Chili Prawns
Photo by Michael Ventura
Butterflied prawns, steamed for six minutes and served with their heads and tails, are topped with tofu and a mound of chopped and zesty Thai red chilies, slivered snow peas, and chopped garlic. “This dish goes deep to the culture,” Lydia Chang says.
“My father’s from Hubei province, north of Hunan province. In between them is Dongting Lake, the second largest in China. Hubei means ‘north of the lake’ and Hunan ‘south of the lake.’ In the rainy season, you feel the dampness to the bone, and the Chinese believe that spicy foods steam the dampness out.”
Coral Snapper with Red Sauce
Photo by Michael Ventura
Hubei master chef Yucheng Lu taught Chang this dish on a Yangtze River cruise ship. “The chef was willing to teach me the dish because of my cutting skills. The whole thing to this dish is the way of cutting it, and you’ll never be able to make it without that skill,” Chang says. The trick is to cut very thin, bias-cut slices horizontally down the length of a skin-side-down fish fillet, making sure not to cut through the skin (similar to the way experts slice smoked salmon). Then the fish is turned 90 degrees and scored at quarter-inch intervals down to, but not through, the skin. Making a dozen cuts in both directions creates 144 fingers of flesh that resemble porcupine quills after being painstakingly dredged in cornstarch and deep-fried in a wok (the fillet must be held just at the surface of the oil at both ends with chopsticks). It’s served bathed in a vibrant orange sweet and sour sauce, with the fried head and tail in place, representing the beginning and the end. “The boss faces the entrance and the [fish] head faces him,” Chang explains. “And he pays the bill. In China, we never split checks.”
Seafood Pearls
Photo by Michael Ventura
For this dish, balls of minced seafood are covered with sticky rice, steamed and served in a rich broth. Radiating from around the pile of golf ball-size ecru pearls dotted with goji berries, are steamed baby bok choy hearts with carved carrot slivers emerging from each, so they resemble birds. It seems like a simple dish, but it’s not. “The flounder, shrimp and scallops have to be chopped separately, to order,” Chang says. “The cutting technique is different for each one, and if you get the proportions wrong, they won’t hold together.” The broth, made from pork, chicken (old hens are a must for flavor), and Virginia ham, simmers for 30 hours.
Summer Squash Emerald Noodles
Photo by Michael Ventura
“Zucchini reminds me of my childhood. Noodles were a luxury because they were expensive, and so they were extended to guests. We wouldn’t serve many noodles, but a lot of vegetables, so the dish was very earthy. Now we can serve a lot of noodles,” Chang says, smiling. Lisa Chang and her cooks make the noodles, coloring them with an extract of green vegetables.
Kumquat Beef
Photo by Michael Ventura
“This is home-style cooking from where I grew up,” Peter Chang says. “You see these small, tiny oranges in the field there, so we made this dish all the time. In the countryside, you don’t get beef to eat often. Beef is the most important animal to have on a farm for the work it does, so you only have beef from a really old animal or a dead one. It is very old meat, and you must cook it overnight to make it tender. Here, we can’t wait for the cow to die. We use good tenderloin. We want the sauce to have fruit flavor, so we use kumquat juice in it and put one kumquat on top so you know what you’re tasting.”
Sautéed Jalapeño Beef with Chinese Chives
Photo by Michael Ventura
“For me, this is real home-cooking style, but with a lot of techniques,” Chang says. “There is no salt in the dish. Saltiness comes from a soy sauce I make from a blend of them that I flavor with green onions, herbs and five-spice powder and use for a lot of dishes. All the flavor comes from that sauce and the way the jalapeños are fried before adding the beef [tenderloin]. Chinese chives come from when spring ends and summer starts—a special time in China. Chives are very good for health in Chinese medicine.”
David Hagedorn is the restaurant critic for Bethesda Magazine and co-author of the upcoming cookbook Rasika: Flavors of India (HarperCollins).
