Chinese banquet in one big pan

Posted on February 3, 2021 by lla

Poon choi at Chung Shing Restaurant in Tai Po, New Territories of Hong Kong — Puhn choi at Chung Shing Restaurant in In Tai Po, New Territories of Hong Kong in 2005

A Chinese banquet in a wash basin? We gasped when the waitress set a huge metal pan filled with a mountain of food before us. The pan, literally a wash basin, held a layered multi-course feast known as basin feast (puhn choi, pen cai, poon choi). It’s a popular choice for family gatherings such as Chinese New Years, weddings, and family reunions because everyone eats from one dish which symbolizes unity. Guests gather around the basin and literally eat from the top to the bottom, working their way through the different courses.

This specialty comes from the New Territories of Hong Kong where many Hakka live. One story about the origin of puhn choi suggests that when Emperor Bing of Song moved south in the late Sung period, his large entourage overwhelmed the small villages. Inventive villagers simply didn’t have enough dishes to feed the large group so they piled the food in the biggest containers they had–wash basins.

Basin Feast (Puhn Choi) from The Hakka Cookbook — Basin Feast (*puhn choi*) from The Hakka Cookbook, page 84

Centuries later, the basin feast has morphed into a popular celebration dish in Hong Kong. Now, this one-pan Chinese banquet finds it way to San Francisco. This recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle lists several local restaurants that offer puhn choi for take-out for Chinese New Year. Because a multi-course feast comes layered in one big pan, it works well for a portable take-out Chinese banquet for a family. Restaurants go upscale, serving up expensive ingredients for these special occasion feasts. Or if you like, make this humbler, make-ahead home-style version featured in The Hakka Cookbook, page 84.

Happy New Year! Khiung Hee Fat Choy! ????!

Hakka recipe in art exhibit

Posted on January 23, 2021 by lla

“Your cherished family recipes could be featured in a museum exhibition,” read the Facebook post. I thought this might be a great opportunity to share our Hakka recipes and story. I signed on immediately.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) features a new virtual exhibit RECLAMATION: Recipes, Remedies, and Rituals. The exhibit focuses on women around the kitchen table. Nine women artists use videos, photos, and stories to show how they use food and ingredients. Recipes submitted by the public supplement the artist’s presentations.

I submitted a Hakka recipe that I previously shared on this blog, my mother’s Steamed Black Bean Spareribs. I loved the pungent savory goodness of the fermented black beans, garlic, and the pork as they cooked together in a steam bath. This dish bears resemblance to the Cantonese version, although my mother’s version reaches deeper, darker flavor levels. Because many Hakka and Cantonese lived side-by-side in southern China, they often borrowed and adapted flavors and techniques from each other. Perhaps that’s why Hakka food is often considered a branch of Cantonese cuisine.

I hope you enjoy the exhibit and the many recipes and stories.

Hakka noodle bowl

Posted on November 9, 2020 by lla

Hakka Ginger Chicken Noodle Bowl is easy, healthy, and zesty.

Many Hakka dishes have the reputation for being heavy, fatty, dark, and salty. This new Hakka Noodle Bowl, defies that stereotype. I combined the two easiest and shortest recipes in The Hakka Cookbook, to create a zesty, colorful, noodle bowl that appeals to today’s taste for lighter, healthier food.

Start with Steeped Chicken Breasts (page 22 of The Hakka Cookbook). The lean chicken gently cooks in the residual heat of boiling water. Cool and tear the moist meat into coarse shreds. You can also use leftover cooked chicken or meat from a purchased rotisserie bird.

The zesty Fresh Ginger-Onion Sauce (page 66) brightly seasons the chicken and noodles. This sauce combines lots of fresh minced fresh ginger, green onion, and garlic. Pour boiling hot oil over the mixture to lightly temper the pungency. The sauce is often served with salt-baked, steamed, or poached chicken, but I find it also adds a vibrant lively flavor to noodles, seafood, and vegetables.

Cook your noodle of choice–I like Chinese wheat noodles or soba. Mix noodles with the ginger sauce and soy sauce to taste. Place in large bowls. Top noodles with mounds of cooked shredded chicken and slivered vegetables. Offer extra ginger sauce to add to taste. Enjoy–you will love this fresh, light noodle bowl.

Hakka Ginger Chicken Noodle Bowl

You can scale this recipe up or down. The chicken and sauce can be prepared a day ahead, cover and chill. Use leftover Ginger-Onion Sauce on salads, noodles, seafood, and vegetables.

Makes 2 or 3 main dish servings

6 ounces dry Chinese wheat noodles or Japanese soba
Fresh Ginger-Onion Sauce (page 66 of The Hakka Cookbook, makes about 3/4 cup)
Soy sauce
1 1/2 to 2 cups coarsely shredded cooked chicken (Steeped Chicken Breasts, page 22 of The Hakka Cookbook)
Salt to taste
2 to 3 cups slivered or thinly sliced vegetables such as cucumbers, carrots, jicama, radishes, cherry tomatoes, cabbage, red bell pepper, red onion (choose 3 to 6)
Cilantro leaves for garnish
Chile sauce (optional)

1. Cook noodles in boiling water as directed on package. Drain and rinse well with cold water. Drain.

2. In a large bowl mix noodles with 3 to 4 tablespoons Ginger-Onion Sauce and 2 to 3 tablespoons soy sauce, or to taste. Place noodles in 2 or 3 large serving bowls.

3. Mix chicken with about 3 tablespoons Ginger-Onion Sauce, 2 to 3 teaspoons soy sauce, and salt to taste. Mound equal portions of chicken on each bowl of noodles. Arrange mounds of vegetables on noodles. Drizzle vegetables with a little of the Ginger-Onion Sauce, offer remaining sauce to add to taste. Garnish bowls with cilantro. If desired, offer chile sauce and soy sauce to add to taste. Mix lightly to eat.

“Eat Bitter”, a new Hakka zine

Posted on September 15, 2020 by lla

Hakka history, stories, and recipes

Page from “Eat Bitter” Credits: DESIGN- ROO WILLIAMS, PHOTOGRAPHY – LYDIA PANG, WORDS – LYDIA PANG

Recently I got a flurry of alerts from my blog to let me know The Hakka Cookbook had been mentioned in several posts online. Checking them I read a story introducing a new zine called “Eat Bitter” about a Hakka family and their food.

I was thrilled to learn that Lydia Pang, the creator of the new publication was a young Hakka woman. Pang, whose father is Hakka, grew up in Wales, a country without much cultural diversity. She had worked in more ethnically diverse London and New York and began to feel she didn’t know enough about her Chinese heritage. It was time to learn more. She decided to write about her family’s favorite foods and stories shared at the dinner table. The result, “Eat Bitter,” allowed her to explore her identity and preserve the culture and recipes of her Hakka family.

The title of her publication, “Eat Bitter,” reflects the Hakka history. The Hakka have long endured multiple migrations, hardship, and persecution. Called “guest people” because they often arrived to settled lands last, the Hakka got the meager leftovers. Through their hard work, they survived and flourished. Working through obstacles, whether in life or in the kitchen, makes the reward taste so much sweeter.

Page about Pang’s father’s Sunday *sik fan* from “Eat Bitter” Credits: DESIGN- ROO WILLIAMS, PHOTOGRAPHY – LYDIA PANG, WORDS – LYDIA PANG

The zine’s bold design and creative layout vibrate on the red and black saturated pages (sample pages shown above). With help from her family, Pang records recipes such as Ears &Thighs (steamed chicken thighs and wood ear mushrooms), Fatty Pork (simmered pork belly with garlic and black beans), and Paw Paw’s Sponge (steamed sponge cake.) Photos and sketches reveal the cooking process.

To pre-order her magazine visit eatbitter.co Pang will donate a portion of the sales to Welcome to Chinatown, a grassroots organization that provides resources to hard-hit businesses in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Chinese New Year feast

Posted on January 15, 2020 by lla

Plan your menu for the symbol-laden Chinese New Year feast now. The lunar new year is fast approaching.

In 2020, January 25 marks the beginning of the Chinese year 4717. The celebration marks a time of renewal, marked by food, traditions, and festivities. On the Chinese horoscope, each year is dominated by an animal sign: Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey rooster, dog, and pig. Each animal has special characteristics. This is the year of the rat.

A family reunion feast highlights the New Year celebration. The table is traditionally filled with foods that send auspicious messages to attract wealth, luck, success, unity, longevity.
As I plan the menu for our family’s new year feast, I’m looking through The Hakka Cookbook for ideas. I like our meals to be a cooperative effort, sort of an organized potluck plus cooking lesson. It’s easier to share cooking duties and hopefully everyone can learn something new.

For my grandchildren, I try to include one cooking activity. In the past, we have made wontons, dumplings, and pot stickers. This year we may make Stuffed Tofu (pages 31, 33). The Hakka invented stuffed tofu when they could not find wheat flour in their new home in the south to make the dumplings they ate in their former home in northern China. Instead of putting the meat filling in a wheat flour wrapper, they stuffed the filling into chunks of tofu.

Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce from The Hakka Cookbook

Noodles represent long life. I like the dark, umami-rich flavor of Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce (page 104). Or perhaps we’ll cook Garlic Noodles and Shrimp (page 193), sort of a Hakka-style Chow Mein.

Fish is a must-have on Chinese New Year table. The fish brings surplus and abundance to the new year. I like Steamed Fish with Green Onions (page 39). Steaming keeps the delicate flesh moist and is so easy.

A green vegetable represents growth in business. I love the simplicity of the stir-fried Chinese Broccoli in Sweet Rice Wine (page 230).

Possibly we may cook the famous Hakka Salt-baked Chicken (page 64) or some of the easier variations or maybe we’ll buy a Chinese roast duck. What’s on your menu?

Hakka Salt-Baked Chicken from The Hakka Cookbook

For me, Chinese New Year is about food and family. Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year! ????! Khiung Hee Fat Choy! Gong Hay Fat Choy!

Gift for the Chinese cook

Posted on December 15, 2019 by lla

Best Chinese Cuisine Cookbook of the World 2012 -Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

Looking for a gift for a Hakka relative or friend eager to learn more about their Hakka history? Is there a cook on your holiday gift list who is interested in Chinese history and cuisine? Give them The Hakka Cookbook, Chinese Soul Food from around the World. The book was recognized as the Best Chinese Cookbook in the World in 2012 by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

Through recipes and stories told by Hakka from all over the world, discover the unique Hakka history, culture, and cuisine. Find 140 recipes, including Hakka classics such as stuffed tofu, lei cha, and salt-baked chicken as well as easy Chinese comfort food. The beginner cook will find sections on cooking techniques, equipment, and ingredients. Paintings created by artist Alan Lau gracefully illustrates the book.

Check this link for sources on where to buy The Hakka Cookbook. It is widely available online. Some of the major sellers are Amazon.com, Books Kinokuniya, and University of California Press. Or ask your local book store to order The Hakka Cookbook for you.

Chinese feast at Zhong Shan Restaurant

Posted on October 24, 2019 by lla

Last week, we dined again at Chef Jin Hua Li’s new business, Zhong Shan Restaurant on Taraval Street in San Francisco. Like his previous restaurant, he features Hakka cuisine. At our last meal at Zhong Shan, we tried many of the new dishes. At this feast we couldn’t resist ordering some of our old favorites from his Hakka Restaurant that he previously owned. Luckily, these dishes appear on the Zhong Shan menu, too.

We ordered the Steamed Pork Stomach with Chicken Soup and the Stuffed Duck in Lotus Leaf. Both of these labor intensive dishes require advance notice and are well worth planning ahead.

Steamed Pork Stomach with Chicken Soup

For the soup, he stuffs a pork stomach with a whole chicken filled with chicken feet, white peppercorns, and dried longans. The football-shaped stomach steams for 5 to 6 hours to create a complex broth imbued with the chicken essence, a slight peppery spiciness, and a faint sweetness. The server brought the stomach and broth in a huge white tureen. She lifted out the stomach, cut it open with scissors, and cut the stomach and chicken into smaller pieces. The golden clear broth was ladled into small bowls to sip. Bite-sized pieces of chicken and stomach were offered to eat with a dip of soy sauce.

Lotus leaf encases stuffed duck
Duck filled with Glutinous Rice Stuffing

In the Stuffed Duck in Lotus Leaf, glutinous rice laced with Chinese delicacies such as sausage, chestnuts, and dates fills a whole duck. The duck is browned, then wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed until the duck almost falls apart with succulent tenderness.

Braised Fried Tofu and Fish Fillet in Clay Pot
Minced Pork and String Beans with Olive

We tried a couple of new dishes. Braised Fried Tofu and Fish Fillet in Clay Pot will join my list of favorites. The delicately sauced tofu and fish simply melted in our mouths.
We also liked the simple stir-fry of Minced Pork and String Beans with Olive. What was the olive? The olive looked like small bits of dark leaves. Checking on the internet I find that the Chinese olive vegetable is a dark condiment of cooked Chinese mustard greens, minced green olives, spices, soy, and oil. Use it as a seasoning to add deep earthy, savory flavor.

Chef Li sent us a new offering on his menu, Braised Spareribs. Not sure what the official name is, but we found the moist, tender, pork ribs cloaked in a dark, savory sauce to be a winner.

Chinese Bacon with Preserved Green
House Special Basil Eggplant
Hong Kong Style Spicy Clams
Sauteed garlic pea sprouts

Must-have favorites rounded out our menu. Chef Li makes the best Chinese Bacon with Preserved Green. I love the House Special Basil Eggplant with its soft, seductive silkiness. The Hong Kong Spicy Clams are deep-fried to crust the exterior, then stir-fried with chiles and garlic. The bright green Sautéed Garlic Pea Sprouts brought a fresh note and balance to our feast. We all agreed, it was an incredible meal at a bargain price!

Zhong Shan Restaurant
Hakka Cuisine
2237 Taraval Street (between 32nd and 33rd Avenues)
San Francisco, CA 94116
(415) 592 8938

Easy Hakka recipes for everyday

Posted on October 7, 2019 by lla

My daughters are like many of you-–looking for recipes for a healthy dinner on a hectic schedule. They lead busy lives with small children who have active social calendars that rival their parents. Although my girls like to cook, their time is limited. I love it when they tell me they turn to The Hakka Cookbook for inspiration.

Often they look for a recipe they can use with food they have on hand. Sometimes they shop for a favorite recipe that has become a quick go-to weeknight dish such as Stir-fried Chinese Broccoli and Chicken (page 210).

Here are some of the quick and easy recipes that they have used from The Hakka Cookbook in the last few weeks. As you can see, they sometimes adapt the recipe to their family’s taste and the ingredients they have at the moment. You can do the same.

Stir-fried Long Beans with Pork with cook’s additional of cherry tomatoes (page 21)

Stir-fried Chicken and Cucumbers from The Hakka Cookbook — Garlic-Chile Eggplant Sticks (page 56)

Stir-fried Chicken and Cucumbers with cook’s substitution of cherry tomatoes for red chile slices (page 202)

Don’t let time stop you from eating well.

Hakka cooking lessons on Netflix

Posted on June 22, 2019 by lla

Recently, I stumbled across a Malaysian series, The Missing Menu on Netflix. This emotional drama features a Hakka widow who tries to bring her family together with her delicious food. Through cooking certain dishes she hopes to teach her children how to live life.

In each episode, she showcases two dishes, usually Hakka or Hokkien (her husband was Hokkien). At the end of each segment, a younger version of this Hakka chef demonstrates how to cook the featured dishes. Learn how to prepare Salt-baked Chicken, Pork Patty, Vinegar Pork Trotters, Ginger Duck, Pork Belly and Taro, and many more. She shares bits of Hakka history as she cooks. Check out The Missing Menu. In Chinese with English subtitles.

Easy, quick Hakka recipes for the family

Posted on June 3, 2019 by lla

Stir-fry seasoned ground pork with chunks of tofu and season with soy sauce for quick kid-friendly meal.

On my Facebook page I received a request for easy, fast, family friendly Hakka recipes from someone who owned The Hakka Cookbook. She had children and didn’t have time to find the easiest recipes. Over the years, I have pointed out a number of quick choices in this blog. Here’s one of the most kid-friendly meals that will not tax the most stressed cook.

Stir-fried Tofu and Pork Hash (page 123 in The Hakka Cookbook) takes the flavors of the Hakka classic, Stuffed Tofu (nyiong tiu fu in Hakka), and deconstructs the elements into a quick and easy stir-fry worthy of a weeknight family dinner. It’s so easy you almost don’t need a recipe. Just season some ground pork like you would when making stuffed tofu. Drain and crumble tofu into big chunks. Stir-fry the meat until browned and crumbly, add tofu, and soy sauce to taste. Cook until hot. Garnish with sliced green onions.

Serve with Stir-fried Iceberg Lettuce and Garlic (page 27) or Chinese Broccoli with Sweet Rice Wine (page 230), or your favorite stir-fried greens. Add hot cooked rice and you have a quick, satisfying, and nutritious dinner for 3 or 4. The mild flavors will please young diners but are savory enough to satisfy adult tastes.

The Hakka Cookbook

Chinese Soul Food from Around the World

Category Archives: Hakka food