Sprouting ahead of trends

Editor's note: Traditional and fusion cooking styles, regional and international ingredients and a new awareness of healthy eating are all factors contributing to an exciting time for Chinese cuisine. We explore the possibilities.

When the enormous Chinese fleets under the Ming Admiral Zhenghe embarked on their long voyages of discovery in the 15th century, the logistics of feeding the crew must have been overwhelming.

The largest ships had more than 1,000 crew and the smaller ones had between 500 to 800 men on board. The biggest expedition had 27,000 men on the water at one time, heading as far as the East African coast. Some say they went right across the Pacific.

We can imagine the ships' chandlers loading up cured meats, dried sausages, all manner of preserved seafood and pickles, probably with bag upon bag of rice, flour and dried beans. Zhenghe was a Muslim, so there had to be certain dietary restrictions as well.

In fact, the fleet had specialized boats which carried only grains and provisions.

Getting fresh vegetables on board was always difficult but, according to the historical records, Zhenghe's galley cooks were brilliant. They simply sprouted the beans they carried.

Beansprouts. They were sweet, crunchy and fresh.

The best beans to grow into micro-greens were peas, mung beans and soya beans.

In the Chinese southern provinces, mung beans were the most popular as these were plentiful, and easy to grow well in the warmer, more humid weather.

I'm pretty sure many of us will remember our first biology class experiments, growing beansprouts on cotton.

These yacai, new sprouts, are easy to cook and need only seconds in a hot wok to turn into a delicious vegetable dish. The Cantonese cook loves adding chives to the mix, for both flavor and color. Sometimes, thin julienne of hard tofu and shredded carrots add toothsomeness.

Beansprouts, with the tough fibrous tails carefully pinched off, are also great in noodle dishes or added to rich thick broths.

In the days when we still ate shark's-fin soup, a side dish of topped and tailed beansprouts was the perfect foil for the collagen-rich stock.

Beansprouts that are topped and tailed are known as "silver sprouts", or yinya.

Southern chefs are so fond of the beansprout that they elevated it to banquet status, using fine needles to stuff meat into each tiny sprout in an extreme example.

As a child, I lived on a street that was known as Greenbean Alley. Before the housing developments came, the area was full of beansprout farms, and when we moved in there were still a few of these left.

My grandmother used to send me with a basin to buy beansprouts and I would peer into the sheds to see the bamboo trays stacked high on the wooden racks. Some were still full of green beans. Some had beans that had burst through their skins and were fat and creamy. Other racks had short sprouts already sticking through the bamboo trays.

Every now and then, the farmer lady would take a makeshift watering can and spray the trays, and the water would drip from rack to rack. I used to linger long after my basin was filled, just to sniff the damp smell of the sprouts.

And then I would reluctantly go home, to begin the task of plucking the sprouts for my grandmother. Beansprouts were very cheap then, but their preparation was tedious.

Soya bean sprouts are much hardier and grow a lot longer. They are a favorite ingredient for vegetarians. A combination of soya beans and soya bean sprouts is used to create a classic vegetarian top stock that is full of umami. This will become the base of many other dishes.

I remember my Cantonese grandmother taking a bunch of soya bean sprouts and chopping them up before stir-frying with minced meat and whole salted black beans, which are made from soya beans, too.

There are now other sprout vegetables, such as the pea sprouts for doumiao, spicy radish sprouts for interesting salads. Toon sprouts are the latest micro green beloved of young Chinese fusion chefs.

But the mung bean sprout will never be replaced as the favorite sprout vegetable on the Chinese table.

It is blanched and packed into spring rolls. It is added to a steaming hot bowl of hand-pulled noodles, or to a bowl of soft cloud-like wantons. It adds nutrition and a homemade touch to even a tub of instant noodles.

It's my bet that freshly stir-fried beansprouts must have been one of the favorite dishes for Admiral Zhenghe's sailors during their long, long voyages.

paulined@chinadaily.com.cn

Recipe

Mung beansprouts stir-fry

500g beansprouts, tailed

2 stalks Chinese chives, cut into 5cm lengths

1 cup shredded carrots

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

Heat up oil in a pan and add onions. Stir fry till lightly caramelized and turn up heat. Add carrots and chives, then add the beansprouts. Mix well and stir-fry.

Season to taste and plate immediately.

Just remember that the sprouts need literally seconds to just cook through. Do not salt till the last minute, otherwise the sprouts will weep water and get soggy.

Soya Bean Sprouts and Minced Meat

300g belly pork, roughly minced

1 teaspoon corn starch

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon salted black beans

1 red chili, more need

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bunch soya beans sprouts (about 300g)

Cut off the tail ends of the soya bean sprouts and wash well. Drain. Then chop the sprouts finely, especially the cotyledon ends.

Heat up a wok, add oil and add minced garlic, salted bean and chili. Add the minced meat and fry till largely cooked. Create a slurry with cornflour and a little bit of water, drizzle over meat mixture,

Add the chopped soya bean sprouts, turn up the fire and fry for a minute, not more. Taste to adjust seasoning, and plate.

Beijing springrolls

500g beansprouts, tailed

1/2 cup shredded carrots

1/2 cup chives, cut into lengths

2 eggs, made into egg skin and shredded

20 springroll wrappers

Heat up a boiling pot of water, Blanch sprouts, carrots, chives.

Divide up the sprouts, carrots and chives into 20 portions, top with shredded egg skin and roll up tightly into spring rolls.

Heat oil up to 170 C and fry spring rolls till golden brown. Serve with chili vinegar dip or hoisin sauce.