Lamb or goat casserole with red dates, water chestnuts and wood fungus

A family dish in the ‘hunter’s style’ from my grandmother’s time—the red dates intensify the sweetness of the dish but you could use figs to achieve the same soothing, balanced feeling. Time-honoured Chinese ingredients give it the salty, sweet and fruity flavour combination that is so highly prized.

This is a Peking-style dish in which the goat or lamb is cooked with fermented bean curd and brown beans. The people from the south of China dislike the rank flavour of goat and lamb. P