Paradox Blog

The 2nd day of the Chinese New Year is when the married daughter visiting her maiden family bringing gifts and good wishes. It was one of my favorite days for we got to eat at Ah-ma's. Ah-ma, that's what I called my maternal Grandmother. She and I did not have much to talk about, language barrier: She spoke Taiwanese and Japanese but I was brought up in Mandarin. But I sure enjoyed her cooking and she knew it. Every time we visited she'd make my favorite foods: deep fried vegetable balls, steamed chicken, and spring roll wraps.

We'd only started to visit Ah-ma's when I was in my teens when the friction between my mother and her family smoothed out naturally over time. Mom was practically disowned by her Taiwanese family when she married my father, a Mainlander. Mom spoke fluent Mandarin and since she hardly had any contact with her own family, she spoke to us only in Mandarin. It's a shame I never got to pick up her mother tongue. Time does heal things. Mom and her family eventually did reconcile and we started visiting with Ah-ma often. Mom visited for she and Ah-ma had a lot of catching up to do. For me the journey was more gastronomical than anything else. When mom helped out Ah-ma in the kitchen and carried on their conversation in Taiwanese, though I could understand quite a lot of what they were saying I could not inject any word intelligently, nor was it my place to. I was preoccupied with the food anyway. Usually mom would give me something to do with my hands, skinning the potatoes, shelling the peas or working the wrapper iron. The wrapper iron has an electrically heated metal surface that's kept warm and when you drip flour mixture liquid over it, a thin film forms immediately and I got to peel off the film. Each thin film makes a fresh sheet of spring roll wrapper. For each wrapper made, I folded it into quarter of a circle and fanned them out in a tray.

It's time to make Spring Roll Wraps. Ah-ma brought out trays of bean sprouts, shredded carrots, cucumbers, bean curds, cilantro and crushed peanuts. I unfolded one sheet of wrapper, laid it out on my plate, heaped the vegetables to the center of the wrapper, sprinkled on the peanut crunches, folded the edge of the wrapped in to form a rectangular pocket. I'd usually make two wraps for myself. I could eat more if not for other food I would have to leave room for. By the time I finished wrapping, Ah-ma would have brought out her delicious deep-fried vegetable balls: chucks of potatoes, carrots, peas and onions, dipped in flour mixture and deep-fried to golden brown and popping hot when Ah-ma served them to us. And the steamed chicken would have been chopped into pieces too and served with a tiny saucer of soy sauce. I usually got the leg piece, which unlike the American fancy for white meat is considered the best part of a chicken on a Chinese table.

Ah-ma passed away in 1982. In the memory of her, I am re-creating her recipes in the following.

Spring Roll Wraps

8 spring roll wrappers
1 cup of bean sprouts
1/2 cup of thin carrot strips
1/2 cup of thin cucumber strips
1/2 cup of thin dry bean curd strips
1/4 cup of chopped parsley or cilantro
1/4 cup crushed peanuts
2 tblsps sweetened soy bean paste
1 tblsp of sesame oil
dash of salt

Boil water in a big pot, blanch bean sprouts and dry bean curd strips. Toss the following each separately in some salt and sesame oil: bean sprouts, carrot strips, cucumber strips and bean curb strips, set aside. Ready-made spring roll wrappers are sold in package of a dozen or more in supermarket featuring Asian food. Take one wrapper, spread it out and brush on 1/4 tblsp of sweet soy bean paste, use 1/8 of each, bean sprouts, carrot strips, cucumber strips and dry bean curb strips, place then in the center of the wrapper, sprinkle some peanut and cilantro or parsley bits on top. Fold in the edge to form one rectangular-shaped pocket. That's one wrap. Repeat to make other wraps. Make 8 wraps.

Steamed Chicken

One whole chicken, 3 to 5 lbs.
1 tblsp of salt
2 tblsps of cooking wine
2 stems of scallion
3 or 4 slices of ginger root

Rub salt and wine all over chicken, stuff scallion and ginger slices in the cavern of the chicken. Use a large steamer and steam chicken for 30 minutes or so. Let cool and cut into pieces. Serve with a little plate of soy sauce.

Deep-fried Vegetable Balls

1 cup of carrots and peas
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1/2 cup of diced potato
1 cup of flour
1 cup of water
1 egg
1/2 tea sp of sugar
1/4 tea sp of salt
2 cups of cooking oil

Mix flour with water, add vegetables, stir in one egg, add sugar and salt, mix well. Heat oil in a deep frying pan or a wok, test oil with a dry spoon, when bubbles form around spoon, reduce to medium heat, scoop one spoonful of vegetable-flour mixture at a time, carefully drop it into the hot oil. When balls turn golden brown color, scoop them out onto a plate layered with a towel to soak up excess oil. Make a big bowl full of veggie-balls. Serve warm.