My Stir-fried Life

by Ken Hom

  Whatever he did had to be the best. King Wah should be the best restaurant in Chinatown, he had decided, and it was. He was passionate about food and passionate about making money. The two combined, and drove him to triumph in this venture. The restaurant had a motto, which was printed on the menus: Good enough for a king. The place was unlike other Chinese restaurants, in that it was extremely clean, free of clutter and modern. My uncle was fastidious about cleanliness and unbelievably organised, which is also a rare quality in the Chinese. ‘You can’t achieve anything unless you’re organised,’ he used to tell me. He was right.

  The whole room could be quickly transformed – and often was – for Chinese banquets, at which about 150 guests would be served ten to fifteen courses. Banquet dishes always included a fish for luck, and the last course was noodles, symbolising longevity.

  The restaurant had a few booths, as well as tables and chairs, and a miniature bar at the back of the dining room. Sometimes my tiny aunt May sat at a table close to the door, standing to greet customers when they came in. She was so minute that when she stood up there wasn’t much difference in her height. I would join her in the afternoons, when there was not much to do in between lunch and dinner service. This gave me a break from the kitchen. Plus, the dining room was air conditioned: this comfort was bragged about on the signage outside, and it was a treat on those hot summer days when the temperature outdoors was in the nineties (and the kitchen heat was ten degrees hotter). The next time you go into a sauna or steam room, please do me a favour and think, OK, so now I know how hot it was in the kitchen at King Wah.

  Uncle Paul employed a cleaner, a tall black man called Roy. Sometimes when I arrived for work Roy was standing upright against his broom. He was asleep. I was fascinated by Roy’s ability to nod off when vertical. Uncle Paul, meanwhile, was not proud; he was not above the chore of cleaning, grabbing a mop and bucket and washing the kitchen floor so that it was spotless.

  The Chinese-Americans of my childhood, by the way, were hard workers. Yet we knew we were, and we acted like, the minority race within Chicago. We just buttoned up, kept our heads down and our eyes and ears open. Early on, it became apparent that if I did not want to live like this, I would have to study hard. Studying would take me to a better place. Even if it was not apparent, I was advised to study hard because my mother was making so many sacrifices for me.

  On Saturday nights, the bookkeeper Shirley Fong came to go through the accounts in the building’s basement, where Uncle Paul had an office. I would take her a tray of supper. I figured her job wasn’t too difficult as Uncle Paul kept faultless records. I was not privy to the books, of course, but I saw the receipts and guessed they were making piles of money.

  Although I was given drab chores, my eyes were opened to the joys of restaurants, places of warmth, wonderful aromas and bright colours. My uncle served not only foods that were familiar to me because my mother prepared them at home, but also ‘Chinese’ foods that were new to me.

  Uncle Paul was a gourmet, and he delighted in the cooking as much as the eating. He was, for instance, adept at making rice noodles. When I arrived at 6.30 in the morning he would be in the kitchen already, making large sheets of fen (rice noodles) from rice flour, wheat starch and water. The sheets were later steamed and, when cooked, cut into noodles ready to be eaten and usually served with a sauce.

  Vividly, I recall those times when Uncle Paul came back into the kitchen and donned an apron to make pressed duck. This is a Cantonese speciality which is said to have originated in northern China. During the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor and his court fled the invading Manchu, taking dishes such as this one to the south and introducing it to the Cantonese. (Traditionally, a duck was boned and literally flattened and then cured with various spices before cooking.)

  Fortunately, much of the preparation can be done ahead of time, and it makes a superb main course for a dinner party or special family meal. The bird is braised and then boned, steamed and then, finally, it is fried. Uncle Paul also liked to stuff the duck with a filling of taro root purée before it was steamed and then fried. Let me tell you – it was out of this world. (Taro is a starchy root-like vegetable. In some parts of China, at the Lantern Festival – an extension of the New Year celebration – taro is softly boiled and eaten under the lantern lights.)

  * * *

  Pressed duck is an unusual and delicious dish, unlike any duck you have ever had. It is simple to make, and your family and friends will applaud you for making it. Let me take you through the method, if you have time.

  First, get yourself a duck. One that weighs about 1.6–1.8 kg (3½–4 lb), which is large enough to serve four people. It can be fresh or frozen, preferably Cherry Valley. If frozen, please ensure the bird is properly thawed before cooking, of course. Am I sounding preachy?

  Put the duck on a chopping board in front of you and, with a heavy, sharp knife, cut it in half, lengthways. Using kitchen paper, pat both halves dry.

  Next, make the sauce by combining all the ingredients in a large pot. Those ingredients are chicken stock (900 ml), dark soy sauce (900 ml), light soy sauce (400 ml), Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry (400 ml), caster sugar (110g), 5 whole pieces of star anise, 3 pieces of Chinese cinnamon bark or cinnamon sticks. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add the duck halves and turn the heat down to a simmer. Cover the pot and turn your attention to something else for one hour.

  When you return an hour later, your kitchen will be alive with the most wonderful smells, and the duck should be perfectly braised and tender.

  Skim away the fat from the surface. Remove the duck and let it cool down. Once the sauce has cooled, remove any lingering surface fat and reserve. Take your cooled duck and carefully remove all the bones, keeping the meat and skin intact. Place the duck halves between two pieces of cling film and press the meat and skin together.

  We’re almost there, I promise.

  Baste the duck halves with two beaten eggs and dust with cornflour (or potato flour or starch).

  Set up a steamer, or put a rack into a wok or deep pan, and fill it with just a couple of inches of water. That’s 5 cm deep for the metric generation. Bring the water to the boil over a high heat. Put the duck onto a heatproof plate and carefully lower it into the steamer or onto the rack. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the wok or pan tightly, and steam gently for 20 minutes. Allow the duck to cool thoroughly. The dish can be completed to this stage a day in advance.

  When it is time to serve the duck, heat a wok or large frying pan over a high heat and, when it is hot, add a couple of pints (1.1 litres) of groundnut or vegetable oil. When the oil is so hot that it is slightly smoking, add the duck halves. Deep-fry them until they are crispy. Remove and drain them well on kitchen paper.

  Heat up some of the reserved braising liquid and serve it as a fantastic sauce with the crispy, pressed duck.

  * * *

  MY first chore of the day was to peel the prawns; 200 pounds of them! That’s about fourteen stone, or ninety kilos; a little bit more than the weight of an adult red kangaroo. The task left my hands feeling extremely itchy.

  On Thursdays, a massive burlap bag would arrive at the restaurant. Inside was 80 lb (36 kg) of sea conch. My job was to lug the bag to the outdoors part of the kitchen and then, using a hammer, crack open the conches by pounding them hard. Substantial force was required, and I broke three hammers during my time at King Wah.

  I hope you’ve had breakfast before this next bit. I extracted the guts, which were super-smelly, resonant of something that had been dead for days, even though the conches were alive. Only the conches’ ‘feet’ are edible, so I put these bits to one side and the rest I discarded. Once the job was done, the bag of conches was reduced to a large bowl of edible parts, and these were a costly delicacy. I gave the bowl to one of the chefs, who used a cleaver to finely slice the conch before quickly blanching it in boiling water or stir-frying it in a wok.

  No self-respecting Chinese chef would be seen with a knife ins
tead of a cleaver, which is used for all kinds of cutting, ranging from fine shredding to chopping up bones. Usually, a Chinese chef has three types of cleaver: lightweight, with a narrow blade, for cutting delicate foods including vegetables; medium-weight, for general cutting, chopping and crushing purposes; heavy, for heavy-duty chopping. (Of course, knives will do the job, but you would be surprised by how easy it is to use a cleaver. A medium-sized all-purpose, stainless steel cleaver is the best kind to have around.)

  There were two fridges at King Wah: one for the ethnic Chinese; the other for the Westerners. That is because we had two menus and each fridge was filled with the appropriate ingredients for each menu. The Chinese fridge contained the stuff Westerners didn’t eat – things like conch, snails and shark fin. This restaurant, which stayed in the same hands for half a century, was also one of the first in Chinatown to serve dim sum. This was made by a special chef – my uncle had brought him over from Hong Kong.

  The dim sum was great, but for me it was also a pain, as it required lots of little plates and they all needed to be washed up. The washing up, incidentally, was overseen by a lady I called Auntie. She was tall and thin. I was her helper. We had only a minuscule part of the kitchen, and as I was minuscule, that was all right. The dishes were scraped and rinsed before being stacked in the dishwasher, and I timed myself, ever eager to improve my scrape–rinse–stack speed.

  In the Westerners’ fridge we stored the ingredients for dishes such as egg foo yung, as well as slabs of steak. Uncle Paul had a loyal Chinese clientele who came mostly on Sundays, when the Chinese take a day off work and therefore have the time to eat with their families. (Fortune cookies, by the way, were not invented in China 1,000 years ago, but in Los Angeles around about 1915 by a Chinese-American noodle maker called Jung, or by a baker in San Francisco thirty years earlier, or indeed – some claim – at a bakery in Japan. Whatever the origin, it’s definitely not China and three billion cookies are made each year, mostly in the States. I can’t recall which comedian said he cracked open his cookie to find the message: ‘Help! I’m a prisoner in a Chinese bakery!’)

  The Westerners came for the takeaways (or ‘takeouts’ as the Americans say) of chop suey, sweet and sour pork – that was a big seller – or chow mein. To them, that was Chinese. Chop suey and chow mein sure sound Chinese but are as American as vichyssoise and cioppino, those equally exotic dishes invented in the States. America, after all, has a food culture founded by immigrants who have arrived with the recipes of their respective homelands. The Americans also liked sup gum (a stir-fry vegetable mixture), won ton soup, asparagus with beef, tomato beef (we had lots of beef dishes for the American clientele), egg flower soup, egg roll (extremely popular) and fried rice in all its permutations, with prawns or egg.

  I appreciated the business sense of the ‘two menus’: serve the customers what they want to eat. My mother was immersed in Chinese culture and was unswayable. But as I grew up I became more aware of America in terms of social experiences, even if I remained heavily Chinese.

  The Westerners comprised many black Americans and lots of Italians. Uncle Paul was one of those people who always had a few deals going on, and he knew who to look after. So a heap of politicians came in, and they got a free meal. Cops came, and they got a free meal. The Italian Mafia came in, and they got a free meal. We’re talking about Chicago, remember. Giving a free meal to the cops and the Mob ensured your place was protected, that no harm would come to it. He did not give them money. Just free meals.

  One of those meals was Hong Kong steak. (And I say meal because although served as a single dish on one plate it was a massive meal in itself.) Please don’t beat yourself up if you’ve never heard of Hong Kong steak. It was incredibly popular with the big, broad and hefty Irish-American cops who ate bill-less in King Wah, but it was unknown outside Chicago’s Chinatown. Which is because Hong Kong steak was one of Uncle Paul’s inventions.

  From the Westerners’ fridge he took out a well-aged porterhouse steak, large enough to qualify for the rodeo if you added a tail and horns. (Often confused with the T-bone steak, the porterhouse looks similar, also has a T-bone, and is cut from the tenderloin, but the porterhouse is a much larger cut. On one side of the T is the fillet, on the other side is the sirloin. Or, as they would say in the States, it’s the filet with a silent ‘t’ and the strip loin.) My uncle seasoned the porterhouse with salt and pepper before grilling it to order. Once cooked, the plump, thick cut of meat received an Asian twist: a little splash of sesame oil, half a ladleful of oyster sauce. The steak rested and was then sliced – for appetising presentation and so that it could be easily picked up with chopsticks – and served hot on a bed of blanched bok choy (the Chinese cabbage also known as pak choy), along with the stripped T-bone. West meets East.

  From my spot at the sink in the kitchen, I saw the returning plates and so could gauge the customers’ level of affection for Hong Kong steak. The blue-uniformed cops – always with hats and truncheons on the seats beside them – seemed to have licked their plates clean and gnawed on the bones. But the Chinese tummies were too small for my uncle’s creation. The Chinese cheerfully ordered Hong Kong steak and they certainly started to eat it, but seldom did they finish. The portion was too American in size. So their plates came back into the kitchen still with a few succulent pieces of steak upon them.

  One day, early in my career at King Wah, a plate was plonked down beside me, ready to be cleaned and washed. Upon it, slices of beef were staring up at me. There were three of them, medium-rare tenderloin, perfectly browned around the edges, glistening, tempting and available as they sat beside the T-bone. My hunger combined with my curiosity. I grabbed a slice with my fingers and quickly popped it into my mouth, and then savoured that instant – you know it, don’t you? – of the first and second chew when the meat’s flavours hit my taste buds. Juicy, sensationally seasoned, and tender too. Within a few seconds I had gobbled down the other two slices. That was a new sensation for me. It was my first taste of beef, a meat that, no matter the cost of the cheapest cut, was still too expensive for my mother’s food budget.

  From then on, beef was a staple in my diet. For as long as the Chinese continued to order Hong Kong steak at King Wah.

  5

  Sticking to the Ribs

  CHINESE KITCHENS ARE not noisy. Unlike Western kitchens, where the head chef barks the orders from the kitchen’s pass, there is little shouting in the Chinese kitchen. All the prep is done well in advance and ready to go. Or it should be.

  The customer’s order comes in to the kitchen and goes first to the prep person. He looks at the order and puts the ingredients for that dish on a plate. Then he hands that plate to the chef at the smoking-hot wok. The chef throws the food into the wok and cooks. To the observer, the high speed of cooking is noticeable: the ingredients are tossed into the wok, and within seconds they are in a bowl or plate and all set to go to the table. Into the pan and then out.

  Thinking further about this, for a chef to be good, he or she might have impeccable timing. Heat the wok, add the oil, sear the meat or fish for just a few seconds. Take it out. When this protein is removed from the wok, it is still cooking, so you have to take that into consideration. That period out of the wok is still part of the cooking process. In the same wok, cook the other ingredients. Plus, make the sauce in the same wok. Throw the meat or fish back into the wok – it will cook some more. Mix it up and put it on a plate when it is still so hot that it is continuing to cook, and by the time it arrives at the table, the dish is perfectly cooked.

  The talent of the chef is to make sure the food is not undercooked or overcooked but just right. So there you have it – it’s all about timing and ferocious heat.

  Chinese dishes, remember, have never been codified like French cooking. There are no rule books, as there are for the classic cuisine of France. Instead, Chinese cooking is very personal, and in my uncle’s restaurant each chef might make the same dish but he would make it differen
tly to the others. For instance, one of the best head chefs made fried rice that always had a barbecue smokiness to its aroma and flavour, and was quite amazing. His sous chef, meanwhile, made fried rice with less barbecue smokiness.

  I watched the head chef to see how he did it. His technique, quite simply, was to let the wok get as hot as possible before throwing in the rice. The result was a little more flavour, which I preferred. Just a few extra seconds of heat beneath that wok, but that slight difference produced a really fantastic result.

  The Chinese person learns to cook from watching the cooks, just as I had done with the head chef and his fried rice. Observing in that way also enables you to realise that instinct is an essential quality if you want to be a good cook.

  The briskness of cooking at King Wah appealed, of course, to customers who did not have much time to spare and were after a quick bite. In the winter months, there were plenty of solitary customers who came through the door, icicles on their noses and the wind slamming the door behind them. They were after a big, steaming-hot bowl of happiness, something that would stick to their ribs.

  * * *

  No matter the speed of serving, much care went into the garnishes. Simple ingredients were transformed into mini works of art, as is the Chinese way, from the spring onion brushes to the tomato roses. They are fun to make and easier to create than you would imagine – your guests will be envious of your artistic skills. Years after Uncle Paul’s, I would show how to make these traditional garnishes on television, in Chinese Cookery.