Tag: #homecooking
Itching for Fuzzy Melon Soup (Mo Gwa Tong=毛瓜汤)

Itching for Fuzzy Melon Soup (Mo Gwa Tong=毛瓜汤)

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Now don’t freak over the term Fuzzy Squash or Melon.  This squash does have a fuzzy exterior but it is scraped off before cooking.  You are left with a sweet, mild, squash that is wonderful in soups, as a side dish with Chinese sausage and bean thread noodles, or stuffed with meat filling and steamed-my favorite, but for another post.  We’re talking soup today.

But Let’s Start with Soup ABCs

We can break down Chinese Soups into two categories, quick soups and long, slow simmer soups.  We tend to have quick soups on weekday workdays and save slow simmered soups (老火湯,) for the weekend.  Both types are delicious of course.  Many of the slow simmered soups are thought of as tonics.  Various herbs are added for their health benefits.  Valid?  I’m not sure, I just know they are delicious and comforting.  But if you ask my 90+-year-old mom, she would say she is living proof.

But This is About Quick and Easy

I learned how to make this soup from my Dad, the King of “dinner on the table in less than an hour”. To start, marinate ground pork for a couple of minutes (ok, more like 10-15min), then fry it with a couple of slices of ginger until it is no longer pink.  Add water or chicken stock along with the rehydrated mushrooms and salted turnip and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  Toss in the squash, bring to a boil, then lower the heat so the soup simmers for another 15 minutes or until the squash is translucent.  Finish by adding the tofu, and egg and simmer for a couple of minutes to cook the egg.  Taste for seasoning, add salt if needed. Garnish with scallions, and bada bing bada boom, ready to eat.  My kids always throw rice into their bowls of soup, just like I did when I was a kid.  This soup is a favorite, right after Corn Soup.  This is down-home Cantonese soul food, da best.

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Fuzzy Melon Soup

Down home Cantonese Soup, Fuzzy Melon Soup is quick and easy
Course One dish meals, Soup
Cuisine Asian
Keyword Fuzzy Melon Soup, mo gwa tong
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 fuzzy melon Scraped and cut into slices, 1/4 inch thick
  • 1 salted turnip Separate pieces, you will have a center chunk wrapped with a slice of root and leaves. Use 1 piece, either the slice, or leaves or the center chunk, rinse the piece you are going to use lightly with cold water to remove salt. Return remainder to bag for later use.
  • 3 dried shiitake mushrooms Soaked in hot water to soften (20 minutes)
  • 8 cups water or 1:1 chicken stock:water or add 1 heaping T Better Than Boullion Chicken base to water.
  • 1-2 slices fresh ginger Smash slices with the flat of a cleaver or knife to help release flavors
  • 1 block tofu (1/2 carton tofu) soft, medium, or firm, diced to 1/2-3/4 inch cubes if using firm tofu.
  • 1 egg lightly beaten
  • 1 stalk green onion diced
  • 2-3 springs cilantro garnish
  • 1 tsp soy sauce

Marinade for Pork

  • 3/4 cup ground pork
  • 1 tsp rice wine
  • 1 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1/4 tsp sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt and a dash of white pepper

Instructions

  • Combine marinade ingredients with ground pork. You can use chicken or turkey if you like. Let sit for 10-15 minutes
  • Scrape fuzzy melon with a knife to remove fuzz and top layer of melon. Once scraped it should still be light green in color. You can use a peeler but it will take more of the squash than necessary and the pale green layer will be removed. It's NBD. Cut melon in half lengthwise and then cut each half lengthwise to create quarters. Cut each quarter crosswise into ~1/4 inch thick slices. Set aside.
  • Heat 2 tsp of vegetable or peanut oil in a medium saucepan (3-4 qt). Add ginger and pork. Saute' until pork loses pinkness.
  • Add water/stock, mushrooms, and turnip to saucepan. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a low boil for 15 minutes. You can add soy sauce at this point or before tasting for salt in the next step.
  • Add squash to stock, bring back to a boil and immediately reduce heat again to a low boil. Cook until squash looks opaque rather than white and has softened but still retains its shape (about 10-15 minutes). Taste and season with salt if needed.
  • Add tofu and heat through. Once soup is hot again, lower heat to a gentle simmer or turn it off. Stir soup with chopsticks or spoon in one direction, add egg in a slow steady stream to create egg ribbons in soup (like egg drop soup). Or crack the egg into soup and let it poach without breaking the egg up. My dad always let me have the egg, lol. Daddy's little girl.
  • Garnish with green onions or cilantro, serve immediately.

Notes

Remove mushrooms from soup, thinly slice mushrooms and add them back to the soup. 
The egg is optional if you don't want to add it, fine.  My dad would crack the egg into the soup and let it poach, the winner gets the egg (or whoever whined enough to get it).
Salted Turnip-here is a link to a description of the one I use.  Found in most Asian markets, in particular Chinese Markets
Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg-This is My Soul Food

Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg-This is My Soul Food

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In Asian speak, this is how we say I love you…

“Have You Eaten Yet?”

When my kids come home I get busy in the kitchen making EVERY SINGLE DISH they love. Their favorites, from soup to dessert/ I usually have a pot of chili or spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove while they’re home and I pull out my Dad’s recipes for down-home Chinese dishes. Wes makes short rib stew and carrot cake. It’s 24-7 cooking and eating.  What can I say?  The Asian language of love is food.

Like Father Like Son

My dad and grandfather were the cooks in my family.  My grandfather cooked for a living.  Before going off to work we would often have early dinner with him. Always Chinese food,  I was surprised when I found out later he was a line chef at Original Joe’s on Broadway and also at the famed Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel. For my Dad cooking was his passion.

Both of them made down-home dishes like Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg, Fuzzy Melon soup, Steamed Chicken with Lop Cheung (Chinese sausage) and Black Mushrooms, or whole fish (yes,that means the head too) with green onions and ginger.  I loved watching them cook and savored eating these dishes even more.  When I went off to school in Los Angeles, I would often call home to ask my Dad how to cook a favorite childhood dish. It was my connection with home and family and a way to keep them close.

A flurry of cooking this past week while the boys were home and the multiple “how do you make” calls from Jamie (who was stuck in Houston) prompted me to add a new section to 3Jamigos. I call it Soul Food.  It’s down-home cooking, cherished recipes to share with family and friends.  Take a peek, it might bring back some great memories.  Or share a family favorite, I would love to post it on my blog.

My inaugural post for Soul Food is a down-home favorite, savory Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg (咸蛋蒸肉饼). You can find it in hole-in-the-wall Cantonese (southern China) restaurants or if you get invited over for family dinner at any of your Cantonese friends’ homes. In Chinatown, the best place for this dish was Sun Tai Sam Yuen on Jackson Street in my humble opinion, lol.

The ground pork is seasoned with soy sauce, oyster sauce and topped with the salted duck egg. Think of this as a version of a sausage patty topped with a fried egg.  See, not so strange after all.  My kids scoop up chunks of the patty and egg and mix it into their rice. Yum.

Things They Don’t Tell You in Cookbooks

Although simple to make, there are pearls of kitchen wisdom on how to prepare this dish.  First, the pork. My mom would tell me to buy pork butt or shoulder and hand-chop the pork at home, better texture.  The pork itself should not be too lean as the fat adds flavor and keeps it from drying out.  This primer on pork pretty much holds for any dish that requires ground pork-don’t buy pre-ground (ok, sometimes I cheat-there is a coarse ground version in Chinese markets), and ask for “bun fei sau-half fat, half lean” (半肥半瘦).  This is not a health-conscious choice, lol.

Duck, Duck, Go…get Chicken, it’s Ok

Raw salted duck eggs are hard to find.  I was really excited when I found local salted duck eggs at Marina Foods from Metzer Farms.  Great quality. The eggs are brined in a salt solution for approximately a month. At the end of the month, the yolk has hardened, the white has a gelatin-like consistency, and the egg has a wonderful briny flavor that goes well with pork.  You are more likely to find salted chicken eggs which are perfectly acceptable.

When mixing the seasonings and egg into the pork, stir in ONE DIRECTION only.  So pick, clockwise or counter-clockwise and stick with it.  DON’T ASK ME WHY (ok, I googled it, supposedly it keeps the meat tender).  My Dad told me to do it this way.

This is How We Do It

Place seasoned pork in a glass pie plate, smooshing it around the plate.  Fill a Chinese rice bowl 1/3-1/2 full with HOT water.  Slowly pour the hot water into the pork, stirring and breaking up the pork further.  The final mixture will be loose and wet looking. Slice the yolk of the duck egg into quarters or 4 slices.  A word of warning, it will be a little slimy feeling.  Flatten the pieces of yolk with the side of the knife.  Place the flattened pieces of yolk on top of the pork distributed evenly around the patty.  Top with green onions.  Place in steamer and steam over medium-high heat for about 15 minutes or until the juice runs clear when pierced with a knife or chopstick.

Just before serving, garnish with more green onions or cilantro and a drizzle of oyster sauce.  Serve with a big ass bowl of rice!

Microwave Magic

You can also cook this dish in the microwave instead of steaming it!  I have Cook Anyday microwave cookware now, but if you have a vented microwave dish use that.  I have a teeny 600-watt microwave.  Cook at full power for 8 minutes, done!  Adjust for your microwave, for example, a 1000-watt microwave, I might just use 70% power and nuke it for the 7-8 minutes.  For foods that are traditionally steamed, you don’t want to zap it quickly as much as gently cook it   All in one bowl, no messing with a steamer contraption.  Mind-blown microwave cookin’.

Easy peasy, microwave easy!

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Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg

Classic Cantonese Homestyle dish, steamed minced pork and salted eggs, bowl of steaming white rice is essential!
Course homestyle, Main Course, pork
Cuisine Asian
Keyword cantonese cuisine, salted duck eggs, Steamed pork patty
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Microwave time 8 minutes

Ingredients

  • 3/4 Pound Ground Pork
  • 1/4-1/3 Chinese rice bowl of hot water approximately 1/3 cup of water
  • 1 Egg large
  • 1 Salted Duck Egg Found in Chinese Groceries in refridgerator section or with egg, should be uncooked.

Seasonings

  • 2 tsp. Soy Sauce
  • 1 tsp oyster sauce
  • 2 tsp rice wine or sherry or sake
  • 1/2 Tsp. Sugar
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • Dash of white pepper

Garnish

  • Green Onions And Cilantro chopped or sliced to look pretty

Instructions

  • Separate duck egg yolk from the egg white. Reserve the yolk.
  • Place pork in a shallow bowl or glass pie plate that you will end up using to steam/microwaving it in. Scramble the salted duck egg white with the whole egg, add to the pork.
  • Stir pork with egg mixture and seasonings, stir in one direction!
  • Slowly add hot water to the pork mixture, and scrambling the mixture as you add the water. This will make it will look soupy.
  • Garnish with reserved egg yolk that has been cut Into slices. This is a process. The egg yolk is sticky and ok, kind of slimy (like an egg-duh). Since it has been brined it will be solid. I cut it into quarters and then gently smash it with the side of a knife to flatten each piece. Sprinkle half of the sliced green onions on top.
  • Steam for approximately 15-20 minutes, when pierced with a chopstick or knife the juices should run clear not pink.
  • Drizzle with oyster sauce and top with cilantro and the rest of the green onions. If you want a nice sheen, hit it with a little hot oil. (This will also bring out the flavor of the cilantro and green onions when you pour the oil over it.
  • Serve with rice, lots of rice, copious amounts of rice. Really.