Double Skin Milk Pudding 雙皮奶

This special treat is from my hubby's ancestral home town, Shunde 順德, a city located in Guangdong province.  Shunde is very famous for its food culture, known as the birthplace of Cantonese cuisine and now a Unesco designated City of Gastronomy.  One of the most famous of the dishes that originate from Shunde might be this traditional Chinese milk pudding!

Known as Double Skin Milk Pudding 雙皮奶 this pudding is distinctive for its lovely double layer of wrinkled milk skin on top, hiding a soft and oh! so lusciously creamy, milky pudding below.  Man oh man, when we go to Shunde we totally pig out on this amazing puddding!  Nom, nom, nom...  

Sometimes back home far away in HK, we do long for it so. Turns out this luscious pud is pretty straightforward to make at home!

Shunde Style Sashimi 順德魚生

You'd probably be surprised to know that eating raw fish actually started in China, not Japan. I know that I was pretty surprised as raw fish is synonymous with Japanese food these days.  But the Chinese have been enjoying raw fish since the Zhou Dynasty, around 823 BC.  A long time, that.  Even the rebel leader Song Jiang 宋江 from the 14th century classic Chinese novel 'Outlaws of the Marsh' 水滸傳 enjoyed a platter of raw fish now and then!

Stir Fry King 小炒皇

I have heard tell of certain dishes that Chinese chefs use to test the culinary skills of applicants to their kitchens.  This classic Cantonese stir fry dish with the rather cheeky name of Stir Fry King 小炒王 is one of them.

This dish originates I believe from the famous Chinese city of gastronomy, Shunde 順德 of Guangdong 廣東 province, where the chefs aspire to enhance the natural flavors of fresh ingredients and strive toward a taste that is light, fresh, crispy, tender and smooth.

If done well, this Stir Fry King 小炒皇 demonstrates these traits to perfection,  the stir fry working it's hot and furious magic to cook the seafood and vegetables just enough and no more while melding the flavors of all to form a delightful unified stir fry incorporating all differents kinds of tastes and textures.  And that is why the name for this dish is Stir Fry King 小炒皇!  If you want to truly test the skills of the Chinese kitchen, order this dish next time you are at a Cantonese restaurant and test for yourself how good the chefs are.

Stir Fried Milk 炒牛奶

This traditional Chinese dish famously from Daliang Town 大良鎮 is simple and yet oh so elegant!  Stir Fried Milk 炒牛奶 uses fresh milk, egg whites, starch and a clever cooking technique to create a dish of delicate clouds of snowy white curds interspersed with sea sweet shrimps, buttery pine nuts and flecks of richly flavored ham.  A real showstopper kind of dish!

Milky White Fish and Tofu Soup 拆魚豆腐羹

Check this soup out!  This milky white, delicate and nourishing soup is made from nothing but fish and its bones!  A famous kind of soup which people murmur about in hushed tones, in awe of the whiteness of the soup and the culinary feats that are required to achieve that pure and awesome whiteness.  

Well, sorry to those folks and yet hurrah for them as well, cuz I'm here to say that this milky white soup ain't so hard to achieve after all, if you know how to go about it!  

No added milk, no added soup stock, just need some fresh fish and fish bones and you're well on your way to making a totally fabulous, milky white, Fish and Tofu Soup 拆魚豆腐羹, that not only is a beautiful creamy white but also tastes out of this work yummilicious!  (And it's the best thing ever for when you're feeling under the weather!)

Three Fried Stuffed Treasures 煎釀三寶

If you've ever been in Hong Kong or Macau or Guangdong, you've probably run into these little snacks.  These fish paste stuffed vegetable treats have evolved over the years to become a popular and long standing street side snack, usually skewered to allow you to eat the snack right there in the street.  

I really love these snacks and rather mourn the fact that, nowadays, they are rather hard to find done in the old-fashioned tasty way, meaning pan fried rather than deep fried.  Most street vendors have them precooked and waiting around all day and then just stick it in the hot oil to heat it up after you order.  Um...not too fresh, nor tasty as a matter of fact.  

So we decided to make our own the traditional way, stuffed and pan fried Three Stuffed Treasures 煎釀三寶, a delectable treat that celebrates the original sweet tastiness of the fresh vegetables while a stuffing of fragrant tangerine peel infused fish paste provides just the right contrast of texture and taste.