My Stir-fried Life

by Ken Hom

  Sue is a northern girl, born in Southport, Lancashire, and grew up in the south, in Middlesex: ‘Rayners Lane,’ she told me. ‘End of the Metropolitan line.’

  She was, and remains, a lovable tough cookie, who said it like it was. She explained to me what I should and should not say: ‘Ken, we don’t do that here.’ I learnt so much. It was through an education from Sue that I came to feel more British than American. Sue did not cook much and had little interest in food. It was merely fuel. She was not an adventurous gourmet. As we drove, I asked her what she would have for her final meal, and Sue said, ‘For starters, shish kebabs. Then chicken madras with pilau rice and aloo gobi. For dessert, vanilla ice cream. And yours?’

  I said, ‘Caviar, steamed fish and Peking duck.’ (And now, I think, I would eat it in Rio de Janeiro on the Copacabana beach at sunset, as the setting is perfect and extraordinarily beautiful.)

  Although the wok sales were rapidly heading towards a million, Sue had not heard of woks until our meeting. She was blissfully unaware of my TV series and accompanying book. Quite simply, she was not the slightest bit interested in food. She considered me to be ‘a nutcase’ because all I talked about was the eating of the last meal and the planning of the next one.

  In a fancy restaurant, as I studied the pages of magnificent Burgundian delights, Sue tapped the wine list in my hands and said, ‘Don’t know why you bother. Tesco’s wine is as good as anything that costs a thousand pounds.’

  During the tour she existed on a diet of steak; grilled or fried, she was not fussed, as long as there were chips with it. She did like fish, but only when it was battered and came with chips. At first I attempted to encourage Sue to explore a restaurant’s menu, and to be enticed by the descriptions of each dish. Then the waiter would come to the table, to hear Sue’s opening line, ‘Do you have steak?’ I tried, also, to lead her towards the love of a feast and, as the dishes arrived at the table, I said, ‘It’s all right, Sue. We can walk it off afterwards.’

  Sue said, ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to have a big walk after eating.’

  When I treated her to lunch at Bibendum, that fine but pricey restaurant in Chelsea, I savoured the melting textures of calf’s brain with sauce gribiche, while Sue got the kitchen to make her roast beef with York shire pudding and gravy. Good for her. Sue’s beef, by the way, could never be bloody. Her saving grace, in my opinion, is that she likes red wine.

  * * *

  Traditionally, the most celebrated roast beef comes from the rib cut. I also enjoy roast beef fillet, served with classic truffle sauce, which is simple to make. To feed four, I use a fillet that weighs 1.3–1.5 kg (2¾–3¼ lb), trimmed and tied (ask your butcher to do this, if necessary).

  I preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F, gas mark 7), and while it heats up I season the fillet well with salt and freshly ground black pepper to my taste. I heat a roasting pan on top of the hob and add a couple of tablespoons of groundnut oil or vegetable oil. Once it is hot, I slowly brown the beef on all sides until is golden brown.

  The beef goes into the oven for 10 minutes before the heat is reduced to 190°C (375°F, gas mark 5). It has 10 minutes more of roasting before it is removed from the oven, placed on a board and allowed to rest for about 20 minutes at room temperature before carving.

  While it rests, the truffle sauce can be made. This is done by finely chopping 60g (2 oz) of fresh black winter truffles or high-quality tinned black winter truffles (cooked once). Pour off all the fat from the roasting pan, saving any bits and juices. The pan is returned to the hob and here comes the ‘deglazing’: add 3 tablespoons of Madeira, which will bubble, reduce in volume and collect the flavours from the pan. Add the reserved juices and bits, and finally the chopped truffles.

  Serve the fillet with the sauce. Easy and elegant!

  * * *

  FOOD, like music, literature or the movies, is subjective. What you love may not appeal to me, and vice versa.

  The pleasure of eating, however, is usually formed in childhood. Likewise, the displeasure of eating can be traced back to our early years. Sue and I both came from backgrounds where there was little money. In my case, eating well – experiencing flavours that would excite the taste buds – was of primary concern when I was growing up. In Sue’s case, the process of sitting at a table and eating was nothing more than sitting at a table and eating, munching merely to fill an empty tummy.

  As a child, she had eaten her mum’s curries, chops and mashed potatoes, or roast chicken on a Sunday, followed by chicken soup (made with the bones) on a Monday. ‘When we were very small we used to have bread and dripping, and Weetabix and sugar sandwiches,’ she told me. ‘I was a fussy eater. Sometimes my brother and I would have Weetabix for tea because Mum couldn’t always afford to feed us.’

  Sue grew curious about my food. She was at my cookery demonstrations, helping to set up, watching the preparation and then watching as I cooked. After each demo, she would pick at the leftovers, and acquired a taste for my food until, one day, she said she loved it. She had become a close friend, so I considered her compliment to be a great accolade. She still had to be careful, though. ‘Ken, I am allergic to garlic,’ she had warned me, early on. ‘It gives me the runs.’

  I enjoy doing cookery demonstrations and, in the early days, I was startled by the powerful impact of television. The demo audience included many people who had watched me on TV, and they chatted to me with such friendliness and familiarity, always calling me Ken, which I welcome. They had watched me, of course, in their own homes, on the television. This is different from how we regard those who appear on the big screen in a cinema.

  Someone from the BBC explained it to me. He said, ‘Up there on the cinema screen, they’re only acting, and it’s simply a story. When you are on telly, especially doing what you do, people either really like you or dislike you intensely. There are some people who appear on TV and just fall off the chart – viewers can’t stand them, we won’t mention names. Then there are others who are accepted by viewers as a member of the family.’

  The demonstrations have helped me write books because people have so many questions, ones that I can address in a cookbook.

  * * *

  Rice is frequently the subject of questions from the lovely people I meet when travelling or strolling along the streets.

  Long-grain rice is the most popular rice for cooking in China and as a child I recall the ritual washing of the rice under cold water as my mother started to prepare our meal. The required rice was put into a bowl that was then filled with cold water. Carefully, the cloudy water was poured away, keeping the rice in the bowl. This process was repeated several times until the water was clear. These days, it does not require washing, but if you want to be authentic, then that is the form.

  Short rice is most often found in northern China and is used for making rice porridge, a popular morning meal. I find short rice to be coarse and rough.

  Glutinous rice is also known as sweet rice or sticky rice, and is short, round and pearl-like, with a high gluten content. It is used for stuffings, for rice pudding and in pastries, and sometimes wrapped in lotus leaves and served at Chinese banquets. It should be soaked in cold water for at least two hours before cooking, and can be cooked in the same way as long-grain rice.

  In southern areas of China, the New Year is celebrated by washing rice clean for several days before the feasts begin. This is known as ‘the grain for ten thousand years’ (wan nian liang) and eating it during the New Year festivities is hoped to bring prosperity.

  * * *

  WITH Sue at my side, I went on the talk shows, such as BBC’s Pebble Mill at One and ITV’s This Morning, which then was presented by the popular married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. At This Morning they had asked me to cook a dish, but I was horrified when I saw their nasty wok and Sue kindly nipped to the shops to buy one of mine.

  When Chinese New Year came around, Sue received a request for me to appear on Terry Wogan’s popular
chat show on BBC One. All I had to do was get from California to London. The saga began when the British Airways flight from San Francisco to London was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the plane. I told British Airways staff that I needed to be in London because of the show, so they re-routed me: first, I would take the red-eye to New York; second, I would take Concorde to London.

  The show’s producers worked out the timings and wondered if I’d be able to make it from Heathrow Airport to the studios in Shepherd’s Bush, which can take anything up to an hour, depending on traffic. They contemplated putting me on the back of a motorbike to beat the rush-hour tailbacks. Thankfully, they went off that idea.

  I took the red-eye to New York and was feeling quite knackered when I boarded Concorde. At Heathrow, I felt even worse. A driver collected me and we started on our way to the studios, around about the time the show was starting. All the while, Terry was telling viewers, ‘Ken Hom should be with us very soon.’ I arrived, all over the place, and they pushed me on stage. As I stood there in front of the cameras, in a dazed and exhausted state, Terry opened with the line, ‘Well, Ken, great to have you. Now, tell us – how was the food on Concorde?’

  I said, ‘I was disappointed.’

  No, not the best opener. The minute I said it, I thought, Oh, now you’ve gone and done it. The you being me. There had been talk, you see, that I would work with British Airways on a range of meals. I think British Airways might have hated me after that.

  When the show finished I went with Michael Levene and his wife to their countryside home in Buckinghamshire. I slept for twenty-four hours. Now that I am not jet-lagged, let me explain: Concorde was small and short, and not like being in the first-class cabin of today’s aircraft. That is why I was disappointed. I had expected something akin to first class.

  Whenever possible, I travel only by BA and that is because I feel very British. Last time I flew to Brazil, the pilot said he grew up with my Chinese Cookery book, which is really touching. And I must admit I like it when they say, ‘Will you have something to eat? It’s not as good as yours.’ I need that fix of the British sense of humour. It is as if I am as familiar to them as they are to me.

  Sue and I travelled abroad, too. One of our trips was to Slovenia, and its capital Ljubljana. There was a company there that was selling the wok, and the bosses kindly invited us to dinner. Wherever I go, I try to respect the food and, for instance, in Finland I tried reindeer because that is what the Finnish eat.

  As an aside, I must say that I try not to eat strange foods for the sake of strangeness. In 1988, when I was researching The Taste of China, I travelled to China with my friend Jenny Lo. As she is Chinese, Jenny could help me with the research. I could bounce things off her, especially how she grew up eating Chinese food. We worked our way through 800 dishes. Jenny beat me, by just a few, because one day I was ill and could not eat another thing.

  At one of the restaurants we asked the waiters to make their speciality and were shocked by what they brought to the table. It looked like tripe but when we were halfway through the dish, I asked, ‘What is this?’ They said it was, in fact, elephant’s trunk. The trunk was served in a sauce, and was gelatinous and lacked flavour. At another restaurant Jenny and I were shown the ingredient before it was cooked. It was dried up and extremely pongy. Bear paw. That, again, was gelatinous without much flavour. I have been told that it is best to eat the left paw since that is the one that the bear licks and therefore the more tender of the two.

  Here, in Slovenia, a menu was passed to me. I waved it away, saying, ‘I’d like to eat your country’s most famous dish. Please give me what Slovenians would eat.’

  They said, ‘Well, that’s fowl.’

  I thought, Interesting; could be chicken. They looked at Sue, and I said, ‘Oh, she’ll have steak and chips, please. Not bloody.’

  As I was eating the food, I thought, I know chicken but the texture of this meat is strange. It was delicious and sweet, but looked more like veal than chicken. I finished the dish and said to our host, ‘What does this animal look like?’ He used his hands as if they were hoofs in a gallop and started making neighing sounds. I had not eaten fowl. Instead, I had just consumed foal, a young horse.

  Sue looked at me and said in her dry way, ‘See. You should have ordered the steak when you had the chance.’

  A postscript regarding The Taste of China (although knowing me it will end up longer than the average PS). I spent almost two years on that book, on and off. Apart from the adventure with Jenny in ’88 – when I went to places in China that I had not previously visited – there was also a trip in ’89 with the photographer.

  The publishers wanted to use a famous Italian for the job of photographer, but I was adamant. ‘No, I want someone Chinese.’ In hindsight, that was one of the smartest demands of my life. Without it, we would not have had the book. The photographer was Leong Ka Tai, who had been recommended by my friend Lynn Pan, and he accompanied me, with his assistant, on part of this fascinating experience.

  I wanted the book to be both thematic and personal; a departure from my other cookery books; not only about food but also about people and culture. It also turned out to be a remarkable insight into China before the sensational rise of the economy.

  My extensive travels for the book included a journey with my mother from Hong Kong to visit my relatives in Guangdong, my family’s home province. Laden with gifts for my cousin’s family, we went first by high-speed hydrofoil to Macau. There we crossed the border and rented a car and driver to take us to Kaiping, and then through lush, deep countryside, to the village where the family lived, a warm, misty rain falling on the day that we arrived. It was dreamlike.

  Firecrackers were set off and it was a happy, teary reunion, though I remember thinking how natural it all seemed. I speak our Cantonese village dialect, so I felt quite at home and as if I had been there before. A banquet was prepared and I saw first-hand what my mother’s behaviour had always shown: the enjoyment of a meal comes not only from the food, but from the love and friendship at that table.

  The meal began with the ritual washing of the rice, and this was rice grown in family fields and set aside for this occasion. My cousin went off to a small pond near the house, and returned with a net of grass carp for the meal. Twenty members of the family had helped in the preparation of this eleven-course feast. Food was set aside as an offering to the spirits of the departed members of the family. Whatever food the spirits do not eat is then consumed by the guests.

  We consumed quite a lot. We ate bitter melon stir-fried with lean pork (a great favourite of mine). Chinese water spinach, plucked from the garden, was cooked with fermented bean curd. There was a stew of dried oysters and bean curd sticks, and the best long beans I have ever had, served with silk squash and crispy cloud ear fungus. With the special rice, we had braised goose, roast pig and roast duck. Reflecting on the banquet in The Taste of China, I wrote, ‘The presence of so much meat and poultry demonstrated that this was indeed a special occasion … It certainly impressed me and if anything I overindulged during that long, delightful afternoon.’

  That delight was later to change to despair when Leong Ka Tai, his assistant and I were caught up in the pandemonium of the Tiananmen Square protests and the after-effects of the massacre of hundreds, or maybe thousands, of students. We were moving from Sichuan and flying to Beijing on 5 June. We had been working for a month, and Leong had photographs which formed the illustrative crux of the book. Earlier, on 4 June, we were in our hotel in Chengdu, and there was a curfew. We heard gunfire; the first time I had ever heard gunshots, even though I had lived in America.

  We knew something ominous was happening but there was a news black-out and the television was broadcasting only propaganda films of farming in rice fields. Leong Ka Tai said, ‘This is not good.’ He was right. We were totally unaware that the killings were being carried out by the army as they cleared the square of protestors. The following day, we flew to Beijing, wher
e, unbeknown to us, the June Fourth Incident had taken place. When we landed, the place was chaos, with Hong Kong Chinese running around, yelling, ‘Get out of here – they are killing everybody!’

  Unable to find a flight (they were all full or grounded), we headed for the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, where the foreign press were also holed up. As we drove to the hotel, we passed soldiers and tanks. ‘What have we got ourselves into?’ I asked Leong Ka Tai. Finally, we found seats on the last Cathay flight to Hong Kong.

  We arrived at the airport, where there were more soldiers. ‘What do you have in the bag?’

  Leong Ka Tai showed them rolls of film – digital cameras were not then on the scene. If you lost the film, you were stuffed. ‘What is on the film?’ asked the soldier.

  ‘It’s about food,’ said Leong.

  The soldier stared at him and looked again at the film, grunting. For a moment it seemed like the film – the result of weeks of work – would be taken and tossed into a bin. But then Leong Ka Tai reached into his pocket and produced a little notepad. On the pages, he had made notes of everything that he had photographed. A true pro. We were waved through and I thought, Somewhere, Buddha must be smiling.

  From Hong Kong, we sneaked back into China. Later on, I flew to England, where I was greeted by hurricanes, and finished writing the book in San Francisco, just when there was a big earthquake. The Taste of China did not win an award for the most dangerous cookbook ever written, but it was published in nine countries and shortlisted for a prestigious Andre Simon award. I was the lucky one: just thinking of the book instantly reminds me of those poor young victims who were murdered on 4 June.