Cooking: Hong Kong Curry Fishballs and Turnip

Semi-homemade Chinese Curry Fishballs and Turnip
Image from Locky's English Playground

Raining and raining day after day. What's better to do than staying at home and cook something real nice for your love ones?

Yesterday morning, my wife wanted to go yum cha just to have their Chinese curry fishballs and turnips, turned out that they didn't sell it on weekdays. She was quite disappointed and so I volunteered to cook the dish for her to cheer her up.

Cooking this dish is in fact, rather easy, there are only two challenges:

1. how to cook turnips thoroughly?
2. how to make sure the taste of the curry is in every bite of the turnip?

Normally, it would be great if you have a day or two to prepare, but I don't. I only have 2 hours, so what was I going to do?

Texture-wise, the fishballs are really bouncy!
Image from Locky's English Playground

To make sure I don't fail, I needed to get some semi-products, and so, I got the curry fish balls with an Indian on the packet.

AMOY, claims to have no MSG and preservatives
Image from Locky's English Playground

But I knew the curry that came with the curry fish balls was not adequate to make a sauce, and so I bought a bottle of AMOY curry sauce, mainly because it does not come with MSG and preservatives, something that my wife is highly sensitive of.

Next, cut the turnip into thin slices to shorten the boiling time. I added salt and sugar into the water and boiled the turnip slices for a good 30 mins at maximum flame.

After 30 mins, the turnip slices should be about 80% cooked, indicated by the semi-translucent outer rings and slightly whiter core. Give the centre of the turnip slices a soft poke with a fork, if the fork does go in slightly, turn off the flame and then remove the turnip from the boiling water.

80% cooked turnip and fishballs in the wok with curry sauce
Image from Locky's English Playground

With clean boiling water in the wok, add 6 table spoons of curry sauce and stir, then pour in the curry fishballs and 80% cooked turnip slices. Add one tablespoon of sugar to calm the saltiness. 

Close-up at the turnip slices revealing the some translucence
Image from Locky's English Playground

Next step is crucial, turn the flame on maximum and when the sauce starts to boil, turn the flame to minimum and let it cook slowly. Repeat this step several times at 10-15 mins interval. This allow the turnip slices and fishballs to slowly soak the curry sauce up without overcooking them.

Lid is put but not fully covered to maintain the temperature but allow excess steam to escape
Image from Locky's English Playground

After several rounds of cooking and cooling, the final step is to concentrate the curry sauce. I added about 3 tablespoons of corn flour into water to make starch water before pouring it into the wok.You may want to adjust the amount according to the size of your dish.

100% cooked turnip slices with chewy fishballs!
Image from Locky's English Playground

After the sauce is condensed to your liking, it is time to enjoy!

Mine tasted even better than the ones at the restaurants! How about yours?

If you like, do check out my other cooking articles:

Cooking: How To Cook Steaks with Sticky Wok and Clean Easily
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2012/08/cooking-how-to-cook-steaks-with-stick.html

Cooking & Health: How To Cook Perfect Scrambled Eggs with Healthy Oil and Good Wok 
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2012/07/cooking-health-how-to-cook-perfect.html


Vocabulary:
translucent -- (adj) If an object or a substance is translucent, it is almost transparent, allowing some light through it in an attractive way:
interval -- (n)[C] repeated after a particular period of time or a particular distance:
soak sth up -- phrasal verb If a dry material or substance soaks up a liquid, it absorbs the liquid through its surface:
chewy -- (adj) describes food that needs to be chewed a lot before it is swallowed:
liking -- (n)[S] a feeling that you like someone or something:


Resources:
Cooking: How To Cook Steaks with Sticky Wok and Clean Easily @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2012/08/cooking-how-to-cook-steaks-with-stick.html

Cooking & Health: How To Cook Perfect Scrambled Eggs with Healthy Oil and Good Wok  @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2012/07/cooking-health-how-to-cook-perfect.html

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/translucent?q=translucence
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/interval_1?q=interval
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/soak-sth-up_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/chewy?q=chewy
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/liking?q=liking