Whenever anyone asks me that whole “what would your last meal on Earth be” question, I know right away. It’s not a cheeseburger, or birthday cake, but it is my idea of pure comfort food. Not surprising — in fact, most death row inmates tend to pick comforting childhood favourites as their final meal in life (or, if you’re this guy, you order a veritable buffet of comfort food and ruin it for everyone else).
My last meal would be a mainstay at my house during childhood, a classic staple of homestyle Chinese cooking. Often called “white cut chicken,” the dish is a whole chicken, poached gently for a few hours so as to render very moist, tender meat and firm, springy skin, served family style — cut into pieces the perfect size for grabbing with chopsticks. Accompaniments include steamed rice and a dipping sauce bright with chopped ginger and green onions. My family also supplements with oyster sauce and hot mustard, so I have fond memories of carefully dipping each side of my chicken into each sauce, then eating it with a bite of rice.
However, my favourite moment was when you had all the sauce residue left in your bowl of rice. In university, feeling homesick and starving, I recall trying to re-create the same flavours by just making the sauce and eating it over rice (since poaching an entire chicken for myself seemed…excessive at the time). Since then, I’ve discovered all kinds of amazing uses for this sauce — it is delicious spooned over scrambled eggs, drizzled atop of grilled meats or fish, tossed with fresh ramen or soba noodles, used as a marinade, thrown into salad dressings — you get the picture. So, even if poaching a whole chicken seems excessive to you — you’d still get an awful lot of mileage out of having a jar of this sauce in your fridge.
The Internet has no shortage of variations on this recipe — proliferated, I suspect, by David Chang’s inclusion of the sauce in his recipes for bo ssam and Momofuku Noodle Bar’s ginger scallion noodles. While Chang’s version includes soy and vinegar, however, the Chinese classic that I know is nothing more than finely minced ginger and scallions, with some salt tossed in, then flash-melded together by the pouring of sizzling hot oil over top. The hot oil gently cooks the flavours and mellows out the ginger and scallions, making it ready to eat as soon as it cools.
Try to find fresh, young ginger for this — look for ginger root with smooth, shiny skin. I find the easiest way to peel ginger is either with a small spoon or a vegetable peeler. If you have a food processor or a Slap-Chop-type device, this is even faster. It should keep in your fridge for a couple weeks, but it may not last that long.
Ginger Scallion Sauce
2 bunches scallions, minced
½ cup ginger, minced
1 tsp salt
⅓ cup vegetable oil (or other neutral oil)
1. Combine scallions, ginger and salt in a heatproof bowl.
2. Heat oil in a small saucepan on medium heat until it just starts to smoke.
3. Standing well back, pour hot oil over scallion-ginger mixture, stirring to combine flavours. Let sit to room temperature. Serve with everything.
Sara Chan is a Toronto-based entertainment lawyer, food enthusiast, unprofessional home chef and even less professional food photographer. Her favourite food group is pork.