Two classes prepared me and my three friends to take over a kitchen of a B&B in 池上to make an aboriginal feast. Mele, one of our Chinese teachers who is Taiwanese herself, helped us narrow down the dishes we were interested in making from difficulty level to time constraints. In the end we decided to go with some aboriginal staples: 三杯雞，三杯蝸牛，絲瓜，和麻婆豆腐. 三杯 literally translates to 3 cup. It refers to the sauce/marinade that is comprised of three different liquids to make the flavor, water, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. We decided to go with the chicken and snail version of this flavor because of its prominence in Taiwanese culture. I know it surprised me that my friends wanted to learn how to cook let alone eat snails, but that we did. 絲瓜 translates to towel gourd or sometimes a sponge gourd. If you ask me it takes like a squishier version of a cucumber. 麻婆豆腐, ma po do fu, is… you guessed it – tofu. It’s a spicy tofu dish with ground pork. Before coming to Taiwan, I never had tofu. I’m not one for weird textures and that’s literally all tofu has to offer is the texture. However, in Taiwan they sneak tofu into a lot of the dishes, especially our cooks at school. Slowly, but surely tofu is growing on me.
Left to Right: 絲瓜， 三杯雞， 和三杯蓋牛
Now if you know me, you know I have a tendency to overlook key parts of a recipe. No matter how hard I try sometimes the dishes don’t always go the right way. So, you would think that trying to make four Taiwanese dishes is hard enough. Mele didn’t agree with me on my argument and instead we got the recipes spoken in Chinese. It was our job to then translate what she was telling us and write it down. Not only was translating cooking phrases a little difficult, but in giving us the recipes the only measurements we were given were in terms of the 3-cup sauce’s ratio of rice vinegar, water, and soy sauce. The rest of the ingredients were all down to taste or consistency.
At the end of the class before we all chose a dish. I really wanted to make one of the harder dishes because by the end of the summer I had improved on my cooking ability (baking is still another story) and believe it or not, I actually have a higher cooking level than some of my friends. At least more cooking experience it seems. I wasn’t fast enough if speaking up to get one of the more fun recipes and instead I was in charge of the 絲瓜, sponge gourd. The recipe was pretty straight forward. First, cut the ginger into strips and add them to hot oil. When you can start to smell it you then add the sliced gourd with water and salt, turning the flame to high. Five minutes later, you add clams. You are done with the dish once you find that all the clams are fully opened. I was a little upset with myself getting stuck with this dish, but decided to make the most of it. Instead of just focusing on mine, I helped read my translated recipes to my friends as they added all their ingredients. More importantly, I got to go around with my camera taking pictures of literally everything. I captured Amanda’s first time mincing (yes we reviewed the difference of mince, dice, strips, and cube before we started). I captured Parker’s simmering work and Crystal’s skill with the wok. It was an unbelievable time spent cooking, talking, and playing Christmas songs because although there are some days we can wear short sleeves it is finally December making it acceptable.
With the rest of the day I spent making the video below. I hope it gives you a taste of how the class went and how much fun we had together making all the dishes.
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