Singaporeans’ obsession with foie gras must have made many restaurateurs wealthy. The old Saint Pierre even had a separate foie gras menu. Gary at Hakumai does a foie-gras-on-top-of-giant-Botan-ebi-sushi! Every time it is served, the groans and moans emanating from the women diners sound as if they are in the throes of a massive orgasm!
How Japanese is this really?
In Shenzhen five days ago I discovered the same thing – the goose liver, not the orgasm; but goose liver cooked Chinese style. To be more precise, braised Teochew (or in Mandarin, Chaozhou) style. A huge plate of braised goose liver from farm-fed, free-range geese, not forced-fed, cost me just 20 bucks Singapore! Enough to feed five people!
Well worth making the trip there. Alec Ee once hand-carried a generous piece of Teochew-style braised goose liver all the way from Swatow (Shantou in Mandarin) to Singapore, but this was the first time I myself was savoring the tasty morsel in a Chinese restaurant in China itself – the Xingli of the Ritz Carlton in Shenzhen:
Teochew style goose liver is done the same way Teochew braised goose, for which the Teochews are famous, is cooked: simmering it in a concoction of salt, lemongrass, cloves, cinnamon sticks, ginger, anise pods, peppercorns and sugar in a pot of soy sauce and some water.
The taste? Heavenly! Just heavenly.
You can do the same with duck and chicken livers too!