TDC Recipe #2: Fish Porridge

Here's an easy one I popped onto the stove after coming back from what is probably one of the most gruelling business trips I've taken. It's a comfort food - and what's even more comforting is how fuss free and fast it is to make, without needing any special ingredients available only from a Chinese supermarket.

Fish Porridge

Ingredients: serves 2
2 blocks Coley fish portions, usually frozen but defrost before use
1/2 cup long grain or Jasmine rice
500ml water
1 tsp chopped ginger
pinch of salt
pepper to taste

(optional) 1 tbsp dried scallops

Method:
Set water to boil with a pinch of salt for taste and to increase the boiling point.
(Shortcut) Pop the rice to a cooker to cook in the meantime while the water boils - boiling cooked rice into porridge saves you half the time it takes from boiling porridge from scratch

At this point, if you have the dried scallops (although I know this is a bonus since it can be only easily obtained from a Chinese supermarket), add them into the water to boil as stock.

Once the rice is cooked, stir the rice into the water and keep boiling. In 10 minutes, you're going to get porridge.

Slice the coley portion block in the meantime. When rice comes to a boil, stir in coley portion and cook well.

5-10 minutes before serving, stir in the teaspoon full of chopped ginger to combat any overwhelming aroma of fish.

Pepper to taste and serve.

Tip: if you've got light soy sauce, stirring in about a teaspoon in the porridge before serving enhances the flavour.

Tau Ew Bak (豆油肉)

Otherwise known as stewed pork with soy sauce, this is one of my favourite (albeit a little unhealthy) dishes. I've recently made it with some of the more authentic ingredients, but am modifying it here to accommodate ingredients only found in Tesco.

I think this was what a senior of mine from university tried to do, it was otherwise known as Coca-Cola chicken, but the result tasted nearly exactly like tau ew bak anyway.

Ingredients:
250g chicken or pork (pork belly meat preferred but rather unhealthy)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
200ml water
1 can Coca-Cola, full sugar, not diet Coke
1 teaspoon chopped ginger (Tesco sells this pre-cooked)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic (Tesco sells this pre-cooked)
1 teaspoon chopped red onion or 1/4 red onion, chopped
Salt to taste

Method:
Marinade meat with soy sauce, sugar and 1/2 can of coke. Leave to stand for 30 minutes to allow coke to flavour through and lose the bubbles.

In a heated pot, fry ginger, garlic and red onion until fragrant. Throw in the marinated meat including the liquid from the coke. Bring to a boil then add water and allow to simmer for 1-2 hours to soften the meat and reduce sauce until it is a sticky gravy. Add salt to taste if required.

Comments:
The original recipe calls for dark soy sauce, which is incredibly difficult to find here, even from an Asian supermarket. Another recipe I found called for sambal belachan which unless personally imported by friends/family from Singapore or Malaysia, is nigh impossible to get.

Watercress Soup

I'm starting a compilation of recipes for Asian cooking using non-Asian specific ingredients, or ingredients readily available in this very challenging place - UK. I reckon, if you can cook with ingredients from the local UK supermarket without resorting to an Asian supermarket, it would suffice anywhere else in the world including the US and Australia, since those stock far more Asian supplies than a regular UK supermarket.

My standard of a regular UK supermarket is a Tesco Extra right next to my house, so it may stock more than most metropolitan supermarkets, but I try to use as common ingredients as possible.

Nobody's made "The Diaspora Cookbook" just as yet - so don't steal that idea, it'll be wonderful if someone can beat me to it and come up with one, I'd definitely buy it, but in the meantime, this will have to suffice.

Watercress Soup (西阳菜汤)

Ingredients:
200g (a bunch) salad watercress - pick the kind that doesn't just contain leaves and long and stringy if possible
500ml water
2 pieces pork ribs or 2-3 chicken wings
pinch of salt

Method:
In a pot or slow cooker, bring pork ribs and water to a boil. Season with salt. Add salad watercress after soup has come to a boil and simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes.

Serve with rice or on it's own.

Apparently, the Tesco's spaghetti overcooked by 5 minutes tastes nearly exactly like thick vermicelli (粗米粉). No guarantees with any other brand but the Tesco's one seems to work nicely.