Lunching on rhododendrons, hairy tofu, and konjac jelly
I’m trying to be more improvisatory in my cooking. The premise: go to the market here in Dali, Yunnan, find what’s seasonal, and cook a few dishes. Some of these ingredients I’ve never even seen before, which makes it all the more fun. Hope this is inspiring!
The sun is high and the roads scarred with pits and broken speed bumps as I fly down the mountain to the market. My friend Luisa (莎莎) is back in Dali this month, enroute to Chiang Mai, and she meets me outside, still flushed from her scooter ride. (She’s cooked for f(x)’s Amber Liu and Taiwanese singer Ella Chen, which is insane to me.)
We stop by the tofu stalls to pick out fermented tofu and tubs of fresh konjac jelly. The slabs of hairy tofu are creamy with tan streaks and crowned with dense white fuzz (mucor/koji-inoculated tofu). They smell pleasant, like a ripe soft cheese. Louisa wants to stir-fry the stinky tofu with chrysanthemum greens: she swears by this combination.
I wander around the dry goods area, looking for something else to cook. Last night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed on my bed like a page in a book, all thoughts and no progression, flipping left and right for hours. Down in the market I feel lighter in the warm air but loose, as if all my bones have been pulled apart and restrung.
Louisa picks out a pound of local golden apricots, fuzzy as a baby’s cheek. As we head back to the street we see an elderly lady selling wild rhododendron blossoms (杜鹃花) soaked in salt water in a bucket. She’s harvested them from high elevation. “I cook these in soups, or stir-fry with eggs,” she instructs. She squeezes the liquid out of a handful and weighs the ball of flowers with an old sliding hook scale.
We pull up the hill on our scooters and fight the crowds of tourists on Sanyueije back to my apartment. I forgot to make rice, so for carbs, I reheat some steamed purple sweet potatoes from my fridge. Louisa pushes garlic and dried chiles around in shimmering oil and drops in the stinky tofu, and suddenly the kitchen starts to smell like a food stall. I find a tomato in my fridge and pluck pea shoots for a quick soup. I turn up the Tomoko Aran track on my cooking playlist.
Outside on the balcony we can hear the birds on Cangshan mountain testing out their own virtuosic riffs. From the indistinct chorus of fluttering chirps a soloist emerges, trilling a three-note motif with insistence. The neighbor’s dog joins in, barking hoarsely. Like a stubborn old man, with only one thing to say.
Our improvisatory lunch comes together:
杜鹃花番茄汤 Rhododendron blossom and tomato soup
凉拌魔芋 Cold-dressed konjac jelly with jizong mushrooms
臭豆腐炒茼蒿 Stinky tofu stir-fried with chrysanthemum greens
蒸紫薯 Steamed purple sweet potatoes
时令水果 seasonal fruit: green grapes and apricots
Dish 1: Rhododendron blossom and tomato soup 杜鹃花番茄汤
In a clay pot, I heated some oil with chopped scallions, dried salted mustard greens (meigancai 梅干菜) and a tablespoon of Puning fermented bean paste (my favorite vegan hack— tastes like chicken stock. I added a tomato (blanched quickly to peel, then diced), a handful of those rhododendron blossoms, and pea shoots.
Dish 2: Cold-dressed konjac jelly 凉拌魔芋
Konjac or mo-yu (魔芋, “devil’s taro”) has an unfortunate reputation in the States as a tasteless, rubbery, low-calorie noodle substitute (shirataki). But konjac is actually a yam native to Yunnan province— when grated, the starchy corms release a starch that can be set into a jiggling curd (similar to mung bean jelly), or dried into flour.
Here in Dali, it’s set into forms ranging from mottled grey slabs to glistening lighter balls and slabs tender as pork fat. The deepness of color depends on the ratio of the grated yam to water. Like in Japan or Korea, konjac in China is usually eaten in hot-pot or served in cold slices like sashimi. Fresh konjac is so tender, I was unprepared for it. It almost melts in your mouth. A true delicacy— something I never thought I’d say about konjac.
I blanched the ball for 30 seconds in salted water, cooled it under the tap, and sliced it into jellyfish-like strips. The aroma is fishy but not overwhelming, like kombu it smells faintly like the ocean. I dressed the dish with black vinegar and soy sauce, a pinch of MSG, a drizzle of sesame oil, and heaping spoonfuls from a jar of fried jizong-mushroom shreds in oil I bought at the market. Chili oil/chili crisp would add another dimension, a nice heat to counteract the slick coolness, but alas, I didn’t have any.
Dish 3: Stinky tofu stir-fried with chrysanthemum greens 臭豆腐炒茼蒿
This dish reminds me of mashed potatoes, believe it or not.
