Foochow

Chapter Seven

福州

Singapore's Foochow community is small. Most came down from Sibu in Sarawak or Sitiawan in Perak in the 1960s and 70s, themselves the second-and-third-generation descendants of the 1,118 villagers who arrived from Fujian in 1901 with Wong Nai Siong to open up the Rajang River basin. The kitchen they brought is a coastal kitchen — fish paste pounded by hand into qq-springy fishballs, razor clams steamed open at thirty degrees, chicken slow-rested in red yeast rice paste for a full day before slicing. The chapter's narrative thread is ang chao — the dark-rose red-yeast-rice lees that begins as a small jar in the background of Uncle Lau's stall, becomes a sweet-sour parallel in Auntie Lim's litchi pork, anchors the broth of the Lunar New Year chicken mee sua, sits ambient through the razor clams, and finally arrives as the foreground hero of the book's closing dish.

Five Recipes

The Foochow Kitchen

Recipe Thirty-One

Foochow Fishball Soup

福州鱼丸

Pork-filled fish-paste balls in clear pork-and-fish-bone broth. Hand-pounded mackerel, the tiger's-mouth shaping, the float as the doneness cue. Uncle Lau's Geylang lineage — and the chapter's opening register.

Recipe Thirty-Two

Foochow Litchi Pork

荔枝肉

Pork shoulder cubes scored deep in cross-hatch, two-fried to bloom into the lychee shape, tossed in tomato-and-rice-vinegar glaze. The knife is more important than the wok. Auntie Lim's Sibu kitchen.

Recipe Thirty-Three

Foochow Red Wine Chicken Mee Sua

红糟鸡面线汤

Bone-in chicken simmered in Foochow red rice wine and red wine lees, served with longevity mee sua, halved hard-boiled egg, ginger and spring onion. The only dish in this book I cook only at home. The Lunar New Year first-morning bowl.

Recipe Thirty-Four

Foochow Razor Clams

蒸竹蛏

Live razor clams purged in salted water, steamed to a thirty-degree gape, doused with hot ginger-and-spring-onion oil and a Shaoxing splash. Eight minutes to cook, forty years to learn how to buy. Ah Sou Tiong's Tekka stall.

Recipe Thirty-Five

Foochow Ang Chao Chicken

红糟鸡

Bone-in chicken marinated, lacquered and rested 24 hours in red wine lees — cold-sliced for the banquet table. The chapter's foreground-payoff hero and the book's closing recipe. You make it for the people you love most.