two things to do with taro
Or yam, if you're Singaporean. The different uses of the term 'yam' confuzzle me. Just so we're clear - THIS is what I mean by taro/yam.
For Celeste, who wanted the recipes. I'm so sorry I kept forgetting, hon. I'll try to get the cupcake pictures done over the next few days.
They're both recipes I developed, so the usual might-not-be-of-cookbook-certainty disclaimer applies. However, I think I've made them often enough that I can guarantee that they should in all likelihood work, and I have it on good authority from the people I've fed it too that they're good, so hopefully that'll be reassurance enough.
#1. Baked Yam Ring
This is a Singaporean Chinese dish. It's supposed to have some sort celebratory connotation to it - the ring itself, when cooked, is supposed to be this wonderful golden colour, signifying gold or wealth, and filling the ring with as much food as possible symbolises abundance. Whatever. I just like to eat it. *g* The ring itself is normally deep-fried, and accompanied with deep-fried rice vermicelli puffs. This is my 'healthier' take on it.
Need:
- 250-300g taro, peeled and finely sliced
- approx. 3 level tbsp of wheat starch flour
- 0.5 tbsp of sugar
- 0.5 tbsp of salt
- 0.5 tbsp of Chinese 5 spice powder
- 1 tbsp of (olive) oil + quite a bit of extra for brushing
Should serve 4 to 6.
1. Steam the peeled and finely-sliced taro until soft, approximately 15 min. Let cool.
2. Once the taro has cooled just enough for you to handle it (it should still be warm/hot, not cold!), begin mashing. To it, add all the other seasonings and such, mixing well until you have a smooth-but-a-little-lumpy-and-slightly-dry-but-not-crumbly dough. Depending on how wet or dry it is, you may have to add a little more flour or oil/water.
3. Start pre-heating your oven at 200 to 220 deg C. On a greased baking tray, plop your dough down and begin patting your ring into shape. (I'm always very fond of this bit.)
4. Brush your ring with oil. The more oil you use, the more golden your ring will probably turn out.
5. Stick your ring in the oven until it's golden. This should take about 30 to 40 min. If you don't find it getting as gold as you'd like, brush more oil onto it and keep it in the oven a little longer.
(5a. Alternatively, be authentic and deep-fry the ring. Use one of those massive seive things to lower it into the oil. Or punch some holes into the base of a disposable baking tin/dish/tray thing, and use it to lower the ring into the oil. In this case, deep-fry it until it's golden and crispy. You may want to stick the ring in the fridge for a bit first, for its shape to harden, before you fry it.)
6. While it's baking, begin preparing your stir-fry of choice. Preferably with cashews involved, but that's really a matter of taste. Make sure your stir-fry isn't too wet. When the ring's done, pour the stir-fry into the centre, and serve.
#2. Abacus Seeds
Abacus seeds (or beads) is a Hakka dish. The Hakka/Khek are a Chinese dialect group (and incidentally, if we're going by blood, also my predominant dialect group). These seeds have a very distinctive shape, as you can probably see from the picture. They're supposed to symbolise wealth (abacus --> abacus seeds --> counting money --> wealth, apparently). It's actually rather amazing just how many celebratory dishes the Chinese have to symbolise wealth and such, now that I think about it.
Need:
- 200-250g taro, peeled and thinly sliced
- approx. 200g tapioca flour *
- 1 tbsp of light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of oil
- (optional) a couple of good shakes of white pepper and/or Chinese 5 spice
Serves about 4 to 6.
* A note about the flour: To be honest, it's really hard to know before hand just how much tapioca flour you're going to need. Much of it is going to depend on various things, e.g. how wet your yam is after steaming. The whole point of it is to achieve a balance between fragrance and bite. The more taro there is, the more fragrant it will be, and the more flour there is, the chewier it will be. If you want to stick with something safe, just use a weight ratio of 1:1. However, I prefer to start with a taro:flour ratio of either 2:1 or 3:2, depending on how damp the taro looks/feels, and slowly work my way up if necessary (which it sometimes isn't) until the dough feels right.
1. Steam the peeled and thinly sliced taro until soft, about 15 min. Let cool.
2. Once the taro has cooled just enough for you to handle it (it should still be warm/hot, not cold!), begin mashing. To it, add the flour, soy sauce, and oil, and spices if using, and keep mixing/kneading until you have smooth and somewhat soft and vaguely elastic dough.
3. Begin shaping the seeds. Pinch out a bit of dough, roll/flatten it into a disc, and press your forefinger and thumb into either side such that a bi-concave shape is obtained (something like how a red blood cell is supposed to look, if you will; or, you know, an abacus seed). OR Roll out the dough into long strips, and begin slicing them into thick slices/discs, before finally doing the bi-concave thing with each disc.
4. Cook the seeds in a pot of boiling water until they're done, i.e. they start floating. Fish them out and, if you want, dunk them immediately into cold water to give them a bit more bounce/chew/bite. You don't have to, though, if you're feeling lazy (which I sometimes am). Drain, and set aside. You might want to drizzle in a bit of oil to prevent the seeds from sticking to one another. You may now use the seeds in a stir-fry.
The seeds are usually stir-fried with a mix of minced stuff that have a bit of a crunch to them, the better to contrast with the chewiness of the seeds. The usual stir-fry combination will often include dried shrimp (soaked until softened), dried black Jew's ear fungus (soaked until softened and finely diced), minced pork, minced garlic (duh), chopped spring onion. Also consider stuff like mushrooms, cuttlefish, coriander, even chilli if you like things spicy... it's all up to you, really!
And, if you like, here's a third thing you can do with taro.
For Celeste, who wanted the recipes. I'm so sorry I kept forgetting, hon. I'll try to get the cupcake pictures done over the next few days.
They're both recipes I developed, so the usual might-not-be-of-cookbook-certainty disclaimer applies. However, I think I've made them often enough that I can guarantee that they should in all likelihood work, and I have it on good authority from the people I've fed it too that they're good, so hopefully that'll be reassurance enough.
#1. Baked Yam Ring
This is a Singaporean Chinese dish. It's supposed to have some sort celebratory connotation to it - the ring itself, when cooked, is supposed to be this wonderful golden colour, signifying gold or wealth, and filling the ring with as much food as possible symbolises abundance. Whatever. I just like to eat it. *g* The ring itself is normally deep-fried, and accompanied with deep-fried rice vermicelli puffs. This is my 'healthier' take on it.
Need:
- 250-300g taro, peeled and finely sliced
- approx. 3 level tbsp of wheat starch flour
- 0.5 tbsp of sugar
- 0.5 tbsp of salt
- 0.5 tbsp of Chinese 5 spice powder
- 1 tbsp of (olive) oil + quite a bit of extra for brushing
Should serve 4 to 6.
1. Steam the peeled and finely-sliced taro until soft, approximately 15 min. Let cool.
2. Once the taro has cooled just enough for you to handle it (it should still be warm/hot, not cold!), begin mashing. To it, add all the other seasonings and such, mixing well until you have a smooth-but-a-little-lumpy-and-slightly-dry-but-not-crumbly dough. Depending on how wet or dry it is, you may have to add a little more flour or oil/water.
3. Start pre-heating your oven at 200 to 220 deg C. On a greased baking tray, plop your dough down and begin patting your ring into shape. (I'm always very fond of this bit.)
4. Brush your ring with oil. The more oil you use, the more golden your ring will probably turn out.
5. Stick your ring in the oven until it's golden. This should take about 30 to 40 min. If you don't find it getting as gold as you'd like, brush more oil onto it and keep it in the oven a little longer.
(5a. Alternatively, be authentic and deep-fry the ring. Use one of those massive seive things to lower it into the oil. Or punch some holes into the base of a disposable baking tin/dish/tray thing, and use it to lower the ring into the oil. In this case, deep-fry it until it's golden and crispy. You may want to stick the ring in the fridge for a bit first, for its shape to harden, before you fry it.)
6. While it's baking, begin preparing your stir-fry of choice. Preferably with cashews involved, but that's really a matter of taste. Make sure your stir-fry isn't too wet. When the ring's done, pour the stir-fry into the centre, and serve.
#2. Abacus Seeds
Abacus seeds (or beads) is a Hakka dish. The Hakka/Khek are a Chinese dialect group (and incidentally, if we're going by blood, also my predominant dialect group). These seeds have a very distinctive shape, as you can probably see from the picture. They're supposed to symbolise wealth (abacus --> abacus seeds --> counting money --> wealth, apparently). It's actually rather amazing just how many celebratory dishes the Chinese have to symbolise wealth and such, now that I think about it.
Need:
- 200-250g taro, peeled and thinly sliced
- approx. 200g tapioca flour *
- 1 tbsp of light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of oil
- (optional) a couple of good shakes of white pepper and/or Chinese 5 spice
Serves about 4 to 6.
* A note about the flour: To be honest, it's really hard to know before hand just how much tapioca flour you're going to need. Much of it is going to depend on various things, e.g. how wet your yam is after steaming. The whole point of it is to achieve a balance between fragrance and bite. The more taro there is, the more fragrant it will be, and the more flour there is, the chewier it will be. If you want to stick with something safe, just use a weight ratio of 1:1. However, I prefer to start with a taro:flour ratio of either 2:1 or 3:2, depending on how damp the taro looks/feels, and slowly work my way up if necessary (which it sometimes isn't) until the dough feels right.
1. Steam the peeled and thinly sliced taro until soft, about 15 min. Let cool.
2. Once the taro has cooled just enough for you to handle it (it should still be warm/hot, not cold!), begin mashing. To it, add the flour, soy sauce, and oil, and spices if using, and keep mixing/kneading until you have smooth and somewhat soft and vaguely elastic dough.
3. Begin shaping the seeds. Pinch out a bit of dough, roll/flatten it into a disc, and press your forefinger and thumb into either side such that a bi-concave shape is obtained (something like how a red blood cell is supposed to look, if you will; or, you know, an abacus seed). OR Roll out the dough into long strips, and begin slicing them into thick slices/discs, before finally doing the bi-concave thing with each disc.
4. Cook the seeds in a pot of boiling water until they're done, i.e. they start floating. Fish them out and, if you want, dunk them immediately into cold water to give them a bit more bounce/chew/bite. You don't have to, though, if you're feeling lazy (which I sometimes am). Drain, and set aside. You might want to drizzle in a bit of oil to prevent the seeds from sticking to one another. You may now use the seeds in a stir-fry.
The seeds are usually stir-fried with a mix of minced stuff that have a bit of a crunch to them, the better to contrast with the chewiness of the seeds. The usual stir-fry combination will often include dried shrimp (soaked until softened), dried black Jew's ear fungus (soaked until softened and finely diced), minced pork, minced garlic (duh), chopped spring onion. Also consider stuff like mushrooms, cuttlefish, coriander, even chilli if you like things spicy... it's all up to you, really!
And, if you like, here's a third thing you can do with taro.