Choy Keok aka 菜脚
Choy Keok is a fairly popular chinese dish back in the 80s. Or perhaps earlier. I wont know since I was still swimming somewhere heheI am too lazy to blog bout this actualy..but in case my blog collect dust.. or worse... turn RUSTY... I finaly pick up enough strength to blog bout this... NO regrets thou/
Anyway... ths dish name is direct translation from cantonese.
This dish is literaly a cheap dish... but taste heavenly...
Why cheap? Cos it uses all the left over food. Esp aft a banquet.
The roast chicken, duck, pork, mushroom, will be put together in a huge pot.. really HUGE one I have at home.
Add in assam skin and also dry chilli not forgetting the all most important 'gai choy' aka mustard leaves. cover with alot of water, and after 2 hours of 'stewing', the meat will be so soft that they will drop off from the bone.. season it with salt n sugar if desire...
In the olden days, I vividly rem some aunties will bring their tupperware box to the banquet... all for the sake of this dish.. its realy yummy I tell u.
Since I had some roast pic pieces and head left from CNy feasting.. ... I bet many ppl will throw the head away rite? but I froze it.. just for this dish.. but... look left look right.. I dont seem to have enough meat to make this dish at all... So mum resorted to going to the market and buy the left over roasted/braised duck head n neck from the uncle...
My 1st time cooking this dish... I thought the duck neck look super unappetising. I almost go YUCKS... thou I love this dish.. but...
Anyway... The process was 'tough' cos I needed a huge pot..and mum say I cannot use metal pot.. so i dug out the biggest clay pot i have.. yes.. I have a huge one... and I threw in evrythg including the pig head... with the ears, nose and mouth intact.. Threw in some bean curd stick... mushroom n anythg I can find in the fridge.. but I have 1 problem... the pot have no space for the 3kg of gai choy already... took me quite a bit of effort to squeeze them in, in 3 batches...
FINALY!!! Using Peony's tip on adding some tomato sauce.. (wanted to use her method of tomyum paste but mumg t the assam for me already), I added in some fiery chilli paste which my grandaunt gave us for CNY... Oh My.. the whole dish is soooo spicy n shiok.. giving me the tummyache the moment i think of it...
After 2 1/2 hours... I got this to go w a bowl of steamy white rice..
Yummy Choy Keok
Oh yes.. U gotto cook the gai choy till its limpey n yellow... then its nice..else it have a bitter taste... so..green veggie is a nono here... so is fish since they prob become fish soup after u r done with the dish.
This dish taste different each time u cook since its dependant on what U add into the pot... and thus.. dun be surprise that it alwasy taste different.
Like I said earlier.. ppl willrpob throw away the pig head instead of cooking... the meat was sooo smooth n good after I cook it.. in fact.. ermm.. even the ear went soft... the pic shows the ear.. can u spot the ear? LOL...
Yum...
And hope the lucky people who got a portion of this dish from me likes it too.
posted by karlsfoodie @ 3:34 PM
1001 Thoughts: 6
