Three Cantonese Dishes to Smother Over Rice

[00:00] In our ongoing ‘over rice’ series,  we’ve done dishes from Hunan, Guizhou,   and Sichuan that people devour with  rice… but not yet us Cantonese.

[00:12] First, jeung bao ke zi bou, an great  eggplant pot that goes awesome with rice,  Second, the Cantonese with-rice  mainstay of juk beng (meat cake),  

[00:26] which is probably considered to be THE  xiafan dish in Cantonese home cooking,  And third, as is tradition, we’ll have something  that’s easy and quick, straight up from a jar.

[00:39] dish from a daipaidong classic Jyu wan ke  zi bou - ‘fish soul with eggplant pot’.  It’s kind of a ‘wilder’ Cantonese  dish, it’s actually kind of spicy… 

[00:54] something you can imagine maybe some gangsters  gathered around it on a winter night, smoking,   drinking… and maybe talking  about… who did the job.  

[01:06] That original dish itself can be quite  intense, the portion is usually pretty big   and deep fries both that massive fish head and the  eggplant… and as for our homemade version today,  

[01:19] we’ll be keeping the same flavor profile,  but without the fish head or the deep-frying. So now, let’s prep the eggplant. Here we have two long eggplants,   about 600-700g. Cut off the top and peel it,  leaving some strips like this for a nicer color. 

[01:38] Then cut it into 5cm-ish sections, then slice  into third, and cut the slices into three again,   giving us some 5cm stick that’s about 2cm wide. After cutting, toss the eggplant in a big bowl,  

[01:57] soak it with water and touch of vinegar to  draw out some of that eggplant bitterness. take it out and drain it until no water’s  dripping, then we can start cooking.

[02:14] So first, long yau. Get your  wok piping hot, heat off,   add in half tbsp oil and give it a nice swirl. Then heat on high, add in our eggplant,   spread it more of less evenly into one layer,  and patiently let it fry to get some brownness. 

[02:33] Turn the wok as you go, once all sides  got some toast, flip, and spread again,   and let it keep on frying until it starts to  soften and wilt, then heat off, take it out.

[02:47] Then same wok, no need to wash. Heat on medium,  add in 1.5 tbsp oil, again, give a nice swirl.   Then in with four big cloves of garlic and 1/2  inch ginger roughly minced, as our aromatics. 

[03:03] Fry the two until fragrant, about 1  minute, then it’s ready for our sauces. Now, these two sauces make up for  the flavor profile here today. The   “jeung” in the dish name jeung bao kezi bou  refers to this, minsi, or ground bean sauce,  

[03:22] this is a fermented soy bean paste, which  gives the dish its deeper and rounder base.  You can sub it with half akimiso and half soy,   but of course the flavor would be a bit  lighter compare to minsi itself. Nonetheless,  

[03:38] we’ll be using a full tbsp’s  worth of ground bean paste today. Then to knock things up a bit, we’ll be using  one full tbsp of this Guilin chili sauce. This  

[03:50] is a garlic chili sauce that’s quite salty  and not that spicy. It’s also quite available,   what you’ll probably just get this  same jar from Lee Kum Kee as we did.  Or you can also use other savory  garlic chili sauce you have on hand,  

[04:05] but do remember to taste and check for salinity at  the end because you might need a touch more salt. Now back to our wok, first add in the  minsi ground bean paste and break it up  

[04:17] with your spatula. Once it’s broken up and  smells nice, add in the Guilin chili sauce,   fry them all together until well  combine, then swirl in about 1/2  

[04:29] tbsp liaojiu aka Shaoxing wine.  Then add the eggplant back right in. Quick fry, then add in one and half cup of  stock or water, as it’s coming up to a boil,  

[04:41] season with 1 tsp sugar, 1/8 tsp each salt  and MSG. Once at a boil, transfer the eggplant   over to a clay or some other smaller pot, cover  and let it simmer on medium low for 15 minutes.

[04:59] After that time, your eggplant should  be completely softened. Add a touch   more salt if needed, otherwise,  top it with some chopped cilantro,   and now you have your jeung bao  kezi bou ready to go onto your rice.

[05:17] Okay – I love this pot but if you are Cantonese  yourself, big flashing warning signs up here. So   if you’re making this pot for someone who cannot  eat spicy at all, I’d strongly recommend you  

[05:33] dial the Guilin chili sauce back to 1 teaspoon  instead of 1 full tbsp, and up the minsi ground   bean paste to 1.5 tbsp instead of just 1 tbsp. Because I can already Imagine some Cantonese  

[05:50] parents eating this and be like “this is  so spicy, it’s totally inedible! What are   these Chinese Cooking Demystified people, they  know noting lah”. Or something like “哎，D鬼佬识咩啊！” 

[06:06] Right, anyway. But for all of us that can enjoy  some heat, this is a spicy level that I enjoyed. Next brings us to juk beng! Steamed meat cake.

[06:18] Now usually in this series  we try to keep things simple,   but juk beng done well isn’t  necessary in that category. In Guangdong growing up if you wanted  to be lazy you can actually just go  

[06:32] to the market and buy this read-made meat mixture,   and go home and steam it straight – my mum  bought it all the time just right after work.  But I guess at your local Chinese supermarket,  you probably don’t have that option.

[06:48] But we couldn’t do a Cantonese over  rice video without this one, and the   good news is that this meat mixture  will keep well in the fridge for a day,   and it freezes really well in the freezer, so you  can at least make ahead and portion it in advance.

[07:04] We’ll be doing a shiitake juk beng today, so we’ll  start off by soaking three shiitake mushrooms in   cool water for at least four hours and overnight’s  fine too. Then after that time, remove, squeeze,  

[07:20] and snip off the stems… reserving the shiitake  mushroom soaking liquid because that stuff tastes   awesome and we’ll use it later in the recipe. Then just dice two of your shiitakes – these  

[07:33] will go in our mix – and cut the other  into eight slices, which’ll go on top.   Then marinate that with a ¼ tsp sugar, a ½ tsp  soy sauce, and a sprinkle of white pepper powder.  

[07:49] And for ease of use later, separate the slice  from the dice in your bowl… and set that aside. Next, pork. So we’ll be using a mix  of pork shoulder, a.k.a. boston butt,  

[08:02] and some pork fat here. For meat pancake you’re going   to need a mix of pork lean and fat. For the  fat, you can also just cut off some fat part   from pork belly, that’s totally fine. Just  finely dice that fat and set it aside.

[08:20] But it’s the lean that we’ll need to  be careful with, because which cut you   use depends on the pork quality you have. In China, pigs tend to get more exercise   than a lot of places around the world,  so the meat’s firmer and it binds better.

[08:37] People here like to use the ham cut of  the pig for this kind of meat mixture,   but you will probably want to get some other  muscle that gets worked more – so, the shoulder.

[08:51] We’re just mincing this by hand from scratch  today but you can totally start with ground   pork as well – BUT, just MAKE SURE that your  ground pork is ground from the shoulder,  

[09:04] But whether from ground or hand minced, once  you’re at this point… continue to chop the   lean for about 3-4 minutes, periodically folding  the meat over itself and continuing to chop it  

[09:20] together – this pounding motion is going to help  everything get into sort of sticky, uniform whole. Once you’re at this point, something  pasty, toss it in a bowl and go in with  

[09:32] 1 tsp salt. Mix that in, go at it for about  30 seconds, then go in with 1 tbsp of the   shiitake soaking liquid. Mix that in, then go  at it for another 30 seconds, and then repeat.

[09:48] We’re going to be doing this for five tablespoons  of this soaking liquid in all. Adding the liquid   bit by bit is to ensure it’s mixed sufficiently.  It’s the same idea as sausage making – you stir  

[10:03] to develop the myosin so that the pork can  bind together and have a nice snap to it. Then take 1 final tbsp of  the shiitake soaking liquid,   mix it with 1/2 tbsp of starch, and  then also mix that in the same way.  

[10:20] Then season with 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp chicken  bouillon powder, 1/4 tsp white pepper powder,   an 1/8 tsp MSG, 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, and 1/2  tbsp Shaoxing wine… and mix that very well.

[10:37] Then, for the fun part –  take that mix and ‘dat’ it.  So just lift it up a touch, smack it  against the bowl, and repeat 10-15 times,  

[10:50] which will help remove any air bubbles  so that the mixture binds even better.  Then toss in the shiitake and  fat dices… mix that in very well,   ‘dat’ a couple more times, and coat it  all with about a tbsp of peanut oil.

[11:07] Now just transfer it to a plate,  evenly spread it out and leaving   a thinner dimple in the center. Lay  over your marinated shiitake slices,   and then this is good to steam. Just toss it over a steaming rack,  

[11:24] cover and steam for 10 minutes. Then heat  off, optionally sprinkle over a touch more   white pepper powder and some chopped cilantro  to garnish… and now you’ve have your juk beng.

[11:37] So growing up this is my all-time favorite thing  to eat with rice. And I would also love to mash   the juk beng in with some rice, though my  mom would always stop me from doing so.  

[11:50] But even if you’re just eating the meat  cake alongside with some rice… you also   just drizzle some of the juice on your  rice, it’ll also just be really good. Now I know that one was a little  intense, so as an apology,  

[12:05] we also have this – something that you can  just pop open and down with rice: dousi lengju.  So this is basically deep fried fish mixed  with Chinese fermented black soybeans.  

[12:18] It’s a Cantonese icon, we’ve done a whole  video on all the stuff that you can do with   it… but I don’t think we’ve shown just  how to eat it, straight up, in a meal.

[12:31] So basically what you’ll do is, you’d have some  veg on the side, then you have your bowl of rice,   you open that can, take some fish and some of  the beans out, I like to sprinkle some granulated  

[12:45] sugar on top for another layer of flavor. And this is undeniably a very quick,   tasty meal that you can just  have under ten minutes, I’ll say. 

[12:58] It’s a bit savory, has a deep umami, especially  the douchi goes so well with white rice. Anyway, I love these all,  I’ll never get tired of it.

[13:15] So right, this is our Cantonese version  for our xiafan over-rice series. As always,   recipes’ in description box, a BIG THANK  YOU for everyone that’s supporting us on   Patreon. And of course, subscribe for  more delicious Chinese cooking recipes.