Guangxi goodness

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-28 14:12

One of the great pleasures of traveling around China is coming across unfamiliar ingredients and unusual cooking techniques.

This was certainly the case on my recent Guangxi trip to the areas of Longji and Yangshuo, in south China.

First, there was rice baked in bamboo tubes (zhu tong fan), which we discovered in a tiny rice terrace village of Ping'an. We had followed the aroma of charred bamboo wood wafting from a barbecue on a back lane.

For this dish, a mature bamboo tube is stuffed with glutinous rice and varying combinations of smoked sausage, pork, chicken and taro. Water is added and the tube sealed with a cork made from what appears to be a corncob. Once cooked, the top of the tube is lifted to reveal the chewy, smoke-scented rice.

My favorite new veggie dish of the trip was stir-fried young bamboo shoots.

I was expecting the pale yellow shoots (zhu sun) familiar to me from Beijing. Instead, we received a plate of vibrant green stalks (sun), very tender and absolutely delicious. Apparently, they are coming into season now across the country, so they are definitely worth looking out for at the market - they make an excellent substitute to the pricier asparagus.

On our first afternoon following a steady ascent of the rice terraces, we were enticed to try some luo han guo and ginger tea, which was guaranteed to soothe sore throats. Having left the smog of Beijing the previous evening, my throat had actually never felt better. Nevertheless, this sweet and fragrant tea was lovely.

Luo han guo literally means "monk's fruit". The fruit grows on vines to a size just smaller than a tennis ball. Normally, they are not eaten fresh but dried until leathery brown in the oven, and used frequently in traditional Chinese medicine for respiratory problems.

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