TACHO | CHAU-CHAU DE PELE

The dish probably evolved from the Portuguese cozido, a stew of meats and vegetables having much in common with the French pot-au-feu and New England hotpot, but tacho uses Chinese sausages instead of the Portuguese chouriço and pele (in Cantonese, kohn chee pei – dried pork skin) which vaguely resembles unsalted pork crackling. Unfortunately pele is unobtainable in some countries because of quarantine laws.

This dish is also known as chau chau de pele. However, in her cookbook Cíntia Conceição Serro distinguishes between the two, saying that tacho has iame chicu (an astringent root vegetable), peas and fish maw.

3 lb 5 oz | 1½ kg chicken
2 pig trotters
8 smoked Chinese sausages
medium smoked goose
7 oz | 200g smoked Chinese bacon
7 oz | 200g Chinese ham
7 oz | 200g puffed pork skin
12 small yams
1 medium cabbage
5 oz | 150g split peas
ginger, salt to taste
pepper, oil to taste

Soak the pork skin in a large basin of warm water, wash twice, removing impurities and hair. Cut into square pieces of approximately 10 cm. Blanch and drain.

Cut the cabbage into six parts and wash.

Prepare the peas, wash and scald, then rinse in cold water).

Wash and cook the yam unpeeled, and then peel it. Wash and cook the whole chicken in a pot with two slices of ginger and salt with enough water to cover it,

Add the Chinese ham halfway through cooking. As soon as he chicken is cooked, remove it and let it cool completely before cutting into pieces.

Cook the yam (already peeled) again in the chicken broth, over low heat.

Blanch the pig trotters in boiling water for five minutes, discard the water. Replace the water and cook the trotters again with a little ginger.

Place the sausages, smoked bacon and smoked goose (also cut) in an enamel dish and steam in a container with a lid. Steam for 10 minutes (starting when the water starts to boil).

Then cut the sausages ​​into pieces, or into thick slices.

Blanch the cabbage in salted water and a little oil anddrain.

Add the trotters, the chicken, the ham, the smoked meats, the puffed pig skin and the two vegetables, in that order, to one of the pans, letting everything cook in the mixture of the two broths.

Serve it all very hot, in a deep tureen, with sauce, accompanied by cooked rice without salt. (If there is a large quantity with leftovers, it is best to separate the vegetables because they ferment and let the rest cool before putting it in the fridge.

Add cabbage (or spinach) or steamed Chinese sausages again every time you reheat a portion of the stew. Reheat on low heat to avoid burning.

1 chicken
2lb 3 oz | 1kg pork ribs
2lb 3 oz | 1kg beef
7 oz | 200g Chinese smoked bacon (lap yôk)
1 smoked duck leg (lap ap pei)
4 Chinese smoked sausage (lap cheong)
10 pieces of puffed pig skin (pele)
3½ oz | 100g Chinese mushrooms (tong ku)

1¾ oz | 50g desiccated black cloud ear fungus (orelha de rato'rats' ears' | black fungus)

1 cabbage (common or drum-head cabbage)
½ Swiss chard (silver beet)
7 oz | 200g mung bean thread vermicelli (fan si)
turnip leaves
3 onions
salt and black pepper to taste
lard as required

Soak the mushrooms, vermicelli, black fungus and pig skin in water for at least 1 hour.

Chop onions finely and stir-fry until transparent.

Cut the beef and pork ribs in small cubes and add to the onions.

Pour about 1 litre of boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add chicken (cut in pieces) and let boil for another 15 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve with plain boiled rice and a sauce made of balichão, lemon and thinly sliced onions as side dishes.

1 chicken (2 lb | 900g), cut into rather large pieces
2 strips of Chinese roast pork lap yôk
3 chouriço sutate
1 large ham hock
1 large pig trotter, cut across in 1″ chunks
½ lb | 220g) beef, cut in ¾” cubes
1 lb (450g) corned beef
4 nervos de vaca
½ lb | 225g pele torado
2 large cabbages cut in large pieces and washed well
20 Chinese dried mushrooms

10 Inhame chicooInhame chicooThis is apparently Chinese yam | Discorea oppositifolia, a small, widely cultivated yam native to China, astringent in taste.

1 dsp lard
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare beforehand the nervo by boiling in 3 cups of water for about 5-6 hours until quite tender and the liquid is thick. Retain the liquid. Cut the nervo into 1½” lengths.

Boil the ham hock, pig trotter and corned beef until quite soft. Retain the water in which they were cooked. When cool cut the corn beef into ¾” cubes, cut the hock and trotters transversely into 1″ chunks.

Wash the dried mushrooms and soak them in a cup of boiling water. Discard the stems.⁽¹⁾

Wash lap yôk well with hot water and cut into ½” pieces.

Scrape the skin off the inhame chicoo and cut into halves lengthwise.

Wash the pele torado well in hot water, then soak in boiling water till soft. Rinse 2 or 3 times and take off the boil. Cut them into 2″ squares.

Heat lard and fry the chicken, lap yôk, choriço sutate, pig’s trotter and beef together. When well fried (takes about 15 minutes) add enough of the liquids from cooking the hock and nervo to cover and simmer till half cooked, then add the ham hock, corned beef, inhame chicoo, mushrooms and nervo. Boil for 20 mins., then add the pele. After 10 mins. put in the cabbage and cook until tender enough to serve.

Slice the sausages neatly and serve over the dished up meat.⁽²⁾

(1)  Keep the water in which the mushrooms were soaked; it gives flavour to many dishes.

(2)  It is not mentioned, but obviously the sausages would have to be boiled at some stage.