Many old-school Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong still serve a few complimentary appetisers to whet diners’ appetite as they wait for their orders to be served. Among the most common are roasted peanuts, or pickled carrots and daikon or, a bit less frequently these days, a wonderful dish made of gluten, mushrooms and peanuts, which can be quite easily replicated at home.
Gluten, the protein in wheat, has gotten a bad rap in the past few years, but we should put this down to food fads more than anything else, as this dish can be eaten with great enjoyment by everyone who is not gluten sensitive or intolerant. To make gluten from scratch, it is sufficient to knead together high-gluten flour with a bit of water, and then wash it until all that remains is the elastic, porous proteins, mostly glutenin and gliadin. These make it a very nutritious substitute for meat, with the wonderful ability to soak up all the flavours it is cooked with
Usually, gluten or kaofu (haau1 fu1 烤麩) is braised with several other ingredients and consumed cold, as is the case with most foods served as an appetiser, but it is equally delicious eaten warm with a bowl of steamed rice. While the cooking procedure is quite simple, the rehydrating of the main ingredients, and the simmering involved, does require a bit of time. The quantities below are given for a main dish, not an appetiser; unless you run a restaurant, it doesn’t make sense to spend time rehydrating small amounts of food and braising them for more than half an hour. In case you want to stick to the old-school Cantonese restaurant tradition, though, and just serve a little bit of this before the main meal, follow the quantities below and bring it to the table one meal after the other, as it keeps very well in the fridge for up to four days, and the taste only gets better and more complex with time.
In Hong Kong, this dish is called hung4 siu1 haau1 fu1 (紅燒烤麩, “soy-braised gluten”). It is a specialty that arrived here with Shanghainese immigrants, although there it is actually called “four happiness gluten” (四喜烤, sei3 hei2 haau1 fu1 in Cantonese, or sìxi kaufu in Mandarin. Shanghainese people can get quite peeved when realising how Cantonese cooks have modified the name of the dish – even if not necessarily its recipe. Do bear this in mind if you are preparing this for Shanghainese guests, who are not alone in getting emotional about their most beloved foods.
One special thing that needs to be noted about this dish is that it is not only really very tasty, but it also showcases the Chinese fondness for interesting, pleasant food textures that create a singular mouthfeel. The different ingredients in this recipe stimulate not only our sense of taste but also the multiple tactile sensation inside the mouth. In Chinese, this is called hau2 gam2 (口感, literally “mouthfeel”). Among Chinese food connoisseurs, the mouthfeel of a dish is just as important as its taste.
Braised kaofu allows you to savour quite a variety of textures in one delicious dish. Braising allows it to soak up all the delicious flavours in the cooking liquid, becoming pleasantly soft, chewy and a little spongy. Simmered peanuts, whether raw or roasted, acquire a more tender crunchiness on the outside that makes your teeth sink in easily to then meet a slight, nutty resistance that invites chewing. Wood ear mushrooms, on the other hand — even after cooking for half an hour — retain most of their bouncy crunch, and a slippery consistency that is much praised by Chinese gourmets. The shiitake mushrooms, cooked after having been well soaked in water, are plump, fragrant, and very satisfying in the mouth, with a full bodied texture that could resemble meat. The delicate strands of dried lilies, on the other hand, feel like a slightly cooked vegetable, maybe a sliver of celery or a delicious strip of mushroom. As you pick up each ingredient with your chopsticks, your tastebuds appreciate all the variations and depth of flavours, while your teeth, tongue and palate are called to enjoy the contrasting textures.
The ”four happiness” referred to in the Shanghainese name of the dish are the kaofu itself, the mushrooms, the dried lilies and the wood ear fungus. (Some versions add slivers of bamboo sprouts, but this is not as common, especially in the Hong Kong versions of the dish.) Many recipes will recommend adding a spoonful of brown sugar, but do this only if you have a particularly sweet tooth: both the Shaoxing wine and the dark soy sauce are quite sugary in their natural form, and adding extra sugar may make your braised kaofu overly sweet, which defeats the purpose of an appetiser – to prepare diners to enjoy their meal by teasing their taste buds with a savoury delight.
Recipe: Braised kaofu
Ingredients for one main dish or several appetisers
1 packet of fresh kaofu or two slices of dehydrated kaofu
1 small piece of ginger, very thoroughly washed and sliced with the peel still on (for an earthier flavour)
About 10 to 12 small dehydrated shiitake mushrooms, or 5 larger ones
About 20 strands of dried lily flowers
A handful of dried wood ear fungus (those from Yunnan are particularly delicious)
One large spoonful of raw or roasted peanuts
15ml Shaoxing wine
45ml light soy sauce
30ml dark soy sauce
Neutral oil (such as peanut or canola)
800ml of filtered water
Procedure
Start by separately rehydrating all the dry ingredients, which will take about 30 to 40 minutes.
Put the shiitake mushrooms in 800ml filtered water, which you will keep and add to the stew.
Wood ear soaks up a lot of water, so put them in a large enough bowl with enough water to cover them generously – a lot of the water will be absorbed, and the fungus tends to quadruple in size.
Put the dried lilies in a smaller bowl, with just enough water to cover them.
If you are using fresh kaofu, rinse it quickly under running water, pat it dry with kitchen paper, and cut into squares – about 2x2cm each. If you are using dried kaofu, soak it first in a large amount of water, until soft to the touch. Squeeze it dry, pat it with kitchen paper, and cut as above.
Heat your wok, then add a few tablespoons of oil. Once it is hot, add the sliced ginger and stir for about 30 seconds. At this point, add the kaofu and let it brown slightly on all four sides while stirring regularly (about 4 to 5 minutes.)
Drain all the soaked ingredients, discarding the water – except for the water from the shiitake mushrooms. Add the lily flowers to the wok, along with the wood ear mushrooms, peanuts, the two soy sauces, Shaoxing wine and the water. Give a good stir.
Quickly chop off and discard the stems from the shiitake mushrooms, as they tend to be hard even after soaking, then add the mushrooms to the wok together with their soaking water. Discard only the last few drops, as they may have a few bits of dirt that has fallen to the bottom.
Cover the wok with a lid, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the pan. Wait for the liquid to absorb on a medium-high flame. This will take around 30 minutes.
When most of the liquid has absorbed, stir a bit more vigorously, to prevent it from sticking, and taste the kaofu for saltiness. The soy sauces and natural umami of the mushrooms should make this savoury enough. If you find it too bland, do not add salt; just add a few drops of light soy sauce.
Plate the dish and serve hot or cold.