Fresh Seafood
Rock oysters, scallop (fresh with roe or thawed from frozen), fish, abalone and prawns can be made into delicious dish in a short time. Do not overcook the seafood.
Dried seafood
If you prefer a meat or vegetable, dried seafood would greatly enhance the flavour of soups such as wanton noodles, porridge and congee.
The most common dried seafood for flavouring are dried oyster and dried scallop. Sometimes dried shell fish slices are used as they are cheaper options.
Dried scallops must be washed and soaked for a few hours before adding into the porride or congee. Dried abalone are expensive and require a longer time to prepare as they need to be soaked for hours and slow cooked for several more hours and therefore used in specialty soups rather than for daily cooking.
The difference between congee and porridge
From Fujian (Hokkian) and Caozhou (Chewchou or Teochew) are rice porridge. Cook rice with three to five times the amount of water in high heat, half covering the lid. Bring to the boil, uncover and continue boiling for another five minutes. Add ingredients and flavouring. Turn off the heat when all the raw ingredients are well cooked. Ready to serve.
Another way of cooking porridge is to boil the soup and add seasoned meat. If using ribs as the soup base, it must be cooked for at least 2 hours.
Guangdong (Cantonese) style congee requires boiling the rice soup for at least two hours. Lower the heat to medium level once the congee starts boiling. Add ingredients and cook till al dante. A friend's relative who owns a restaurant revealed that adding soy milk at this stage will produce a smooth texture. Then lower the heat further and simmer. Keep the lid covered all the time.
For a writeup on crispy oyster pancake, please refer to :http://homecooksecrets.blogspot.com/2009/10/oyster-egg-pancake-chaozhou-style.html
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