a home cooked cantonese meal 廣東家飯

There are so many delectable dishes in Cantonese cuisine 廣東菜. For even the most well versed foodies of Chinese cuisine many classic home-cooked dishes received very little attention. With the change in time and advent of large scale agriculture the younger generation's eating habit changed significantly. Typically we eat more in portion as well as calories. In reality, in the old days home-cooked meals consist of much more vegetable and smaller portion of meat. People only east more meat in the special occasions. In Chinese there is a phase 大魚大肉 which means large amount of fish and meat. In certain context it has the same negative meanings as the word gluttony.
gluttony is one of seven deadly sins- image is linked to the wikipedia

In the days before the refrigeration technology preserved food played a significant part of food of many cultures. Being one of the oldest civilization Chinese cooking has a large spectrum of preserved food. Some involves pickling, some fermentation, and some salted.

Many cultures has salted fish and China has many variety. It was not uncommon in the bygone eras to see store that sells nothing but salted fish 鹹魚.

In this meal I use a salted fish 鹹魚 that has been left to partly decomposed during the curing process. In many ways it is very similar to cured anchovies Italian and Spanish use. The decomposition results in very concentrated flavor. This method of curing is believed to be relatively unique to Guangzhou 廣州 which includes Hong Kong. If you like anchovies you would like this salted fish 鹹魚.

Only in recent years here in Portland it is possible to find high quality salted fish 鹹魚 from Hong Kong. Lantou Island 大嶼山 is famous for producing them as well as fish sauce and shrimp paste.
this one is from Lantou Island 大嶼山 - for this meal I used just 2 small pieces

these are the young choi sum 菜心 I used for a vegetable only dish - iPhone there for scale reference

I used a Dutch oven to steam the minced pork with salted fish - it is very energy efficient with the perfectly sized vessel as well as the copper pot and the stainless plate

those are finely julienned ginger on top - I briefly brown the outside of the salted fish

 this is a good example of a home-cooked Cantonese meal

this dish is umami x10 tasty

the choi sum is just stirfried with a lot of garlic, seasoned with a bit of fish sauce and small dash of oyster sauce

 two bowls of rice later there is still half of the minced pork and salted fish left

This dish tastes as good when you reheat it the next day.