Dishes worth knowing in the 粥粉面 family
Four dishes that, between them, tell the whole story of the Cantonese kitchen — from silky porridge to a wok-seared plate of noodles.
Picture congee simmered until the rice has dissolved entirely into a smooth, grain-free cream. The base is cooked from rice and pork bones until it turns naturally sweet and velvety, then the fresh toppings go in at the moment of serving — thin slivers of raw fish, dried squid, fried peanuts, crisp pork skin, spring onion and crunchy fried bamboo strips. The word "sampan" (boat) comes from the Tanka people who lived on sampans in Lychee Bay (now Liwan Lake) during the Qing dynasty. They cooked and rowed their congee out to people along the waterfront, and the name has stuck ever since.
Real Guangzhou wonton noodle is set apart by the noodle itself — a bamboo-pressed noodle (竹升面) made by a cook sitting on a thick bamboo pole and bouncing it over the dough again and again, rather than kneading by hand. The dough is high-gluten flour and duck eggs only, not a drop of water, which gives a thin yellow strand that is springy and snaps with a clean bite. The wontons are wrapped around whole, bouncy shrimp and served in a clear broth simmered from dried shrimp, pork bones and flatfish. A shop that knows its craft lays the noodles at the bottom of the bowl and sits the wontons on top, so the noodles never go soggy — a small detail that tells you everything.
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A thin rice-flour batter is spread on cloth or a tray, steamed for mere seconds into a translucent sheet, then rolled around a filling — fresh shrimp, beef or char siu, sometimes with an egg cracked in — cut into lengths and finished with a lightly sweet soy. The whole point is the texture of the sheet: silky, slippery and so soft it almost melts. Guangzhou's old-school shops make it cloth-pulled (布拉肠), steaming the batter on fine cloth and scraping it off for the thinnest possible sheet, while the drawer style (抽屉肠) is steamed in a metal tray and comes out a touch thicker thanks to a little glutinous rice flour. It is the breakfast Guangzhou eats alongside congee almost every morning.
4
Wide, flat rice noodles (河粉, named after Shahe village) are dry-fried with tender marinated beef, bean sprouts, spring onion and just a whisper of soy. The heart of the dish is wok hei (鑊氣) — "the breath of the wok," that smoky aroma that only comes off a screaming-hot iron wok over maximum flame. The cook has to toss fast and continuously so the noodles cook dry with a faint char at the edges, yet never break, clump or turn greasy. It sounds simple; it is anything but. If the noodles come out mushy or wet, the heat wasn't high enough — which is exactly why Cantonese cooks use this plate to measure a kitchen. Order it and you'll know straight away whether the wok is the real thing.