Dried Shrimp Spring Onion Cheung Fun 葱花蝦米腸粉

Silky, slurpable rice sheets entangled with chewy sea sweet bits of dried shrimp, accented with the sparkle that is fresh fragrant spring onions.  Dressed in a light sweet and savoury sauce that just accentuates it all.  Did I successfully tempt you yet, dear readers?  

This oh so yummilicious treat is the Dried Shrimp Spring Onion Cheung Fun 葱花蝦米腸粉.  This is one of the classic Cantonese versions of the steamed cheung fun 腸粉, delicate rice sheets wrapped around various yummy fillings, normally served at dim sum restaurants.  This might be my favorite cheung fun, actually.  So simple yet so darn marvelous.

Braised Cabbage w/ Dried Shrimp & Mushroom 白菜燜香菇蝦米

Ummm...yum, yum, ummmm!  This is one of the best, most satisfying Chinese vegetable dishes to cook and eat on chilly wind swept autumn's day.  Tasty, gorgeously saucy, simple yet richly layered with flavors, tenderly melting in your mouth and warming to the depths of your toes!  Best of all the star of the show, the humble looking Napa Cabbage, is very cheap.  

One finds mounds of this veg stacked up in tall piles at the wet market, although here in Hong Kong it is usually neglected for other more favored southern vegetables such as the Choi Sum 菜心 or Gai Lan 芥蘭.  But don't miss out, pick up a handsome head of cabbage and make this simple classic Northern Chinese comfort dish, Braised Cabbage with Dried Shrimp and Mushroom, or 白菜燉香菇蝦米, perfect for these cool autumn days!

Dried Shrimp Steamed White Rice 蝦乾蒸飯

One of the many gastronomic pleasures that living in Hong Kong brings is the ease and variety of the chinese dried seafood available.  One need only go to their local wet market or, better yet, to the long stretch of Des Voeux Road West in Sheung Wan which is known locally as 香港海味街, or Hong Kong Dried Seafood Street.  Fascinating to explore even if you aren't there for actual buying; one would never have imagined that there were that many things in the world to dry and eat!?

Chinese New Year Turnip Radish Cake 蘿蔔糕

There is nothing so comforting as comfort food.  Something that soothes, takes you back to your childhood, safe and sound, experiencing the delights of the palate with no holds barred, no reference points.  Just the pure delight of yummy or not yummy and filling the tummy.

For most Chinese many of the annual festival foods will qualify for this definition of "comfort food" and the Chinese New Year radish cake is definitely one of the top challengers. This is a traditional, homey, almost countryside kind of food, but full of knock out yummy soothing comforts for the city enslaved tongue.  

Most people in Hong Kong don't make this kind of stuff for themselves anymore, preferring to enjoy the convenience of buying them pre-made from the many stores that profit from the Chinese New Year gorgings that all Chinese indulge in.  Even the older generation nowadays prefer to enjoy this kind of convenience, much to the detriment of my romantic idealizations of the elder generations keeping of the traditional torch and so on.  But nothing, of course, comes close to homemade taste...