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Fish and Rice

[hyperbowler]

The launch of this book timed well with my desire to pull new vegetarian dishes into rotation. Land of Rice and Fish had several easy to make recipes that fit the bill, and will be even better when I can add seasonal ingredients to the mix.

A note on ingredients:

• I’ve switched from Pearl River light soy to San-J tamari, which is less salty and has greater depth of flavor-- it makes a huge difference on vegetable dishes. Dunlop recommends Clearspring tamari, but I’ve never seen that anywhere.
• I’ve been using Pearl River’s mushroom soy when recipes call for dark soy, and Better than Bouillon instead of homemade stock.
• I’ve switched from heads of garlic to pre-peeled garlic cloves— I’ve had it with green sprouts and garlic peel sticking to my cleaver.
• I get double peeled frozen fava beans at Middle Eastern stores. As a bonus, they seem to have fresh favas later in the season than Asian grocery stores.

Here’s what I’ve cooked:

• Celtuce spring onion oil : Celtuce stopped being available a few weeks ago, so I took Dunlop’s suggestion of substituting daikon, which I cut with a mandolin into slivers. I then poured hot oil over the scallions, and its combination with daikon developed an amazing, slightly nutty flavor. I can’t wait to try this with celtuce next year! She uses that same technique of pouring hot oil over aromatics in Every Grain of Rice for greens, and it brings out lovely flavors without risk of overcooking-- it’s one of the best take-aways from her books.

• Cool steamed eggplant with a garlicky dressing: On a home stove, I find most wok-based Chinese eggplant dishes to come out greasy, so I was excited to try the steaming approach. I steamed the eggplant, placed the aromatics on top followed by hot oil oil, and then mixed in the sauce. The hot oil technique spread flavor through the dish, and the eggplant batons held their shape more so than a typical stir-fry. This was delicious and gave me stove space to use my wok for another dish. And unlike a wok-based dish, it was easy to double the recipe-- I made separate batches in the bottom and top of a two-tiered bamboo steamer set.

• Stir-fried fava beans with spring onion: Salt and green onion highlighted the natural flavors of favas. I like that it doesn’t use much oil and that it offers a more subdued fava preparation than her (delicious) recipes that use preserved/salted vegetables. I made a few alterations because fresh favas aren’t available anymore. I defrosted a 14 oz. bag of double-peeled frozen fava beans, which is equivalent to about 25% more than the recipe called for in fresh fava beans. As a result, there was still plenty of liquid left by the time the favas became tender, so I removed them to a plate, reduced the liquid, and brought them back into the wok to finish.

• Spicy-stir fried tofu with pickles: I liked the complimentary textures of the tofu and king oyster mushrooms, and the light level of umami. The size/shape and cleanliness of king oyster mushrooms makes them the easiest mushroom to work with-- from opening the book until plating, it took 20 minutes the first time I made the dish, closer to 15 the second time. I had better results when I squeezed the greens of excess moisture before putting them in the wok. Next time, I may try this in a cast-iron skillet to develop char.

• Quick cucumber salad: This is a very refreshing cold salad and is similar to the sweet and sour smashed cucumber recipe in Every Grain of Rice. It has no oil and jacks up the sugar, garlic, and vinegar in the dressing. I find that a heavy meat cleaver breaks up the cucumber skin better than a thin vegetable cleaver.

• Slippery cucumber salad: As she says, the cucumber does take on a floppy, slippery texture! This lacks the hearty crunch of the Quick Cucumber salad, but can pickle in salt for hours and might be better for a dinner party when you don’t have time or counter space to deal with smashing cucumbers 10-20 minutes before serving.

[sck]

@hyperbowler

Dunlop recommends Clearspring tamari, but I’ve never seen that anywhere.

Its on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013GAGKO/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=NCEOPWTWYNUK&coliid=IHQ6JPUPVJVE8&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013G6FKY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=NCEOPWTWYNUK&coliid=I3E9MB7BZTDJY&th=1

[Mr_Happy]

I tried making the Shanghai stir-fried chunky noodles a couple times (上海粗炒面) from this book. Very quick and easy. Didn’t follow the recipe exactly the first time and it came out a little salty. Second time was better when I actually measured the liquid ingredients. Still missing something from the versions I’ve had in restaurants though, maybe MSG.

[hyperbowler]

@Mr_Happy

Still missing something from the versions I’ve had in restaurants though, maybe MSG.

Oh, interesting— she says the recipe was, by some accounts, developed by Shanghainese immigrants in Hong Kong. Is this type of preparation available in Shanghai? I was surprised to not see it on menus when I was there!

I really like restaurant versions of Shanghai wide noodles that char the hell out of cabbage and have noticeable wok char on the noodles. The char is not easy to do on a home stove. Would a dash of sugar help? Instead of MSG, you could replace the dark soy sauce with mushroom soy. Or, following her Hong Kong mention, use some oyster sauce. Come to think of it, the sugar, oyster sauce, Shanghai noodle combination is in the recipe for the wasabi noodles at The House, an Asian fusion restaurant in SF’s North Beach.

[Mr_Happy]

That’s interesting re: Hong Kong. Maybe it’s just that the versions I’ve had here were prepared by Cantonese cooks. Haven’t been to Shanghai unfortunately, have only had renditions of it here in CA. Her recipe doesn’t have cabbage in it, only baby bok choy or spinach, though I have definitely have seen napa cabbage in the versions I’ve had here. Sugar and/or oyster sauce seems like a good idea, maybe some garlic would bump it up too.

[Bapa]

Yesterday I made my second batch of Nanjing Saltwater Duck. The first was quite good; I think the second is even better. I saved the cooking liquid from the first try, froze it, and used it yesterday. I refreshed it by add ing a bay leaf, one star anise, and a little salt. Highly recommended (the recipe, that is).

[hyperbowler]

Nice! How salty was it, and did you hack through the leg bone or remove the meat and then slice it?

[Bapa]

The meat wasn’t salty at all. I didn’t hack through the leg bones–I was afraid they would shatter. So I took the meat off the bone, sliced it, and saved the bones for the stock pot.

[Presunto (--> Eating yoghurt in Athens .......... [Fleeced Taxpayer :@)) :@)) ])]

I’m tempted to get this book even though I really don’t want to buy anymore cookery books! groan I do have 2 other books of hers but never cook from them, I just like to read them.

The Washington Post has 3 recipes to try if you don’t have the book.

[boogiebaby]

@Presunto

I’m tempted to get this book even though I really don’t want to buy anymore cookery books! groan I do have 2 other books of hers but never cook from them, I just like to read them.

I do this with all my cookbooks except 660 Curries. I read them for entertainment, but don’t actually cook from them!

[hyperbowler]

@boogiebaby

I do this with all my cookbooks except 660 Curries. I read them for entertainment, but don’t actually cook from them!

Same here more often than not! Except for Every Grain of rice, I’ve used Dunlop’s books more for navigating restaurant menus than for cooking.

I had a fun time going through Land of Fish and Rice alongside a menu from Little Shanghai, a San Mateo restaurant which has wider breadth than most local Shanghainese restaurants. It’s cool to read backstories of dishes and her personal take.

BTW, if you have a list of 660 Curries recipes that you frequent, please start a thread (I’m looking to make some speedier recipes).

While I’m writing, I’ve cooked some other dishes:

• Mashed fava with snow vegetable: Interesting dish— except for the mashed potatoes with blueberry some Beijing restaurants serve, this is the only mashed Chinese dish I’ve had. I made this with fresh fava beans as a snack, and think it would be best as a side dish to other, textutally contrasting but not assertive flavors. The seasonings are very subtle, you need to pay attention, so much so that putting the mash on a saltine distracted from it. Even though I enjoyed it, I don’t think I’ll make this again – –the yield is small and there’s a lot of fava bean peeling. I also prefer the whole bean texture you get in her other fava bean dishes.

• Plain stir fried greens : I’ve made this twice, and will continue to make it whether I’m making a Chinese meal or not. It’s a foundational recipe that I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never made before. Like her tatsoi recipe earlier in the book, the simplest greens recipes in my 1970s and 1980s Chinese cookbooks have garlic or other seasonings added to them, and require water/broth to finish cooking. This recipe uses only Shanghai (green) bok choy, oil, and salt and its simplicity allowed me to focus on the greens, rather than avoiding burning garlic or the timing of adding other ingredients (which I’m prone to when I’ve got the rest of the meal on my mind). Kudos to Dunlop for appreciating its simplicity and utility.

• Bok choy broth with pickle: a quick briney/pickley soup ideal for a weeknight, or to lighten up a rich meal. I’d probably make this in a pot rather than a wok next time. Zha cai, which they sell in buckets at the Asian market and fresh stock would have made this even better— I was perfectly happy using vegetable Better than Buillion and a foil packet of Sichuan preserved greens (zha cai).

[hyperbowler]

I thumbed through Phaidon’s recent release, China The Cookbook, and the Hong Kong authors state that red vinegar is red because it is dyed. However, other sources say that red yeast rice produces the hue. Why the discrepancy?

There are a number of safety issues listed for red yeast rice according to its Wikipedia entry, and its relation to statin drugs caused it to disappear from the market for a few years. I’m going to assume the health concerns, combined with the cheap production alternatives food dyes offer, are why we shouldn’t expect to see traditional Zhejiang vinegar become available in the US.

Speaking of China the Cookbook, please start a thread if you’ve used it and have comments. I’m not generally a fan of Phaidon’s breadth over depth approach and their poor job at recipe testing, but am interested to hear whether this one has recipes that make it worth it. I enjoyed its introduction, but found that space prevents it from offering the detailed cultural and historic gems that make Dunlop’s books and All Under Heaven so interesting. But 600 recipes is 600 recipes …

[hyperbowler]

Dunlop had a good interview on The Eater Upsell.

On the popularity of Sichuan cuisine:

"And quite a lot of Sichuanese chefs now lament the fact that the dishes that have become the international smash hits are things like lazi ji, Chongqing chicken in a great pile of chilies, or shui zhu yu, that slippery sliced fish in a great cauldron of sizzling chili oil. They’re certainly part of Sichuanese cuisine, but they’re not the only part. People think maybe they shouldn’t be taken to represent the whole. And also, that kind of cooking doesn’t require very high culinary skills, it doesn’t require very expensive ingredients. You can create drama very easily. "

On Jiangnan cuisine:

“We’ve talked about how you can fling a bunch of chilies and Sichuan pepper and call it Sichuanese, but this cuisine is less easy to stereotype and sum up in a word or two. Also, perhaps, it’s more difficult to do well. You do need good ingredients. It’s a bit subtler like that”

[hyperbowler]

It took many tries and different recipes before I felt comfortable making xiao long bao. My first batch in 1999 were 100% inedible. My last batch, in 2010, were 80% leak free. My expectations for Dunlop’s Shanghai Pot Stickers, aka sheng jian mantou or sheng jian bao (SJB), were low and I promised myself if anything was remotely edible I would consider it a success and a learning experience.

SJB are traditionally pleat side up pork buns and not too juicy, and the ones popular in Shanghai right now are pleat down, and filled with spoonfuls of soup. Dunlop’s recipe uses a total of 4 oz of gelatinized soup, so even though it’s pleat down, I didn’t expect it to be too juicy.

Soup/aspic
Dunlop offers two possibilities for the gelatinized soup that makes the buns juicy— a stock that uses gelatin from pig parts or a quick version using stock and gelatin leaves. The entire recipe is a lot of work, and challenging to be successful with, so I wouldn’t recommend spending all that time making pork jelly unless you happen to have spare parts parts lying around. I used a reduced stock made from a Thanksgiving turkey carcass and it had the same texture as pork jelly I’ve made in the past.

Dough
Dunlop calls for a mix of high and low gluten Chinese flour. Carolyn Phillips notes inconsistencies in Chinese flours and recommends a Korean brand instead: Deahan Polar Bear Brand. Their bread flour has 14% gluten and their all purpose has 10.5%. The blue one in my photo is high gluten (in korean, it says its for pizza and bread); green is low gluten (in Korean it says for dumpling and noodles).

The dough was easy to make, by hand, on a granite countertop. I had to add lots of flour to the surface to keep the dough from being sticky. It was very soft.

Meat
The recipe calls for 10oz of minced pork belly. I left my meat cleaver at home, so it took me over half an hour to cut the pork with a small santoku into 1/8 inch cubes. In retrospect, putting the slab of pork in the freezer for about an hour would have helped chopping a lot.

The meat filling uses 3 tbs of water that was flavored with ginger and scallions, presumably with solids discarded. This seemed like too much extra liquid.

Assembly
I used up all the dough and had filling leftover for one or two more buns. The buns fit snugly into an12" cast iron skillet.

Dunlop’s recipe says it makes 20 buns, and to use 30g of prepared dough and 25-30g of filling for each one. My finished dough ball was 500g, so something must be off in one of her instructions (20x30g=600g).

The filling melts as it sits at room temperature, so I’d recommend using maybe 1/4 at a time and keeping the rest in the fridge.

Sheng jian casserole
The finished product tasted good, and unlike failed XLB, everything was edible and enjoyed by guests. So, mission accomplished! But it went wrong in so many ways that it’s tough to nail down what to adjust in the future.

The pork didn’t stick together and the juice completely leaked out. Next time, I think I need to cut the pork more finely, maybe toss half in the food processor.

The buns, which I probably overcrowded, lifted from the pan before I steamed them, but stuck after steaming. They also for the most part stuck together. Next time, I’ll shake the pan while they steam.

So much steam came out of the pan that I had to clear the countertop. It looked like we were filming a Michael Jackson video.

The bottom of the buns were fluffy tufts, and the tops were thin. I wonder if I should have rolled out the dough like XLB— thick middles and thinner outer edges since they’ll be crimped up into balls, crimp side hitting the pan. Perhaps related, they seemed overcrowded.

On the upside, I have a ton of turkey gelatin leftover and, in other news, Dunlop’s simple recipe for cucumbers with tianmianjiang is a great snack and also works well with Korean radishes.

[sck]

@hyperbowler

"And quite a lot of Sichuanese chefs now lament the fact that the dishes that have become the international smash hits are things like lazi ji, Chongqing chicken in a great pile of chilies, or shui zhu yu, that slippery sliced fish in a great cauldron of sizzling chili oil. They’re certainly part of Sichuanese cuisine, but they’re not the only part. People think maybe they shouldn’t be taken to represent the whole. And also, that kind of cooking doesn’t require very high culinary skills, it doesn’t require very expensive ingredients. You can create drama very easily. "

While I have never cooked shui zhu yu (water boiled fish), I have been almost always disappointed by renditions in the US.

[naf]

I don’t have Dunlop’s book, nor ever trying to make my XLB yet (it’s on my to do list in 2017!!) but personally I preferred XLB with its finer skin, steamed in a dim sum basket with a pool of water in a pot.

Sheng Jian Bao is more difficult to control the heat but should be easier to make with the thicker skin. From your photo, it seems you used a cast iron plate with a curve bottom. How about a flat bottom cookery and leaving space so buns won’t stick to each other. I don’t know if it’s better with a non stick pan.

And thanks for the detailed description, it’s interesting to see the cooking in progress.

[hyperbowler]

Please let us know about your future experiments with XLB! I believe it was Andrea Nguyen’ dough recipe that wound up working for me. It’s a fun learning experience, and if you’re successful, you can play with non traditional seasonings.

I used a flat bottom cast iron Lodge skillet. I’m not used to using an induction cooktop, so had an especially tough time time controlling heat. About 1/4 of them were too charred, but even those were redeemable on the tops and insides.

Yeah, you’re supposed to have them touching, not sure why, so will space them out next time and make two batches.

[sck]

@hyperbowler

I used a flat bottom cast iron Lodge skillet. I’m not used to using an induction cooktop, so had an especially tough time time controlling heat.

Years ago I lived with an induction cooktop briefly. I didn’t make baos. But the heating was different, I had a hard time initially controlling even simple things like boiling water for noodles. I’d venture a guess that its the efficiency of induction that cooked your buns faster and charred all the buns. The way water boils is a little different (more intense to my naked eye). So the resulting steam from the bouillon steamed inside the bun might made it easier for the buns to burst.

Gas I’d think would solve a lot of the encountered issues.

[sck]

@Bapa

Yesterday I made my second batch of Nanjing Saltwater Duck. The first was quite good; I think the second is even better. I saved the cooking liquid from the first try, froze it, and used it yesterday. I refreshed it by add ing a bay leaf, one star anise, and a little salt. Highly recommended (the recipe, that is).

Made a batch of the Nanjing saltwater duck today. I have to say, its excellent. I didn’t have cinnamon so I skipped that. But even with the rest of the ingredients the flavors danced.

[tm.tm (Therese)]

I got some nice chicken feather vegetable today at Oakland’s Yuen Hop noodle shop for $1.49/lb. I also saw some a few weeks ago at Marina Food Market in San Mateo.