Mom has been unwell ever since her major fall 2 months back, and often time whenever I am home I will try to get her to rest and I handle the kitchen
Do you have a favourite childhood dish that your mom / parent / grandparent made, where you just wished you have learned it yourself?
Nothing is too late if the dish maker is still around to guide you. 😊
What happens when you have a craving for your childhood dish your mom made some time back but now, she's a little too weak to do so?
Time to learn it
Though I didn't get 100% marks because I missed 2 special (optional) ingredients, I think I still kind of nailed it in some ways.
The Yam Pork (or Chicken) Stew
I always loved this dish. It brings me a lot of quirky memories of my childhood, when I used to pretend I was "goldilocks" and I was tasting the most delicious stew (or porridge in the original story) ever, and the yam (pork) stew one it.
I don't remember who's side was it from, but I decided to tweak whatever I have sourced and turned a version of my own.
This yam stew usually was cooked during the 9th Lunar Month or the Hungry Ghost Month at the Taoist temples to feed those who couldn't afford / pilgrims. The Temple version is a vegetarian version; but at home mom made it fancy.
And just so happened I have stumbled across a half priced yam (before it is thrown to the vegetable bin by the grocers). and this yam just so happened to be the "perfect" type to make the stew because it is considered the "powdery" type where it will mush nicely like potatoes, instead of the dense type of yam.
Yes, there are different categories of yam
My mom once said, to detect if it is the "stew" friendly yam, you have to look at the flesh and see if (once cut) it is:
- Powdery white
- Has pinkish dots
- Faint fragrance.
Yes, different type of yams are used for different type of dishes. Dense ones are better used as deep fried.
Usually Yam Stew does not have mushrooms, but since I also stumbled upon half-priced shiitake mushrooms, why not add this high fiber ingredient into the stew?
It is still my own stew, tweaked from the original recipe.
But I still missed the 2 ingredients that didn't get me 100 marks. I will share at the end. 😂
Yams are tricky, just like brinjal / eggplant, to have it served soft and moist and flavourful, you will need to panfry it a little with oil.
While the yam slices are being sauté, I took the time to dice enough garlic (for 2 dishes) and ginger and flavour punches for the stew.
Once the yam are ready like this, slightly translucent, it is time to set it aside.
I also acquired some fatty pork (because elderly love their fats) and seasoned it with a bit of oyster sauce, soy sauce, a dash of pepper and sesame seed oil. I can't say exactly what is the portion but it is too your liking.
However to play safe, a tablespoon of soy sauce, oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon of sesame seed oil (add a little more if it feels uncoated); and then add 1/2 teaspoon of corn starch (flour) to soften the meat during seasoning.
You can do this for chicken too.
However if you are vegan, then you can skip this step.
Pan fry a little the meat without the seasoned sauce for them to cook tender and set it aside.
Then the main cooking of the sauce begins
These are the 3 secret ingredients that my mom loves to make the yam stew (or any other stew for that matter) they are
- Oyster sauce for the umami
- fermented bean paste
- fermented bean curd (red / non spicy version)
don't use the spicy version. It will not taste nice. At least for me.
Sauté the garlic and ginger medium fire on a hot "seasoned" stainless steel pot to avoid any sticking at the bottom. I am using red palm oil for this because just so happened we were blessed with it, and it does smells a lot more fragrant than usual vegetable oil.
Immediately add the nicely washed and diced shiitake mushrooms into the pot before the garlic and ginger turn burnt. The water in the mushroom would sip through into the pot.
Add the marinated sauce into the mix into the pot and let it simmer for a while
Add additional water, 1/4 cup at a time if it is drying up
Then add 1/2 teaspoon of bean paste (not the fermented one) into it and stir it well.
Add in the sauté meat (pork / chicken) with the yam into the mushroom stew mix. Add a little more water if it is still too dry.
And this is the tangy part. Add 1/4 teaspoon little by little of the fermented bean-curd until you like the taste. If it is a little too tangy for you, you can counter it with a tiny bit of sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper.
Slowly stir it until all the ingredients for the stew sauce is combined
Why do I only add the bean curd last? That's because the yam and the pork would have diluted the taste when mixed and if this ingredient is put too much in the beginning, it can be super overwhelming.
I also acquired this unusual "coral mushroom" for half priced (because it was about to be overdue) and tried it as stir-fry vegetable
I must say that the stir-fry oyster sauce-garlicy spinach with this mushroom did turn out nice because the mushroom doesn't turn super chewy after cooking a while, unlike the king oyster mushrooms.
This was the dinner for my parents, paired with rice.
Of course, I cooked a little more of the stew so that we can keep it for the next dish and dad can just heat it up with overnight fridge rice and it steams up the meal nicely.
I would say this can be a kind of Asian meal prep for busy people.
So what did I miss that I didn't get 100 marks from my mom?
Herb Spices
I told my mom that I thought I did everything right but there's just "something missing"
Turned out that I forgot about the cinnamon stick and star anise!
Just a pinky finger sized cinnamon stick and 1 star anise for that portion would made wonders for the dish!
I have logged this here so that I will not forget in the future 😅
What do you think?
Would you try this interesting umami stew?
Oh the vegetarian version omits the oyster sauce, but will use the bean paste, red fermented bean-curd and balance the taste with salt, sugar and pepper.
Sometimes the temple people doesn't even use the bean paste because it is very expensive to acquire; but the fermented bean-curd is a must for that flavourful fragrant pack aroma.
It is acquired taste: the red fermented bean-curd
Until Then
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