1 lg Potato, cooked, peeled and
-slice 1/4 inch thick
2 tb Flour
Peanut oil for frying
1 sm Onion, sliced
1/2 lb Snow peas
10 Wood ears, soaked to
-soften, tough ends
-removed, cut in slivers
1/2 ts Salt
1/2 ts Sugar
1/3 c Water
Here's one for mock fish, using potatoes to replace the finny
critter, that sounds like a pretty tasty vegetarian dish regardless
of how much the potato resembles a fish. Sprinkle potatoes with flour
and deep-fry until golden. Drain and set aside. Pour off all but 2
tablespoons of the oil, reheat an add onion. Stir-fry for 10 seconds
and add snow peas and wood ears. Stir- fry for another 10 seconds
and add salt, sugar and water. Bring to rapid boil, stirring
constantly, and cook until peas are just tender crisp. Add reserved
fried potato slices, heat through and serve. Wood ears are a type of
mushroom or shelf fungus. When soaked it has a crunchy, gelatinous
texture with little taste. If you can't find them, I imagine that
you could use the dried mushrooms although they wouldn't give exactly
the same effect. A closer substitute would be dried jellyfish, but
if you're somewhere that sells dried jellyfish, I'm sure that they
have wood ears as well.
From "The Regional Cooking of China" by Margaret Gin and Alfred E.
Castle. 101 Productions, San Francisco, 1975.
