One staple of Chinese cuisine is a hot bowl of soup. Each distinctive cuisine in China have their own distinctive styles.
This is a variation of a Teochew / Fujian style Salted Vegetable Soup, with beef brisket. The beef brisket makes the soup richer, and the meat becomes amazingly tender when served the next day.
The other main component of this dish is Teochew / Fujian salted vegetable, which is a preserved mustard green. These are now sold prepackaged, and the two varieties we need are the regular pickled mustard green 腌酸菜, and the salted mustard green 腌辣咸菜variety.
This dish makes a great appetizer, and the tangy and salty broth is supposed to help stimulate the appetite.
This dish makes a great appetizer, and the tangy and salty broth is supposed to help stimulate the appetite.
| Ingredients for Salted Vegetable soup with Beef Brisket | ||
| Sour Preserved Vegetable | 150 | g |
| Salty Spicy Preserved Vegetable | 150 | g |
| Beef Brisket | 200 | g |
| Peppercorn | 30 | g |
| Cooking Oil | 1 | tsb |
| Water | 1200 | ml |
| Garlic | 2-6 | cloves, crushed |
| Old Ginger | 2-5 | slices |
| Optional Ingredients | ||
| Tomatoes | 2 | Cut in Wedges |
| Silken Tofu | 100 | g, cubed |
| Cardamon | 4 | pods, crushed |
Preperation
1) Slice the beef brisket into 1cm (25/64 in) thick pieces, then give it a quick rinse in boiling water, to clean it, and reduce any scum.
2) Similarly, rinse the mustard greens briefly in boiling water.
2) Similarly, rinse the mustard greens briefly in boiling water.
3) Gently panfry the pepper & cardamon, then crack them, and put in a spice bag
Cooking
1) Stirfry Ginger and Garlic until fragrant.
2) Boil everything except the tomatoes and tofu, then turn the fire down and simmer for at least 30 min.
3) 15 minutes before serving, place tomatoes and tofu into the dish.
4) Taste for salt and serve.
Notes:
More pepper can be used if you like a peppery dish. There are variations of this dish where the flavor of pepper is one of the more dominant flavors.
Another optional ingredient is Chinese preserved plums, which also helps adjust the sourness of the dish.
Another optional ingredient is Chinese preserved plums, which also helps adjust the sourness of the dish.
Feel free to add other vegetables to this dish, such as 香菇 shiitake mushrooms and carrots.
Other meats can be used, with the most popular being duck legs, pork ribs, or pig intestines. Those require longer cooking times, usually closer to 1.5 - 2 hours of simmering.
CLARIFICATION ABOUT INGREDIENTS
Chef Eric Low's book, Teochew Heritage Cooking: A Treasury of Recipes for Chinese Comfort Food distinguishes the difference between the two types of pickled mustard greens.
PICKLED MUSTARD GREENS
This umami-rich pickled vegetable brightens up many dishes in Teochew cooking, the most popular being Teochew steamed fish. This pickle is sometimes confused with salted sour mustard greens, but it can be easily differentiated from the latter as it is made using fresh big head mustard vegetable without
the leaves.
SALTED MUSTARD GREENS
This ingredient is sometimes confused with pickled mustard greens, but looking at the ingredient will help differentiate the two. Salted mustard greens is made using vegetables from the Shanghai cabbage family and the long, dark green leaves are left attached to the stems.
 |
Comments
Post a Comment