Pork patty with salted fish

Ingredientsserves 4

Method

1. Rinse the salted fish and pat dry. Keep a 梅香 piece whole to lay on top of the patty; with the firm 實肉 grade, flake the flesh off the bone and fry it a minute in a teaspoon of oil until fragrant, to go through the mince.
2. Chop the pork by hand: cut off the skin, cut into strips, then dice, then chop to a coarse, uneven mince; hand-chopping is what gives the patty its bite. If buying mince, make it the fatty grade.
3. Season with the salt, sugar, soy, a pinch of white pepper, the wine and cornflour and stir in one direction until sticky; then work in the beaten egg. 蛇王芬’s rule is egg, not water.
4. Fold in the water chestnut and half the ginger; fried 實肉 flakes go in here.
5. Press into a wide plate about 2 cm deep; lay the whole 梅香 piece and the rest of the ginger on top.
6. Steam over fully boiling water on high for fifteen to twenty minutes until the juices run clear and there is no pink when cut; scatter spring onion and serve with the juices over rice.

Take care

• Contains fish (the salted fish), egg, soy and wheat (the soy sauce), all mandatory-declaration allergens in Australia.
• Steam the pork through: no pink at the centre and the juices clear, or 75 °C at the centre.

The story

Salted fish was the poor man’s protein of the Cantonese coast, and this patty is the dish that stretched a small piece of it across a family’s rice; 東周刊’s cooking column calls it the taste of childhood. 蛇王芬 in Central has served it for a hundred years, and its fourth-generation owner’s version, with egg and water chestnut and no water, is now the reference for home cooks.

Same technique

Steamed whole fishPork patty with preserved mustardSpare ribs in black bean sauce

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.