Simple Breakfast

Recipe by Lisa Cheng Smith from our Taiwanese cooking series, Cooking with Steam, and her newsletter, Yun Hai Taiwan Stories.

Cooking with Steam 01: Simple Breakfast
好蒸氣 01 | 簡單早餐

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-cup or 11-cup size; Lisa uses the 11-cup for this recipe)

Instructions

1. Crack eggs into a bowl. Add chicken stock or water, rice wine, and salt.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Using a spoon, scrape off any bubbles that may have formed at the top of the egg mixture in the bowl.
5. 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.
6. Add 1 rice cup of water (~180 ml) into the outer pot of the Tatung.
   1. 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.
   2. 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.
7. 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).
8. 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.
9. 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

1. Wash and trim the Chinese broccoli. Pare away thicker skin on the bottom of the stems, if present.
2. Chop the stems in half, into 3-4” long pieces, splitting the very thick stems lengthwise if needed to achieve a uniform thickness.
3. Stack the stems and leaves into a ceramic bowl or platter that will fit inside the steamer.
4. 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.
5. While the vegetables are steaming, mix the water and soy paste together to a uniform consistency.
6. Once the vegetables are done steaming, take them out, restack if needed, and drizzle the sauce over top.
7. Serve immediately with steamed egg, rice, or other main dishes.