MARKETS : Shopping in a Chinese Wonderland

99 Ranch Market, No. 4 Bamboo Plaza, 998 N. Hill St., Chinatown. (213) 625-3399. Open Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Friday through Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

To get to the 99 Ranch Market in Chinatown’s Bamboo Plaza, you take glass elevators from the top parking area and glide six levels down past the luxurious Empress Pavilion restaurant onto a central courtyard.

The elegant plaza and market materialized not long ago on the ruins of the venerable Yee Sing Chong, a large, well-kept Chinese grocery store that was an L.A. institution. Many of us discovered our first jars of hoisin sauce there. And for years we sought the advice of its proprietor, who tirelessly unraveled the mysteries of mushroom soy sauce, fuzzy melon and other Chinese groceries.

It was a lucrative property, though, and when the bulldozers rolled in to claim it, no one was surprised. At first many mourned Yee Sing Chong’s passing, but shoppers are now finding that the new 99 Ranch Market--one of eight 99 Ranch Markets in California--stocks all their favorite Chinese ingredients and much more.

99 Ranch looks almost like any standard supermarket until you see its vast seafood and meat department. Along one wall in sparkling, fastidiously clean tanks are live catfish and briskly swimming tilapia of various sizes. Humming pumps gush fresh water into the tanks that house lobsters, Dungeness, blue and rock crabs. Other containers hold live oysters and several kinds of clams. On banks of ice there are multihued fish in the round: soles, dabs, rockfish and the silvery, almost paper-thin, moon fish.

A team of butchers is on hand to custom-carve meats from the enormous selection of primal cuts on display. And in a cooler case at the end of the meat counters are packages of julienned or diced chicken and pork ready for stir frys.

Like many Asian markets these days, the 99 Ranch stores stock a basic selection of pan-Asian goods that run the gamut from Thai curry pastes to Japanese ice cream. But the product mix differs in each 99 Ranch location. The Bamboo Plaza branch, flagship of the chain, caters to a predominantly Chinese clientele. The huge Little Saigon market offers more items favored by Vietnamese cooks.

You’ll see a lot of Western products in the stores too, although this wasn’t always the case. Roger Chen, owner of the Tawa-99 Ranch company, once sold only Asian groceries. But even after he had acquired several markets of his own, Chen still found himself buying his kids their favorite cereal and frozen pizza at other supermarkets. He reasoned that most Asian families were doing the same thing and that his stores were losing part of their business. His larger markets in Rowland Heights, Montebello and Anaheim now carry up to 50% Western merchandise and have begun to attract shoppers from the entire community.

To appeal to these consumers and what he perceives as “the taste of the second generation,” Chen saw a need to monitor the uneven quality of imported products. So Tawa-99 Ranch packs many basic Asian foods under its Kimbo and 99 brand labels. Chen says that the company cultivates suppliers who can deliver consistently uniform goods.

SHOPPING LIST: PRODUCE

* Winter melon: Imagine a large dusty green colored melon arriving at the table filled with a rich chicken and seafood soup. It is ladled out along with chunks of the melon’s creamy white flesh. The dish, called winter melon pond, is the most famous use of this vegetable that, despite its name is actually a squash. Winter melon is labeled white gourd in this produce department and you’ll usually find it cut into wedges. It’s delicious when lightly sauteed with strips of ham--preferably the Chinese varieties discussed below--or used in simple soups. The vegetable keeps well for five days wrapped in foil or plastic.

* Fuzzy melon: A relative of winter melon, this pale green squash, also labeled moqua , comes in two shapes. One is oval and the other resembles an elongated bowling-pin. This light green squash has a short baby-fine fuzz over its surface. Fuzzy melons are lovely cut lengthwise and stuffed with the same kind of ground meat mixture found in Chinese dumplings (pork or chicken, white of scallion, minced tree ear mushrooms with a little soy sauce, garlic and rice wine). Chinese cooks like to “blanch” the julienned squash in hot oil, before adding it to seasonings or other ingredients. As you might expect, fuzzy melons should be peeled.

* Chinese okra: Officially called angled luffa , these slim, ridged gourds are impossible to mistake for true okra, although there is a vague resemblance to the much tinier vegetable. When the gourds are stir-fried, their texture is delicately spongy. Chinese okra’s mild flavor fits right in with any meat or seafood dish. I saute it in peanut oil and add a splash of Chinese shaoxing wine and a dash of sugar and light soy sauce for flavoring. Pare off the ridges and skin before cooking this squash.

* Bitter melon: This gourd resembles a pale green cucumber with rippled skin. Its bitter flavor is usually an acquired taste. You’ll occasionally find stuffed bitter melon on the dim sum cart. Or it may be peeled, sliced and blanched for five minutes before being used in stir fries. Bitter melon is usually cooked with fermented black beans as a flavoring.

* Red spinach: The dark green leaves of this vegetable have deep red markings at their center. Sometimes called Chinese spinach, the plant isn’t spinach at all but a member of the amaranth family. Some describe its taste as slightly sweet, but red spinach can be cooked and used the same ways as ordinary spinach. Try deep frying the leaves to make a crunchy garnish for meat dishes.

* Fresh water chestnuts: The fresh variety has a sweetness and nuttiness that is completely lost in canning. Although they are troublesome to peel (you have to pare off the brown rind with a sharp knife), once you’ve tasted fresh water chestnuts, you’ll never consider the canned variety a good substitute. Water chestnuts are considered yin , or cooling, and have a reputation as a breath freshener. They cook very quickly. Many cooks stir fry them separately then mix them in to the dish at the last moment.

* Chinese celery: This vegetable reminds me of a large version of flat-leaved Italian parsley although the taste is altogether different. It has a more intense flavor than Western broad-stalk celery and gives a gentle bite to soups. It can also be used as a salad ingredient. For this use lightly steam or blanch the cut-up celery or microwave it in a glass dish with the water from washing left clinging to it. Cook it for 45 seconds to one minute on HIGH (100% power). The stems should remain crisp and turn bright green.

* Young ginger: Summer is the season for baby ginger from Hawaii. Its skin is soft and pale beige with hot pink ridges and shoots. Young ginger makes a subtle addition to any Asian dish, either added in cooking or cut into very fine strips and sprinkled on as a garnish. But it isn’t a substitute for the stronger-tasting mature ginger; it’s better treated as a vegetable. (The two gingers work well together.)

MEATS

* Ham: Chinese cooks use ham to season everything from vegetables to seafood and fried rice. For many years cookbooks have been suggesting Smithfield Virginia ham as a substitute for the renowned but unobtainable hams of Yunnan and Che-kiang provinces. 99 Ranch Market sells Virginia ham by the slice in the meat department but they also carry a number of other wonderful Chinese-style hams made here and in Canada.

My favorite of these, made by Venus of Los Angeles, is labeled “smoked pork strips.” This lean, smoky meat has a spectacular flavor and is much less salty than Virginia ham. This and other Chinese-style hams are stocked across the aisle from the produce section at the rear of the store with the Chinese sausages.

If you want to keep Virginia ham on hand to use at a moment’s notice, cookbook author Irene Kuo suggests a way to preserve it: Soak a two-pound piece for an hour, wring it well and simmer in fresh water to cover for about 40 minutes. Then trim off the fat and cut the ham into two-inch wide strips. Make a syrup of two cups boiling water and one-quarter cup sugar. When the syrup is cool, pour it over the ham strips (and fat if desired) in a clean jar. Add two tablespoons of dry Sherry or shaoxing wine. Prepared this way, the ham will keep indefinitely.

* Chinese sausages: Most Chinese food lovers know these rich, sweet semi-dry sausages by their Cantonese name lop chong , and that’s usually how they are labeled. 99 Ranch Market carries more than half a dozen brands of lop chong as well as a similar sausage made from pork and duck liver.

A few untraditional versions of the sausage have also come onto the market. One is made with a mixture of turkey and pork--the Chinese answer, perhaps, to chicken franks. Another brand from Seattle is made with both duck and turkey livers. Whatever their ingredients Chinese cooks usually steam these sausages either whole or in slices before combining them with other foods. This softens the meat and renders away some of the fat.

* Pork butt: Frequently called for in Chinese cookbooks, this cut of pork isn’t often found whole or unsmoked in Western-style supermarkets but it’s one of the most versatile cuts for Chinese cooking. It comes from the shoulder area above the front leg or picnic roast. Pork butt is well-marbled and when cut thin gives a rich taste to stir fried vegetables. It can be braised or roasted to make barbecued pork (char siu) . The butchers here will cut pork butt any way a recipe requires.

* Boneless beef shank: In 99 Ranch’s butcher case, beef shanks are displayed boned out whole in long strips, rather than cut into round, crosswise slices as they are in Western-style markets. The shanks have the meatiest flavor of the entire animal and when red-cooked by simmering for hours with water and seasonings, they produce a rich stew in an unctuous broth. Beef shank cooked this way is popular served over noodles--one of the best noodle dishes I’ve ever tasted. A fancier preparation, usually found on cold meat platters at banquets, is thin slices of the chilled meat in its own aspic.

* Duck legs: Another find in the butcher case are large meaty duck legs. These can simply be roasted plain or used in dishes requiring lean duck meat such as duck salad or mushu duck.

* Gluten: Protein-rich but not really a meat, this is the delicately flavored, springy substance that remains when starch is washed from kneaded wheat dough. The English names for it--gluten or mock meat--may conjure up a meal akin to library paste, but gluten absorbs sauce flavors beautifully and is an essential ingredient in Chinese Buddhist dishes. To the dismay of vegetarians, other cooks often combine this versatile food with sauced meats.

99 Ranch Market stocks many styles of gluten, both fresh and canned. Look for it sealed in plastic bags across the aisle from the produce department. Further down the same aisle, in a covered bin next to the bulk-pack julienned bamboo shoots, are burrito-sized gluten rolls. The plain gluten is ready to be pinched off in little balls and deep fried until it puffs up or simmered in a sauce with a variety of vegetables. This turns it into Buddha’s feast, a catchall name for many kinds of vegetarian stews.

Recipes often call for mock duck or vegetable steaks. These cooked, seasoned gluten products are also in the cooler. And in the canned vegetable section look for vegetable steak, curry-braised gluten and curried vegetarian mock duck or mock abalone.

FLAVORINGS

* Bean sauce: A cousin of the Japanese miso, this centuries-old condiment, made of fermented soybeans, was called jiang or bean “pickle” in ancient times. It is particularly popular in Sichuan and Hunan provinces for flavoring rich stews, braised dishes or in a sauce for fish. But as basic as bean sauce is to Chinese cooking, there’s a lot of confusion about what to buy because it has been variously labeled, both in recipes and on packaging, as brown bean paste, yellow bean paste, bean sauce, ground bean sauce and even grinding bean sauce.

In addition, there are hot and sweet bean sauces both of which are simply bean sauce with additional flavorings. You can identify any of the above labeled products as bean sauce by checking the ingredients to make sure beans, bean flour or soybean flour are listed first.

Like peanut butter, bean sauce comes two ways: chunky with whole beans and as a smooth puree (the smooth varieties are usually called paste or ground sauce while the chunky version is usually termed sauce). Many cooks prefer the chunky, less salty whole bean sauce. Look for Yeo’s and Koon Chun brands in jars or cans. If you buy the sauce canned, transfer it to a covered jar to store. It will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator.

* Hot bean sauce: This Sichuanese ingredient is simply a mixture of bean sauce with ground hot chiles. It should not be confused with the chile paste or sauce that contains beans (see chili paste below). Several dependable brands of hot bean sauce are on the market. Yeo’s, Kimlan and Lan Chi (labeled “soybean paste with chili”) have all been recommended by good cooks.

* Sweet bean sauce: This is sometimes labeled “sweet sauce,” but the ingredients list will reveal it is simply a mixture of bean sauce and sugar or other sweetening such as maltose. Many brands also include other minor seasonings. You can substitute a mixture of three parts ground or chunky bean sauce and one part sugar for sweet bean sauce.

* Hoisin sauce: The dark mahogany-colored paste that Chinese restaurants slather onto mushu pork rolls is another member of the bean sauce family, made stingingly hot with chile and pungently sweet with sugar and five-spice powder. Its most popular use is in barbecue sauce or mixed with other ingredients to spread over roasting meat. Good brands are Wei-Chuan, Koon Chun, Ma Ling. If purchased in a can, transfer the sauce to a glass jar and refrigerate it. Hoisin sauce keeps indefinitely this way.

* Chile paste: When a recipe calls for Chinese chile paste or chile paste with garlic, look for jars that list chiles as the first ingredient. Chinese chile pastes are made primarily from fermented ground hot chiles and a little oil. Although some products contain ground beans as a minor ingredient, they should not be confused with hot bean paste. One interesting chili paste has fermented black beans mixed into it. The Vietnamese chile-garlic sauce, which you’ll often see on the same shelf, has not been fermented and contains vinegar, giving it an entirely different flavor. All these pastes should be stored in a glass jar and refrigerated after opening.

* Sesame oil: Asian sesame oil is pressed from roasted sesame seeds and tastes much different from the sesame oil sold in natural food stores. Look for pure sesame oil rather than sesame flavored soy oil. The oil is used sparingly at the end of cooking as a seasoning, and is not a cooking oil.

* Dried orange peel: Look for this in cellophane bags in the dried ingredients aisle. Some brands are labeled tangerine peel, but there is no difference. Dried orange peel adds an unmistakably fruity note to braised meats or duck.

* Dried Asian peppers: Available whole and crushed.

* Tree ears: Sometimes labeled wood ears, cloud ears or black fungus (which is actually what they are), tree ears have little flavor but lots of crunch. Like dried mushrooms they must be soaked until they soften, then rinsed thoroughly and trimmed of their stems. The smallest tree ears are considered to be the best.

STIR-FRIED CHINESE OKRA WITH TREE EARS

2 tablespoons tree ears

1 pound Chinese okra (angled luffa or sponge gourd)

1 medium onion

3 tablespoons corn or peanut oil

2 slices ginger root

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups chicken broth

Light soy sauce

Soak tree ears in warm water 15 minutes or until tender. Drain and trim away tough ends. Cut large tree ears into pieces. Scrape tough ridges from skin of Chinese okra, using vegetable peeler. Cut on diagonal, rolling 1/3 after each slice to get 1 1/2-inch wedges. Cut onion crosswise in half, then quarter each half. Separate layers.

Heat oil in wok over high heat. Add ginger slices and cook until browned, then discard ginger. Add salt to oil, then onion and tree ears, stirring constantly 2 minutes. Add broth, drizzling around inside of wok. Add Chinese okra. Continue to stir until vegetable is tender, about 2 minutes. Remove to platter with slotted spoon. Season to taste with light soy sauce. Makes 4 side-dish servings.

BRAISED GLUTEN

5 ounces cooked gluten

3 dried Oriental mushrooms

1 tablespoon tree ears, about

2 green onions

2 tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons minced ginger root

1/2 cup julienned bamboo shoots

2/3 cup vegetable broth

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Hot steamed rice

Cut gluten into 1 1/4-inch pieces. Place in colander and pour boiling water over. Soak dried mushrooms and tree ears in warm water about 20 minutes or until tender. Squeeze water from mushrooms, trim off stems and cut caps into quarters. Rinse tree ears carefully. Cut away any tough parts. Cut into thin strips. Slice green onions into 1 1/2-inch lengths.

Heat oil in wok or skillet over high heat. Add green onions and ginger and stir-fry 15 seconds. Add gluten, mushrooms, tree ears and bamboo shoots and continue stir-frying 30 seconds. Pour in broth, soy sauce and sugar.

Bring to boil, then simmer about 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Sprinkle with sesame oil. (There should be plenty of gravy when dish has finished cooking.) Serve with rice. Makes 2 servings.