Sunday, January 27, 2013

Old Fashion Hong Kong Dim Sum

I have some dim sum dishes that remind me of my childhood.  That's why I call them Old Fashion Hong Kong Dim Sum.  These dishes have been existing for long and are ever lastingly loved by Hong Kong Cantonese.

Sticky Rice Chicken
Strange name!  Look at it, this historic dim sum had nothing to do with chicken in terms of shape, ingredients and taste.  In the olden days, restaurants made huge size Sticky Rice Chickens.  Nowadays people usually make small size ones.  It is hardly to find its original size.  I happen to find one recently.  There are many ingredients inside - egg yolk, dry shrimps, minced pork, mushroom, preserved sausage (lap cheung) wrapped inside sticky rice and a lotus leave.  Very delicious.

Sticky Rice Chicken 糯米雞


Pork Dumpling with Liver
This is an old Hong Kong food as well.  Somehow it seem to have disappeared on menus for a long time however re-appear recently in some restaurants.  May be liver is relatively cheap and it was only popular many years ago when the living standard was not that high.  Liver is high in cholesterol which made people feared.  In fact, liver is rich in vitamin B and is good for preventing mouth ulcer.

豬潤燒賣

Mottled Spinefoot Fish Congee
When I was a little girl, I was only able to eat this congee while outing to Cheung Chau.  Few to no restaurants like to serve this dish because it is very labour intensive. The fish itself is like 6 inches long and it needs a lot of manpower to extract the meat.  If you have bones inside the congee and hurt the customer, you are going to receive complaints.  The fish is very delicious though quite fishy.  Therefore we usually put millenium tangerine peels to balance the taste.  Of course we can add pepper to increase fragrance.

生滾泥鯭粥 HK$30
(weekend special price, original price $48) 
 

Mottled Spinefoot Fish 泥鯭魚
You can imagine how labour intensive it is to extract meat from the tiny mottled spinefoot fishes

Stir Fried Noodle with Soy Sauce
Old Hong Kong living standard was not high at all.  A perfect breakfast combo was a bowl of congee plus a dish of stir fried noodle.  A typical Hong Kong Cantonese style fried noodle is the Soy Sauce Noodle with Bean Sprout.  There is no meat in it, hence a lot of people grade it as low class cheap dish.  Well, it is delicious.  I don't care whether it is cheap or elegant.  In fact it used to be quite cheap, like a few dollars a dish at some fast food shops. 

Today I have fish congee and stir fried noodle together.  What a sweet memory!

豉油皇炒面 HK$48
(weekend special price, original price $68)

Mini Egg Tart
One of the old Hong Kong desserts.  Over the table we were discussing whether Hong Kong people invented this.  I didn't seem to have found this dessert elsewhere.  It used to be less than $1 per tart.  When I was a kid. I was so excited to have one of these as an afternoon treat.


Hong Kong Food Blog - Old Fashion Hong Kong Dim Sum