Salt and Pepper Squid

This is a truly spectacular dish and is one of my top 5 favorite Chinese dishes.  Yes its preparation shares much with that of Salt and Pepper Shrimp.  But there are a few differences and the flavor profile – at least in my humble opinion – is superior with the squid.  I made this last weekend for my family and some close friends and there were no leftovers to be had.  I will share a lot of minute details with you on making this dish to minimize errors and really get this restaurant quality.  If you ever go into any remotely ethnic Chinese restaurant you will see this dish on the menu.  And as I mentioned in the shrimp recipe, you will need very high heat (in excess of 600 degrees F) to properly cook it.  I’ll go into more detail below.

The first thing we want is to start our rice.

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I am cooking for 6 people here so I am steaming 4 cups (uncooked) of Japanese Koshihikari rice.  I am using the umami setting which, with this particular model of rice cooker, will mean most of the cooking time will be under pressure.  As you can see, I have 81 minutes before the rice is ready so we have plenty of time here.

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Our dredge will be the first thing I make.  Since I have two lbs of fresh squid here (you can use previously frozen squid and thaw it – it won’t affect the flavor profile) I want to be sure I make enough dredge.  Above I have white, green and schichuan peppercorns.  White are in the spice grinder I have at the top, the green in the lower right and Schichuan peppercorns in the lower left.  Not seen are black peppercorns which I also include.  The schichuan peppercorns in the lower left there are an interesting spice so I will go into some detail here.

Schichuan peppercorns or ash berries as they are sometimes called are the husk of a seed of a plant referred to as Chinese coriander.  Oddly enough the seed is normally discarded and it is the husk that is desired for Schichuan cuisine.  If you ever eat one of these husks raw (as I had my guests do) you will notice it tends to numb the taste buds and even make them tingle after a while.  But mixed with other spices, this seasoning is amazing.  I realize it can be hard to find but it is worth the effort.  While it won’t ruin your dish if you don’t have it, you will notice a difference.

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So here I have mixed my spices including salt, msg, rice flour, corn starch and the peppercorns well ground.  You will want to mix these dry spices well.  I only put a little dredge in my dredge bowl at a time as unlike egg wash based frying you will not use up lots of your spice dredge as you coat your meats with it.  In fact you will have leftovers that you can save for use later if you want.  So I’ll add about 2/3 cup of powder at a time to my bowl and mix with the meat.  If you have not done so you will want to clean your squid.  With that I bought, most of that work was done and all I had to do was cut the tubes into rings.

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And here I have tossed in a bunch of paper towel dried rings and will stir and shake this around some.  The rings are a little tacky and will make only as much dredge as we actually need stick to their surface.  Be sure and shake off excess or you will end up with a bunch of sediment in your oil after cooking which will need to be filtered out if you want to re-use the oil.

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And here we see some rings covered with our spice mixture.  Notice that even with the peppercorns, the dredge is still mostly white.

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And here we have 2 lbs coated and separated and ready to fry.  Note that I have the tentacles nicely coated in here too.  I love them not only for their texture and flavor but their appearance adds an exotic element to the presentation of the dish as well.

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Before cooking we want to get the oil as hot as possible.  I have about 2-2.5 cups of peanut oil here so I will heat this for about two and a half minutes on full blast from my wok burner.  You want the oil extremely hot.  If you look at the flames above, they are going almost up to the top on all sides.  The oil will heat fast.

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I will say this now – this dish is impossible to cook on an indoor stove.  You will not get the oil hot enough on a stove with a 50,000 BTU or less burner.  The coating will be soggy and the squid will be like rubber.  Because even if you do get the oil to 600 degrees, the squid will cool the oil too fast and it will take a weaker stove too long to get the oil back up to temp preventing the seasoned dredge from crisping up.

I was watching Andrew Zimmern yesterday on a rerun of Bizarre Foods and he was doing a special on cuisine in Mississippi, focusing on Delta foods.  He ate with a Chinese American family in Mississippi that were making some Chinese, Mississippi Delta fusion dishes on a burner like mine with their wok outside.  And Andrew said “If this doesn’t make you want to get an outdoor wok burner, I don’t know what will!”  I could not agree more!  One thing that was very striking to me was watching a very Chinese looking woman talk about her heritage cuisine with a very Southern Mississippi drawl.  To see it yourself, look on this Travel Channel episode recap.  This has a special place in my heart because my older son is a student at Mississippi State University.  Again, for less than $100 you can have a wok burner like this and make the same kinds of cuisine.

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When you drop the squid into the oil it should bubble furiously as mine is above.  It took me about three batches fried separately to cook all the squid.

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And here I let it cook for about 75 seconds.  You want the outside to be a light golden color (not brown) when you remove the squid.  Have a bowl lined with paper towels standing by for this.

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You will want to have a large slitted spoon or screen scoop with which to quickly remove the squid from the hot oil.  Let the oil sit for about ten seconds each time before adding subsequent batches.  Special thanks goes to my friend Lesley Litt for taking the pictures while I fried these.  Your help was much appreciated and I am glad you enjoyed the squid with us!

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What the extreme heat does is makes a slightly crispy, seasoned crust on the outside of the squid pieces that makes them absolutely delectable.

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After all the squid has been cooked, I empty almost all the oil out of the wok (except for maybe 2 tablespoons) and get that oil smoking hot.  Then I put the squid back in and toss in the aromatics.

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You want to mix the aromatics and squid well, tossing them around for maximum flavor.

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Note how high my burner heat is.  This is essential to this dish.

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And at the table it is ready for serving with rice.  I normally like to serve a soup before the squid but did not here.  Note the bowl of hot chili paste above.  Since I did not cook this with hot peppers (I had guests here that could not abide the heat) I used that paste spooned over my squid.

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I love taking a piece of squid with some garlic and green onions and eat that and follow it with a clump of plain steamed white rice.  The alternating savory and bland flavors play very well together.

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With the chili paste, the dish becomes very spicy-hot.  You will see people eating it this way in Chinese restaurants as well.  The hair on the back of my head will get soaked with sweat as I eat this.  But this dish is truly divine and I consider myself blessed that I can cook it at home as well as it is in a restaurant.

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And the inevitable result is above.  You will not have any leftovers of the squid.  In fact, you will probably get (as I did) people asking you if there is any more in the kitchen.  I suppose you could cook a lot and have leftovers.  But if you do, do NOT reheat them in a microwave.  You will want to toast them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.  I find that reheating the squid in this way will get it pretty close to the way it was when you scooped it out of the wok.

Without any more pomp and ceremony, here is the recipe.

Salt and Pepper Squid (serves 5-6)

Ingredients:

  • 2 lbs squid tubes (or rings) and tentacles (fresh or thawed).
  • 4 cups uncooked white rice.
  • 2-2.5 cups peanut oil.
  • 1 cup rice flour.
  • 3/4 cup corn starch.
  • 4 Tbs finely ground white peppercorns.
  • 1 Tbs finely ground black peppercorns.
  • 1 Tbs finely ground green peppercorns (optional – I added this because I happened to have them but they are not really necessary).
  • 2 tsp finely ground Schichuan peppercorns.
  • 3-4 Tbs fine grained sea salt (to taste – I like using 4 Tbs).
  • 2 tsp monosodium glutamate (gourmet powder) (optional but if you omit it, it will noticeably change the flavor of the dish).
  • 1.5 cups chopped green onions.
  • 1/4 cup minced fresh garlic.
  • 1/4 cup sliced Thai chili peppers (optional).

Preparation:

  • Begin to cook the rice in a rice cooker or in a pot.
  • Cut the squid tubes into rings if necessary.
  • Mix the ground peppercorns, salt and msg into the starch and rice flour mix.
  • Mix the squid pieces into the dredge and toss well to coat each piece.
  • Set dredged squid pieces aside.
  • Preheat your oil in the wok and get it extremely hot.
  • Fry the squid in batches.  I find that 2/3 lb of squid at a time works best.
  • Put each batch into a paper towel lined bowl to drain.
  • When all squid is cooked, dump out most of the oil into a container to save the oil to use again later.
  • Put the cooked squid back into the wok with about 2 Tbs oil.
  • Toss in the green onions, garlic and sliced chilis.
  • Toss the squid with the aromatics and mix well.
  • Place in a paper towel lined bowl and serve with steamed white rice.
  • Provide chili paste as desired.
  • Save leftover dredge in a sealed container and refrigerate for use later.

Thank you!

Suburbanwok

Pork Congee with Thousand Year Old Egg

This is a rather simple dish that is viewed as a comfort breakfast meal by Chinese people.  As strange as this breakfast will look to most people reading this, congee is is as familiar to even a Chinese immigrant in America as Cream of Wheat is to mainstream Americans.  The list of ingredients for this version of the dish is scant.  The difficulty of preparation is low if the rice is cooked in a pot and nil if you have a rice cooker.

As a base dish, congee is basically rice that’s cooked in a much higher volume of water than one normally would for dinner rice.  It’s basically cream of rice cereal without the cream (though you are certainly entitled to prepare congee with cream and sugar to eat it that way as well).  So if you normally use 1.5 cups of water to 1 cup of dry measure rice, you will use 8 cups of water with congee.  If you cook this in a pot, use that ratio.  If you have a smart rice cooker, it is as simple as choosing the Porridge setting.

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The cooker will have measurement lines inside that tell how much water to add for however many cups of rice you have.  Set to porridge and then push the start button.  I prefer to use Japanese rice for my congee but use whatever rice suits your fancy.  There are no rules here.

Now one of the more interesting ingredients to this is the preserved duck egg.  Also known as the thousand year old egg, or century egg or even millennium egg.

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You can buy them at most large Asian markets.  They come in a 6 pack and are normally individually wrapped within.  These are duck eggs.  The existence of these eggs comes from a desire to preserve the eggs before the advent of refrigeration in China.  The method of preservation is simple.  The fresh eggs are buried in ash clay and the clay is allowed to harden.  They then coat the outside with straw or grass and the eggs age for 90+ days.  During that time the whites of the eggs turn dark amber and the yolk turns anywhere from grayish yellow to blackish green.  A sort of controlled fermentation takes place.  Freshly peeled, the eggs are usually black or dark brown.

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It looks like a stunning onyx jewel of the orient.  And to those that love these, it IS!

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Cut in half, you can see that the whites are actually dark amber as I mentioned above.  This particular egg has a black yolk.  The flavor is a lot like a strong European cheese.  The odor is like a ripe cheese with a hint of ammonia.

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I have diced up two eggs here and as you can see, one of them has yellow in the yolk while the other is black.  But the color doesn’t seem to affect the flavor much, if at all.

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So the dish waits for the porridge to be done cooking before we can continue.

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I like to stir fry some Chinese chives but scallions are also popular additions to this cereal.

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The rice congee is spooned over the thousand year old egg slices and topped with the stir fried chives.  Then the top layer of rice is gently stirred to mix in the chives.  The next ingredient is one that really intrigued me when I first learned of it.  If you do searches on congee on the web you will see frequent references to “dried pork” but no pictures (at least none that I could ever find).  What they are referring to is below.  It is shredded pork seasoned with soy sauce and sugar that is completely desiccated.  It has the texture of cotton candy but a lot more savory.

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The container this pork comes out of is there to the left in the picture above.  Again, a product of your local Asian supermarket.  They come in different darkness levels which equate to varying flavor strengths.  What you see above is about the medium.

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And there it is ready to eat.  Note that Congee can be used any way you like.  You can make it cream of rice cereal with the addition of some milk and sugar if you want.  Or eat them like grits.  It is a versatile dish with as many ways to eat it as there are people who do the eating.  My daughter ate the other half of the congee that I prepared in my rice cooker.  She put honey and a tablespoon of cream in hers 😉

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So I will provide the rather simple recipe below.  Note that because of the high water content, one cup of precooked rice will make a LOT of congee.

Pork Congee with Thousand Year Old Egg (serves 1-2)

  • 1 cup uncooked rice.
  • 1-2 preserved duck eggs (Century eggs) sliced into wedges.
  • 3 Tbs chopped Chinese chives or scallions.
  • 1 cup dried shredded pork.
  • Fresh ground Chinese white pepper to taste.

Preparation:

  • Cook rice with 8 times the same volume of water or follow directions on your rice cooker for the porridge setting.
  • Arrange century egg pieces in a bowl.
  • Add hot congee to cover the eggs.
  • Top with Chinese chives or scallions and stir a little.
  • Top with dried pork
  • Pepper as needed
  • Serve

Thank you for reading!

Cheers!

Suburbanwok

 

Thai Pork Fried Rice

Getting back to the Asian recipes, I am going to show how I make my fried rice.  There are at least a dozen times as many varieties of fried rice as there are countries that make it.  And they all taste very differently from one another and yet there some techniques to cooking that are common to all of them.  The dish I am going to share today is Pork Fried Rice cooked the way it might be in Thailand.  I say might because there are so many ways this dish can be prepared even with that title.  As Chinese Pork Fried Rice is the pork fried rice dish most people are familiar with, it is the one most people use as a reference and indeed will compare this one to.  There will be differences between Chinese pork fried rice and Thai – one big one being the pork is often dyed red and sliced differently in China.  The other being that very fragrant and flavorful Thai basil is present in the Thai version.

The preparation actually starts a day in advance.  I will cook 2 dry measure cups of Jasmine rice in my rice cooker and then allow it to cool, covered.  After that, put it in the refrigerator overnight.  The following day, I will take the rice out, wet my hands and break up the clumps into individual grains of rice.  I choose Jasmine because Japanese rice is a poor choice as it sticks together readily even the next day.  If you go to a Japanese restaurant and you sit at the Hibachi grill, next time you are there look at the rice they give people when they ask for steamed.  It’s probably Nishiki or Calrose medium grain (both low cost Japanese style rices).  But when the chef starts to fry the rice on the grill after he does his egg trick, you will note he has long grain rice he dumps out on the heated surface.  In most of these restaurant they use previously parboiled rice because it separates very easily and they don’t have to mess with the rice as much by hand.  That’s right.  Your favorite Japanese Hibachi joint makes your fried rice with Minute Rice!

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Above I have my ingredients, minus the oil, Chinese white pepper and the eggs.  Starting from the rice and working clockwise in a spiral we have precooked, chilled Jasmine rice, my fried rice sauce (recipe below), shrimp powder, chopped red spanish onion, minced garlic, mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, lima beans, corn and green beans), diced pork (butterfly pork chops cut into bite sized pieces), Thai basil and snow pea pods in the center.

Like most dishes I start by firing up my burner and heating up my wok.  I put the burner at about 60% as ultra high heat is not needed here and may even burn the rice.  So for those of you that don’t have wok burners – you can make this dish taste just as good on an indoor stove.   For this recipe I use my 18″ Cantonese wok as this makes a lot of food.   When the oil starts to shimmer with heat, we put in the beaten eggs.

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Scramble the eggs just until they are no longer runny and add the pork.

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We want to cook the pork until it is white all over.

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Add the garlic and onions and stir fry until fragrant.  Even on lower heat, the wok gets very hot as low heat on this burner is still 50,000 BTU.  Lots of steam.

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After the pork is cooked, add all the vegetables except the snow pea pods and Thai basil and stir.

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I add the snow peas and stir these in.  You want them coated lightly with oil.  The trick here is to flash cook everything.  That is – the outside of the vegetable pieces cook and the inside are still a little raw and full of vitamins.  You want that crispness and fresh flavor.

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Now for the most savory ingredient in this dish and one that will clearly distinguish this as being Thai – the Thai basil.  You want to cook this until the basil is wilted before adding the rice.

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Add the rice and mix well.  Now the rice frying begins in earnest.  You want to stir well but don’t overdo it or you will break too many of the grains.  You want the rice to mix with what little oil may be left.  At this point I add a teaspoon of dried shrimp powder and 1/2 teaspoon of ground Chinese white pepper sprinkled over the top.

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After the rice has cooked maybe 5-6 minutes I like to add my fried rice sauce.  I will pour in a spiral and use maybe 3/4 cup to 1 cup.  You do not want ANY loose liquid pooling.  Everything you pour in should be absorbed by the rice with a quick stir.

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Now it looks like a fried rice, doesn’t it?  The sauce gives the rice its tan color which is really a trademark of fried rice in any Asian country.  At this point it’s done and ready to be served.  I like to take it out of the wok and put in a large bowl to serve from.

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For most people this meal would be ready to eat.  And for the rest of my family, it was and their the plates looked like the above.  But for me – it needs three more things to be truly Thai.

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A fried egg on top is a signature Thai move.  You want to fry at high heat so the whites get a little crispy around the edges and the yolk inside still crawls over the rice when the skin is broken.

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Lastly I sprinkle some cilantro over the top and then spoon some Prik Nam Pla over the meal to season it as desired.  I like a lot of hot pepper but adding the things that make me happy occur after it is done is fine and does not lessen the enjoyment of the other diners of this dish.  One thing that differs greatly between countries own fried rice dishes will be the composition of the fried rice sauce.  So you can make this, the recipe is below.

Thai Pork Fried Rice (serves 4-6 as a main dish):

  • 4-5 Tbs peanut oil
  • Day old cooked rice made from 2 cups of uncooked Jasmine rice.
  • 3/4 lb butterfly pork chops cut into bite sized chunks.
  • Two eggs beaten.
  • 1 cup Thai basil
  • 1 1/2 cups mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, beans)
  • 1 cup snow pea pods
  • One medium onion chopped (you can substitute 4 scallions chopped if desired)
  • 3 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 1 tsp dried shrimp powder (optional)
  • 1/2 tsp fresh ground white Chinese pepper

Sauce ingredients:

  • 2 Tbs sweet soy sauce
  • 1 Tbs Golden Mountain sauce
  • 1 Tbs soy sauce
  • 3 Tbs Fish sauce
  • 4 Tbs oyster sauce
  • 2 Tbs white or rice vinegar
  • 1 Tbs corn starch
  • 2 Tbs water

Preparation:

  • Heat oil in a wok or large flat bottom pan until the oil is hot.
  • Add the beaten eggs and scramble.
  • Add the pork and stir fry until the pieces are opaque.
  • Stir in the onion and garlic.
  • Add the mixed vegetables and stir well.
  • Stir in the Thai basil and sweat the leaves until they wilt and shrink up.
  • Stir in the snow pea pods to coat with oil.
  • Add the rice and mix well.  You will want to fry this for about 5 minutes stirring occasionally.  You want the rice to cook in the oil some.
  • In a spiralling motion twirling in, pour some of the fried rice sauce over the rice and stir.  Add more if all the rice kernels don’t get that beige color.
  • Sprinkle the shrimp powder (if using) and the Chinese pepper over the rice and give one more stir.
  • Remove from heat and put into a large serving bowl.
  • Garnish plates with cilantro, sliced cucumber and tomato wedges.
  • Add an over easy-medium fried egg on top of each dish if desired.
  • Serve with Nam Pla Prik.

This is one of those dishes that got its start with people wondering what to do with leftover rice.  The cult just grew from there.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I.

Suburbanwok