Every day at about 4 pm, the chef deviates from the list of “projects” he needs to complete for service, and mixes ingredients that don’t belong together according to his menu. He scoops up the discards on the cutting boards before they get tossed into the bin, and what doesn’t end up as trash becomes food for his staff at the restaurant. These foods are called the “family meal,” or just “family” at Fung Tu, the Chinese American restaurant where I stage. One hour before service starts at 6pm, the front- and back-of-the-house help themselves to the food. For most of the cooks in the restaurant, including the chef Jonathan Wu, family is their first, and sometimes the only meal of the day. If they are not done prepping for service, they will eat while whipping mayonnaise, or wrapping egg rolls.
Not every ingredient for family comes from scraps. Chef stocks up bucatini pasta, chickpeas, and sweet Italian sausages specifically for family, because, he tells me matter-of-factly, they have longer shelf life. But his main aim is to minimise food waste, so he works mostly with the leftovers, the despised animal parts, and the sad-looking vegetables. Bak choy is ever present because only half the batch has the perfect curves to be customer-worthy. On Tuesdays, the first working day of the week, there is always leftover chicken from the Sunday-only menu. Since family corresponds to what the restaurant serves its customers, when a new season arrives, or on special days like the Jewish Passover, the members of the family find new foods in their plates too.
Chef was peeling prawns at noon. After that he made a stock out of the shells and cooked sweet Italian sausages in it, along with shallots, green and red peppers, the outermost, imperfect layers of Brussels sprouts, and unwanted coriander stems from which I had plucked nice green leaves for garnishing. All went on top of a bowl of corn grits.
Tortilla with mashed chorizo sausage, steamed potatoes, and kale stems too thick for “Stir-Fried Side Greens.”
Bucatini pasta with chickpeas, red cabbage that was usually a garnish for “Fava Bean Curd Terrine”, and purée of butternut squash, an ingredient for “Winter Salad”.
Two months later, the same pasta but with olives, chickpeas, capers, and sardine.
Lap cheong, soy sprouts, onions, bak choy, carrots, chicken drumsticks—all went into a salty mix of rice, cream, and soy sauce. The Chef de Cuisine (Chef Wu was on leave) apologised to his staff for his wayward creativity.
Tuesdays Chicken
Deep-fried boneless chicken thigh, collard green stir-fried with soy sauce and Zhenjiang vinegar, julienned kolhrabi dressed with peanut butter, sesame oil, ginger, chilli oil and soy sauce, fried tortilla strips, and porridge.
Fried chicken thighs with porridge. Bak choy stir-fried with a house-made hot mustard sauce.
Deep-fried whole chicken legs stewed in lap cheong gravy, onions and carrots — the Georgian Chef de Cuisine’s play on southern fried chicken. With mashed potato and stir-fried watercress and bak choy.
Boneless chicken leg cooked in soy sauce, sesame oil, and brown sugar. It came with omelette and Japanese rice from the previous night.
Deep-fried deboned chicken with sweet potato porridge and kale.
New Menu, New Ingredients, Hooray!
The restaurant offered a porchetta dish during the New York Restaurant Week, so family included red-cooked trimmings of pig’s face and ears, with soy sprouts, beet greens, bak choy, coriander stems, and deep-fried chicken marinated in curry.
The Valentines’ Day menu included a kohlrabi appetiser. Those working on that day had a stir-fried kholabi served on top of tostadas with Spanish tomato rice and fish.
Watermelon and breakfast radishes stocked for the new “Spring Salad,” bak choy, radish greens, chicken baked in ketchup and beer sauce, sausages, and duck leg trimmings with porridge.
The remaining batch of potatoes, squash and parsnips meant for last season’s “Winter Salad” became staff lunch. With red curry paste, coconut milk, ham drippings, maple syrup, chickpeas, onion, and carrots. Salad comprised of carrots, red cabbage, bak choy, cilantro and a rice wine vinegar-sesame oil-fish sauce-lime dressing.
New ingredients like mizuna stems and snow peas combined with regulars like watercress stems, sweet Italian sausages, and ground pork. Salad of bak choy, radishes, carrots, and cucumber hearts dressed with peanut butter and limejuice. With a surprisingly compatible rice and potato mash.
Newly added rhubarb (for spring stir-fry), breakfast and watermelon radishes, bak choy, and carrots dressed in maple, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, and the marinade for “Smoked and Fried Dates”. With fried chicken and porridge.
In a Blue Moon
One of my favourite family meals. Chef mixed curry with tarragon vinegar and it tasted just like fish head curry! Ingredients included sweet Italian sausages, bak choy, Brussels sprout, cashew nuts, caramelised onions, and carrots.
One of the rare days when family was store-bought chicken pepperoni and mushroom pizzas.
A cook from Burma prepares family once in a while. This time she made an elaborate curry noodles with lentils, shallots, basils, dried chillies, ground pork and boiled eggs. Unwanted pork skin turned into Northern Thai salad, laab, with roasted rice, ground pork, limes, dried chillies, and basil. Also som tom made of green papaya, tomatoes, salted eggs, dried shrimps, and peanuts. They thanked her with big hugs.
Hot dogs and potato buns bought specially for family, with a salad of potato, kale, and the ever present bak choy.