Every time I’m back in Hong Kong, I head straight for a good dim sum restaurant. If you haven’t had dim sum before, it’s as close to competitive eating as I’ve ever experienced. And I’m not talking about the amount of food consumed, either. In Hong Kong, many dim sum restaurants don’t have a nice, orderly wait list, buzzing beepers or call-aheads. Instead, you start by taking a calculating, broad sweep of the entire layout, and in a split-second survey which dining guests are closest to asking for the check.

You then divide up your party, assign tables (even the kids) and plant yourself right there at the table

This signals that you are next to take that table. Not too close, because if the table considers you rude, they’d just linger at the table longer to piss you off. But not too far, because another waiting patron could come squeeze in and take claim.

The moment that the very first guest lifts his/her torso to get out of the chair, you must quickly, effectively and stealthy signal to the rest of your party to dash over and take control of the table-handoff situation. Timing is important. Because if the rest of your party doesn’t recognize your signal, too much time passes or worse yet, ANOTHER waiting party sees your signal and makes a mad dash in for a hostile takeover, you’re totally screwed. And once more than half the table is seated by hostile takeover, you have no chance in hell to get the table back, even if it was rightfully yours.

And I haven’t even gotten to the best part – since the cart-pushers are paid on commission, there’s competition for having the A+, easy-selling dishes like Shrimp Har Gow (you wouldn’t want to be stuck with Black Moss Lotus Seed Steamed Duck Tongue that only a few people would find appetizing). They even jockey for floor space with pushers teaming up to cart-block a path to a good table with hungry guests. Yes, it gets nasty.

Thank goodness we don’t have to experience that type of competitive sport here in Tampa Bay. A few weeks ago, I was shooting a television segment at Publix Greenwise and then afterwards scooted over to T.C. Choy’s Asian Bistro across the street and got to enjoy a dim-sum lunch sans vultures.

I’ve asked them for a recipe to publish, and this is a brand new one that will be part of their new menu. While it’s not a typical “dim sum” dish, it certainly is a very popular recipe from Hong Kong.

We’re currently spending the long weekend at Mount Dora again with good friends Brian and Rachelle.

Despite being smack dab in the middle of Florida, I was floored by the fresh sushi at Mount Dora Sushi. Owner Janet Craig, who is half-Japanese runs this restaurant with her family. It’s one of the most popular dining destinations in the area, some drive over an hour away just to sample the best sushi around.

So, lets talk about Uni, or sea urchin. Thank goodness for my friend, Casson Trenor, author of Sustainable Sushi and an activist with Greenpeace. Through his book and through the Monterey Aquarium iPhone app, I can usually navigate through a sushi menu pretty well and choose to dine on delicacies that are sustainable. I wanted to call Casson and be sure though, since Uni’s situation is a little more complicated.

Uni that we enjoy here in the U.S. comes from several places, Alaska, California, Canada and Maine, for example. Yes, it also comes from Japan but is extremely expensive, and usually out of pocket book reach of many diners… which is good because we know very little about the harvesting practices and regulations in Japan (pssst…pass on Japanese Uni until we know more information!)

According to Casson, Uni from Maine should be avoided at all costs. There is little regulation, management and stock strengths are at approximately 10% of what they once were. Uni from Canada is excellent, as they enforce strict quotas on the hand-harvesting of Uni. California is a good resource for the delicacy as well.

It’s wonderful to see this small sushi company in the middle of Florida doing whatever they can to protect the sustainability of sushi. While their menu list isn’t absolutely perfect, Janet assures me that every day they do what they can as a small company to respect the environment, including specifically sourcing Uni from California and Canada. Here is the recipe for their Mount Dora Sushi Uni Shooter, one of the best I’ve ever had.

===

Mount Dora Sushi with Chef Kobayashi doing his magic:

Vivid purple flowers and a yummy vegetable flower made from celery, tomato and green onion:

I loved these Japanese ramune soda drinks as a kid – A glass marble seals the top of the bottle, which is held in place by the carbonation. To open, you have to push the glass marble down into the neck of the bottle. Andrew thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

It’s not everyday that you get an email from a reader asking to be an intern.

A free intern.

Hell yeah!

*eyes sparkling* rubbing hands together…Will she do dishes? Laundry? Scrub the floors?

Uh…yeah…prob not. She said “intern” not “housecleaner.”

Well, okay, but STILL! Someone to go through my spam, read comments, correct my spelling, ghost comment on other blogs. SCORE!

Oh sheesh! I’m just kiddin’ ya! But I know that’s what y’all were thinking!

Seriously, having an intern is a serious commitment on my part, to me it means mentoring, sharing, supporting. It means unzipping the day-to-day details of my career and REALLY analyzing why and how because *snicker* some days the why’s are simply “just cuz” and the how’s are “staggering blindly,” which really…doesn’t…sound…too…mentor-like.

But it also means creating space in my life each week to flick the switch on Skype and talk with Jess, going through photog tips, blogging advice, how to write recipes, how to do the SEO dance and just general advice. In return, Jess will be researching, writing and photographing for my Ingredients section and post a handful of delicious recipes like this one, her family recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice.

I think this will be a great adventure for all of us!

Jess’s blog is Jess’s Many Mini Adventures in Food and Farming. She’s an amazing, passionate gal who loves food as much as I do. Please welcome Jess to Steamy Kitchen!

-Jaden

p.s. have you ever considered asking one of your favorite veteran bloggers to intern?

Hey all,

Jess here, Steamy Kitchen’s new intern. That’s me chewing on a mango in my tiny kitchen preparing for a meal at Synergy Farm (a farm on an island!) where I intern at. I’m actually in my kitchen right now on my lunch break, looking out at the barn and the carrots in the north garden, munching on a quesadilla with beet greens and feeling amazed all over again at how I ended up here, on a farm, writing to all of you wonderful readers!

I’ve been here since late March, just after my 24th birthday. Before that, I was living in Cambodia helping girls get an education; before Cambodia, I was working at Google, and waaaaaay back before then (well not so long ago, actually) I ran an afterschool program in the bay area. I love adventure, and I love to consider the small ways I can change the world for the better, and over the past few years, I’ve become convinced that my way of making my world better is through food.

Growing up in Orange County, California, I never thought much about where my In-N-Out Burger or spicy tuna roll came from. Every since I was 4 years old perched on a kitchen stool, stirring up Betty Crocker, I’ve always been in love with food: cooking it, eating it, playing with it. I love cooking with friends; chopping veggies gives me a high like no other; but it was only recently that I’ve become fascinated with how our food is grown, processed and distributed to us and also how it affects our health, our environment and our communities. I figured it made sense to get down in the dirt and learn more about these issues firsthand, so I became an apprentice on a small organic farm in the beautiful San Juan Islands.

So what’s all this got to do with blogging? The food blogging community has been a way for me to connect with other people who think and care about food as much as I do. I’m completely inspired by all the amazing folks out there sharing their recipes and opinions and lives. Jaden’s agreed to transmit some of her samurai skills in cooking and food writing to me so I can join in the fun.

All this food love had to come from somewhere, and I tend to attribute a lot of it to good genes. My mum’s side of the family is Singaporean and I grew up in a whirlwind of popiah, freshly baked curry puffs, and beef rendang. Though I’m open to all kinds of cuisines, I hold a special place in my heart for a good plate of chili crab or chicken satay.

When I was small my family made many trips to my grandparents’ house back in Singapore. Early in the mornings, before it got unbearably hot, my grandpa would head down to the local hawker center (a food court with lots of different stalls) to pick up breakfast. He would come back to the house with a bag full of packets wrapped in banana leaves, still hot, shiny with oil, and intensely fragrant. We’d each carefully unwrap our packet, uncover the pieces of tender, perfectly steamed chicken on top of savory rice. We’d tuck in to the fragrant ginger-garlic-chickeny heaven, topped in our favorite combinations of magical sauces and eat till we were ready to face the sticky tropical day.

These days you can still find Hainanese chicken rice in hawker centers across the island for a couple of dollars a plate, and also in high-end restaurants serving up authentic cuisine. This is what a hawker center looks like — like a mall food court, only with mee goreng and peanut soup instead of Sbarro!

It’s often called Singapore’s national dish. When I was a kid and my family would go back to visit Singapore, I had three loves: fried bananas, paratha, and chicken rice. When I was visiting family last November, it was one of the first things they took me to eat — the carcasses in the stall beckoned to me with the promise of super-fresh tender chicken — some things just don’t change.

Though it gets its name from its origins in Hainan, China, it was really when overseas Chinese brought the dish to Singapore that it got a new personality and became famous.

According to my mom, this recipe is really only authentic when made with a “kampong” chicken, which means basically, a chicken from the village: the kind that roam around in the sun and eat whatever grubs and grass and scraps of rice are available. These kinds of chickens look pretty skinny by our standards, but they have an amazing flavor that I can only describe as “extremely chickeny.”

Here on the farm, we raise the closest equivalent to a “kampong” chicken that you’ll likely find in the US — not as scrawny, but pretty much as delicious. Our chickens are organically fed and pasture-raised, which means they get to spend their days outside, hanging out in the sun, roam in the grass, pecking at greens and grubs. We raise about 120 in each batch and they take about 8 weeks to go from chick to chicken rice. As my mentor, Farmer Susan likes to say, these chickens live a really really good life and then have one really bad day. They are ridiculously good just boiled plain in a pot of water and salted slightly.

All that good care makes these chickens more pricey than your average bird and on a farmer’s salary, it’s tough to afford them, but thankfully in our chicken processing just a couple weeks ago, I was able to snag a couple of tiny 2-pounders that we wouldn’t be able to sell, that were just perfect for chicken rice.

Hello guys and gals, it’s Jaden back again – Jess gave me her recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice and I made it to show you step by step instructions! It’s a multi-step recipe, with 4 components:

1) Chicken
2) Rice
3) Chili Dipping Sauce

oh yes, the soup too, but you don’t really have to do much other ladle into the bowls.

So, let’s start with the CHICKEN.

Hainanese Chicken

This is an organic supermarket chicken (I wish we were all as lucky as Jess to be able to have fresh chicken!) Here’s the deal about the chicken. You gotta buy the best. Because this Hainanese Chicken Rice dish is all about the pure taste of the chicken, you really want to go with organic. It’s worth the money for your health, the environment and taste buds.

When you buy a whole chicken and are cooking it skin-on, and ESPECIALLY if you’re steaming or poaching the thing, you want to make sure you get the “nasties” off.

I’m sure by looking at this photo you know what I mean. What I’m after is smooth, unblemished skin.

So I give my guy a facial.

Yes, I’m totally serious!

I exfoliate my chicken.

Wow, I can’t believe I just confessed to you that I give my chickens a spa treatment. Please don’t think I’m strange! Please tell me that you do this too!??????

Start with a small handful of kosher salt. Regular table salt is too fine to use to exfoliate. Sea salt too expensive. Just use kosher salt. Oh and even if you don’t have that loose skin on your chicken, it doesn’t mean you don’t need to exfoliate — there’s still hidden guck and yuck that is trapped in that chicken skin. TRUST ME. Your chicken will look and taste better this way.

Now RUB RUB RUB!!

Be gone wrinkles!

Be gone trapped guck!

Be gone dead skin! <- yes, I know that sounded ridiculous on so many levels.

Work those pores!

Rinse, pat dry and ta-da!!!

Glistening.

Glowing.

Soft.

Smooth.

Taut.

Chicken.

Check those lovely pores.

Season the inside and outside the chicken with salt and stuff the bird with ginger and green onions. Remember, you are not only seasoning the chicken, but also the poaching water too, so be generous with the salt. I generally double the amount of salt that I would normally use on a chicken. I’ll show you how much water we’re adding in a sec.

Put it in a big pot and fill with water to just cover by 1 inch. Note that some of the stuffing might fall out. Which is totally okay. Don’t worry.

Bring that baby to a boil and then immediately turn the heat to low to keep a simmer. You’ll begin to see some of that scum. Now hey, if we didn’t exfoliate our chicken, I bet that scum would be a lot browner. I have a handy dandy scum skimmer. If you don’t have a scum skimmer, buy one, it’s only $2!

After simmering on the lowest heat (just enough for little tiny bubbles to break surface) and your chicken reaches the correct temp (take the chicken temperature at the thickest part of the thigh that’s not touching bone, it should read 170F). This is is done!

Prepare an ice bath and immediately lift the chicken out of the pot with 2 big slotted spoons or 2 big fat spatulas.

Here’s a tip. Don’t try to grab the chicken legs to pull the chicken out. You’ll end up tearing the skin and heh, maybe even tearing the drumsticks outta the chicken which results in you standing there holding two drumsticks and the rest of the chicken plopping back into the boiling hot broth which then splashes back on your arms and face. Speaking from experience, of course.

Oh, and don’t even THINK about pouring that clean, delicious broth down the sink! We’ll be using that to cook the rice, prepare the sauce and to drink as soup! So, remember, gently lift the chicken out from under and try not to disturb its delicate (and exfoliated!) skin.

My pot of ice water wasn’t big enough, but it worked, I just turned the chicken over a few times to make sure both sides were cooled. Why are we doing this, you ask!? Ha! I thought you’d never ask. Well let me tell ya. Plunging in an ice bath stops the cooking process immediately AND tightens the skin, making it springy and firm. The quality of the chicken skin is important in this dish! It’s all about the skin texture.

See here? That’s your soup! Season with salt if necessary.

Hainanese Rice

I use Jasmine rice, or long grained rice. Of course, feel free to sub with whatever rice you want, but I prefer Jasmine white rice. I’m using 2 cups of rice. Rinse the rice grains several times in water to get rid of excess starch and other rice cling-ons. Then let the rice soak in water for 10 minutes.

Drain the rice completely, as much as possible.

Grab a pot and saute the garlic and the ginger. Mmmm…can you smell that??

Add the drained rice to the pot.

Fry the rice grains for a couple of minutes…this gives the rice SO much flavor! I like to add a bit of salt to the rice if the broth isn’t already salted.

Remember that broth? Well, pour 2 cups of this into the pot. Normally when cooking rice, I’d go with a ratio of 1 cup rice : 1.25 cups water/broth. But since we’ve already soaked the rice and the rice has absorbed some of the water, I’m going with 1:1. Bring the rice to a boil, then immediately turn the heat to low, cover tightly and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest (still covered! no peeking!) for 5-10 more minutes. Done.

Oh, if you have a rice cooker, even better! After sauteing the garlic, ginger, rice – just add that into your rice cooker with the broth.

Perfect rice.

Chili Sauce for Hainanese Chicken Rice

If you’re a fan of sriracha chili sauce, this will knock your socks off. Jess puts sriracha, lime, sugar, salt, couple tablespoons of that lovely chicken broth, garlic and ginger into a blender and wheeeeeee:

Voila….Jess’s Hainanese Chicken Rice

It’s week 3 of the Summer Fest! Last week we all made recipes using fruit from trees, and this week it’s all about Beans and Greens. If you haven’t yet heard about Summer Fest, it’s a four-week celebration of fresh-from-the-garden food: recipes, growing tips, even tricks for storing and preserving summer’s best with my co-hosts White on Rice, Away to Garden, Gluten-Free Girl and Matt Bites. Of course, It’s not a party without your participation! And I’ll tell you how in just a bit.

My choice in the greens category is Chinese Broccoli or Gai-Lan (guy-LAHN) my favorite Asian vegetable. Earlier this year, I grew gai-lan in our garden….and failed. The failure had nothing to do with the vegetable itself, it was just me traveling too much and giving very little garden love to poor gai-lan.

So, I’m going to give you step-by-step photo instructions on how to make this “most flavorful noodle dish in the world” recipe from Corrine Trang’s new book called Noodles Every Day.

Chinese Broccoli (Gai-Lan)

I have a modest garden, and there are some vegetables that my boys have laid claim to. One of them was regular broccoli and the other Chinese broccoli. They wanted to see how big the broccoli could get and refused to let me even touch them!

You have no idea the patience and willpower it took for me to NOT cut the broccoli! I had nightmares about this thing.

While the broccoli still tasted great, even after being plucked a bit past its prime…but unfortunately, that’s not how Chinese broccoli works. Once the Chinese broccoli stem starts shooting up, and before it begins flowering, that’s the time to pick and enjoy them.

If you wait too long and the flowers open up, the Chinese broccoli becomes bitter. You can also tell from the cut stems if the Chinese broccoli will be perfect or too old. See the bottoms of these cut stems? It’s milky-transluscent and smooth.

If the bottoms of the stem have a hard white circle in the middle (instead of smooth, milky and translucent) it will probably be past its prime and taste tough and bitter. Well, our home-grown Chinese broccoli grew VERY TALL and bloomed with small white flowers…but tasted so bitter. boo.

Photo below is store-bought Chinese Broccoli…see the beautiful stem-bottoms?

So, the lesson learned — I’m putting the kids in charge of a different vegetable this year…maybe something that grows super-fast and tall…corn?

===

For this Broccoli Beef Noodle Stir Fry recipe, you can use ANY type of noodles. Really, spaghetti noodles are fantastic in this dish. I happened to have Japanese style egg-noodles, so that’s what I used! Cook your noodles according to package directions.

While the noodles are cooking, marinate the beef slices in soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar, oyster sauce and rice wine. If you don’t have rice wine, use dry sherry or any dry white wine will do. The sugar and the oyster sauce will help the meat caramelize.

You want beautiful, carmelized meat in your stir fry?

Here’s the secret. DO NOT CROWD THE MEAT! Single layer, ladies and gents!

Once you add it to the wok or frying pan, LEAVE THE THING ALONE. Resist the temptation to shake, move it around or flip…until the first side has a chance to caramelize. Then flip.

See the nicely caramelized bits?

Once the meat finishes cooking, remove to a plate. Now it’s time for Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan).

Stir fry for a minute, scooping up the oils at the bottom of the wok all over the Chinese Broccoli. Bathe the oil over the Chinese Broccoli.

Now turn heat down, add 1/4 cup of water or browth and cover to let steam.

A couple of minutes later…test the Chinese Broccoli to see if done! A knife should pierce easily into the steam.

Now its the cooked noodles turn to take a bath in the sauce.

See it absorb all the juicy bits?

Now return the beef and broccoli to the wok and serve!!

Yum.

===

How you can join Summer Fest

Summer Fest 2009 is a four-week, cross-blog celebration co-created (alphabetically listed) by A Way to Garden, Matt Armendariz of Mattbites, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple, with guest appearances from Shauna and Daniel Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, Simmer Till Done’s Marilyn Pollack Naron, and Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project. And from you -that’s critical. Your contributions are desired, and needed.

Will you play along? Have a recipe or tip that fits any of our weekly themes? Starting today, with the subject of herbs, you can contribute in various ways, big or small. Contribute a whole post, or a comment -whatever you wish. It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious. The possibilities:

Simply leave your tip or recipe or favorite links in the comments below a Summer Fest post on my blog, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same.

The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits, and some pretty great dialog starts simmering.

Or think bigger: Publish entire entire posts of your own, if you wish, and grab the juicy Summer Fest 2009 tomato badge (illustrated by Matt of Mattbites).

Summer Fest 2009 Schedule:

• Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all.

• Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise).

• Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice).

• Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples?

What did my co-hosts make for the Summer Fest Party?

Diane and Todd make a salad with the TOPS of radishes, beets and carrots!

A beautiful Kale Frittata from Margaret of Away to Garden

Shauna joins us this week with her very first home=grown salad ever!

Simply gorgeous – Matt Armendariz shares one of his top 5 fav recipes of all time.

A little over a year ago, I met Chef Martin Yan for the first time at a Publix Aprons event. I was so girly-giddy that I breathlessly told him that he was my “culinary superhero.”

And if that didn’t scream, “freaky-fan-stalker!” then maybe he got a clue when I got a little so close trying to videotape Yan carving a chicken in 15 seconds that I almost got my bangs thwacked off. But nope, because that same evening, when I mentioned I was writing a cookbook, he actually said, “Send me a copy to review, I’ll write a quote for the back of the book.”

There was a chance that Chef Yan was just sayin’ that to be nice. I mean, he’s a celebrity chef who meets hundreds of people every day, he couldn’t possibly have remembered what he said to whom? So, two months ago, when my book was complete, I prayed that he really, really meant what he said and sent him a copy of the book galley with a kind note.

He remembered. And Martin graciously penned, “Jaden Hair delivers beautiful, simple and delicious food that will bring famly and friends to your table. She is the real deal who learned from the best, her mom. – Martin Yan.”

My publisher slapped that endorsement on the back cover of the book…and then I nearly fainted. The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook hits the shelves in mid-October, and I think the moment I see the real book at a real bookstore, I’m going to personally kiss the back of each book, right where Martin’s quote is.

A couple of weeks ago, Martin came back to town for a class…of course I attended and I gave Martin a big hug and thanked him profusely, freaky-fan-stalker style.

===

Martin Yan China Cookbook Giveaway

Martin Yan’s sponsor, Tsingtao Beer has kindly given me two autographed books to give away. CONTEST OVER…WINNER ANNOUNCED!

He wanted to send a little message to you, as he autographed these two books:

I’ll randomly choose 2 winners on July 31st. Just comment below with a nice little note for Martin Yan! What do you want to say to him? I promise he’ll read it.

CONTEST OVER…WINNER ANNOUNCED!

===

If Yan Can…

carve a chicken in 19 seconds…SO CAN YOU!

This is the second time I’ve seen him do this – just simply amazing. Hear that camera-clicking? That’s me, multi-tasking. Camcorder in left hand, heavy camera in right hand. Hold still….don’t get too close to that cleaver!

===