SCALLOPS AND SNOW PEAS FROM WOK TO TABLE IN FIVE QUICK MINUTES
Ching He Huang is the face of Chinese cooking for many TV viewers. In the U.K., she’s known for shows such as “Exploring China,” while her programs in the U.S. include “Easy Chinese: New York & L.A.,” for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination.
She was born into a farming community in southern Taiwan, where she learned to cook at her grandmother’s knee, and then raised in South Africa and the U.K., where she started a catering company. As well as being in demand on TV, appearing with other chefs including Rachael Ray and Ken Hom, she has published nine cookbooks, with a 10th, “Asian Green,” scheduled for this month.
She supplies a simple recipe for Oyster-Sauce Scallops and Mangetout — also known as snow peas — that first appeared in her book, “Stir Crazy.”
“This is a super-easy and delicious Cantonese-inspired seafood dish that uses only a few fresh ingredients,” she says. “If you can get fresh scallops from the fish counter, that’s perfect: They are super-sweet and absorb the delicate gingery notes, umami savoriness from buying a good-quality oyster sauce and the rich subtle hits of Shaoxing rice wine that adds a silky sweetness.
“When I cook for a dinner party, this is what I love to do at the last minute. I’ll have some fish steaming, some rice in the rice cooker, something roasting in the oven, some veggie tofu stew, and then just wok this little number out. It’s as reliable and as classic as your trusted little black dress.”
The recipe is straightforward, but you need to be very fast. The initial cooking time on the scallops is just five seconds, for example, and ditto for the mangetout, so you should have your ingredients lined up in order and ready to go. The wok must be very hot, and Ching suggests a total cooking time of five minutes. (I capped it at four, but checked that the scallops were ready so as not to poison myself.) It serves four as a side, but I ate it all myself in a single seating. Yes, I’m greedy.