food
Flavours that shine in Teochew cuisine
The sauce in the Chilled Red Flower Crab dish was bursting with flavours. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 4, 2015.The inimitable taste of Teochew cuisine is the result of an exquisite balance of salty and sour, as well as spiced and subtle flavours achieved through poaching, braising and steaming.
Oriental Group executive chef Justin Hor said that fresh fish, shellfish, crabs, oysters and other seafood, besides duck and goose shine in this cuisine.
The subject of “lo sui”, which is aged braising sauce for duck, goose and pork, came up as it is a typical and very popular Teochew style of cooking.
“In a Teochew restaurant the “lo sui” or braising sauce is special: a portion of it is always left in the pot and boiled every morning, and every week herbs and spices like galangal, cardamoms, kam chou or raw liquorice and star anise are added to it to preserve its aroma and flavour,” he said.
Some “lo sui” may have been started years ago, and a Teochew chef worth his salt would carry some of this to his new place of work if he is changing job. It’s like a starter dough for bread or pau; it has continuity and nurtured to a long life with its original flavours intact, said Hor.
At a recent tasting of the various traditional Teochew dishes at Noble Mansion restaurant in Petaling Jaya, executive chef Lui Wing Ming from Guangzhou, China, brought his own "lo sui" to Malaysia to cook braised duck and goose.
Chef Lui Wing Ming from China(left) and Oriental Group executive chef Justin Hor are experts in Teochew cuisine. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 4, 2015.Chef Liu, a masterchef in Teochew cuisine for the past 39 years, created delicate and absolutely delicious dishes for his guests.
One such example was the Chilled Flower Crab Teochew Style which we sampled. Served with a light, sweet and sour dip of vinegar, fish sauce, chopped garlic and chilli, the sauce was bursting with flavours but more importantly, the freshness and natural sweetness of the crab was able to shine through.
Another Teochew mainstay is porridge. The Teochew style of cooking porridge results in not a creamy white version, but actually cooked whole rice grains in water or stock. Again, the key to creating a perfect Teochew porridge is in the details, such as the firmness of the rice grains, and the richness of the stock.
“It’s about fresh flavours expressed with fresh ingredients cooked in a simple manner,” said Chef Liu, who’s from Hong Kong.
The chef also makes fishballs and fish skin wantan, or yue kao, too.
“These are every day food for the Teochews, whether cooked in soup or with noodles. We use ‘Wong Meen Seen’, a kind of yellow eel to make these.
"The wantan skin is made entirely from the eel's flesh. Of course in Malaysia you would use the sai tou (ikan parang)."
Orh nee or yam paste with ginkgo nuts and crispy twisty dough with osmanthus hone. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 4, 2015.Yam is also very much in Teochew cuisine, appearing not only in dishes and soups but also in the Orh Nee, a Teochew dessert.
“We usually add pumpkin to it as well as ginkgo nuts. Lard is used in the slow cooking of the yam. We finish with more lard and drizzle shallot oil over it.”
If you'd like to sample a modern take on traditional Teochew cuisine, the Oriental Group is running it's Teochew cuisine promotion from now until 15 September at all its restaurants. – September 4, 2015.
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