Kiam Chai Ark recipe
Feb. 22nd, 2007 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beautifulduckweedKiam Chai Ark literally means "salty vegetable duck" in Hokkien, and it's a traditional Hokkien soup that my mother would make every Chinese New Year. I came up with a version this year that turned out astonishingly well--almost as good as what my mom would've made. Here's the recipe:
900-1000 g salted mustard greens, also known as sour salted mustard cabbage (you can get these in vacuum-sealed 300 g packages at a good Asian grocery store, though the best stores will have big old tubs of brine from which you can pick out which heads you want)
1 3-lb. roast duck (you can roast your own, or cheat and buy one from a Chinese restaurant, or you can skip it entirely and make the soup vegetarian)
1 large yellow onion
6-8 cloves peeled, crushed garlic
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 20-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, or if tomatoes are in season, get 5 or 6 good-sized tomatoes and cut into quarters
1 whole nutmeg
2 dried chillies, cut in half, more if you like it hotter
1. Rinse mustard greens thoroughly under running water to get rid of excess brine. Chop off thick part of stem and separate leaves, and chop leftover stems into 1" chunks.
2. Drain the canned tomatoes and cut them in half.
3. Chop up the duck into 10 pieces or so and remove excess subcutaneous fat, though save the skin. Snack liberally on the meat.
4. Crush nutmeg briefly--you don't want powder, you just want it bashed around a little.
5. Throw everything into a large stockpot (the one I used had a 4-gallon capacity, I believe) and fill with enough water to cover.
6. Bring to a gentle boil, then turn the heat down so the soup simmers. Let simmer for at least 4 hours, preferably 5 to 6. Enjoy with some jasmine rice, or as an accompaniment to dishes like pork with ginger, sesame oil and soy sauce, or stir-fried choy sum/yu choy (a.k.a. edible rape--huh huh, edible rape), or sweet and sour fish.
Note: if you have a roast chicken carcass or pork bones, those would work excellently for this soup as well. In that case, this recipe would become kiam chai keh (salty vegetable chicken) or kiam chai bak (salty vegetable meat--pork is synonymous with meat in a lot of Chinese dialects).
900-1000 g salted mustard greens, also known as sour salted mustard cabbage (you can get these in vacuum-sealed 300 g packages at a good Asian grocery store, though the best stores will have big old tubs of brine from which you can pick out which heads you want)
1 3-lb. roast duck (you can roast your own, or cheat and buy one from a Chinese restaurant, or you can skip it entirely and make the soup vegetarian)
1 large yellow onion
6-8 cloves peeled, crushed garlic
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 20-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, or if tomatoes are in season, get 5 or 6 good-sized tomatoes and cut into quarters
1 whole nutmeg
2 dried chillies, cut in half, more if you like it hotter
1. Rinse mustard greens thoroughly under running water to get rid of excess brine. Chop off thick part of stem and separate leaves, and chop leftover stems into 1" chunks.
2. Drain the canned tomatoes and cut them in half.
3. Chop up the duck into 10 pieces or so and remove excess subcutaneous fat, though save the skin. Snack liberally on the meat.
4. Crush nutmeg briefly--you don't want powder, you just want it bashed around a little.
5. Throw everything into a large stockpot (the one I used had a 4-gallon capacity, I believe) and fill with enough water to cover.
6. Bring to a gentle boil, then turn the heat down so the soup simmers. Let simmer for at least 4 hours, preferably 5 to 6. Enjoy with some jasmine rice, or as an accompaniment to dishes like pork with ginger, sesame oil and soy sauce, or stir-fried choy sum/yu choy (a.k.a. edible rape--huh huh, edible rape), or sweet and sour fish.
Note: if you have a roast chicken carcass or pork bones, those would work excellently for this soup as well. In that case, this recipe would become kiam chai keh (salty vegetable chicken) or kiam chai bak (salty vegetable meat--pork is synonymous with meat in a lot of Chinese dialects).
