Northern Chinese · Starter
Cong Shao Hai Shen
- Advanced
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with savory depth stacked from the pantry’s bass notes, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, ending saline and clean.
Ingredients
- 60 g dried sea cucumber (6 medium), rehydrated to about 600 g
- 300 g dacong (large Shandong scallion), white parts only, in 6 cm batons
- 120 g neutral oil
- 400 ml clear unsalted chicken stock
- 25 g oyster sauce
- 20 g light soy sauce
- 8 g dark soy sauce
- 20 g Shaoxing wine
- 12 g sugar
- 15 g ginger, sliced
- 8 g potato starch slaked in 20 g water
- 5 g sesame oil
- 2 g ground white pepper
The skills inside
BraisingBlanching & shockingSoaking dried goods back to lifeKnife cuts: dice, julienne, bias
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · shellfish · molluscs · soy · sesame · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soak the dried sea cucumbers in cold water for 3 days in a scrupulously clean bowl, changing the water twice daily and giving them a 40 minute simmer on the second day. They are ready when they have swollen to four times their dry size and a finger sinks into the flank with a slight spring. 40 min
- Fry the dacong batons slowly in the oil over low heat for about 12 minutes, turning them, until they collapse, go deep amber and the oil smells sweet and toasted. Lift the scallions out and keep both them and the oil. 12 min
- Blanch the sea cucumbers 30 seconds in a little of the stock with the wine and ginger to drive off any raw sea smell, then drain them.
- Bring the remaining stock, both soys, oyster sauce, sugar and pepper to a simmer, slide in the sea cucumbers and the fried scallions, and braise gently 8 minutes, until the flesh darkens, turns springy and the liquid has reduced by a third. 8 min
- Pull the pan back off the boil, swirl in the starch slurry until the sauce coats and lifts to a mirror gloss, then finish with sesame oil and the reserved scallion oil so it pools bright across the top.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Braising 39 recipes
- The pieces went into the liquid already deep brown on their faces, and the pot floor gave up its fond to that liquid rather than keeping it.
- The liquid comes partway up the pieces and stays there for the whole cook (not submerged, not run dry), and it never boils: the surface trembles and no more.
- It went long enough for the collagen to convert: a fork twists in it with almost no resistance, and the piece still lifts out whole rather than falling into shreds.
- The liquid has become a sauce: it has body, it coats the back of a spoon, and it tastes concentrated rather than thin and washed out.
- The meat is moist and seasoned through to its centre, not dry fibres sitting inside a good sauce.
Where it goes wrong The oven or the burner ran too hot and the liquid boiled, so the fibres tightened and squeezed their moisture out: it shreds dry into a thin greasy liquid, and more time makes it worse rather than better.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Syrah (northern Rhône) or Nebbiolo
- Also Right
- The braising wine itself, better bottle
- From the Taps
- Belgian dubbel
- Zero-Proof
- Beet & blackcurrant shrub
Long-cooked beef trades bite for depth: savory, structured reds echo the pot; and pouring the braise’s own region is law.
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