< Previous102 Jia!dinner. For a larger get-together, steam a few crabs, a few pounds of shrimp, and a fish the night before, then slice a platter of sashimi on the day of. I’ve suggested dipping sauce combinations to pair with each dish but haven’t given set amounts for the ingredients, as the proportions are all flexible — it’s a matter of personal taste. You can also just set out Chinkiang vinegar, plum sauce, taucheo, soy sauce, minced garlic, julienned ginger, lime wedges, sugar, and sesame oil, and let everyone concoct their own sauce(s) at the table. FishMullet is a traditional favorite, with firm, rich, and flavorful meat. If mullet is not available, you can also use striped bass or seabass (lighter, sweeter flavor), or mackerel or small bluefish (oilier, more intense flavor). Or, ask your fishmonger for a Cold steamed fish for sale in SwatowSeafood 103similar alternative available that day. Make sure the fish has clear eyes, a shiny gleam, and smells clean. Look for a 1.5- to 2-lb specimen. Ask for the whole fish to be cleaned but not scaled. Keeping the scales on helps the skin pull away cleanly from the cooked meat, which you can do tableside for a bit of theater. Bring water in a steamer to a boil. Steam for roughly 8 minutes per pound of fish, until it reaches a temperature of 145° F at the thickest part. (That’s right: don’t season the fish before steaming.) Once cooked, refrigerate the fish until thoroughly chilled, at least a few hours and up to two nights before serving (cover the plate with plastic wrap if you’re keeping it overnight or longer). When you’re ready to serve, make a few well-placed cuts through the fish skin and open it like a book cover to reveal the tender meat inside.Traditionally, the fish is paired with just taucheo, but these days it is also popular to round out the dip with lime juice and chili. A good starting point: mix a tablespoon of taucheo, a squeeze of a lime wedge, and 2 slices of chili pepper together. Taste and adjust to your preference. 104 Jia!CrabMake sure the crabs you get at the store are feisty and kicking. Cook them as soon as you can. Bring water in a steamer to a boil. For larger crabs with thicker shells, like Dungeness, steam roughly 8 minutes per pound (calculate the average weight of your crabs). For smaller blue crabs, steam for about 10 minutes total. The shells will be fully orange once cooked; if you see any blue or green patches when you check for doneness, keep on steaming. You can steam them upside down to collect the juices in the shell rather than losing them to the pot. Refrigerate crabs until thoroughly chilled, for at least a few hours and up to two nights before serving. Cover the plate with cling wrap if you’re keeping it overnight or longer. Serve with a dip of julienned ginger and Chinkiang vinegar. ShrimpIf you have access to live shrimp or prawns, this is a terrific way to showcase their freshness. When they’re available here in California, live ridgeback shrimp are my favorite. If you don’t have access to a tank of wriggling shrimp, no worries — just get the highest quality shell-on specimens you can find. Bring water in a steamer to a boil. Steam the shrimp for just a few minutes until they all turn pink. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, for at least a few hours and up to two nights before serving. Cover the plate with cling wrap if you’re keeping it overnight or longer. Serve with a dip of julienned ginger and Chinkiang vinegar. Seafood 105SashimiUse your favorite sashimi-grade fish. Slice into 1/4” pieces (thinner than you would for Japanese sashimi). Arrange on a plate. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and drizzle with a little sesame oil if desired. Mix together Chili Plum Sauce (page 55), sesame oil, taucheo, and peanuts (optional) for a dipping sauce. For a Bangkok flair, serve with cucumbers, pineapple, preserved radish, and pickled daikon and carrots.Sashimi in BangkokDrinks & Sweets 185Or Nee Hand PieOr nee (芋泥) is perhaps the most iconic of all Teoswa desserts. Its usual translation, “yam paste,” fails to capture the unique combination of flavors and ingredients that makes up the most traditional variation: taro pureed with lard and sugar, steamed pumpkin cubes, fragrant shallot oil, and candied gingko nuts. While I’ve sampled and enjoyed many “authentic” iterations of or nee, my blasphemous secret is that none have brought me as much joy or delight as the or nee-inspired deep-fried taro-gingko pie that scalded my tongue under the Golden Arches in a Bangkok mall. (Yes, they’re still deep-fried there!)Sure, fried dough always has an unfair advantage, but what really tickled me was the thought that one of the most traditional of all Teoswa foods had been reincarnated in Bangkok as a bastardized version of the most American of all American desserts, apple pie. What a time to be alive! I began experimenting with an adapted recipe for baked hand pies as soon as I got home, using my favorite flaky all-butter pie crust recipe, mixing in coconut milk to lighten the starchy filling (a technique used in some otherwise traditional or nee recipes), swapping in kabocha squash for the gingko nuts, reducing the overall sweetness, and adding a bit of salt to bring the flavors into focus. The best taro for this dessert is one that is mature and light for its size, indicating low water content. Don’t use those cute little baby taros, which are denser and too watery for this. You’ll be rewarded with a cloud of taro in each bite.You can use your favorite recipe for two 12” pie crusts, or even use storebought in a pinch. My favorite recipe, which has yet to fail me after many years of use, is by J. Kenji López-Alt. I’ve retained his techniques and adapted the steps just slightly here for hand pies.186 Jia!Makes 8 hand piesPie crusts2 tbspsugar1 tspsalt12.5 ozall-purpose flour2.5 sticks (10 oz) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4” slices6 tbspcold waterFilling1 lbtaro, peeled and cubed1/2 cupsugar1/2 tspsalt1.5 cupfull-fat coconut milk, preferably Aroy-D brand 1/2 lbkabocha squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into scant 1/2” cubesFinal touches1eggsprinklingturbinado or other coarse sugar1 Put 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, and two-thirds of the all-purpose flour in a food processor and pulse a few times to blend. Add butter slices evenly over the flour and pulse until the dough begins to clump together. Distribute the dough clumps around the bowl with a spatula and add remaining third of flour. Pulse a few times until the dough loosens and crumbles again. 2 Place the dough in a large bowl. Add the cold water and use spatula to mix and fold into a ball. Divide into 8 equal portions. You can either eyeball it and halve the dough pieces three times (1 to 2 pieces, 2 to 4 pieces, 4 to 8 pieces), or weigh the pieces on a kitchen scale. Roll each piece into Drinks & Sweets 187a ball and flatten slightly with your palm. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. You can prepare the dough up to 3 days in advance.3 Steam cubed taro for about 20 minutes until all pieces are thoroughly tender. Turn off heat and place taro in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and coconut milk. Mash and mix together until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Stir in kabocha squash cubes. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until chilled and thickened. You can prepare the filling up to 3 days in advance.4 Preheat oven to 450° F. Roll out each of the 8 hand pie crusts into rounds of 1/4” thickness. (You can roll them out between sheets of parchment paper.) Fill each crust with about 1/3 cup of the chilled filling. Fold into a half-moon or rectangle, seal, and crimp the edges. Freeze the hand pies for 10 minutes to set and chill.5 Beat an egg and brush the top of each hand pie with a swipe of egg wash. Using a sharp knife, cut a few slits in the top of each pie. Sprinkle with turbinado.6 Bake at 450° F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 425° F and continue baking about 15 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool before serving.188 Jia!Mung Bean MooncakesAs summer wanes each year, temporary displays of elaborately decorated boxes begin showing up in Chinese grocery stores. Inside the boxes are chewy-skinned Cantonese-style mooncakes with fillings like lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and 5 nuts and seeds. These rich pastries are eaten to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and these packaged cakes are the most widely distributed variety across the US. If you’ve had a mooncake in the US before, chances are it was Cantonese-style.Teoswa mooncakes are a leaner cousin, despite the traditional inclusion of lard in the recipe. The crust is a flaky pastry, created by layering oil-based and water-plus-oil-based doughs in a technique similar to laminating dough for croissants or puff pastry (but easier because the doughs aren’t at risk of overheating with handling). A popular filling is an improbably light mung bean puree, which is sometimes enriched by the addition of butter, as I call for here. Cantonese mooncakes are usually consumed only once a year, but these lighter Teoswa treats are enjoyed all year long. On our last morning in Swatow during our last trip, just before heading to the airport to begin our journey home, my second aunt handed us a bag laden with freshly made mung bean mooncakes. They were still slightly warm in my hand as we waved goodbye to Teoswa through the plane window.We hope youenjoyed this EYB Book PreviewThe complete book is available from all major booksellers. Or use the "Buy Book" button and help support EYB.Next >