Three More "Over Rice"Dishes
Teochew Olive Vegetable, Steamed Egg with Crispy Pork, Guizhou Pickled Greens & Beans (Homestyle version)
Xiafancai, or as we translate it - "over rice dishes", are dishes that go well with rice, we covered a few of them in our previous video here, and by popular demand, we will show you a few more today. Xiafancai are the ideal kind of dishes that's perfect for a simple weeknight meal.
As a general timeline, all you need to do is this: (1) make your rice (2) while the rice is cooking, whip up your xiafancai, then (3) at the very end, stir fry or blanch some simple vegetables to finish the meal.
A rice cooker is a very helpful tool as it requires zero attention and frees you up to do other cooking steps (seriously, if you like Asian food, just go get a rice cooker, like right now).
And when it's cooking, we also often like to toss in a washed egg while the rice is bubbling or about 10-15 minutes away from finishing, the rice cooker will steam the egg and you'll have some easy protein to go along with your meal. Perfect to dip in soy sauce, too.
Teochew Olive Vegetable
First up, as is tradition… something that’s not really a “dish”, per se - college dorm style stuff-in-a-jar pickles.
This is Gan Lan Cai, Olive Vegetable, and there’s actually… no olives in it. But if you eat white rice – like, ever – buy this jar. You will finish it. And you will go back to the grocer for seconds.
It’s a pickled mustard green from Chaozhou, albeit seasoned with ganlan, Chinese olive. While actually totally unrelated to the olive-olive you’re familiar with, it still gives the pickle this really deep flavor that’s just awesome with rice. This stuff plus rice, plus a boiled egg (like we sorted above), plus a bit of vegetable is an incredibly easy one person meal.
Steamed Egg with Crispy Pork
Moving on, the next dish is this jiggly-wiggly steamed egg with meat topping. This kind of pudding-liked steamed egg is often a kids’ favorite in a Chinese family dinner table. There’re many, many variations of it… but this is a Sichuan version with a meat topping, Sao Zi Zheng Dan (绍子蒸蛋).
Eggs, 4.
Seasoning for the egg:
Salt, ½ tsp.
Sugar, ¼ tsp.
White pepper powder, sprinkle (~1/16 tsp).
Chicken bouillon powder, ⅛ tsp.
Water or stock, 250mL.
Pork belly, 100g. Or the equivalent amount of ground pork or beef.
Scallions, sliced.
Oil from frying pork, 2 tsp. Supplement with toasted sesame oil if needed.
Note: We use pork belly, and mince it by hand. For this dish, you can also use ground pork or ground beef - same 100g quantity - something like 80/20 pack of it. When frying, it's not going to release as much oil as the pork belly is, so do add more oil to start your meat off with - at least a tablespoon, lard preferably. You'll need to break it up quite a bit, and patiently fry it til crisp and golden brown.
Process:
Mince 100g of pork belly, if applicable. To mince, first slice into thin sheets, then into thin slivers, and finally into a fine dice. Go at it with two cleavers and chop it down into a mince; ~3 minutes.
Crack 4 eggs; whisk in a zig-zag pattern so that air does not get incorporated. Once you've beaten until no stray strands of egg white remain, add in the seasoning - ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp sugar, sprinkle of white pepper powder, ⅛ tsp chicken bouillon powder - and 250mL of water or stock. Quick whisk to incorporate.
Strain the egg mixture into the steaming bowl.
Steam the egg, covered, for six minutes. Then shut off the heat and let it sit there for another six minutes.
While the egg is steaming, fry the pork. If using belly, fry over a medium-low flame to slowly render out the lard - almost like you were making cracklins. If using ground meat, start with a bit more oil, and fry it to past done, until it gets a bit crispy. Save at least 2 tsp of the oil from frying.
Remove the egg, top it with your crispy meat, 2 tsp of the reserved oil, and the sliced scallions.
Guizhou Pickled Greens & Beans (Homestyle Version)
This is a quick, homestyle version of Guizhou Pickled Greens and Beans. It uses canned kidney beans as the ‘bean’ in the dish, and is personally one of our go-to quick meals.
Suan cai pickled mustard greens -or- kimchi, 100g. Kimchi is not a very close substitute for Suancai, but after testing we also found it rather delicious with this dish. For another different-but-tasty sub, you could also try sauerkraut.
Canned kidney beans, 240g. Or, one can.
Aromatics:
Garlic, 3 cloves. Smashed.
Ginger, ~1 inch. Smashed.
Scallions, ~3. White and green part separated. White part sliced into ~2 inch sections, greens sliced.
Dried chilis, 5. Stem removed, snipped into ~1 inch sections.
Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine, ~1 tsp.
Seasoning:
Salt, ½ tsp.
Sugar, ¼ tsp.
Soy sauce, 1 tsp.
MSG, ~⅛ tsp.
Dark Chinese vinegar, ½ tsp.
Water, 1 cup.
Lard or oil, ~1 tbsp.
Process:
Soak 100g of suancai pickled greens for ~5 minutes, then squeeze out the liquid. Rinse 240g of canned beans to remove the brine.
Mash ~¼ of the tinned beans, ~60g worth. Finely mince the suancai pickled greens.
Smash 3 cloves of garlic and ~1 inch of ginger. Remove the stem and snip 5 dried chilis into one inch sections. Separate the white and green parts of ~3 scallions, slice each.
Longyau with ~1 tbsp of lard or oil. Over medium flame, add the garlic and ginger, fry until fragrant. Add the scallion whites and dried chilis, fry for ~30 seconds. Add the minced suan cai pickled greens, fry for ~2 minutes until wilted and popping. Add mashed beans, quick mix. Swirl in ~1 tsp of Shaoxing wine. Add remaining beans and 1 cup of water. Increase the flame to high.
Season with ¼ tsp sugar and 1 tsp soy sauce. Boil on high for 3-4 minutes until thickened to your liking. Taste, add ½ tsp salt if needed. Season with ½ tsp dark Chinese vinegar and ⅛ tsp MSG, and add the scallion greens.