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Foe Yong Hai
It must have been in the late eighties when I—sixteen years young and ready to conquer the world—was taken on my first romantic dinner, ever. We went to a lovely Chinese restaurant.
Up to this day I’m still not sure if it was the being young and in love that made this so memorable, or that the food was really all that great. Either way, I not only fell in love with my date but also with the dish that was served that night: foe yong hai. At least that’s the Dutch name for it.
It’s a real easy to make Chinese type of omelet, richly filled with vegetables and poultry or seafood, and drizzled with a sweet and sour sauce.
There are a gazillion ways to cook this. This is my favorite way.
Ingredients:
Omelet:
1/2 chicken breast
1 medium leek
1 medium onion
1 medium carrot
8 large eggs
1/2 can bamboo shoots
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
pinch of white pepper
Sauce:
1 tbsp chopped onion
1 tsp peanut/canola/sunflower oil
1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch (mixed with 3 tbsp water)
1 or 2 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar
Directions:
The stuff. If you have a few mushrooms hanging around your fridge doing nothing useful, add them! It’s the right thing.
Peel the carrot and thinly slice it.
Cut the onion in quarter rings, cut the leek in thick slices and drain the bamboo shoots.
Bamboo shoots are so tasty, but have such a foul barn-like smell. And that’s putting it mildly.
Thinly slice the chicken.
There are various ways to prepare this dish, and a lot of people will add the raw chicken to the eggs. I don’t. I’m way too paranoid for that, so I blanch the chicken and veggies first.
Bring a layer of water to a boil.
Drop the chopped ingredients in there and boil for 2 minutes.
That’s it. Now you rinse everything with cold water and drain it.
Let’s move on to the sauce. I like to get that out-of-the-way first.
Mince about a tbsp onion, heat a tsp neutral flavored oil and sauté the onion for a minute or two before adding the ketchup.
Pour in the water.
Season the sauce with ground ginger, sugar, lemon juice or vinegar and sweet chili sauce.
Let it simmer for 5 minutes.
Finish the sauce with the cornstarch and salt to taste. It should be a lovely thick, red sauce now.
Them be eggs. I kinda like this shot, not sure why.
Add the salt, sugar and white pepper and beat the heck out of them.
Really put some work into it before adding the vegetables and chicken.
Stir in the bamboo shoots.
Heat 1 or 2 tbsp neutral flavored oil in a non-stick skillet and pour the egg mix in there.
Gently move things around a bit until the eggs start to set.
That’s your cue to leave it be for roughly 5 minutes (low heat). I like to put a lid on there, but you don’t have to.
It’s near impossible for me to flip an omelet that heavy and keep it in one piece.
So I slice it in half and flip the two halves. Works much easier. Give the other side 4 to 5 minutes as well.
Transfer the omelet to a serving plate, spoon the sauce all over and let people help themselves.
The first flush of love faded, the Foe Yong Hai stayed. Not a bad deal, I say.
Do yourself a big favor and serve it with my Chinese Fried Rice. (<--- bad photography but good recipe). It's a match made in heaven!
| Foe Yong Hai | |||||||||
| Ingredients |
1/2 chicken breast 1 medium leek 1 medium onion 1 medium carrot 8 large eggs 1/2 can bamboo shoots 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt pinch of white pepper Sauce: 1 tbsp chopped onion 1 tsp peanut/canola/sunflower oil 1/2 tsp ground ginger 4 tbsp ketchup 1 tbsp sugar 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce 1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup water 1 tbsp cornstarch (mixed with 3 tbsp water) 1 or 2 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar Directions |
|
Mince about a tbsp onion, heat a tsp neutral flavored oil and sauté the onion for a minute or two before adding the ketchup and pouring in the water. Season the sauce with ground ginger, sugar, lemon juice or vinegar and sweet chili sauce and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Finish the sauce with the cornstarch and salt to taste. It should be a lovely thick, red sauce now. Break the eggs in a bowl, add sugar, salt and pepper and beat hem really well. tir in the drained vegetables and chicken and the bamboo shoots. Heat 1 or 2 tbsp neutral flavored oil in a non-stick skillet and pour the egg mix in there. Gently move things around until the eggs start to set. Leave it be for 5 mibutes now, over low heat and optionally with a lid on top. Flip it over (in one piece or slice it in half first) and give the other side 5 minutes as well. Check for readiness. Transfer the omelet to a serving plate, spoon the sauce all over and let people help themselves. Serve with steamed white rice or fried rice. Meal type: |
main course, Chinese |
Servings: |
4 |
Copyright: |
© kayotickitchen.com |
|
16 Comments »
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Never mind the food, so did you marry the date as in ‘R’ or did he come later in life?
I loved my first dates in those heady younger and very naive years for me.
I remember how I took young beautiful ladies like you out to fancy pantsy
eateries in our area pretending I was sophisticated at the ripe old age of 17 or 18.
Sometimes I even got a kiss good night.. BIG :>)
PEACE sign update. It now lives in the town of Ladysmith fire hall to be paced out in
their Christmas ‘light up’ extravaganza.. They promised to take photos of it set up
and email them to me in Palm Springs where I’ll post them on L-Jay and FB just for you.
:>)
Heck no! I had way too much fun dating back then ;)
Yes you are right there are a gazillion ways to cook this. Mine is different then yours ;)
That’s my girl.. good for you.. and yes.. me too
My first dinner-date was also when I was 16, at a ‘Indo-Chinese’ restaurant. But we had nasi rames together … Same emotions though.
This looks and sounds a lot like the American-Chinese dish egg foo yung. Also kind of sounds like it too. It’s my mom’s favorite dish. When she gets it, it comes with a brown gravy, similar to what comes with beef or chicken broccoli.
I made this yesterday and I was much better dan “de Chinees”. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Dear Kay,
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of weeks now and tonight I made this dish, together with nasi and your Atjar Ketimun. That one is fantastic by the way. This version is a little to plain for my taste. I’m going to try it with some shrimps next time, and maybe some indonesian spices. Thanks for your beautiful pictures and inspiration!
Hi…
Hope you don’t mind if I correct this… It should be Foo Yoong Tan instead of Foe Yong Hai.
Foo Yoong Tan is actually a Cantonese name of this egg omelet. Some will cook with Chinese Roast Pork which is dice in small cubes, and onions too. This is an all time dish in many Chinese Restaurant.
In NL this is called foe yong hai, you’re gonna have a really tough time correcting it here in all these restaurants :)
I think they use different names in different countries. To the best of my knowledge, we don’t have a pork version here either. In the restaurants
Yes,here in Canada we have a similar dish, called egg foo young. We have quite a collection of Chinese restaurants in this small border town(we border on Buffalo, New York, home of the buffalo chicken wings) They have shrimp, beef,ham or chicken egg foo young. And the sauce is a brown, thin gravy.
What a great recipe! Before coming to the U.S. we lived in Epe, Holland for six years. Foi Yong Hai with this tasty ketchup based sauce is how my mom made it. We always had it with peas and steamed rice.
Yum! Looks fabulous!
my mum’s recipe of foo yung hai is using crab meat instead of chicken.. i never thought that it can be substituted with chicken.. :)
Love this food so much! Fu Yung Hai always reminds me of my late mom home cooking. She used to add real crabmeat from fresh crab.
Finally a taste from Holland. I made this dish with fried rice and it was very tastefully . I put a little more sugar in the sauce, the lemon juice made it to sour. And the next time I will double the sauce. Next week I will try out the babipangang, looking forwards to it.