Some plants are just unlucky in their names, and it is for this reason that cordia dichotoma may not have achieved great popularity in the kitchen, at least in the West. The scientific name is not particularly memorable, and its common names, which include “snotty gobbles” and “glue berry” are downright off putting. But cordia dichotoma is a valuable addition to the pantry and in its pickled form is widely available in Taiwan.
In Taiwan, cordia dichotoma is best known by the vernacular name pobuzi (破布子) and is most often found as a garnish to fish dishes. It often fulfills a function similar to that of capers in European cooking, with a slightly sour flavor that works particularly well with white-fleshed fish.
Cordia dichotoma is harvested around July. It has a short fruiting season and does not keep well, so it is most often preserved, sometimes by cooking and pressing into cakes or soaked a light brine, sometimes with the addition of ginger or other spices. In the former case it is sometimes already deseeded, but in the latter it usually comes with the seed.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew
The harvesting of cordia dichotoma is labor intensive and while the fruit can be used directly in cooking, I have yet to taste it this way in Taiwan. It is used fresh in Indian cooking, and may be known by its Hindi name gunda.
While the seed helps preserve the shape of the fruit, making it look more appealing on the plate, it does not allow the berry to reveal its full flavor. My own first acquaintance with it was in restaurant dishes when the berries are scattered atop a dish of steamed whole fish. The berries, which are small, generally get left behind on the plate as the tiny berries with their even smaller pips are not easy to handle when one is trying to feed oneself with some semblance of elegance. This is rather a pity, as the flesh of the cordia dichotoma is quite tasty and it also has various health benefits. In Chinese medical lore, it is regarded as a useful anti-inflammatory and also is said to help with the symptoms of high blood pressure.
When using cordia dichotoma it is recommended that the seeds be removed before the berry is incorporated into your food. An easy way to do this is to place a quantity of the berries into a small bag of muslin cloth and simply press down, pinching a little with the fingers. The flesh of the fruit will readily separate from the seed, which then can be easily picked out.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew
In addition to its usual pairing with fish, cordia dichotoma can also be used to particular advantage with tofu and some vegetables. Seeded cordia dichotoma can be mashed together with tofu to make a kind of savory pudding that is very nutritious and goes very well with warm white rice, and it can be incorporated into dishes such as stir fried bird’s nest fern, replacing the ubiquitous dried whitebait. At its simplest, it is sometimes simply fried and used as a garnish for a bowl of rice porridge.
Steamed fish and tofu with cordia dichotoma
Recipe
(serves two)
This is a really simple dish that can be put together in a matter of minutes with little fuss. The fish and cordia dichotoma give the tofu a lovely, subtle flavor and it is a perfect dish for times when you might be feeling a bit delicate.
Ingredients
200g sea bass fillets (or other fine-grained white fish)
200g firm tofu
About 10 berries of cordia dichotoma, seeds removed and minced
1 stem spring onion, julienned
1 nub ginger, finely julienned
1 chili, seeds removed and finely sliced
1 tbsp light soy
1 tsp sesame oil
White pepper
Salt
Directions
1. About 15 minutes before cooking, clean and slice the fish fillets and season with salt. Set aside.
2. Cut tofu into 1cm thick slices.
3. In a bowl, place a layer of tofu at the base. Sprinkle with minced cordia dichotoma.
4. Place a layer of fish, a bit more cordia dichotoma, then another layer of tofu. Three layers of each should be sufficient.
5. Drizzle with soy and sesame oil. Add white pepper and top with the ginger, spring onion and chili.
6. Bring a pot to a boil and place a steaming basket over it. Steam for 10 to 15 minutes with the cover on. Serve with white rice.
Ian Bartholomew runs Ian’s Table, a small guesthouse in Hualien. He has lived in Taiwan for many years writing about the food scene and has decided that until you look at farming, you know nothing about the food you eat. He can be contacted at Hualien202@gmail.com.
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
The March/April volume of Foreign Affairs, long a purveyor of pro-China pablum, offered up another irksome Beijing-speak on the issues and solutions for the problems vexing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US: “America and China at the Edge of Ruin: A Last Chance to Step Back From the Brink” rang the provocative title, by David M. Lampton and Wang Jisi (王緝思). If one ever wants to describe what went wrong with US-PRC relations, the career of Wang Jisi is a good place to start. Wang has extensive experience in the US and the West. He was a visiting
One of the challenges with the sheer availability of food in today’s world is that lots of us end up spending many of our waking hours eating. Whether it’s full meals, snacks or desserts, scientists have found that it’s not uncommon for us to be mindlessly grazing at some point during all of our 16 or so waking hours. The problem? As soon as this food hits the bloodstream in the form of glucose, it initiates the release of the hormone insulin. This in turn activates a switch present in every one of our cells, which is responsible for driving cell
RSS