It is the remarkable strangeness of Chinese shops that I like best. At a time when our shops and supermarkets are becoming more homogenised, even just to enter some place like the Asia Market on Dublin's Drury Street, or Mr Bell's in the Cork Covered Market or - best of all - the extraordinary Asia Supermarket in Belfast's Agincourt Avenue, just off the Ormeau Road, is a pleasing shock to the system.
The ambience, of course, is the biggest difference. These are rough-and-ready places, with none of the seductive lighting and decor, designed to lull us into economic unconsciousness, which you get in our big supermarkets. Ireland's Chinese shops are just like the Chinese shops you will find in any Chinatown. A minimum of frills and a maximum of ingredients piled high on every shelf and in every space, including Kung-Fu shoes, masses of woks and steamers and scoops, and, in Belfast, enormous wooden stirrers the size of cricket bats. "Are those spades for the beach, Dad?" my four-year-old asked. There is even a clatter of videos for after you have picked up everything you need.
What the Chinese shops also show us is that if you only ever buy Asian ingredients in colourful little bottles in your local supermarket, then you are not even touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to real Chinese cooking.
As well as selling the familiar stuff we all know about - the tofu, the coriander, the pak choi - there is all the other weird stuff, all that queer gear: Mutcho dates; pickled gourang fish; vegetarian fuchon ball. There are KamKee Special Fish Balls, and salted mackerel and silken tofu. There are fishballs with black sea moss and coriander and Hua Tiao Chiew Shao Xing and Lo Han Kuo soup mixture. In culinary terms, this is a world scarcely recognisable as existing on the same planet as our own food culture, and yet here it is in the centre of our major cities. What do you do with it all?
Just what would you do, for example, with bamboo leaf? Well, according to Deh-Ta Hsiung's new book, The Chinese Kitchen (Kyle Cathie, £19.99 in UK), bamboo leaves are a traditional treatment for tuberculosis, and "are picked at dawn when still full of morning dew, and the patient drinks the water thus collected". The leaves are also used to wrap glutenous rice cooked with red sweet bean paste, a dish known as Zongzi, which is eaten every year at the Dragon Boat Festival held to commemorate the death of the statesman-poet Chu Yuan in 295BC. Chu Yuan drowned himself in protest against government corruption, and in order to draw the fish from eating his corpse, rice and eggs were thrown into the water. So now we know.
Bamboo shoots, of course, are highly prized in Chinese cuisine, both in their canned form and also dried, when they must be soaked for an hour before using. "They are very popular among Chinese vegetarians, who value their firm and crunchy texture", writes Deh-Ta, who gives us two classic recipes which use the shoots: Twice-cooked pork with bamboo shoots, and stir-fried "Twin Winter", his simplified version of the dish "Triple Winter."
The Chinese Kitchen is full of information like this, lots of arcane folklore which helps us understand the full significance of the way Chinese cooks appreciate and use ingredients, and there are lots of very achievable recipes.
It is a valuable book because it informs us and, thereby, helps us to choose properly when faced with all those unfamiliar ingredients - the rice wine to look out for, for example, is Hua Tiao Chiew Shao Xing. And even with dishes with which we are all familiar, there is much useful information, such as the fact that chicken and sweetcorn soup actually originated in the USA, so if you do not use creamed, American-style sweetcorn, the dish cannot taste authentic. The Chinese Kitchen is the companion you need when you next take a walk on the wild side of cooking.
Twin Winter
10-12 dried shittake mushrooms
285g (10oz) sliced bamboo shoots, drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 spring onion, cut into short sections
1 tablespoon rice wine
2 tablespoons light soy or oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour paste
few drops sesame oil
Soak the mushrooms in warm water for 35-40 minutes (or in cold water for four to six hours), squeeze dry, discard any hard stalks, and cut them into halves (or quarters if large). Reserve the water for later use.
Heat the oil in a pre-heated wok and stirfry the mushrooms and bamboo shoots for about one minute.
Add the spring onion and the rice wine, light soy or oyster sauce and sugar with two to three tablespoons of the mushroom water. Bring to the boil and braise for two minutes, stirring continuously.
Thicken the sauce with the cornflour paste and sprinkle with sesame oil. Blend well and serve hot or cold.
Braised Mushrooms with Bean Curd
8-12 medium-sized dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked
2 cakes bean curd (tofu)
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar 2
tablespoons rice wine
half teaspoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornflour paste
1 tablespoon light soy
Squeeze dry the soaked mushrooms and discard any hard stalks (reserving the soaking water). Cut each square of bean curd into 16 slices.
Heat the oil and stir-fry the mushrooms for about one minute. Add about 150ml (quarter-pint) of the mushroom-soaking water, bring to the boil and add the bean curd slices and the salt, sugar and wine. Stir very gently, blending everything well. Braise for about two minutes, then add the sesame oil, making sure that there is enough liquid to prevent the bean curd sticking to the bottom of the wok.
Mix the cornflour paste with the soy and pour it over the bean curd and mushrooms to form a clear, light glaze. Serve immediately.