Toon omelettes
The village of Chenjiapu
Welcome to Kitchen Yo, a new bilingual video blog about cooking and food in China.
Each video program is a short interview with a person in China who cooks a dish for us. (Our Chinese site is at Chufangyo.com)
Most of the food will be Chinese but we’ll also feature dishes from other countries, as long as they are made in China.
In this first episode, I am your host Jeremy Goldkorn, learning how to cook Hebei style spring omelettes with Mrs Yang of Chenjiapu village, in Hebei not too far from Beijing.
Chenjiapu is a a village of several hundred people in a beautiful valley beneath the Great Wall. Mrs Yang and her husband have a small guest house there where they prepare delicious Hebei farm style dishes, using wild vegetables and leaves, and vegetables they grow themselves without using any fertilizer or insecticide.
In this episode, Mrs Yang shows me how to make a Hebei style omelette with spring leaves of the Chinese Mahogany tree, also known as the Toon.
Not only do Toon leaves, let’s just call them Toons, have a delightfully whimisical name, they are also a delicacy available only in the spring: new leaves that are are reddish in color are good to eat, and that only lasts for a few weeks in the spring and early summer.
The recipe for Mrs Yang’s Toon omelettes is below the video. If you’d like to visit Mrs Yang’s guesthouse and take a walk on the wild Great Wall before trying her cuisine, call her on 1361 126 4212.
This video and website are produced by the people behind Betty Bossi (贝太厨房) and City Weekend magazines.
We’re looking for guests for the show, so if you have something good to cook and you live in China, please write to linbei@kitchenyo.com and tell her what you’d like to cook.
Recipe: Hebei style Toon omelette
Ingredients:
1 bunch of Toons (can substitute spinach or any other green leafy green vegetable)
3 or 4 eggs
4-5g of salt
Method:
1. Wash and chop up the Toons
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl
3. Add the Toon pieces to the eggs
4. Add the salt and mix well
5. Bring the wok to medium heat, add oil, pour the egg mixture in, flip when half done, continue to fry until the eggs are tender and near fully cooked, then put on a plate and serve.