PaiGu

Procrastinating by spending hours in the kitchen instead of the library is a great way to fail school.

Anyway, I bought some chicken giblets¹ the other day and I’ve been really looking forward to cooking them. If you’ve never had giblets and are a little grossed out by them – don’t worry! They don’t taste strange, they’re just extremely chewy. So if you like tendons, you’re sure to like giblets (gizzards are my favourite)!

Now this recipe is an original so don’t go thinking I’m just copying and pasting some disgusting chicken innards recipe on here. When I read up on gizzards, I realized that they have to be cooked for a long time. You know what else is simmered for a long time? Tea eggs! One of my favourite street-vendor-foods (and extremely easy to make), tea eggs are simmered in a pot with soy sauce, star anise (or five spice powder), and green tea. Hence, that is how I decided to infuse flavour into my gizzards! I call this dish “Dragon Gills” (because all Chinese dishes have crazy names).

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1. Technically, giblets are gizzard, heart, and liver, but there was no liver in mine. [↩]

soft and soundless steps
they meet on a windless field
of floating flames

Until I started writing this recipe, I did not know what these were. I’ve used them before, oh, plenty of times. They’re great for stir-fries, easy to work with, and an easy, tasteless way to add some veggies to your dish.

Turns out, they’re not veggies. They’re fruits! Melons, in fact. I’d always had a sneaking suspicion they were related to melons (the green and the crisp and the seed gave it away), but I never really bothered to confirm it.

Chayote are apparently native to Costa Rica and a popular ingredient in Mexico, although I was introduced to them in a Chinese supermarket. Known as 佛手瓜 (Fu Shou Gua) to me, I’ve used them in stir-fries alongside the likes of chicken, soybeans, and firm marinated tofu. Since they’re related to cucumber, you can imagine that they soften easily, so you shouldn’t cook them too long if you want to retain their crisp character. They don’t have much flavour to them (less so than cucumber), and they’re fairly good at retaining water.

Anyway. Long story short. I’ve been meaning to make something with the rest of my beef chunks, which I had already slow-cooked with some salt, star anise, and dried chilli peppers. I also needed to make some “street food” for Blog Party #33, which I’ve been undecided about the entire week.
Suddenly, inspiration hit.
You know in some Chinese buns, they’ll have pulled pork or beef that’s heavily marinated? Well…

I decided to pull apart the beef chunks into “strings”, and stir-fry it with chayote and onion. The result was a great mish-mash of savoury pulled beef and soft chayote. The best part was that both components were moist (beef looses its moisture quite easily) and packed with flavour.
The street-food element is that it would be a great stuffing for a pita. In fact, it could easily be turned into a main with the addition of any number of carbs: steamed Chinese buns, white rice, or even something made from potato (polenta or mashed).
I’m trying to cut down my carb-intake though (I’ve grown up eating rice with every meal so believe me, this is a lot harder than it sounds), so I had to think of something else.
I also had to make this into an appetizer in order to qualify for the Blog Party. So…

Ta da!
I had been chewing on a stick of cucumber while I was debating (yes, I chew on sticks of cucumber), and realized that the cucumber tasted pretty good with the beef-chayote dish. So the end result was a cucumber-based appetizer with some beef, chayote, and onion. I topped it off with a small piece of red pepper to give it some colour.

The verdict: the makeover of the “street-food” beef and chayote stuffing into an elegant little appetizer is all sorts of genius. Cucumber and chayote naturally marry well since they’re members of the same family (which I did not know at the time! Hence, genius), but they also contrast each other since the chayote is soft and full of flavour, while the cucumber is on the outside, adding a fresh crisp to every bite. The beef is moist and well-marinated in typical Asian fashion, with an aroma of sesame decadence and a subtle spicy undertone. This is probably the healthiest street-food-turned-appetizer ever!

The name of this dish is another brand of genius in itself (thank you, thank you very much). Since cucumber and chayote are in the same family, they are “The Green Sisters.” The love feud is between them and the beef, whose passion is ignited by the spicy undertones and the red pepper topping, much like the tip of a flame.

We recommend that this appetizer be consumed with Amazake¹, a low-alcohol Japanese drink made from fermented rice.

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1. From Wikipedia: “Amazake can be used as a dessert, snack, natural sweetening agent, baby food, salad dressing or smoothie. The traditional drink (prepared by combining amazake and water, heated to a simmer, and often topped with a pinch of finely grated ginger) was popular with street vendors, and it is still served at inns and teahouses. Many Shinto shrines provide or sell this in the New Year. In the 20th century, an instant version became available.
   Amazake is believed to be very nutritious, with no additives, preservatives, added sugars or salts. Outside of Japan, it is often sold in health food shops.” [↩]

Hello everyone,

I am TheSassyChef’s pantry, and let me say, what an honour it is to be invited here today. I am so glad TheSassyChef has finally decided to share her culinary experiences with the World Wide Web, because I was worried for a minute that she might let her food-obsession consume her in her solitary life as a student. But my worrying was for naught it seems.

She asked me to introduce myself today because I am one of her confidants, as they say, and one of the only people in her life who understands how important food is to her. I have seen her through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and my contents hold the secret of her many ups and downs. But today, we’ll only talk about the ups.

As pantries go, I am an undeniably Asian one. I am always stocked with sushi rice, soy sauce, black vinegar, Guilin chili sauce, and sesame oil, and I can only recall one instance when I did not have any cornflour, but TheSassyChef has assured me that will never happen again.

In the past year, I’ve also seen a shift from quintessentially Chinese ingredients, such as black bean sauce and oyster sauce, to Thai and southeast Asian flavours, such as fish sauce, coconut milk, and red curry paste. The most aromatic ingredients are probably the dry Kaffir and Bay leaves, and the rice cooking wine. My favourite ingredient, and her best-kept-secret, is the store-bought peanut satay sauce.

TheSassyChef has also been flirting with the domain of baking, although less successfully. I have had to make room for baking flour, brown sugar, molasses, artificial vanilla flavour, nutmeg, cinnamon, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. I’ve also had to make room for tomato sauce, garlic, and basil for the times TheSassyChef craves pasta (she’s also against store-bought pasta).

TheSassyChef tells me she doesn’t like using pre-made chicken soup base, or artificial flavours like ginger or onion powder when there’s real ginger and onion to be had, but she nonetheless keeps them around all the time. What a lazy hypocrite.

And finally, the newest additions to my collection are sushi ingredients: dry seaweed sheets, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, and Japanese mayonnaise.

So that’s that. Don’t tell her I said this, but personally I don’t think she’s found her place yet in the culinary world. One of these days, my little girl will grow up to be a big and powerful overlord-type chef, or at least an excellent wife, but until then, I’ll encourage her in all her culinary endeavors. I hope you do, too!

Ta ta!

Sincerely,

TheSassyPantry