I love yam. In my childhood, most of my breakfast are yam-themed. If it isn't crispy yam puffs, then it's steamed yam cake with some really nice hoisin sauce mix. In my adolescence, having yam rice is not alien to me. Also, the Malaysian yam dessert, bubur cha-cha, is always at reach.
When I came to Melbourne, I realized how hard is it to obtain yam. It is an all year round vegetable in Malaysia but in Melbourne, it appears only at fall. With this knowledge, I bought almost two kilogrammes of yam to bulldoze my craving for yam.
Problem is, yam is perhaps one of the hardest things to cook with. With this realization, I felt that I've been taking yam for granted all this while. Don't we all take things for granted until it is gone?
Anyway, preparation wise, it is difficult. The starch from the yam can irritate the delicate skin of the hands. Therefore, rubber gloves are needed.
Not only that, it is impossible to cook yam without frying it. It is a type of tuber that can be easily reduced to mash before you can even say "mash potatoes".Blisters are expected but to avoid this, add some salt to the oil before frying. It helps, although it doesn't stop my fingers from having three tiny blisters.
Tip: Amp up fire during last two minutes of frying to remove oil.
And when they are golden brown, you have the carte blanche to do whatever you want to do with it. My sister and I did the following:
1. I made this simple yam dish with mushrooms. Basically, one adds oyster sauce, five spice, pre-fried dried shrimps, shallots, spring onions and it's all set to serve!
2. My sister tried three attempts on this famous Shandong dish called 拔丝山药 ( Yam in hot toffee, Chinese styled ). It is really difficult to make.
This is the first attempt. The sugar syrup is very light and not at all viscous. Still, the yam is coated with a thin but crisp layer of sugar. It melts too easily and cannot be kept overnight at all!
This is the second attempt, which is clearly successful. Sugar strings are formed but the caramel tastes a little burnt. Maybe it was because she used brown sugar (There's no white sugar except for castor sugar in our kitchen! ).
The third attempt was also successful but only after two rounds of failure with the sugar solution.
This dish is not for amateur cooks and even I cannot attempt it. I do not know why my sister is so apt with desserts. She was the one who cooked the caramel but I am the one who got burnt by the caramel. The caramel stuck very badly to the utensils and she had problems removing it. Thank god for my living skills, I removed them, easy-peasy.
Just add baking soda to every solution used to wash the caramel and it will come out in no time!
3. I used some of the leftover yam to make 芋头焖肉 ( Braised pork with yam - Wu Tao Kau Yoke ).
This is a Hakka dish and only served during Chinese New Year but every lunch time is Chinese New Year, so I made it. And it was successful despite the lack of preserved red beancurd (Lam Yu 紅豆腐乳/南乳 ). Maybe because I used 豆酱 (Taucu ), a type of preserved soy bean paste as a substitute. Preparing this dish is quite tedious and difficult but I might just do it again because it's just so hard to resist the nice mesh of flavors that I have achieved for this dish. Hehe.
______
Having made these dishes with my sister, I feel that I'm engaged with different Chinese cultures in a strange sort of way. Also, it helps me to learn and realized a lot of things that my Chinese history books cannot teach me. Perhaps, this is a factor that contributes to my love for cooking...
More to come: On making omelette. :)
