Patron Exclusive Recipe #4: Yunnan Sani People's Spicy Mushroom Stew (烂烀杏鲍菇)

Sup guys. This week, Yunnan dish again. Man, how I LOVE Southwest China~

Alright, the dish I'm doing this week is a mushroom stew from the Sani People, in Xinping, Yunnan. 

So wild mushroom is a highly sought after delicacy in Yunnan and they have many ways of preparing it. While we can't get those awesome mushrooms, some of their ways of cooking mushroom can still be very tasty even if we use regular mushrooms. So for this dish, I opted for king oyster mushroom for its "meatiness". 

Let's get started. 

 **Ingredients** 

1. King oyster mushroom, 450g thinly sliced. They use one type of porcini in Yunnan for this dish, you can totally go for it if you're feeling fancy. 

If you use  porcini, give the sliced mushrooms a quick deep fry for about 1-2 minutes before frying to get the best texture. 

2. Cured meat, 30g, sliced. I used a smoked pork bellyfrom Hunan, you can use whatever cured or smoked meat. (Skip this ingredient if you want it to be vegan, just add a bit more oil (~1tbsp) in the stir frying process.)

3. Dried chili, 8g, cut into ~1cm sections.

4. Garlic, half a head, peeled slightly crushed each cloves.

5. Erjingtiao chilis, 90g, cut into 1cn sections. Use half red and half green to make it look pretty. You can use chilis with similar heat level, or use cayenne pepper if you don't want it to be too spicy. (Word of warning, this dish IS quite spicy~).

6. Fresh mints,  40g, cut or tear into ~2cm sections. 

7. Water celery, 60g, smash the stem and cut into ~1cm sections.

Now, how can we  have  Yunnan food without weird herb? LOL. So this is called water celery, it tastes very similar to Chinese celery. You can totally use Chinese celery or the inner thin stalks of western celery. This herb is also widely used in Cambodia, it's often served along side with their curry noodle soups or as part of a vegetable dip. 

(Mint on the left and water celery on the right.)

(Water celery, ~1cm sections.)

 **Seasoning** 

1. Light soy sauce, 2 tbsp.

2. Dark soy sauce, 1 tsp.

3. Pickled chili sauce or chili garlic sauce, 1/2 tbsp. They use local picked chili and finely minced, but the taste is quite similar to chili garlic sauce. So I'm using that here.

4. Salt, 1/4 tsp.

5. Sugar, 1/2 tsp.

(Opted for LKK for easier replication.)

 **Process**  

1. Thinly slice the mushroom and cured meat. Slightly crushed the garlic cloves. Cut both dried and fresh chilis into about 1cm sections. Cut the mint into 2cm sections. Smash the stem of the celery then cut into 1cm sections. And prepping is done.

2. For the mushrooms, in Yunnan they'll deep fry certain type of  porcini to get rid of the toxin before cooking. But since we're using the very safe (and...boring) king oyster mushroom, I'm gonna skip the deep frying.

3. Now we can fry. First, long yau. Get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in the oil, give it a swirl to get a nice non-stick surface. Heat on medium now, add in the cured meat. Fry it for 1 minute or two to render out the oil.

4. Now we have some cured meat oil, let's add in the dried chili. Fry for ~30 seconds.

5. Now add in the chili and garlic, fry for 45 secs to 1 minutes, or till that pungent chili flavor start hitting your nose.  

6. Next, mushrooms in. Give it a few guick mix.

7. After frying the mushroom for about a mintue, add in a 1 1/2 cup water.

8. Now we can season it. Add in 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1tsp dark soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp chili sauce, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar.

(Soy sauce in)

(Chili sauce in)

(Salt and sugar in)

9. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for about 5 minutes, or till the sauce reduced and thickened a bit.

(The sauce has reduced a bit)

10. When the sauce slightly thickens after about 5 minutes simmering, we can add in the mint and water celery. 

11. Give it a super quick mix, and out~

12. Optionally garnish some fresh mint around the bowl/plate, and you have this awesome mushroom stew.

(This doesn't seem to be a lot because I used a big deep bowl to hold all that delicious sauce.)

There you go, a flavorful, spicy, delicious Sani people's mushroom stew, so good that you won't realize that it's just mushroom~ Now this has become one of my favourite way to have mushrooms. Hope you can give a try. You can use whatever mushrooms you fancy and give it a go.

Alright, see you next week~