This dish holds a special place of all Taiwanese people of my generation. I honestly don't know the true origin of this dish, but we always had it at dim sum restaurants in Taiwan. However, as delicious as this dish is, it is disappearing from the menu! It's so hard to find it anywhere in Taiwan. And even when we found it, it's often not very good anymore. Fortunately, my mom cooks this dish really well and she taught me how to make this dish early on. I feel this is my responsibility to keep this endangered recipe alive and pass it on! I urge you to give this recipe a try, because it is soooo gooood!!!!
Ingredients:
- Napa Cabbage x 1 ( wash, and chop into bite size chunks )
- Ginger x a few slices (Julianne)
- Dried Shitake Mushrooms x 3-4 pcs
- Dried Scallops x 3-4 (optional)
- Taiwanese Rice Wine x ¼ cup (optional, only if you use dried scallops)
- Bacon x 3 strips (cut into small pieces)
- Butter x 3 tbsp
- Flour x 3.5 tbsp
- Milk x 1 + ½ cups
Recipe:
*Preheat oven to Broil @ 425F / 220C
- Cover dried scallop with rice wine in a bowl and steam for 15-20 mins. Once done cooking, drain the remaining liquid, then set the liquid aside for later use, and break apart into thin strips. *see video for detail instruction.
- Cover dried shitake mushroom with hot water and soak for 15-20 mins. Once done soaking, squeeze out the water, set aside the water for later use, then remove stems and julianne cut. *see video for detail instruction.
- Prepare ginger and bacon, and napa cabbage. *see video for detail instruction.
- Heat up the wok, add oil. With low heat, saute shitake mushroom for 3 mins until fragrant. Then add in dried scallops and continue saute with low heat for 3 more minutes until fragrant.
- Turn up the heat to medium, add bacon and render until light golden brown.
- Add in napa cabbage into you wok. It's normal that you can't fit in all your napa cabbage at once. Napa cabbage wilter really fast and shrink in size a lot. So you will be able to fit in all of your napa cabbage in 2-3 batches. Once you put in all the napa cabbage, saute until they all shrink down to half of it original quantity. Cover and cook in low heat for another 10-15 mins.
- Meanwhile, make the roux by melting the butter, then add in flour. Make sure the butter and the flour are well incorporated into like a dough.
- Add 1 cup of milk, but 1/3 cup at a time. Make sure milk and the roux are well incorporated everytime.
- Add about 7 tbsp of the roux mixture into the cabbage, a couple tbsp at a time. This part is very personal. Adjust the amount of the roux mixture that you put in to reach the final creaminess that you like.
- Transfer the creamy napa cabbage into a baking pan.
- With remaining roux mixture, add in another ½ cup of milk (again, in 2-3 times), stir and cook until well incorporated. *see video for the consistency we're looking for
- Spread #11 on top of the creamy napa cabbage with a thin coat.
- Broil for 15 minutes or so until golden brown.
