York opens up to Oriental flavours

12:37pm Saturday 23rd August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

IT’S a curious fruit, the durian. I mean, how many fruit are actually dangerous to split open? And then there’s the smell… a whiff of something rotten, like meat gone bad in a forgotten corner of the fridge.

Susan Tsang hefts one of the spiky monsters in her hand and cheerfully admits she didn’t like it much at first.

“Sometimes the smell offends people,” she says.

But it quickly grows on you to the point of addiction, she says. The flesh, when you can get in, is rich and moist, like avocado. “And it’s such a healthy fruit.”

I ponder the football-sized fruit that is covered in thick spines. Healthy and delicious it may be, once you can get past that smell. But how on earth do you open it?

Susan grins. “You have to put gloves on,” she says. “You can sometimes hurt yourself. Then you find the main lines and use a deep knife.”

Hmm. Maybe I’ll pass on the durian for now. There are plenty more exotic oriental delights in the new Chi Yip Supermarket, in George Hudson Street, York. Such as fresh steamed buns, for example; or Chinese dumplings; or fresh lotus root, water chestnuts and needle mushrooms… My Chinese wife and I have waited for years for York to get a decent Oriental supermarket. We have had to resort to going to Leeds to stock up on chilli jam and soy sauce, dried cream noodles and pickled vegetables.

But now, York has not one but four oriental grocery shops – and those are just the ones I know about.

In South Bank, there is a great little Korean shop – Hana Foods – on Bishopthorpe Road. For a while now, there has been a small oriental food store above the Chinese accessories shop on Bridge Street. Four weeks ago, the Oriental Express supermarket opened at Matmer House, on Hull Road.

At almost exactly the same time, Chi Yip opened in George Hudson Street: and it is, by some way, the biggest of the four. The shelves are filled with exotic goodies – many essential staples for cooking authentic Chinese and Oriental dishes at home.

There are a range of chilli jams – great as dips, or for adding a spicy flavour to soups and stews.

There are dark and light soy sauces, cream noodles, a whole rack of assorted dried beans, preserved eggs (sometimes known as thousand-year-old eggs), sweet glutinous rice balls which make a delicious pudding, and an assortment of fish balls, dumplings and steamed buns.

The vegetable section includes pak choi, lotus root – “It makes great soup, and it’s good for you as well,” says Susan – and Chinese celery, thinner and sweeter than the English version.

There is mouli (a variety of giant white radish) and dong gua (a kind of gourd), both of which are great in soup or stew, fresh lychees, lemon grass and whole chillies.

There is also a selection of Chinese sausages – much harder and tastier than bland British supermarket sausages – and even Vietnamese meat roll.

“It’s made from pure pork, it’s ready to eat, and you can just put it in your sandwiches,” Susan says.

Susan was born in Hong Kong, though you wouldn’t know it from her broad northern accent (she was brought up in Oldham and Bolton). Chi Yip, of which she’s the managing director, is part of the same company which owns the Red Chilli restaurant next door.

Red Chilli itself specialises in Beijing and Sichuan cuisine. The latter, in particular, is very spicy, using lots of chilli and pepper – quite a surprise if the only Chinese food you are familiar with is chicken and black bean sauce from the local takeaway.

Most Chinese restaurants and takeaways in the UK have traditionally been based on Cantonese cuisine. But that is only one of many different regional cuisines to be found in China, Susan says.

All the signs are that we Brits are now ready for a more authentic Chinese and Oriental cooking experience. It’s not only that large numbers of Chinese students are now coming here to live and work, bringing with them their own tastes and recipes. It’s also that far more British people are now travelling to the far east, and encountering authentic Ooriental cooking for themselves.

“There are so many people that have been out to the far east and know exactly what they want,” Susan says.

Like York’s other oriental food markets, Chi Yip isn’t only Chinese: it stocks a range of oriental foodstuffs, including Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese.

It can be bewildering at first. But if you are not sure what something is, or how to cook it, just ask, Susan says. There will always be someone ready to give advice. And there are many delicious meals and authentic snacks that can be prepared in a few minutes.

So if you’re fed up with bland takeaway food and want to impress your neighbours with a bit of exotic, home-cooked oriental cuisine, now is your chance.

Recipe suggestions from Susan Tsang

Cream noodle soup
Chinese noodles, whether made from rice or wheat flour, are very different to Italian spaghetti. They are generally best cooked in a thin soup, and make a delicious and satisfying meal, Susan says.

Cream noodles are white and a little floury, and come in various thicknesses. To make a simple noodle soup, take a basic soup stock – chicken or vegetable would do – and add salt and pepper and a dash of light soy sauce to taste. Add the noodles, and simmer for about ten minutes. Finely chop some spring onions and coriander and sprinkle on top of the soup when cooked. Deliciously slurpy.

Boiled rice with Chinese sausage and preserved pork
There is a good range of Chinese sausages to choose from, made from pork and even liver. Some have a slightly sweetish taste, others have a hint of chilli or spice.

A simple meal is to take sliced Chinese sausages and a few slices of preserved pork, place them on top of uncooked rice, and steam in a pan or rice cooker. By the time the rice is cooked, Susan says, the sausage will be cooked too. “All the juices come through into the rice, and it’s delicious.”

Chinese dumplings
Most oriental food stores have a range of ready-made frozen dumplings. These are small parcels of thin pastry filled with everything from pork and chives to chicken, celery and even beancurd.

The dumplings are easy to cook, and make a delicious meal, Susan says. Boil a pan of water, then place the dumplings in once the water is boiling (that way, they won’t stick to the bottom of the pan). Simmer for ten minutes or so, until the dumplings rise to the surface of the water. They are then cooked.

Eat them in small bowls with your own choice of dipping sauce: it could be chilli jam, or a mixture of chilli, vinegar and light soy sauce. Experiment to find what suits you best.