In Hakka cooking, we put xiang cong you into most of our dishes: fried noodles, soup, noodle soups. This is an ingredient — lard with tons of shallots, very troublesome to make. You take shallots and deep fry them in pork fat… but not too long, as they turn dark. So, you have to pay attention to the color. Once brown, you quickly take the shallots out, spread them out, and use a fan to cool them down. After, they go back into the lard. This reminds me of home. Go to any restaurant in Hsinchu and they will have something similar. For example, if you order fish ball soup, they don’t add sesame oil. Instead, they put this into the soup base. It is a Hakka specialty. I always have at least one jar of xiang cong you in my fridge. This follows me wherever I go, even all those years when I lived in the United States. Because if I try to make Hakka style stir-fried noodles, you cannot complete the flavor if you don’t have this. I use only a little bit each time… for fragrance, because it’s not too healthy. It is the soul of the dish.