Word of the Day: Tegong

A university canteen with students in the back lining up for food

When I worked at a state media outlet in Beijing, at 12 noon we would get our empty food containers and chopsticks, and gather at the canteen door for some grub. Only when the staff were ready were the doors unlocked and we could see what grub was available.

There were thick noodles with a tomato and scrambled egg sauce, small plates of appetizers like pickled garlic cucumbers, or spicy pickled wood ear fungus, or even steamed or fried small fish.  My favourite on Thursdays was jiaozi, or dumplings. I'd get two catties' worth, or about 20 of them and was very happy eating them with a good dose of vinegar. The food was also very cheap too, only a few yuan.

Tomato and scrambled egg with noodles in soup

After a few days or weeks, I can't remember, a colleague I was eating lunch with said we were lucky to have good food. He explained that because we were working for a company that was state owned, the food was of a good quality. Of course he added, senior officials had access to the best quality food.

I was relieved to hear this, as there were so many stories of fake food in China, but I was also surprised to hear this privilege we had, just from working in state media, my colleagues toiling for 3,000 yuan a month.

Now I know there is a word for it, called 特需供應 te(4) xu (1) gong (1) ying (4) or tegong meaning "special supply", where food comes from organic farms, and quality trusted pork, beef and chicken producers.

This privilege extends to all canteens of local governments, state-owned enterprises, and elite athletes, while everyone else has to guess if the food they are eating is not dodgy.

Dumplings were never served like this in the canteen...

Tegong is an ancient tradition in China, where royal households in past dynasties used to source food from designated suppliers in regions known for their particular produce. One example is that during the Qing dynasty, emperors would only drink spring water from Beijing's western hills, which were carried over daily to the Forbidden City.

The tradition continued after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949 for Communist Party leaders. The main reason was for food security to ensure central government officials were not poisoned, the second was for food security during famines and food shortages. The third is reputation, where the government designates certain farms and suppliers for overseas consumption, including Hong Kong, so that the quality and safety is ensured.

During the 1980s, one of the grievances that led to the Tiananmen Square protests was anger against officials' privileges that included tegong. After the bloody crackdown, the government promised to do away with the tegong system, but the measure wasn't implemented.

And so this privilege is still here to this day, while people continue to buy milk powder outside of China, and any other food they can get their hands on.

Until government officials eat the regular food that the laobaixing or ordinary people eat, food scandals will continue to fester, while the privileged can enjoy their tegong food.

Picture of the Day: Homemade Dumplings

Our homemade dumplings are ready to be boiled and eaten!

Every year when I come back for the holidays, I make a batch of dumplings. Last year we used leftover turkey as well as ground pork with excellent results and even had my cousins visiting from Australia helping me wrap them.

This year we bought some ground pork and used leftover cabbage and mushrooms in the mix. There was already enough pork that we didn't include turkey this time, but forgot to add shrimp we had in the fridge.

We ate most of these dumplings tonight

My brother is amazed that I don't really follow a recipe -- I just kind of eyeball it in terms of portions, and try to make sure there's a good amount of vegetables in them.

As with every year, my mom insisted on doing a test run of the dumplings and we boiled two to see how they tasted -- I usually just go for it and wrap them all and see how they turn out later!

But we were good to go with an extra sprinkling of salt and another dash of sesame oil.

We almost used up four packages of wrappers (which we'll use up tomorrow with turkey and shrimp!) and after we cooked the dumplings, they made for a delicious dinner.

The dumplings had a nice crunchy texture thanks to the cabbage, and there was a hint of ginger too.

We've got a tray of leftover dumplings that's in the freezer that'll be good for my parents to eat!

Cheap and Cheerful

Two catties of the signature Man Lou boiled dumplings

A trip to Beijing is not complete without eating jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, and one well known local place is called Xian Man Lou (馅老满).

When I lived in Beijing, a German chef friend of mine came to visit with Chinese master chef, Liu Guozhu, as they were going to open Golden Flower in Wynn Macau.

They were in Beijing to do some research, as Liu used to be one of the chefs at the famed Beijing Hotel, where he cooked for the likes of Queen Elizabeth II, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

The filling inside has minced pork, chives, egg, and shrimp

Liu told me in his strong Beijing accent over the phone to meet them at this restaurant and I amazingly found it in Andingmen.

It's a two-storey restaurant and I found the two of them on the second floor at the back at a giant round table, and Liu had practically ordered every other dish on the menu. He warmly greeted me and told me to just try as much as I could!

The two chefs were leaving Beijing the next day and I was left with three bags filled with boxes of leftovers. It was insane!

Fast forward to this trip, my friend and I ended up in Andingmen after we wandered through Wudaoying hutong and I suggested we go to Xian Man Lou.

About a 10-minute walk later we were there, and after a short wait we had a table, also upstairs. I was surprised to find the restaurant wasn't as busy as it used to be, but perhaps because of the Qing Ming public holiday, there weren't as many students patronizing the restaurant at this time.

We'd had a late lunch, so we only had a few dishes. We ordered a cold appetizer of "crispy seaweed" (20 yuan), which wasn't crispy, but thick strips of seaweed that were rolled up and then sliced.

The filling here features a mackerel paste and chives

Then we had two different kinds of dumplings. While the restaurant says you can order yi liang (or one cattie, which equals 500 grams or 5 dumplings), they would rather you order er liang or two catties.

The signature lao man jiaozi (21 yuan for 10 pcs) was delicious and hearty -- it was filled with minced pork, chives, eggs and shrimp. The shrimp was a bit crunchy, and we liked the combination with the chives to brighten the flavours.

For a bit of experimentation, we tried the dumplings filled with mackerel and chives (31 yuan for 10 pcs). The mackerel was made into a smooth paste and combined with chives, though coriander would have worked just as well. I'd never had fish dumplings like this before and neither had my friend and she quite liked it.

We both downed a bottle of Yanjing beer (9 yuan) and we barely finished the food.

Nevertheless I'm glad Xian Man Lou is still there, and the dumplings are just as I remembered them! And as you can tell from the prices, it was a cheap and cheerful dinner!

Xian Man Lou

Anhu Beili Yayuan, Gulou

Andingmen
(+86) 6404 6944

Picture of the Day: Homemade Dumplings

The wrapped up dumplings ready to be frozen!

Earlier this week I met some dim sum chefs who showed me how to make things like har gao (shrimp dumplings), chive dumplings, soup dumplings, steamed rice rolls with minced pork and siu mai or pork and shrimp dumplings.

They made it look so easy, but when I tried to copy them, my dumplings looked clumsy and obviously amateur!

I immediately gained a new appreciation for dim sum -- that each piece is crafted by someone by hand.

The experience of making dim sum inspired me to make dumplings today -- the northern Chinese ones that are boiled.

It reminded me of when I was in Beijing and my Chinese teacher taught me and my then boyfriend how to make them from scratch. I just remember how exhausted we were after a good part of the day was spent making the fillings and then the dough, wrapping them and then finally getting to eat them!

The first batch of cooked dumplings! Yum!

I skipped trying to make the dough and focused on the pork and chive filling. I read through a few recipes and then went to the wet market to buy ingredients -- including the wrappers.

At the wet market I didn't see any ground pork so I went to the supermarket to buy it and was shocked to find we had to scoop it up ourselves into a plastic bag -- how unhygienic is that?!

The recipe called for a teaspoon of minced ginger but I put much more than that in there, and didn't have any sugar so I put a teaspoon of honey in it!

In the end I almost wrapped one cattie of wrappers (only about five left), so it pretty much worked out. The dumplings were put on plates and then left in the freezer before transferring them to a ziploc bag to prevent them from sticking together.

For dinner I ate a dozen of them and they were delicious!! I was glad I put a lot of ginger in there to perk up the flavours, but also the fresh chives were a nice addition too. The wrappers held up and were quite thin.

Now I can have dumplings whenever I want and wrapping them didn't take too long -- about an hour and a half? There's no excuse to eat store-bought ones now...

Kimchi-Making Sunday

My first attempt at making kimchi! Will find out how it tastes in about a week

A friend of mine invited me to attend a kimchi making class today and I jumped at the chance because I periodically like to do something with my hands other than type on the computer!

We went to a kitchen studio in Chai Wan where Korean American Mina Park is general counsel at an investment bank and off hours has Sook, a business where she cooks for friends and clients, and holds classes to teach people how to make kimchi.

Chives, garlic, ginger, red pepper powder, daikon in the bowl

Park has lived in London, France and around the United States, and through her mother gained a passion for cooking. When we came to her spacious studio, her aunt and uncle were there; Park has also learned family cooking from her aunt too, her mother's sister-in-law, who learned recipes from Park's grandmother.

There are many different kinds of kimchi, and Park said those who live in the south of Korea south generally use fish sauce, while those in the north may use beef broth; the recipe can also vary according to families and individually to what kinds of tastes they want to have in their kimchi.

She showed us how to make whole cabbage kimchi, which requires getting those thick oval-shaped napa cabbages, chopping them into quarters and soaking them in salted water overnight and squeezing out the excess water. We also had to do this with the daikon, as the ones in Hong Kong seem to hold more water than the Korean ones.

Mixing the rice paste into the sauce

Then we got to making the sauce, where we minced a head of garlic, same with ginger, roughly chopped garlic chives, and chopped the daikon into slices then julienne them.

The sauce is straight forward -- in a large bowl throw in all the garlic, ginger, chives, daikon, and about 1 1/4 cup of Korean red pepper -- the coarse kind -- otherwise it could turn out to be much spicier than you expect! 1/4 cup fish sauce and 2 tablespoons of fermented baby shrimp, and 1/4 cup roasted sesame seeds. Then we added some salt to taste. You could also add thinly sliced carrots for an extra crunch.

A rice paste also needs to be made, mixing sweet rice flour with hot water and constantly stirring it over high heat so that it will thicken. This needs to be cooled down before it is added to the spicy red mixture.

Once it is mixed in, then it's time to put on plastic gloves and take the cabbage that has been cut into quarters, squeeze out the excess water and then use your hands to slather the red spicy mixture onto each leaf.

Adding the spicy mixture to each cabbage leaf

After that's done, it's ready to be placed into the glass jar and Park advised we had to "be aggressive with your cabbage", by pushing it rather forcefully into the jar to ensure air bubbles are pushed out otherwise the fermentation process won't work well.

Squish squish squish.

Our jars were not large and so we were only able to squeeze in that one-quarter cabbage and maybe a few extra leaves. She warned us to leave some room at the top otherwise your jar of kimchi could explode! Park said it happened to her once and it was not a pretty sight...

So she suggested we could open our jars once a day as the kimchi fermented at room temperature to avoid the gas buildup at the top. Since it's relatively warm these days, the fermentation process will be quite fast, so Park advised we could leave the jars outside for about two days and then put it in the fridge. It will continue to ferment there, but not as fast. We have to wait about a week to be able to eat it.

It was lots of fun making it, and it's definitely one of those events where it's less of a task when a group of friends get together to prepare it, much like making jiaozi, or dumplings.

We'll see how my kimchi fares and if it works out I'd been keen to try making it again! Fermentation is the rage these days, and anything homemade taste even better... right?