morning glory with shrimp paste 虾酱通菜 - version 2.0

I had written about this humble dish that is well liked among many Asian countries. Today I want to share one that is cooked in another Cantonese 廣東 style like you may find in Hong Kong or Guangdong. The result is very similar but with subtle differences and is equally tasty.

Guangdong is the Mandarin pronunciation of Canton while Canton is Guangdong in Cantonese pronunciation. OK, I think I manage to confuse and muddle the finer points of Chinese dialects for a lot of non-Chinese. Back to the dish I want to present.

First off this is what water morning glory 水通菜 looks like - just a humble vegetable one tends to dismiss as weed

If you travel in the Southeast Asia you would find a variety of them. Some have very thin stem and some has much broader stem. Only until recently here in Portland, Oregon this better tasting one became available. We have to make do with one with thinner stems that is tougher. Now both are available while the water version in the picture commends more money.

I bought about 1.5 lb of it in the weekend and so far I had use it for 2 meals. There is still enough for more than a meal for 2 person.

Instead of cooking it in a clay pot in my previous article, I stir-fried it with very simple ingredients:

chopped garlic
shrimp paste (fermented)
thai fish sauce (fermented)
sugar (just enough to balance the brininess of the shrimp paste and fish sauce)
cornstarch (to bind the tasty juice to the vegetable)
vegetable oil

Umami is such an under-recognized and written taste until very recently in Western cooking. The truth is it is a taste that is often overlooked and mischaracterized, and yet any Asian housewife shopping in the open market often ask the vendor if certain item has it. Why? Food of compromised quality tend to lack it. e.g. frozen meat has less than fresh ones. Lower grade jamon has less than a higher grade.

Chinese does not have a word for umami. Instead the same word for sweet 甜 is often used but one understands she means umami because of the context.

Most Asian preserved seafood as well as fermented food are very high in umami. Similarly Spanish ham (jamon). The two ingredients I use today also are packed with umami - shrimp paste and fish sauce. MSG is the artificial taste enhancer for umami invented by a Japanese chemist.

The result of the dish, despite the very simple ingredients that involves just the humble vegetable and the seasoning ingredients is - umami x10

Without exaggeration there are poor farmers in China who's whole meal consist of this one dish and a bowl of steamed (we seldom steam - but this is a colorful topic for another blog) rice.

水通菜 washed and trimmed

outdoor cooking asia 3rd world style

honestly these are all the ingredients I used; small chunks of shrimp paste sit on the chopped garlic in the stainless steel dish

result - a dish that is umami x 10

spanish red wine usually goes very well with it