Mama's Wok Featured on The Sunday Times (December 7, 2008)

Me being not a public figure would have felt nervous during the interveiw with Huang Lijie. But it never was that. I felt so comofrtable with her. She is such a nice young lady who really knows her work well. She would make you feel so comfortable that we won't even feel that this is an interview.

Many thanks to Lijie.

Here is the recipe for the Hainanese Mutton Soup recipe featured on Straits Times:

Ingredients

1kg mutton leg, cubed
500g mutton bones
4tbsp oil
11cm ginger, sliced thinly
3 cubes fermented beancurd
2tbsp mashed bean paste
2 litres of water
10 pieces licorice root (gan cau)
5 pieces codonopsis (dang shen)
7 pieces astragalus root (bei qi)
10g Solomon's seal (yu zhu)
2 sticks cinnamon
3 pieces angelica root (dang gui)
5g Sichuan lovage root (chuan xiong)
4 star anise
10 cloves
1/2 tsp Sichuan pepper seed
2 whole cloves garlic
20cm sugar cane, the thin and hard type for boiling soups, bruised
6 sticks dried beancurd sheet, soaked thill soft then drained
30 fried beancurd puffs
10g dried wood ear fungus, soaked till soft then drained and sliced
5g wolfberries (gou qi zi)
15 dried red dates
1tsp salt

Method In Preparing

1. Fill a pot two-thirds full with water and five slices of ginger. Bring to a boil.
2. Add the mutton leg and bones and boil for another 10 minutes. Drain and set aside when done.
3. To a heated wok, add oil and five slices of ginger. Fry for a minute until fragrant before adding fermented beancurd and mashed bean paste. Fry for another two minutes.
4. Lower the heat to a small flame and add the boiled mutton leg and bones. Fry for 20 minutes, stirring continuously to prevent the meat from burning, until all the moisture has evaporated from the wok. Set aside when done.
5. To a pot, add 2 litres of water and bring to a boil.
6. Place the herbs-- licorice root, codonopsis root, astragalus root, Solomon's seal, cinnamon, angelica root, Sichuan lovage root, star anise, cloves and Sichuan pepper seed-- into a cloth bag, tie it up and place in the pot of boiling water.
7. Add garlic, remaining slices of ginger, sugar cane and stir-fried mutton leg and bones to the pot.
8. Bring the pot of water to a boil before lowering the heat and allowing the soup to simmer for two hours. Sccop out the surface layer of oil from the soup every 15 minutes and discard.
9. Add beancurd sheets, fried beancurd puff, wood ear fungus, wolfberries and red dates to the soup and bring to a boil.
10. Add salt to taste.