another home cooked cantonese meal 廣東家飯

This meal is my continue effort to work down the accumulated food in the freezer. For fresh vegetable I am down to just a bit of Chinese celery. I like the challenge of creating recipes under the constraint of limited ingredients.


Very often after a month long trip I came home and manage to wipe up a few dishes with what is in the freezer and the collection of dried or preserved ingredients. I use very little canned food. Little that I have are limited to coconut milk or anchovies.


I used the wild caught sea shrimps in this dish. They are labeled as USA origin. As always I prefer to pay a little more for wild caught shrimps over farmed ones. I had purchased farmed shrimps in the past or dishes which the musty taste is not so noticeable. The other strong reason to avoid farmed shrimp is mangrove and environment destruction typically associates with seafood farms. The decimation of mangroves worldwide is well documented.

Interestingly there are mainly just 2 main kinds of shrimps farmed all over the world and tiger shrimp is one. Most of the tiger shrimps consumed in Western countries are farmed.

The shrimps I used for this meal is quite large so I only used 5. It takes some patience to peel the shells without losing the meat in the tail. Some shrimps are more difficult and these USA wild caught one are the hardest I've encounter.
you can see the tips of the tail which I managed to preserved - no waste

I used extracted the flavor of the shell by boiling them in a small amount of water; the broth is then used to feed 餵味 the shitake mushroom 香菇 and black fungus 木耳

Black fungus 木耳 is a fungus that grows on the trunk of a tree. In Chinese it is called mok yee 木耳 meaning the ears of the wood because they look like ears grow out of the trunk of the tree. It in itself has no taste. It is eaten for it's crunchy texture. You make them delectable knowing how to make them soak up the tasty juice of the dish.
here is re-hydrated black fungus 木耳 (left) looks like - it expands up to 5 times the size of the dehydrated one

It used to be quite difficult to find good quality black fungus 木耳 here in Portland. I recently purchase this 5 lb bag because of the quality over the smaller ones. This easily would be a life-time supply.
typically you would use only one piece for a dish

I would cook two dishes and here are all the ingredients

this is prawn and cuttlefish stirfried with Chinese celery - there are shitake mushroom and black fungus also

this is steam minced pork with salted fish 鹹魚蒸肉餅 - it would look nice to top with some sliced scallion but alas I had none

A bit of interesting tidbits of Chinese saying highlighting the significance of Cantonese cuisine. There is very well known saying in Chinese "Eat in Guangzhou, Die in Liuzhou, Play in Suzhou, Live in Hangzhou". In Chinese it is 食在廣州, 死在柳州, 玩在蘇州, 住左杭州.

To briefly explain each of these four places in China that are well regarded:

• Guangzhou 廣州 is the province where Canton is. Cantonese cuisine is considered to be one of five Chinese regional best. Hence the place for best food.
• Liuzhou 柳州 is famous of the aromatic and rot-resistant wood to make the best coffins. Hence you want to die there.
• Suzhou 蘇州 girls are some of the most beautiful in the country. Also it has some of the best traditional Chinese gardens. Hence the place to frolick.
• Hangzhou 杭州 is regarded as the most scenic place in China with the reknown West Lake. Hence the place to live.