Hong Zao Chicken Mee Sua (红糟鸡面线)
Last night, I made hóng zāo chicken mee sua (红糟鸡面线), a dish I grew up with. But since it's for a birthday, I added an egg as per Fuzhounese tradition. Been wanting to make this dish for a long while, especially following the reflections I had on some family history and heritage last year; a rare occasion when I wrote about something family-related without the baggage . In Singapore, this dish is more widely known as a postpartum confinement dish of Hokkien origins. But to the Fuzhounese (Hokchew), it is a traditional Fuzhounese dish. For this dish, the key ingredients are the hóng zāo (red yeast rice lees) and the hóng zāo wine (red yeast rice wine, called qinghong in Fuzhou), both of which are specialities of Minhou county in eastern Fujian, where my paternal ancestors were from. In Singapore, the hóng zāo wine isn't as readily available (at least, up until recently), so it is usually substituted with Shaoxing wine. But recently, I came across 2 local brands that brew...