Tomato Egg Fried Rice & the Fishy Bits
A couple of weeks ago I was reading a post from the Woks of Life, a lovely blog on Asian cooking. Their post was on a classic Chinese dish, Salted Fish Fried Rice. Salted Fish is a Cantonese ingredient made from white fish like croaker, salted and air-dried. This process concentrates the flavor of the fish, it’s salty, fish-forward, and well, kinda funky in a good way. Their twist was to substitute anchovies for the salted fish (hom yu, 鹹魚). My first thought was “Yum, I gotta try this, I think I have anchovies in my pantry”.
They also have a cookbook out and it’s gorgeous. If you need (who doesn’t) a cookbook that covers Chinese cuisine for the novice to seasoned cook, Woks of Life fits the bill. You can order it from Books, Inc. or in the Bay Area, from Omnivore Books which has signed copies.
Dad and Gung Gung 1940s
Tales of My Grandfather
As I read their post, memories of my grandfather bubbled to the surface. He lived in an SRO (single room only) in the heart of Chinatown above Sun Tai Sam Yuen Restaurant. It was convenient and comfortable for him. A line cook at Original Joe’s and at the Fairmont’s Tonga Room he walked to work from Chinatown. His neighbors, Cantonese men of similar age, had migrated to Gum San (San Francisco) looking for work.
