Sometimes Ignorance is Bliss

If I had to sum up Hong Kong in a sentence I would say, "a crazy, exciting, fun place with AWESOME food and shopping".  When expats move there they either grab the bull by the horns and have a ball or they find it so overwhelming that they don't cope and end up going back to their own country.  I was the expat that grabbed the bull by its horns and threw myself into the culture.  I learnt some basic Mandarin, Cantonese, Chinese cooking, Chinese knots and Mahjong - Hong Kong rules of course.

Chinese food is fantastic but to the average "gweilo" authentic Chinese food can be just a bit too weird and scary.  As we all know the Cantonese are known to eat pretty much every part of the beast... did I take risks and try things that I wouldn't normally eat...hell yeah!  Look, if I could eat a witchetty grub and a bogong moth when I was a kid, I could sure eat snake soup and the like... and I did.  After living in HK for 3 years and then recently moving back to oz I have suffered a bit from reverse culture shock as it was almost like living on another planet.  No longer do I go to the wet markets to do my shopping where I see chickens being slaughtered and intestines hanging on hooks and/or blood and guts.  Now I go to a quality butcher located in Mawson and Coles supermarket; and everything is sanitized - I am still yet to discover the local Canberra markets but expect pretty much the same....gourmet products but no nasty surprises.

I miss the excitement of shopping in the wet market talking to the vendors in my basic Cantonese and/or Mandarin.  I miss picking out unusual herbs such as Sichuan peppercorn leaves, transported from Sichuan, or picking out live prawns and shrimps.  I miss the giggle of my 6 year old when a prawn escaped from the plastic bag and jumped all over the floor on the bus.  Did anyone care?  No... this was Hong Kong, this was part of everyday life.  On the other hand, did I know what I was eating half the time? No.  Did many expats shop at the wet market? No.  Could I have eaten harmful fungicides and pesticides? Yes.  Did the prawns in Hong Kong have a lot of flavour? No.  Did the Chinese farmers use lots of antibiotics with their farmed animals and seafood? Yes.  Australia has some of the finest seafood, meat, poultry and produce in the world and the highest standards but when you live overseas sometimes ignorance is bliss.  Australia is truly the lucky country but we do have to look after it as the pollution in Hong Kong is so bad some days that you only have 2km visibility.  China produces most of the world's products and the environmental disasters resulting from this are catastrophic and possibly irreversible. Although, I love Hong Kong and there will always be place for it in my heart I also love Australia so will always be torn.

Spices in Graham Street Wet Market

A typical butcher in the wet market.

My 6 year old loved going to the wet market and always held the bag of live prawns on the way home.  I also remember how excited she was when she saw some live toads floating in a bowl above a tub of water...it was even funnier when the vendor started spinning the bowl and the toads got dizzy.

Fruit and veggie stalls at Graham Street wet market on Hong Kong Island.

Below are photos of an authentic Chinese grocery store.  Wing Woo Grocery store located in Wellington Street (now closed) had operated for over 80 years and was handed down through generations.  It was popular with locals and tourists alike and was one of my favourite shops.

Top floor of the store where Kwan Moon-chui lived - don't cha love the gorgeous pink long johns:P  The building itself is over a 100 years old but,  if not already, will be torn down by Urban Renewal Authority and will become the site of the portal for the new wet markets in the Central district.  

Well that's about it for today, from the photo's above I think you now have some insight as to what life was like - very different but very exciting.  If there are any other bloggers out there that have found the excitement in Canberra let me know coz I haven't found it:( 

Noodles with Beef & Soy Sauce

These noodles were my absolute favourite in Hong Kong and I think I make a pretty mean version of them.  There is a chef located at Causeway Bay that has a reputation for making the best version of this dish, he uses pork fat in his recipe and so do I...

Ingredients:
2 small rib eye beef steaks (sliced finely)
3 cloves of garlic (chopped finely)
2 tblspn fresh ginger (chopped finely)
1 bunch of garlic chives (cut into 1 inch lengths)
pork fat (walnut size)
1 packet of fresh rice noodles (sliced thickly)
1 cup of oil (to blanch the beef)
1 tbsp oil extra

Marinade:
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
2 tsp water
2 tsp shao xing wine

Sauce:
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp chicken powder

1.  Marinate the beef in the marinade for 15 minutes.  Make sure that you dissolve the bicarb soda well in the water before adding it to the beef and mix thoroughly.  After 15 minutes pour the beef into a sieve to remove excess moisture then using one cup of oil, blanch the beef in the wok (on high heat) until it changes colour - remove.  Pour the oil through a strainer and either dispose or store for later use. Rinse the hot wok under running tap water and clean with a nylon brush then put it back on the wok burner for later use.
2.  Pour a few drops of dark soy sauce onto the fresh rice noodles (in a bowl) and mix thoroughly so that they become a lovely brown colour.
3.   Heat the wok on high until it smokes.  Add 1 tbsp cold oil (drizzled around the middle of the wok so that it runs down to the bottom) then add the chopped ginger and garlic.  Stir-fry a few seconds then add the strained beef back to the wok, add the garlic chives and stir-fry continuously until the garlic chives start to wilt.  At this stage, add the pork fat then the rice noodles.  Stir-fry until the noodles become soft and separate.
4.  Add the sauce and stir-fry until the noodles and beef are well coated.

Note: For the pork fat I went to my local butcher and asked for the fat that surrounds the kidneys.  This fat renders down to a liquid and imparts a smoky flavour to the dish.  Garlic chives and the fresh rice noodles are available from your local Asian grocery store. Below is a picture of the packet of fresh noodles that I used.