The Sinosphere · Volume 32, The Stocking, the Shelter and the Spice Route
Poon Choi (盆菜)
New Territories, Hong Kong
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 4 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The New Territories walled villages. Every restaurant technique this cuisine has, re-sequenced into one basin.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8 for a feast. About 4 hours, largely unattended.
Ingredients
- 1 daikon radish, peeled and cut into chunks
- 1 tablespoon, 2 small pieces oyster sauce, rock sugar, for the radish
- 300 g pork skin
- 3 slices, 1 stalk, 1 tablespoon ginger, spring onion, Shaoxing wine, for blanching the pork skin
- 2 tablespoons chu hou paste (柱侯醬)
- 1 tablespoon curry paste
- 100 g dried scallops (瑤柱), soaked
- 100 g dried squid, soaked and sliced
- 200 g beancurd stick (枝竹), soaked
- 200 g shiitake mushrooms, soaked
- 8 large prawns
- 1 roast duck or white-cut chicken, jointed
- 10 fish balls
Method
- Braise the daikon in stock or water with a little oyster sauce and rock sugar for 15 to 20 minutes, until semi-translucent and well flavoured.
- Soak the pork skin until softened, clean thoroughly of fat, cut into pieces, and blanch with ginger, spring onion and Shaoxing wine to remove odour; stir-fry with the chu hou paste and curry paste.
- Prepare each remaining component separately by its own correct method: soak and braise the dried scallops and squid; braise the beancurd stick with pork; cook the shiitake in stock; steam or fry the fish balls.
- Build the basin bottom to top: pork skin, radish and fish balls at the base; beancurd stick with pork above; shiitake next; dried squid above that; dried scallops and dried black moss near the top; prawns and duck or chicken at the very top.
- Warm through gently as one assembled basin just before serving, so the top layers do not overcook while the base finishes heating through.
What a modern chef changes
Cook the layers apart, and add the top only at the end.
Rung 4
Method
- Prepare and fully cook every layer below the top separately, well ahead, exactly as a chef would prep mise en place, rather than attempting to build and cook the whole basin at once.
- Use the Big Green Egg run indirect at a steady low heat for the base assembly, holding it for the hours the original slow simmer requires without the risk of scorching a domestic hob poses to a dish this dense.
- Add the prawns, poached chicken and any roast meats only in the final 15 to 20 minutes, or just before serving, specifically avoiding the reheating failure mode that makes commercially sold poon choi so inconsistent.