[BOOK] Flavor Profile #4: Cantonese Chuhou Paste

Cantonese Chuhou Paste – (柱候酱)

Introduction

Chuhou paste is a classic Cantonese fermented-soy-bean-based sauce for braising meat. Garlic, sesame paste, sugar, and spices are added to the bean paste base to create a unique and fragrant sauce that works well with many kinds of meat, traditionally including beef, chicken, baby pigeon, big river eel (Japanese eel), pig head, and softshell turtles. And interestingly, it may be one of the few condiments that has a clear origin.

In about mid to late 19th century, there’s a chef named Leung Chuhou (梁柱候) working at the Sam Bun Lau (三品楼) restaurant in downtown Foshan, Guangdong. He makes excellent meat dishes and the secret lies in his own hand-made sauce.

(The old Chuhou jar from the restaurant Sam Bun Lau)

Leung Chuhou would buy fermented soy bean paste back and grind it together with other seasoning to create his own sauce for meat dishes. The sauce helped attracting customers to the restaurant and later to his eatery after he got his own small establishment.

Leung Chuhou also sells this sauce at his eatery and from then on, the sauce quickly gained its fame after the name of its creator. Over the years, it became the Chuhou paste that every Cantonese know of.

Moreover, this story fascinatingly shows the in-house sauce making tradition in Chinese restaurants. Many people that’re new to Chinese cooking often think about Chinese sauces in the western sense, like what’s THE sauce for stir frying, what’s THE sauce for roast chicken, what’s THE mother sauce. Well, the Chinese counterparts akin to western sauces don’t really exist in regular home cooks’ head – instead, it’s more of a restaurant thing.

If you look at restaurant chefs’ notebook, you’ll see recipes of different kinds of sauces for various dishes, such as the black pepper sauce for black pepper beef, the “pot sauce” for sizzling pot dishes, the curry sauce for curry beef brisket, or even the seasoned soy sauce for cheung fun rice roll or liangban cold dishes. The list can goes on for many pages.

In order to pump up dishes in a flash (also, to make things tasty), restaurants would make their own sauces, usually by using basic seasonings like fermented bean paste, soy sauce, sugar, then add aromatics and/or spices to it. In this case, Chuhou paste now is one of the basic sauces that restaurants would use to make their own mix. The aforementioned sizzling pot sauce is one classic that uses Chuhou paste as one of the base sauces.

Recipe #1 Braised beef brisket with Chuhou paste 柱候焖牛腩

This is one of the most classic application of Chuhou paste. The taste of Chuhou paste forms the base of this iconic Cantonese dish. Ask any Cantonese on the street how to braise brisket, most of them will probably tell you “use Chuhou paste”.
You can easily turn it into a noodle topping or a bubbling hot pot, while you’d also see it as rice topping or a single dish at a restaurant.

Ingredients:

· Beef Plate (坑腩) -or- Brisket (牛腩), 500g

· Water, 1.5L

· Optional aromatic: Chinese celery or green garlic, cut into 1-inch section

For the seasoning:

· Light Soy Sauce (生抽), 1.5 tbsp

· Dark Soy Sauce (老抽), ½ tbsp

· Chuhou paste (柱候酱), 2 tbsp

· Sweet bean paste (甜面酱), 1 tbsp. Use 3 tbsp Chuhou paste straight if don’t have sweet bean paste.

· Sugar (preferably rock sugar), 2 tbsp or 25g

· Salt to taste, start with ~1/4 tsp

For the spice mix (preferably tie it up in a cheese cloth):

· Star anise (八角), 2 pcs

· Fennel seed (小茴香), 1/2 tsp

· Coriander seed (芫荽籽), 1/2 tsp

· Cinnamon (桂皮), 1 stick

· Dried bay leaves (香叶), 2-3 pcs

· Cloves (丁香), 20 pcs

· Dried tangerine peel (陈皮), 3g

· Ginger (姜), 1 one-inch knob

Below are optional:

· Black cardamom (草果), 1 pod slightly crushed open

· Chinese white cardamon (Thai cardamon, Alpinia tonkinensis Gagnep) (白蔻), 1 pod

· Luohanguo (monk fruit) (罗汉果), ¼ of a dried fruit

· Licorice Root (甘草), 1g or 3 small pieces

Process:

For the spices, if using chenpi aged tangerine peels, scrape off the white pith of the peel to remove bitterness.

Place the entire 500g piece of brisket/plate into a pot with the spices and bring to a boil. Skim the foam off.

Poach on low heat for one hour, covered. After that hour it should be tender enough to poke through with a pair of chopsticks.

Remove the brisket, cut into ~2-inch chunks.

In a dry wok over medium heat, toast the beef chunks along with a 1-inch knob of ginger for about three minutes till it browns a bit.

Push the beef to the side, add in about 2 tbsp of oil, then add in the Chuhou paste and sweet bean paste. Quick fry for about half a minute.

Mix the beef with the paste, fry for another half minute. Then swirl in some liaojiu aka Shaoxing wine.

Transfer the beef to a braising pot, scoop in the beef poaching liquid till it barely covers the beef. You can also pick out the spice bag and add that in.

Add in the light and dark soy sauce plus the sugar, bring to a boil, then simmer on low for an hour.

One hour later, check the liquid level. Turn the heat to high to reduce for a couple minutes till the sauce thickens and able to coat the brisket and has a sheen (as shown in the picture).

Taste and season with salt if needed.

Optionally finish it off with some Chinese celery or green garlic cut into 1-inch sections.

Notes:

When adding the liquid back to the beef, make sure the liquid is hot or at least quite warm, otherwise it’ll shrink the beef and make it tough.

Some people only add the spices in the second stage braising, but we prefer to add in at the beginning.

Another way of making this would be “quick 5 minute blanch – cut beef – toast in dry wok- add hot water/spices/seasoning – braise for 1.5-2 hours”, this is a bit easier logistically but we find poaching it first with spices renders a better result.

This dish is often served as a hot pot. If going this route, serve directly and don’t reduce at the end. Keep the remaining poaching liquid for refilling when water runs low. The most classic aesthetic of a beef brisket hot pot is serving it in a clay pot over traditional table-top charcoal stove.

Recipe #2 Sizzling chicken pot 啫啫鸡煲

You can think of sizzling pot in the same category of hot plate dishes. It’s a similar type of Cantonese “culinary sensation” that catches the eyes on a dinner table.

Restaurant usually have a house-made sauce for their sizzling pots, especially for the ones that gained their fame with it, like the Michelin one-starred restaurant Wisca (惠食佳) in Guangzhou.

However, home cooks can still create this kind of dishes at home with a heat-proof pot. Here we’re gonna show you how to make a simpler version with a Chuhou chicken pot that uses a less complex seasoning.

Ingredients:

· Fresh young chicken (三黄鸡), half, ~750g

· Garlic (蒜头), 8 whole cloves

· Shallot (干葱), 2 heads, quartered

· Onion (洋葱), 1/4 head, cut into chunks

· Ginger (姜), 1-inch, sliced

· Chinese celery (本地芹菜), 1 sprig, cut into 2-inch sections. Use the inner tender part of western celery to sub.

· Scallion (葱), 1 sprig, cut into 2-inch sections

· Optional for heat: Fresh xiaomila or Thai bird’s eye chili, 2

For the seasoning:

· Chuhou paste (柱候酱), 2 tbsp

· Hoisin sauce (海鲜酱), 1 tbsp. Use a combo of 3 tbsp Chuhou paste + 1/2 tsp sugar straight up if don’t have hoisin.

· Light Soy Sauce (生抽), 1 tbsp

· Oyster Sauce (蚝油), ½ tbsp

· Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒), 1/2 tbsp

· Salt, 1/4 tsp.

· Toasted sesame oil (麻油), 1 tsp.

For the marinate:

· Salt, 1/4 tsp

· Sugar, 1/4 tsp

· White pepper powder, (白胡椒粉), 1/2 tsp

· Cornstarch (生粉), 1/2 tsp

· Soy sauce (生抽), 1/2 tsp

· Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒), 1/2 tbsp. Plus an extra tbsp for serving.

· Peanut oil (花生油), 2 tsp. Use other cooking oil if you don’t have peanut.

Process:

Marinate the chicken, mix in the marinate, stir well, and coat it with peanut oil, let it marinate for half an hour.

Place the wok and the sizzling pot on two separate stove top.

Let’s fry the garlic and shallot first. Get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in the oil, here about 2 tbsp, give a swirl to get a nice non-stick surface.

Heat on high, toss in the garlic and shallot, fry it till slightly golden brown. Heat off.

Transfer the garlic and shallot into the clay pot with a bit of oil, leave most of the oil in the wok. Turn the heat of the clay pot to the lowest your stove will go and let them keep on frying slowly, add a bit more oil to the clay pot if needed. Give it a stir occasionally.

Now back to the wok. Heat on medium high, heat up the oil, once the oil starts to give out some slight smoke, give it a swirl to create a nice surface, add in the chicken pieces, arrange it into one even layer, don’t stir and let it fry for two minutes. Tilt the wok to get the sides.

Then flip, keep it in one layer, fry the other side for another two minutes.

Two minutes later, turn the heat to high, start stir frying the chicken, fry it for about 3~4 minutes, or until most of the chicken pieces have some browning.

Add in the ginger and onion, then swirl in about 1/2 tbsp liaojiu aka Shaoxingwine. Quick fry.

Swap heat to low, add the Chuhou, Hoisin, soy, oyster, and chili garlic or fresh chili if using. Give it a quick mix.

Add in the 1/4 tsp salt to bring it all together, heat back on high, fry it all together for about 3 minutes.

To finish off, swirl in 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, add in half of the celery and scallion. Quick mix.

Heat off, transfer everything from the wok to the clay pot. Sprinkle the remaining celery and scallion on top of the chicken, cover.

Turn the heat of the pot to high, let it heat up for at least 3 minutes for that sizzling effect.

When serving, bring the hot clay pot to table, swirl a tbsp liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine along the crack between the lid and the pot to create more fragrance and sound.

Note:

Remember to use something heat proof, regular clay pot will crack very easily when making sizzling pot. Our pot already got a crack now.

The garlic and shallot are mostly for flavoring. Having it at the bottom of the pot can help prevent the chicken pieces from burning and sticking to the pot.

Restaurant would also put a piece of bamboo mat (see picture below) at the bottom of the pot to help prevent burning.

A lighter/thinner cast iron pot is another popular choice for restaurants when making this kind of sizzling pot. 

Mixing Chuhou and Hoisin is to create more depth in the sauce, restaurants sizzling pot sauce would dozens of sauces, aromatics, spices in it.

For a stronger sizzle, you can take out the garlic and shallot, toss them in with the chicken, heat up the clay pot on high for a couple minute before putting everything in.