On creamed corn

I'm the freak who buys this stuff.

I know I like to bang on about how Cantonese food is refined, delicate and life-affirming, but sometimes, it’s just amazingly trashy. For my entire life, creamed corn has been a staple in the cupboard. Next to the black bean dace and tinned water chestnuts, there would always be a stack of creamed corn. My partner probably doesn’t even know this right now, but we have three cans of the stuff in the pantry.

No, I don’t make chicken and corn soup. I don’t tip it into people’s bags as a prank and pretend it is vomit (like Paul Jennings once suggested we do when he spoke at my primary school). I use it to make a dish that every Cantonese kid loves, every Cantonese adult pretends to order just for the kids, and everyone else has never heard of: battered fish with creamed corn. Yes, we eat it on rice because carbs on carbs on carbs is infinitely better than just double carbing. It’s sweet, it’s crunchy, it’s creamy, it’s fluffy; it’s instant gratification and completely innocuous. As I told you, amazingly trashy.

I don’t know the origins of this dish, it’s just always been a part of my life. I see it more in cha chaan tengs (the texture of the overall dish, use of creamed corn and the quick cooking time suggests this is where it all began), but as I grew up in Australia, I was introduced to it over family banquets in proper Chinese restaurants. After a long negotiation and massaging of the banquet menu (by the parents) where they’d substitute one dish for another until inevitably, after the herbal soup and the crab on ginger and spring onion noodles, it would show up alongside a procession of ‘main’ dishes that we would eat with a plastic bucket filled with steamed rice. My aunt (the classy one) would always request the corn sauce be served on the side so the dish wouldn’t go soggy as we sipped tea, spun the lazy Susan, and talked shit on each other in front of each other over dinner.

If you are unaware of how things work for Asian kids, once you say you like a dish and someone from the generation above you hears you say it, that dish will follow you around for the rest of your life. My sister is stuck with sweet and sour pork. Her husband will forever be attached to claypot tofu anything. My cousin’s boyfriend is the roast pork king. My dad apparently only eats whole fish. My grandfather is the crab man. My grandmother is cursed with starchy dessert soups. And me, well, you guessed it, I’m the battered fish bitch (unless we are at yum cha, then I am the wu gok whore). I’m just lucky enough that even though I am thirty-two, I will gladly eat the last piece of oil-logged fish as it does cold laps around the lazy Susan so the poor waiter can bring us our cut fruit and sago soup before another pushy Chinese family takes our seats and destroys his will to live. The cycle goes on.

I suppose now, you’d want a recipe, but that’s assuming you’re brave enough to deep fry at home. The good thing about this dish is that it is cheap to make. Fish-wise, you want cod, ling or whatever is white-fleshed, not mushy and in abundance at the fishmonger. If you even think about using an oily fish, I will disown you faster than an Asian parent with a child who aspires to be an artist. Cut the fish in bite-sized pieces, think: chicken nuggets. Marinate the fish with salt and white pepper for 10-15 minutes. Make a batter using 5:1 flour to corn flour. Actually, make a batter however you like. Everyone has something that works for them, but the point is, you don’t want it too thick or it will get soggy. Want to put baking powder in? Go for it. Vodka? If it works for you, sure. Beer? Just make sure it is some mass-produced shit with no flavour. Dust, deep fry and set your fish aside. To make the corn sauce, use 1:0.5 creamed corn to water, heat that shit up, season with salt and sugar. When it comes up to the boil, add a corn flour slurry to it so it thickens, take it off the heat and run a beaten egg through it. If you’re feeling fancy, add some sliced spring onions. Pour on fish, eat with white rice. Congratulations, you are now an Asian bogan.

So why am I sharing this dish with you? It’s the time of year when we all painfully gather with our families and endure the million and one questions which are just passive-aggressive ways to say you’re a disappointment. I can’t help with that. This dish, however, is crunchy and will help drown out the sound of your parent’s voices while you’re chewing. Now you know one of the many reasons why I love this dish. You’re welcome.

What I’m reading:
The Story of My Teeth is a whacky story about an auctioneer who collects and sells famous, dead peoples teeth to implant in his head. Admittedly, I’ve just started it, but I am into it.

What I’m watching:
I started watching Flavourful Origins ages ago when I was hungover and had to stop because it was making me hungry. I started back up again and these quick, 20-minute episodes focussing on single ingredients in different regions of China has me hooked.

What I’m eating:
A lot of crayfish. Thanks to the trade wars with China, I’ve been buying a lot of cheap lobsters from D&K Live Seafood in Footscray. It’s going to be a hedonistic summer of cray cooked every which way. Don’t look at me, I’m disgusting.

Tell your mates that you have creamed corn in your cupboard:

Have I convinced you to buy a can of creamed corn?