Cooking with Steam Episode 01: Simple Breakfast
steamed egg, chinese broccoli, and steamed buns
Cooking With Steam 好蒸氣 is a show about Taiwanese food. It’s part of Yun Hai Taiwan Stories, a newsletter about Taiwanese food and culture by Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉, founder of Yun Hai.
The day has come to share the first episode of our cooking show!
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I actually have two episodes of Cooking With Steam 好蒸氣 to share today.
First is a short preface: an intro to the Tatung Steamer so you’ll know your way around. It sounds straightforward, but it’s a little bit funny, too. I recommend it.
COOKING WITH STEAM: INTRO
The Tatung Steam Cooker, a User's Guide
好蒸氣：序章 | 大同電鍋使用指南
subtitled in English and Traditional Chinese
The second is our first full length episode, and gets right to the cooking. It features a set of dishes that I like to make for breakfast: steamed egg, steamed vegetables, and some quick frozen buns.
COOKING WITH STEAM Episode 01
Simple Breakfast
好蒸氣 01 | 簡單早餐
subtitled in English and Traditional Chinese
Recipes, equipment, additional notes, and acknowledgments below. Please like, subscribe, and share far and wide!
And, just for fun, we’re offering newsletter subscribers 10% off featured ingredients, in case you wanted to give them a try. Use checkout code CWS001.
Featured Recipes
Steamed Egg with Shiitake Mushrooms
serves 2
Steam this on the top layer of a bamboo steamer to avoid drips. If using a metal steamer or lid, which will drip more, cover with aluminum foil to avoid a pockmarked surface.
Ingredients
3 eggs, large
1 1/4 cups chicken stock, or water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp rice wine (we use Taiwanese mi jiu 米酒, which has fruity notes closer to a Japanese cooking sake than Chinese shao xing wine)
4 shiitake mushrooms, cold-soaked overnight or hot-soaked for 30 minutes, with the water squeezed out, then sliced into thin strips
for the garnish
Amber River Soy Sauce, to taste
Su Chili Crisp Mala, to taste
Dong He white sesame oil, to taste
1 scallion, sliced into small rings
equipment
Heatproof bowl (check that it fits in your steamer)
Whisk or chopsticks
Mesh strainer
Rubber spatula
Tatung Electric Steamer (6- or 11-cup size), or any other steaming set up that will accommodate the bowl
Instructions
Crack eggs into a bowl. Add chicken stock or water, rice wine, and salt.
Whisk heartily until the egg and water are fully mixed; the color should be uniform and it will froth. Taste a tiny bit of the mixture and add more salt if needed.
Strain egg mixture through a mesh strainer into the heatproof bowl, leaving an inch or so of room at the top of the bowl for the eggs to rise. Straining the egg is a necessary step to get the silken texture. Use a rubber spatula to press the egg through the strainer if needed. There will be some egg white material left in the strainer. Store any remaining egg mixture in the fridge to make another batch.
Using a spoon, scrape off any bubbles that may have formed at the top of the egg mixture in the bowl.
Distribute sliced mushrooms evenly throughout the egg mixture. Depending on whether or not you were able to use all of the egg mixture in your bowl, you can save some of the sliced mushrooms for the next batch of steamed egg.
Add 1 rice cup of water (~180 ml) into the outer pot of the Tatung.
If you are using a bamboo steamer stacked onto your Tatung, place the heatproof bowl into the top basket of the steamer, then close the lid fully.
If you are not using a bamboo steamer stacked onto your Tatung, carefully place the heatproof bowl on the steamer insert inside the Tatung and cover with foil. Do not close the lid fully. Place two chopsticks on either side of the top of the pot and then put the lid on, leaving a small gap. Doing this will reduce the strength of the steam so that the egg doesn't overflow or become rough in texture.
Let steam for 20-30 minutes. Once the switch pops, open the lid. The eggs may appear runny. Test with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, the eggs are done. The texture should be like very silken tofu (it will firm up as it cools).
Let cool with the lid open for a few minutes, then remove carefully (with a bowl clip or steamer tongs, if you have one) to avoid burning yourself.
Drizzle with soy sauce, white sesame oil, and chili oil. Garnish with finely sliced scallion, and serve.
Chinese Broccoli with Soy Paste
This couldn’t be easier and is my absolute weeknight go-to. The sweet-savory sauce goes well with the bitter flavor profile of a dark brassica. Don’t over-steam, and try to cut everything to a uniform thickness for best results.
Ingredients
1/2 lb of Chinese broccoli (gai lan) or other hearty dark green brassica
1 tbsp Soy Paste with Glutinous Rice Grains, Firewood Soy Paste, or other Taiwanese soy paste
1 tbsp water
Instructions
Wash and trim the Chinese broccoli. Pare away thicker skin on the bottom of the stems, if present.
Chop the stems in half, into 3-4” long pieces, splitting the very thick stems lengthwise if needed to achieve a uniform thickness.
Stack the stems and leaves into a ceramic bowl or platter that will fit inside the steamer.
Steam for about 5 minutes. In a Tatung, this is about half a rice cup of water. Check every few minutes to make sure the vegetables aren’t over-steamed.
While the vegetables are steaming, mix the water and soy paste together to a uniform consistency.
Once the vegetables are done steaming, take them out, restack if needed, and drizzle the sauce over top.
Serve immediately with steamed egg, rice, or other main dishes.
Ingredients and Equipment
In the recipe, I’m using a 6-cup Tatung steamer with a set of 6-cup Bamboo Cypress Steamers. To chop, I’m using our Maestro Wu Vegetable Cleaver on a round ironwood cutting board. To move things around without burning my hands, I’m using the aptly named Steamer Tongs and Bowl Clip.
(We’re sold out of 6-cup steamers until January, but we have the red 11-cup size, which would work just as well.)
I’m also demonstrating how to use a few Yun Hai products, like soy paste, chili crisp, and sesame oil. For a limited time, all ingredients featured in today’s episode are available to newsletter subscribers for 10% off, with code CWS001.
I soaked the shiitake mushrooms in my own set of vintage red and white rice bowls, like we used to have at home.
The blue and white curtain in the background is by Hsien Hua Li, who made a similar curtain for our store. The checkered plate for the Chinese broccoli and the steamed egg bowl in were made by Taiwanese-American ceramicist Debbie Carlos. The white pedestal bowl at the wooden table, with the Chinese broccoli in it, was made by my friend Matthew So. We’ll have pieces from all these artists in our Brooklyn shop in the coming weeks!
Gratitude and Acknowledgements
We couldn’t have done this without the support and passion of our friends and community. So much love and gratitude to Night Shift, who produced this, and all our creative collaborators for giving the show its unique voice.
Credits
Produced by Night Shift and Yun Hai
Made possible by Tatung Taiwan
Team:
Lisa Cheng Smith, host
Amalissa Uytingco, culinary producer
Sam Broscoe, producer
Alec Sutherland, director & editor
Nathan Bailey, director of photography
Bryan Bonilla, camera operator
Naomi Munro, production designer
Alexandra Egan, art director
Kyle Garvey, sound mixer
Rebecca Alexander, hair and makeup
Dustin Wong, music
O.OO, graphics
Jil Tai & Ben Hill, motion design and title sequence
R. Hollis Smith, mix
Our Set
Our set features props from Taiwanese, Taiwanese-American, and American friends worldwide, creating those Taiwancore vibes we love so much at Yun Hai.
Thank you for the beauty Mikey Chen, Lillian Li, Emilie Liu, Debbie Carlos, Matthew So, Kelli Cain, Material Kitchen, Mogutable, Felicia Liang, Sam Tilney, Lulu Yao Gioiello, Grace Jung, Eric Sze, Julianne Ahn, James Smith, CS Agnes Cheng, and Leh Lin.
Special Thanks
Russell Wang, Maggie Chang, Shirley Liu, Ivan Wu, Feng Hsieh, Hollow, Chris, Leon, Simon, Lillian Lin, Jasmine Huang, Natya Regensburger, Cat Yeh & the entire Yun Hai Team, our partners, and our wonderful community.
The next episode will cover (omg) Beef Noodle Soup in (omg) the Tatung. I’ll be back with that in January.
Your resident steampunk,
Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉
Written with research and editorial support by Amalissa Uytingco, Jasmine Huang, and Lillian Lin. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with friends and subscribe if you haven’t already. I email once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. For more Taiwanese food, head to yunhai.shop, follow us on instagram and twitter, or view the newsletter archives.
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