Spanish Potatoes

The deep and warm flavour of spanish smoked paprika can be overpowering in some dishes. This is one recipe in which I think it works beautifully. Together with the corianderseeds and saffron it really makes something special of a simple bowl of potatoes. You can use any kind of new potatoes, I like them small and in the skin (”krieltjes” in dutch) but still cut in half to absorb more flavour.
In winter I love them mixed with brussels sprouts, for summers I haven’t found the perfect vegetable match yet. But it goes well with just about any kind of grilled meat.

RECIPE

Strifry for about 2 minutes:
500 gram of small potatoes (cut in half/wedges)

Add and stirfry for another minute :
3 chopped cloves of garlic

Then add
1,5 T tomato purée
1 T corianderseeds (crush them a little to release flavour)
a few sprigs of saffron
1 t hot spanish smoked (hot) paprika
enough water/stock to cover the potatoes (about 5dl)

Cook on really high heat. The sauce should reduce until thick and sticky. The timing depends on the size of  your potatoes, but be aware that due to the acidity of the sauce, it can take a little longer than you’re accustomed to. 

If you want to add cooked brussels sprouts, like I do in winter, it’s better to keep it more liquid and thicken the sauce with a little cornstarch.

Recipe borrowed from : A passion for Vegetables by Paul Gayler.

Cold Pork in Hot and Garlicky Sauce (蒜泥白肉)

 

The pork in this sichuanese dish is traditionally a piece of pork butt, half fat and half lean, simply boiled in water with some fresh ginger and spring onion. But I’m not that much into fat meat and boiling it is something else I hesitate to do. Luckily you can use almost any piece of pork you like, as long as you can cut it into thin slices.

My first attempt was with a big piece of lean pork (fricandeau) placed in an ovenproof bag with some ginger, spring onion and shaoxing ricewine. Second attempt was with a simple panfried loin of pork, but I missed the ginger and spring onion flavour. So my last and best attempt was with a piece of rolled pork that I marinated for 24 hours in ginger, spring onion and shaoxing wine. Then quickly panfried it to get the outside browned, then roasted at low temperature in the oven until still a little bit pink in the middle. Just the way I like it, soft and tender.

But with this dish, you should just follow your own instinct on which cut you prefer and how to cook it. Most flavouring comes from the sauce anyway. And the sauce is just brilliant.
Long introduction, short recipe.

 
RECIPE

450 gr cooked cold pork, sliced as thinly and evenly as possible

Then drizzle with a sauce made of :
4 T sweet aromatic soy sauce
2-4 T chili oil (or even better Sichuan Chili Oil !!)
3 t chopped garlic
2 t sesame oil

Garnish with fresh coriander or spring onion.

You can serve it as a starter, like the chinese do. Bring it to a picnic. Serve it cold or lukewarm. Or with white rice and a (beansprout) salad for dinner. Every which way will just be great. Promise.

Sweet, Aromatic Soy Sauce (复制酱油)

Another treasure from the sichuanese cuisine and Fuchia Dunlop’s “Land of Plenty”. This soy sauce is the base for the lovely “hot and garlicky” sauces and the famous Zhong dumpling dressing. It can be made in large quantities and keeps indefinitely.

RECIPE

1/3 cup dark soy sauce
2/3 cup water
6 T brown sugar
1/3 cinnamon stick
1/2 t fennel seeds
1/2 star anise
1/2 t sichuan pepper
1 small piece of ginger, unpeeled, crushed

Combine all ingredients in a pan.
Bring to a boil, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Turn the heat down and simmer for about 20 minutes.
Strain out the liquid, leave to cool.

Peking Duck for Dummies

I know that this recipe looks frightening at first sight. But really, it’s very simple and not that much work. (check the summary at the end of this post) Most preparations are done hours before you eat. It’s fun to do, it’s fun to serve and fun to eat. I’m sure your guests will be impressed. Follow this step-by-step manual and you can’t go wrong.

1. BUY THE DUCK
Buy a frozen duck from your oriental supermarket.

2. DEFROST THE DUCK
Slowly defrost the duck in your refrigerator. This will take at lease one and a half day. Don’t freak out by the phallus thing you’ll find inside. It’s its neck. You can use it later, together with the carcass, to make duck stock. Check if the giblets are in there somewhere too. Although there weren’t any in mine.

3. BATH THE DUCK
Give it a bath to wash it nice and clean.

4. DRY THE DUCK
Let it drip dry.

5. SEW THE DUCKBUTT

6. SCALD THE DUCK
Scald the duck in boiling water for about 2-3 minutes to thighten the skin. Or if you don’t have a big enough pan you can put it over the sink, on a rack and pour boiling water over it until the skin thightens. 

7. DRY THE DUCK
Drip and pat dry. See how much better the skin looks already.

8. PREPARE MARINADE

Combine the following ingredients :
1,25 l water (this is not a typo)
6 T maltose
4 T dark soy sauce
3 T shaoxing ricewine
2 T black rice vinegar

The maltose needs to soften a little bit. So you have to heat the marinade until everything mixes well. Instead of maltose you can also use honey.

9. GLAZE THE DUCK
Spoon the marinade over the duck so everything gets coated. You can then wait a minute to repeat this a couple of times if you want.

10. HANG THE DUCK
You can hang your duck in a cool, dry, drafty place for 6-12 hours. Or if you don’t have such a place, like me, you can hang it in front of a ventilator for about 4-5 hours. The skin will become dry and feel like parchment.

11. ROAST THE DUCK
Preheat the oven to 240°C.
Place the duck breastside down on roasting rack set, which is placed on a baking tray, filled with some water. (so the dripping/marinade won’t burn)
Roast it for 15 minutes at 240°C.
Turn it breastside up, lower the heat to 180°C
Roast it for another 70 minutes at 180°C
Be sure to check regularly and add some tinfoil if you think it’s getting too dark. Even better, buy a thermometer to check the temperature inside the duck.

13. PREPARE CONDIMENTS

Open a jar of sauce. I’ve tried 3 of them. Plum sauce, hoisin sauce and peking duck sauce. I only remember I didn’t like the plumsauce, but I can’t remember which of the other two I preferred. Then besides that I’ve learned another option: sweet bean paste, maybe diluted with a little shaoxing ricewine.

Next you need to cut some spring onion and cucumber into juilienne strips. And finally you need to steam some readymade  peking duck pancakes.  You can find in the freezer of any oriental supermarket.

 

14. SERVE THE DUCK.
Put everything on your table.

The idea is simple, just compose a pancake with some sauce, cucumber, spring onion and slices of duck and roll it up.

15. EAT THE DUCK!!!

SUMMARY (to prove it really is quite simple)

1. Defrost and wash duck
2. Close openings (sew or skewers)
3. Coat with marinade of:
   1,25 l water
   6 T maltose
   4 T dark soy sauce
   3 T shaoxing ricewine
   2 T black rice vinegar
4. Dry in front of ventilator for at least 4 hours
5. Roast it 15 minutes at 240°C, breastside down
   Roast it 70 minutes at 180°C, breastside up
6. Cut cucumber and spring onion
7. Open saucejar
8. Steam pancakes
9. Serve and eat!

Bang Bang Chicken

 

Nice cold dish for a warm summer evening. Or a maybe a picnic. The name refers to the technique for shredding the meat : just bang it with a rolling-pin before you tear the meat into long shreds.  You can use poached chickenbreast, smoked chickenbreast or even use left-over chicken. As long as it’s cold, shredded and enough. The sauce is nutty, rich and spicy. In the photo above I smoked the chickenbreast for 10 minutes and then steamed it in clingfoil until it was properly cooked. I’m not sure the smokey flavour of the chicken survived the strong sauce, but I liked it anyway. :-)

Originally, this dish is a sichuanese starter, but I like to add cold rice-noodles or warm jasmine rice and serve it for dinner. Although you might want to serve an additional vegetable dish with it.
 

RECIPE

450 gr shredded chicken

For the sauce, first mix together
1 T white sugar
1 T light soy sauce
1 T black chinese vinegar
pinch of salt

When  the sugar has dissolved add
3 T sesame paste
1 T sesame oil
2 T Sichuan Chili Oil 

Prepare individual servings, by composing the following layers
warm rice or cold rice noodles
1 cucumber each, cut julienne
shredded chicken
spring onion
sesame sauce
ground roasted sichuan pepper (optional, because it’s already in the Sichuan Chili Oil )
toasted sesame seeds
roasted peanuts (optional)

 

PS Very good dippingsauce for emping too. (Emping is an indonesian krupuk made from melinjo nuts)

Warm Bok Choy Salad

I love Bok Choy. Especially the smaller, green version, called Shanghai Bok Choy. I love its crunch in a fresh Thai Green Curry. But served with simple fish (e.g. steamed salmon) or chicken (e.g. Soy Chicken) this warm bok choy salad it also pretty great. Dipping spoonfuls of steamed white rice in the dressing is heaven.

 

RECIPE

Heat in a little pan
2 T of olive oil

Then add
3 t grated ginger
2 grated cloves of garlic

Stirfry for 1 minute. Then add mixture of
2 t sugar
2 t sesameoil
2 T light soysauce
1 T lemonjuice

Steam the boy choy.
Add dressing and sprinkle with
1 T toasted sesame seeds

You can steam whole leaves or chunks. Or just blanche them in boiling water if you’re in a hurry. 

 

Oyster Omelette

And again something from my memories of Beijing. When my parents visited me there and my Hong Kong Chinese boss treated us for a nice meal in some posh restaurant, one of the dishes was oyster omelette. My mother and I both love fresh oysters and thought using something so luxurious in a “simple omelette” is almost decadent! And I’m sure it added to the taste, this decadency. We both loved it.

Still I would never use fresh oysters for this dish. I tried tinned oysters a few years ago, but I think tinned oysters are horrible. I still have two cans in my cupboard, waiting to expire so I can throw them out. And then, not so long ago I saw this big bag of frozen ”fresh oysters” at my oriental supermarket.

They looked surprisingly nice. Big and fat, all frozen seperately. I had almost forgotten about oyster omelette, so my first reaction was “yuk, who would want to eat frozen oysters instead of fresh, live oysters?” But then I remembered this chinese clay pot recipe that combined pork, tofu and panfried oysters. Or deepfried oysters in a panko-batter. Or indead, oyster omelette!!!

Browsing the internet I understand there are different versions. I can’t remember it with sauce, so my version has no sauce.

 

RECIPE

7 fresh or frozen oysters
1 teaspoon of cornstarch

Defrost the oysters by just rinsing them with water.
Drain them as well as you can. Cut into 2 or 3 pieces.
Then dust them with the cornstarch.

Whisk in a bowl:
2 eggs
2 T shaoxing rice wine
1 T light soysauce
2 T chopped fresh coriander
1 spring onion, chopped
salt & white pepper

Heat a small frying pan steaming hot, add
2 t oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped

Stirfry for about 10 seconds, then add the dusted oysters.
Quickly stirfry for about 20 seconds.
Add the egg-mixture.
Turn down the heat a bit. Add a lid to contain the warmth.
When the bottom is getting brown and the sides get a little bit loose from the pan, transfer to a hot oven to set the top. This way you don’t have to flip the omelet over.

Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese

As much as I loved to watch Heston Blumenthal in Search of Perfection, I didn’t really feel like trying any of his recipes. Maybe because I’m not British and I just don’t care about bangers & mash, fish & chips or chicken tikka masala. Or because I don’t want to go through so much trouble creating something that will still taste like something familiar, something not so exciting. I want to try new things, new combinations and new ingredients.

But I wanted to try at least one of his recipes. And when I saw oxtail at my local maroccan butcher I remembered he used it for his perfect spaghetti bolognese. So I decided to just go for it and make Heston’s spagbol this weekend. Oh man, haha, it’s all very easy, anybody can do it, but next time I will take a few shortcuts for sure. I will buy minced meat, try to chop the vegetables in my kitchen machine and probably use tinned tomatoes instead of fresh ones.  Hopefully, that will shorten the process with 2 days. Yes, that’s right, 2 days! Because, this time it took me 3 days. :-)
Okay, not three full days and I had more or less doubled the quantities, but still, it’s not a quick recipe. And trust me, it’s not just me, there are others that have gone before me.
On day 1, in the evening I deboned and minced the oxtail.
On day 2, I chopped all vegetables and made the meatsauce and tomato compote, especially the chopping took a long time. I even have a blister from cutting all these vegetables!
On day 3, late in the afternoon, I combined the two, simmered it for another 2 hours and finally ate it.

And the result? It was great spaghetti bolognese. Really. I can recommend it to anybody who has enough time on their hands. ;-)

I tried to follow the recipe to the letter, but I have to admit I’ve changed the proportion between meat and vegetable. First I had too much oxtail and decided to double everything. But then I ran out of onion and I got scared of the amount of carrots I was dicing. I don’t like carrot, so I cut down on it a bit. Finally, ”frying” of the compote was too much for me. I normally cook with as little oil as possible, so I was already hyperventilating because of the amounts of oil and butter I had to use and this frying of the tomato compote was just too much to handle. I skipped it. ;)
I’ve written down exactly what I did, but you can find the original recipe written down here.

Or watch it online on youtube :
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M0jYhSIPXU
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzfkY0rDhiI
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlHlpaC7cPo
 

PART I - THE MEATSAUCE

 

Caramelized onions

1 star anise
510 gr onions 
25 ml extra virgin olive oil

Finely slice the onions. (or misread and dice them instead, like I did) Place a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Crush the star anise and bag it up in a square of muslin. (I didn’t) Add this to the pan, along with 25ml oil and the sliced onions. Cook for 20 minutes, or until the onions are soft and caramelised, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

 

For the soffrito

4 cloves of garlic
475 gr diced onion
390 gr diced carrot
300 gr diced celery stalk
50 ml extra virgin olive oil

Finely dice the onions, carrots and celery. Mince the garlic. Preheat another large, heavybottomed frying pan over a low heat for 5 minutes. Pour 50ml oil into the pan, then tip in the garlic, onions, carrots and celery and cook this soffritto over a medium- low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the raw onion smell has gone. Transfer the soffritto to your preheated crockpot and wipe clean the pan.

For the meat

50ml extra virgin olive oil
455 gr oxtail, boned and minced
280 gr pork, also grinded, although Heston used cubes
284 gr veal, minced (my addition)
650 ml Oaked Chardonnay (Chardonnay Reserve 2007, Viu Manent)
500 ml whole milk

Place the pan over a high heat for 10 minutes. Pour in 50ml olive oil and wait until it starts smoking: it must be hot enough so the meat browns rather than stews. Add the minced meat. Stir until browned all over. (To brown properly, all the meat has to touch the surface of the pan. If it doesn’t, do it in batches.) Tip the browned meat into a sieve over a bowl (to allow the fat to drain off), then transfer the meat to your crockpot. Deglaze the pan by adding a splash of wine, bringing it to the boil, and then scraping the base of the pan to collect all the tasty bits stuck to the bottom. Once the liquid has reduced by half, pour it into the crockpot containing the meat.

Remove the (bag of) star anise from the caramelised onions and then tip the onions into the crockpot containing the meat. Add the remaining wine and deglaze the frying pan. When the wine has reduced by half, pour it into the crockpot. Add the soffritto to the pot as well.

Pour in hot milk and enough hot water to cover entirely, and simmer on “Low” with the lid half on for 6 to 8 hours. At all times the ingredients should be covered by the liquid, so be prepared to add more water. (Don’t worry if the milk becomes slightly granular: it won’t affect the end result.)

 

 PART II - THE TOMATO COMPOTE

1966 gr ripe tomatoes
1 tsp salt
200ml extra virgin olive oil
6 large cloves of garlic
340 gr finely diced onion
2 heaped tsp coriander seeds
2 star anise
6 cloves
8-10 drops Tabasco
8-10 drops Thai fish sauce
3 tsps Worcestershire sauce
2 heaped tbsp tomato ketchup
60ml sherry vinegar
1 bouquet garni (consisting of 7 sprigs of fresh thyme and 1 fresh bay leaf)

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Fill a large bowl with ice-cold water. Make a cross with a sharp knife in the underside of each tomato. Blanch the tomatoes by dropping them into the boiling water for 10 seconds and then carefully removing them to the bowl of ice-cold water. Take them out of the water immediately and peel off the split skins.

2. Cut the tomatoes in quarters. With your knife, scrape/scoop/cut out the seeds, the membrane and the cores. Roughly chop the seeds and membrane, then tip them into a sieve over a bowl. Sprinkle over the salt and leave for 20 minutes to extract their juice, after which you can discard the seeds and membrane, reserving only the juice.

3. Roughly chop the tomato flesh and set aside.

4. Meanwhile, place a large, heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. Add 100ml of the olive oil. Mince the garlic, then put it into the pan along with the onion. Cook for 10–15 minutes, until soft but not coloured.

5. Crush the coriander and put it in a muslin bag (or herb container), along with the star anise and the cloves. Add it to the softened onions and garlic.

6.Take the juice drawn from the tomato seeds and membrane and add it to the onions and garlic along with the tomato flesh.

7. Add the Tabasco, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup and sherry vinegar. Drop in the bouquet garni and cook over a low heat for 2 hours.

8. To add a roasted note to the compote, add the remaining oil and turn up the heat to high. Fry the compote for 15–20 minutes, stirring regularly to make sure it doesn’t catch, then pour off any olive oil not absorbed by the compote. Set aside a little to coat the cooked pasta. ( The rest can be stored in a jar and makes a great base for a salad dressing. The compote itself will keep in the fridge for a week.) I just didn’t trust this part and I was getting tired, so I skipped it. *oeps*

 

PART III -  FINISHING THE SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

1 batch of tomato compote
1 batch of meatsauce
100g good quality spaghetti per person
sherry vinegar, to taste
Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano)
1 bouquet garni (in a sheet of leek, wrap 6 tarragon leaves, 4 sprigs of parsley and the leaves from the top of a bunch of celery)
unsalted butter
extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper 

1. Stir the tomato compote (including the bag of spices) into the meat-sauce and cook over a very low heat for a final 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

2. Transfer as much sauce as you need this time to a baking pan and fry until all the excess liquid, as shown on the photo on the right has vapourized. Put the rest in freezer bags to freeze.

3. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil for the pasta. For every 100g of pasta, you’ll need 1 litre of water and 10g salt. (If you don’t have a large enough pan it’s essential to use two pans rather than overcrowd one.)

4. Put the spaghetti into the pan, give it a stir, then bring back to the boil and cook until the pasta is just tender but with a bite. Check the cooking time on the packet and use that as a guideline, but taste it every few minutes as this is the only way to judge when the pasta is ready.

5. Before taking the Bolognese sauce off the heat, check the seasoning and then add some sherry vinegar (tasting as you go) to balance the richness of the sauce. (I think I was too cautious here, I was afraid, after 3 days of cooking, I would ruine the sauce, hihi. Next time I will add a little extra) Add a generous grating of Parmesan (but not too much, as it can make the sauce overly salty) and remove the sauce from the heat. Take out the original thyme and bay bouquet garni and the bag of spices. Replace these with the parsley and tarragon bouquet garni, stir in 100g of unsalted butter and let the sauce stand for 5 minutes.

6. Once the pasta is cooked, drain, and rinse it thoroughly. Return to the pot to warm through. (Since the ragù is not going to be mixed with the pasta, it needs to be rinsed to prevent it becoming starchy and sticking together.) Add a generous knob of butter (about 50g per 400g of pasta) and coat with olive oil and the reserved oil from the final frying of the compote. To serve, wind portions of pasta around a carving fork and lay them horizontally in wide, shallow bowls. Top with the Bolognese sauce and finish with a grating of Parmesan.

7. Eat it! And serve the oaked chardonnay that went in it. I was quite surprised how well that combined. I really loved it.

Poached Soy Chicken

A great, foolproof chinese way of roasting a whole chicken. Because you first poach it in mastersauce before you roast it in the oven, your chicken will never turn out dry or undercooked. On the contrary, it will be moist and succulent and delicious for sure.
There are a lot of ingredients that go into the sauce, but the great thing is, you can freeze it and use it over and over again. Every time adding some new fresh ingredients like the ginger, garlic or whatever you have available. The sauce will improve  every time you use it. There is a restaurant in Shanghai, famous for its soy chicken or duck and the mastersauce they use is said to be over a 100 years old! (I couldn’t find the source for this story though, if you can, please let me know)

RECIPE

Make a mastersauce by simmering the following ingredients for about 15 minutes in a pan that is just big enough to fit your chicken:

250 ml light soysauce
250 ml shaoxing ricewine
400 ml water
150 gr chinese brown sugar
1 big piece of ginger, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 staranise
2 cinnamon sticks
1 stripe of orangepeel, white stuff removed
1½  t sichuan peppercorns
½ t chinese five-spice powder
½ t sesame oil

Wash your chicken, put it in the pan with the mastersauce, breastside down (see photo).  Bring to the boil and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Then turn the chicken, breastside up and simmer for another 10 minutes. Let the chicken cool down in the sauce. I don’t know for how long and if it’s really necessary, I’m just passing the message from the original recipe. I normally let it cool down for just half an hour or so, until I’m ready to prepare dinner.  

Let the chicken drip/drain on a rack.
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Rub the chicken with the olive oil .
Put chicken on a baking tray or rack.
Put in the oven for about  20-25 minutes.
Serve with white rice & bok choy salad, ovenroasted potatoes & corn on the cob or cold for a picknick.

Sieve the sauce, let it cool down (preferably quickly), remove the fat from the surface and then freeze it in a container or freezerbag. You can use it over and over again.

Spicy Eggplant from Sichuan

 

This is an easy, healthy vegetable dish. You can eat it warm or at roomtemperature. Quite convenient if you have other dishes to prepare. I think it combines very nicely with “sichuan water boiled beef” .
It’s best with the long and thin asian eggplants (see photo below). The bigger european ones can be a bit bitter, which you can get rid of when you slice them open, put in a colander, sprinkle with seasalt and wait for an hour to extract moist and bitterness. Then rinse well and pat dry. When you use seasalt it’s easier to rinse of later, so the chance of the eggplant becoming too salty is smaller.

RECIPE

500 gr chinese eggplant

When you use asian eggplants you can steam them with the skin still on for about 10 - 15 minutes or until tender. Leave them to cool down a bit so you can handle them, then peel them and slice them in cubes or longer sticks. Put in a bowl and mix with a dressing of

3 T light soy sauce
1 T shaoxing ricewine
1 T sesame oil
2 t white rice vinegar
1 t sugar
1 t chili-bean paste (toban jiang)
1 spring onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped

 

Roasted Tomato Soup

When the sun is shining and the tomatoes are red, fragrant and cheap I love to make this easy, healthy tomato soup. Roasting the vegetables gives it a more intense flavour.

RECIPE

1 kg tomatoes
1 big red onion
1 red pepper/paprika
2 cloves of garlic
½ chilli (optional)

Cut everything in pieces, add 1 T olive oil and spread on bakingtray. Bake in 240°C oven for about 30-45 minutes. Close to the heating element so some bits will get burnt/grilled.
Put everything in your blender, add 2 T chickenstockpowder (or just salt & pepper) and blend for at least 2 minutes. I really think it makes a difference when you let it blend that long. You can add water or stock if you want, I normally don’t.
You can pass it through a sieve to make it even more velvetty.

Serve with lots of black pepper. Fresh basil or thym if you want, add some cream or young goatcheese, although the soup is already great on its own.

 

Jamie Oliver’s Salmon with Green Beans

This fairly simple recipe is a real crowd pleaser. Easy to prepare beforehand, so perfect when having guests. Many people have tried this dish already and I’ve never heard of anybody not liking it. It’s just surprisingly good. Even if you were never really fond of anchovy. Try it one more time with this recipe.

RECIPE

400 gr green beans
200 gr cherry tomatoes
1 to 2 handfuls black olives, destoned & sliced
2 T olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 handful fresh basil, picked

2 x 200 gram salmon fillet steak
1/2 lemon
12 anchovy fillets

Preheat the oven and a roasting tray at the highest temperature.

Tail the green beans, blanch them until tender (6 minutes) in salted, boiling water, and drain. Put in a bowl with the cherry tomatoes and the destoned olives. Toss in the olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the basil.

Give the salmon fillets a quick wash under the tap and pat dry with kitchen paper towels. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lemon over the fillets, on both sides, then season both sides with salt and pepper and drizzle a little olive oil over the top.

Take the hot roasting tray from the oven. Put the salmon at 1 end of the roasting tray. Add the green beans mixture next to the salmon in the tray

Lay the anchovies over the green beans! (Don’t forget)

Roast in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Or to your liking.
I like the salmon to be almost or a little raw on the inside.

Egg Custard with Clams

I just love the soft, pudding-like structure and the delicate taste of this savoury egg custard. I have some nice memories of this dish, made with some kind of chinese clams. Nothing fancy, nothing pretentious, just being eggs and clams. But I do have to warn you, many people think this dish is too simple and aren’t as excited about it as I am.  So it’s probably best to serve it more like a side dish, as one of many chinese dishes on the table. Or just as lunch with steamed white rice.

I used to think eggcustard was a mixture of egg and tofu, I couldn’t believe it was just steamed eggs with water/stock. So when I discovered that, I decided to try to recreate the dish from my memories.
 

RECIPE

2 eggs
125 ml dashi or chickenstock
1 T light soysauce (optional)
2 T shaoxing ricewine or sake
some clams like vongole or cockles
or a few raw shrimp
1 T chopped spring onion
1 T chopped fresh coriander

Stir first 4 ingredients together in a bowl.
Be careful not to make bubbles.
Pass through a sieve into a shallow heatproof dish.
Add some washed fresh clams or shrimp.
Cover the dish with clingfoil.
Steam gently for 20 minutes in your steamer.
Sprinkle with the spring onion and fresh coriander.

 

These are my notes/tips:

• I’ve tried it with chickenstock, which was nice with the shrimp and/or mushrooms. For clams I’ve seen recipes asking for (canned) clam-juice, probably very nice, but I have never heard of these cans, so I wouldn’t know where to get those. I tried dashi (japanese stock) and I liked it with the cockles. It gives your eggcustard an extra dimension. But I’ve also tried it once with only water, soy, ricewine and sesame oil and that turned out fine too.  
• Don’t whisk the mixture, stir it. You don’t want bubbles, like I got the first attempt.
• If you don’t put a lid or clingfoil over the bowl, the surface will also be more bubbly and even a little scruffy-looking.
• There probably is a perfect ratio for the egg versus the liquid, I don’t know it yet.
• I’ve tried it plain, with raw, frozen shrimp, with shrimp & mushroom, with cockles and with frozen vongole from my oriental supermarket. Although they were all okay, I much preferred the fresh cockles with shrimp as second best.  The frozen asian vongole looked great, but because they were already dead they didn’t open, so eating them was messy.
• I like to use soy sauce, but this will tune down the colour of the custard.
• I’m still not sure whether I like sesame-oil. Maybe with the shrimp I do and with the clams I don’t.
• I’ve added some red chillies. It gives nice colour, but I don’t think I’ll use that again.

 

Spinach Salad

 
RECIPE

300 gram fresh spinach
1 big handful of basil, sliced
200 gram grilled chicken
250 gram brown mushrooms
250 gram strawberries
100 gram roquefort

Toss the spinach with the following simple vinaigrette:
juice of half a lime
5 T olive oil
2 t honey
1 small shallot, very finely chopped
salt & pepper

I like to use the more creamy kind of honey for this dressing. To dissolve it, put in microwave for a few seconds.  The oil you add is depending on how much juice you get from the lime. This can annoyingly enough vary a lot.
The mushrooms I sliced and grilled in the grillpan. The chicken I marinated very shortly in olive oil, garlic and some limejuice, then smoked it for 5 minutes, then grilled it. 

Call me crazy, but I liked the combination of ingredients so much that I decided to write it down and share with the world. And off course to remember it for a next time I want to make this.
Ah, and next time I’ll hopefully remember to add the haricot verts that I had planned on grilling and adding.  ;)

Served with ovenroasted potatoes.

 

Century Eggs

After I had a nightmare experience with stinky tofu I took the advice of a friend to never try thousand year old eggs. I was told they were the most horrible thing ever. And you keep hearing horror stories about them. Just recently when Paul Young was a guest on BBC’s Saterday Kitchen and asked of his worst food-experience-ever he came with a story of these duckeggs in Taiwan, rotting for months in mud and horse-urine. He couldn’t even finish his story, everybody was already totally disgusted. And yesterday I found this video on the internet in a series of “so you don’t have to“, of an ignorant american eating a century egg and telling you it is totallly disgusting.

And you know what? It’s not!! First of all, the horse-urine is an urban legend. The eggs are covered in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for about 90 days. Second of all, they just taste like egg! Okay, the egg white doesn’t taste like anything but firm jelly. But the yolks are really creamy and lovely, like a superlative eggyolk. You can eat it with a little bit of grated ginger and sweetened black vinegar sauce and I think they are brilliant. Not brilliant as in very, very special tasting, because as I said, they mainly taste like egg. And what’s special about egg? But it’s a fun appetizer and I would dare to serve it to anybody who likes egg. And I did. At two different occasions. We all liked it and nobody of us is chinese or asian.

The only reservation I make is that maybe, just maybe there are different kinds of century eggs? Like very matured cheese is much more likely to put off people than younger cheese. So maybe, the kind I bought are not as mature as the ones in the video? It definitely came from a different package.

I had read somewhere that the best/safest way to get acquainted with preserved eggs was to mix them into congee or a silken tofu salad. I just happen to hate congee and love tofu salad, so that was an easy choice.

 

RECIPE

Just carefully mix together

2 century eggs cut into cubes
1 package of silken tofu, cut into cubes
2 T light soysauce
1 T sesame oil
1 bunch of coriander/cilantro, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped

Like I said, I love tofu salad and I think the texture and taste of the preserved eggs complement the tofu very nicely. But I think the eggs deserve to be in the lead. And this way they are not.

Man & Wife Tongue Slices (夫妻肺片)

Originally this dish is prepared with thin slices of boiled ox heart, tongue and stomach. When my chinese colleagues in Beijing used to order this dish, I’d recognize the tongue and pinch it out with my chopsticks. Maybe not a very polite thing to do, but hey, I was the foreigner.

Fuchsia Dunlop adjusted her recipe for man-and-wife meat slices to the West, using shank steak  instead. But I like tongue, so I decided to adapt Fuchsia’s recipe back to my taste. Only, I never prepared tongue before in my life. Who has? So when I finally found a butcher who sold tongue I had to search the internet to find out how to prepare it. Unfortunately, the instructions went from soaking it for 2 days to just rinsing it before boiling it in a broth. I decided to go safe and in the middle.

So I rinsed and then soaked the tongue in cold salted water for 4 hours, changing the water once. Then boiling/blanching it for a minute or two. Throw away the water and then finally put it in the broth I prepared. I’m still not sure how much of this preperation is needed. The veal tongue looked/smelt/felt okay when I bought it. Hopefully I’ll find out whether I can safely skip these steps before the next time I will try this dish.

The next hurdle was deciding how long it should simmer. The silly thing was that I had asked my butcher for an ox tongue and during the whole cooking process never realized it was just too small to be from an ox. I only realized that after 4 hours of simmering!!! Haha. Which is way too long for an “exquisite” veal tongue.

I did check the skin regularly though. Recipes say the tongue is ready when the skin comes off easily. But even after 4 hours I didn’t think it came of easily. I expected something like the “falling of the bone”-stage with lambshanks. So when I finally decided (after 4 hours) that enough is enough and I was willing to cut the skin off if necessary, I found out that the skin indeed was coming of easily. Haha. You had to use some force, yes, pulling hard, but it came of in a few easy peels. So I guess that’s what they mean with “coming off easy”.

Next time I will simmer it much shorter. Or maybe longer, but in my crockpot/slowcooker. We’ll see. The tongue was still edible though! Even nice, if I say so myself. Especially for a first attempt ever of preparing ox euh veal tongue. Just not as velvety as it could have been. But I’m happy and call it a succes. :-)

 

RECIPE

Making the broth for the man-and-wife meat slices begins a little bit scary.You have to slowly heat:
2 T peanut oil with
2 T crushed chinese rock sugar

When the sugar has melted you have to raise the temperature and wait for the mixture to caramelize. When it has a nice brown (brown not burnt) colour you add a small coffee-cupful of cold water. But be careful, you have to immediately take back a step because it will steam and spat!! (I think I will just do it the simple way next time, heating caster sugar in a non-stick frying pan, wait until the sugar first melts, then caramelizes. No oil needed)

 
Transfer this caramel-sauce into a big enough pan for your veal tongue and add:
1 L good stock
2 t salt
2 T crushed rock sugar
1 big red onion
2 t sichuan peppercorns
1 cinnamonstick
2 t fennel seeds
4 staranise
8 cloves (their powdry heads pinched off and discarded)

This is the base to boil the veal tongue. But first soak the tongue for 4 hours in cold salted water. Change the water once. Then put it in a big pot of boiling water for about 2 minutes. Throw away the water and then simmer the tongue for about 2 hours in the broth. (although I’m not sure about the timing, sorry, 2 hours is what I would try next time)

After the tongue is cooked, let it cool down a little bit so you can handle it. It’s easiest to peel when still warm, so don’t let it get cold. Do NOT throw away the broth, you’ll need it for the sauce.

After it’s peeled, keep it in the fridge until needed. If there is still “too much creepy texture” on it, just peel it some more with your potato-peeler like I did. I have to admit that I wasn’t getting hungry while preparing this tongue. On the contrary. But when you slice it the next day and it’s not that recognizable anymore as a big, disgusting tongue, and you serve it with the following sauce, it really is very nice! Really!

For the Sauce :
4 T broth that your tongue was cooked in
1 T dark soysauce
2 T Sichuan Chili Oil
2 t toasted sesame seeds
2 T roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed
2 T coriander leaves

Don’t look too much at all the pictures, only look at the one at the top. Doesn’t that look yummie? I really think this recipe should win in this offal-competition on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog.

Can Eriği Crumble

Always curious for new foods I don’t have to think twice when I see something new to me at my turkish vegetable shop. And this time it wasn’t that difficult to find out what it was either, because this fruit came in a box with its name on it: Can Eriği or Plum (Erik). They are little, turkish, green plums and this is what I found on the internet :

“This special plum is like nothing you had before. It has a unique tart taste and, unlike other plums, it is very hard. Its fans can’t wait for it to arrive each season. The season usually starts in mid-April and ends in mid-May. The April batches are smaller and the size grows gradually throughout the season.”

Hard & tart, that’s about right. My partner didn’t even want to believe you could eat them, he thought they weren’t ripe yet. That’s the tricky thing with new food, you don’t know how they are supposed to taste. But I had the feeling they were just how they are supposed to be. Only, I didn’t like them that much. Not in the least because of the stone in the middle. (Later I found out the turkish eat them as a snack with a little bit of salt. Not that bad, but not that good either. Probably something you need to grow up with to appreciate)  So I decide to make a crumble with it. And I have to say, I think it was a big succes. Succesful enough to share on my blog.

Although it’s a pain to destone them. What worked best in the end was slicing them in quarters and then twisting them, like an avocado that you’ve cut in half. The other thing I tried was putting one in a microwave. It exploded within 10 seconds. Which gave me a nice insight of the stone (see first photo), but the method was rejected.
Destoning 12 plums (they are about 2.5 cm in diameter) left me with 100 grams of fruit. Just about enough for 2 little experimental crumbles.

 

RECIPE

Mix the following ingredients together and place in two ramequins or any other ovenproof dish you like:

100 gram of destoned Can Eriği
2 T sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t gingerpowder
1 T almond flakes

Then put together in a bowl:

3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup crushed almond flakes
3/4 cup sugar
1 t baking powder
1/2 t cinnamon
pinch of salt

Beat in a seperate little bowl:
1 egg

Mix the egg into the flourmixture with a fork. Work quickly, it should get the texture of crumbs.
(This is actually too much for the two little ramequins I was making, but because of the one egg it didn’t make sense to me to reduce the quantities)

Now add the crumble-mixture on top of the plums. And then try to cover the whole surface with thin slices of butter. Sprinkle with some additional palmsugar.

Bake in a 190°C/375°F preheated oven for about 25 minutes.

Salmon Curry

This is one of my three all time favourite recipes for salmon. Originally from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Bible. I just add more water to make more sauce, so there is room for vegetables too. I tend to do that a lot. Concentrating on one dish which will carry the vegetables. No need to do something fancy with the vegetables as well, because many times one will overpower the other anyway. I think this salmon goes perfectly with zucchini/courgette. And if I can find some okra, I will add a few of them too, just for fun. Serve with indonesian sweet and sticky nasi kuning. A truely comforting dish. Warm, probably from the mustard seeds. A spice that we’re not accustomed to in the West. Maybe that’s what makes it so special to me.

RECIPE

Cut 400 gram salmon into 2×2x4 cm pieces and put in a plastic bag to marinade (for 1 to 6 hours) with

½ t cayennepepper
½ t kurkuma
½ t salt

Mix together in a bowl to set aside:

1½ T ground coriander seeds
2½ t brown mustard seeds, then grinded in a coffeegrinder
2 t ground cumin seeds
2 t hot currypowder
1½ t salt
1 t cayennepepper
½ t kurkuma
200 gram tomato, chopped finely
200 ml water

Measure and set aside (seperately) :

2½ t brown mustardseeds
1 t fennel seeds

You could cook the 500 grams of zucchini in the sauce, but I prefer to either grill the slices in a grill-pan. Or when I don’t have the time to do that, I will precook them a few minutes in the microwave.

Cooking
Heat 1 T olive oil in a wok (or pan) on medium heat.
Add the mustard seeds.
When they start to pop after about 15 seconds, add the fennel seeds.
Stir only once and then add the tomato/water/spice-mixture.
Bring to the boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes or more.
When you’ll have guests, you can easily prepare this earlier and reheat it when you’re ready to eat.

When you’re ready, add the zucchini/courgette, precooked or not. Either way, you don’t add the salmon until your zucchini/courgette is warm and pretty much done to your liking. The last thing to add is the salmon. But before you do that, add a little bit of cornflour/water-mixture to thicken the sauce to your liking.

So when the sauce and the vegetables are to your liking, add the salmon. Just heat it for about 2 minutes, stir carefully and make sure not to overcook it. It’s best when slightly undercooked.

Serve with nasi kuning or just white rice.

Galavat kebabs (minced lamb meatballs)

 

One of those lovely recipes from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Bible : Galavat Kebabs, minced lamb meatballs. They go nice with a simple salad and ovenroasted potatoes or prepared as a burger . But the way I enjoy them most is with Dutch Andive Mash. A true match made in heaven. And to make it even more fusion I like to add little lumps of roquefort in the endive mash or even fill the meatballs with some roquefort, which will ooze out after you grill it. Sooo yummie!

RECIPE

500 gr minced lamb
1 medium red onion, chopped finely
1.5 T freshly grated ginger
3 garlics, grated
1 T chopped mint
2 t garam masala 
0.5 t cayennepepper
1 t salt
1 cup panko, breadcrumbs
1 egg

(The panko and egg are my replacement for chickpeaflour and yoghurt)

Garam Masala

The literal meaning of garam masala is hot spices. Not hot as in spicy, but hot as in warming the body. You can buy ready made garam masala in the shops, but first of all the fragrance can never be as nice and aromatic as home made. And secondly, those mixtures tend to have less of the more expensive spices and more of the less expensive. Or even spices that traditionally shouldn’t be in there! Things linke dried garlic, ginger powder, coriander and god knows what else.  That’s why I like to make my own.
 
With an old coffeegrinder it’s really a piece of cake. Although getting the cardemom-seeds out of the pods can be a bit of a pain. The quantity of garam masala I normally make depends on how quickly I’m fed up with peeling the cardemompods.  This time it was after collecting a teaspoonful.

RECIPE

1 t  cardemomseeds
½ t black peppercorns
½ t cloves
½ t black cumin
1 t freshly grounded nutmeg
2 cm cinnamin stick

Put in your coffeegrinder and grind as fine as possible.
Save mixture in an airtight little container.
Lovely for making Galavat Kebabs.

Roasted Single Clove Garlic

 

What is there to say. I bought this little garlic roaster a few years back just for its cuteness. I haven’t used it that much. Probably because I think you can just as easily roast your garlic by adding them to your ovenroasted potatoes

But then I discovered this “single clove garlic”. Also bought for its cuteness. And I think they were made for my garlic roaster. In a 160°C oven for about 50 minutes (although the instructions say 10-15 minutes in a 180°C). I’ve added some olive oil and thyme. Probably should have made an incision to push the herbs in. But it was nice, even without the thyme-taste. You can squeezed it onto some warm, fresh bread or you can just squeeze it right into your mouth, like I do.

 

 

Rhubarb Compote

People’s first reaction to this recipe normally is quite sceptical. “Garlic and ginger in rhubarb?!”, they say, pulling a face at the same time. But I can assure you it’s worthwhile. Traditionally most people in our country only know rhubarb as a dessert. Or maybe as a sweet condiment, like the apple-compote (appelmoes) so many people add to almost everything they eat. And off course, in this recipe it still is a sweet condiment. Only a little bit spiced up. Try it!

 

RECIPE

600 g rhubarb
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 T grated ginger
200 gr sugar
400 ml water
2 T rice vinegar
2 T olive oil
Salt & pepper

Gently saute the finely chopped shallots & garlic for about 3 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the grated ginger and saute for another half minute. Add water and sugar. Bring to the boil.
Add the rhubarb (chopped in 1 cm pieces). Bring back to the boil, but only just. Let it softly heat through (not bubbling) for about 5-7 minutes. You don’t want it to get too mushy. Take the rhubarb out with a slotted spoon. Put into a sieve over a bowl to catch more of the juices which you can add back to the pan. Reduce the liquid on high heat until you have about 1 dl of sticky syrup left. Let it cool down, add the vinegar and the rhubarb. Serve at room temperature, warm or cold.

 

Thai Green Curry

So simple and yet so brilliant. You can easily vary with all kinds of vegetables, chicken, fish, shrimp. Depending on your mood. The basis is always the same.

RECIPE

Gently fry in a little oil over medium heat
3 T green curry paste

When fragrant, after a couple of minutes, add
400 ml coconutmilk
2 T fishsauce
2 t (palm)sugar
3 limeleaves (optional)

Now, depending on your ingredients you add them in the order of cooking time they need.

Green beans => 15 minutes
Small eggplants => 10 minutes
Asparagus => 2 minutes
Bokchoy stems => 2 minutes
Bokchoy leaves => 30 seconds
Waterchestnuts => 1 minute

You can cook everything in the sauce if you wish. With shrimp or chunks of fish fillet I do, but chicken or scallops I like to panfry seperately. (just a few scallops each are a nice addition when you use shrimp)

Then last, but not least, add the juice of 1 lime (in my opinion a crucial ingredient, it will make or break the dish if you forget it)

Sprinkle with spring onion and lots of chopped coriander.
Serve with white rice.

Tips/Notes

• Although palmsugar is more authentic, it will take away the bright colour of your green curry.
• If you don’t have lime or lemon in the house you can use tamarind. Add it together with the fishsauce. (but like the palmsugar, it will make your green curry more like a brown curry)
• Don’t add the limejuice in the beginning, it can become bitter when you cook it.
• I have this bag with waterchestnuts in my freezer. I think they are more convenient than tinned ones, because it’s easier to use just a few.
• Of course you can probably add any vegetable or meat you want, I only listed the ones I’ve tried myself as I don’t want to recommend things I never tried before.

Thai Green Curry Paste

I know it’s easier to just buy green (or red) currypaste in a jar. But I think it’s fun to make some yourself. This way you know for sure what’s in it. No oil, for example. And you can increase the amounts of your favourite ingredient. In my case, galangal (Laos in dutch). I just love the smell of galangal and I know that in many currypastes this is replaced with ginger. Don’t get me wrong, I like ginger too, but in my currypaste I like the frangrance of fresh galangal. And corianderroot! Oh, I think it’s really worthwhile to make your own paste. It’s not difficult and you can freeze it in little bags, ready to use whenever you feel like Thai Green Curry. Just as convenient as from a jar, only so much better.

RECIPE

14 fresh green rawit peppers
5 cloves garlic
150 gr chopped shallot
1 T finely chopped lemongrass (not in picture)
3 slices of galangal/laos
limezest from 1 lime
6-8 fresh corianderroots
freshly ground white pepper
1/2 t shrimppaste or 2 anchovies from a can
1 t ground cuminseeds
1 t ground corianderseeds

Put everything in a blender and blend until it’s a paste. Add a few tablespoons of water if necessary. But only if shaking the blender vigorously while blending doesn’t work. You should try to minimize the amount of water you add.

Recipe from : Curry Bible by Madhur Jaffrey.

Comparing Sichuan Peppercorn Brands

Golden Lily (left in photo)
Dried Red Pepper (Fa-Chiu), product of China
Packed by : Heng Cheung Company
Imported by Liroy B.V. Rijswijk
Price : € 2.00 for 113 grams

The smell vaguely reminds me of sichuanpepper. It’s not even close to what I’m expecting.
Roasted and grinded it seems the smell gets less instead of intensified.
Rating : 6/10 (will use it for flavouring sichuan chili oil only)

Golden Diamond (center in photo)
Dried Wild Red Pepper (Fa-Jiu-Lap), product of China
Company : Dragon Town Company, Hong Kong
Imported by Oriental Holding Europe, Hoofddorp
Price : € 1.35 for 113 gram

The smell reminds me of a “fatty paint”. It’s horrible. Nobody would recognize this to be sichuanpeppercorn if you couldn’t see them. What the hell happened to them?
Roasted and grinded it smells just as horrible and still no sichuanpepperflavours at all! There even isn’t much numbing effect on the tongue. What is this?
Rating : 0/10 (will go straight to the bin)

Bai Wei Zhai (right in photo)
Chinese prickly Ash of Sichuan, Product of China
Imported by Oriental Holding Europe, Hoofddorp
Price : € 1.15 for 50 gram

The smell is not very strong. It’s a bit citrussy. Nothing bad, but I’m not sure you would recognize it to be sichuanpepper if you couldn’t see it.
Roasted and grinded it smells quite nice. Fresh, prickly.
Rating : 8/10 (it definitely needs roasting, but then it’s okay)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Funny thing. The red package with the horrible smell says : “You’ve chosen a selected product from the best of the country. If this product is not totally at your satisfaction, please let us know.”
Hahahahaha, that’s funny. Thing is, I’m sure I’ve bought this brand before. Twice. And binned it twice too! This time I will never forget which is the one not to buy.

Strange thing. The yellow package on the lefts says : “Soak well before cooking.”
Huh? Soaking? What’s that about?! Maybe they mean roast? Translation problem? Never heard of soaking sichuanpeppercorns before.

All 3 packages where bought this week. All of them had expiration dates for the end of next year. Although I’m not sure with the Bai Wei Zhai brand because it doesn’t show in western writing. But why is it that the quality can vary so much? I am sure I’ve bought packages before that were bursting with flavour when you opened them. And they kept their flavour for quite some time.

Salmon & Soba Noodle Salad

This is a relatively easy salad to make. Although you have to marinate the noodles for 2 hours (!), the advantage is that you can prepare it in advance and quickly throw everything together the last minute. Except for the salmon. That’s best to panfry just before serving, off course.

RECIPE

Scatter 250 grams of soba noodles into plenty of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes on high heat, taking care not to let the water boil over. Strain noodles into a colander, transfer to a big bowl and add 2 T sesame oil. Set aside to cool down.

Make a dressing with
2 T kecap manis ( I prefer ABC-brand )
1 T black rice vinegar
1 T sesame oil.

Use 1 tablespoon of this mixture to mix already with the noodles. Cover the bowl and put in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Twenty minutes before serving, mix the noodles with
2 cucumbers, cut julienne
6 spring onions, cut julienne
2T black sesameseeds

Panfry the salmon with salt and pepper to your liking. Let it cool a little bit before you cut/divide it in pieces and carefully mix together with the rest of the dressing and noodles.

Read more about soba noodles on Wikipedia
Click for a picture of the package here

Fresh Tofu Salad

I consider this to be the chinese equivalent of a mozzerella, tomato and basil salad. Only better! It’s light and fresh and I absolutely love it. So many people say they don’t like tofu, but I’m sure they never tried this before.

RECIPE

300 gr fresh tofu, preferably silken tofu

Drain well and cut into 2-cm cubes.
Arrange on a heat proof plate or bowl.
Mix and sprinkle with :

3 T chopped coriander
1 finely chopped red chili
2 finely chopped spring onions
2 T light soy sauce

Just before serving, heat
2 T groundnut oil and
1 t sesame oil

Pour over the salad. The greens should make a sizzling sound.

 

Broccoli with Sweet Chilli Sauce

RECIPE

Cook broccoli florets in boiling salted water to your liking.
(for me that’s about 6 minutes)
And serve with a sauce made of :

80 ml sweet chilisauce
2 T light soyasauce
2 t limezest
2 T limejuice
2 T frehshly chopped coriander

We like it so much we hardly ever eat broccoli any other way.

Steamers

It took me some time to find the perfect steamer.
The main advantage of the electrical steamer in the front is that you can put in anywhere in the kitchen where there’s a plug. Saving space on your stove. The main disadvantage for me is its size. Somehow it always seems too small. Yes, for steaming some dimsum or the occasional lemper it’s fine. But for that, the little stainless steel steam basket you see in the front is just as good. As is the bamboo steamer. But when you want to steam a trout or seabass you’d first have to slaughter it to make it fit. So I was thrilled to “discover” these big aluminium steamer pots. (Diamand Brand, Thailand) You can steam the fish already on the plate you want to serve it on, so there’s no chance of it falling apart while transferring it to your plate. The plate gets steaming hot too, so the food stays warm longer. The main disadvantage off course is that it takes a lot of space on your stove. Which isn’t a problem if you just decide to steam your vegetables too and make rice in a ricecooker. Or when I prepare a big dinner and really need my stove, I use this little “Butane Camp Stove” so I can steam anywhere in the house.

So why are there two steamers in the picture? The first steamer pan I bought had a diameter of 37cm. I was so happy with it and still am, but somehow it often was just 1 cm too small for the plates I wanted to use. Irritating, annoying, but buying yet another steamer would be too ridiculous, even for me. But when a friend of mine said she was jealous of my steamer and wanted to go and buy one herself it was the perfect opportunity for me to upgrade! So now I have the 40cm one and the 37cm one will move next week. Everybody happy. :)

Sichuan Boiled Beef (水 煮 牛 肉)

This grew to be one of my favourite dishes when I lived in Beijing. We ate it very often for lunch. Maybe even once or twice a week. Back in the Netherlands I was really missing this dish. As far as I know, there is no sichuan restaurant here. Chinese restaurants are mainly oriented on the cantonese cuisine. And besides that, they have adapted so much to the average taste, you can hardly recognize it to be chinese. So when I got my hands on “The Land of Plenty” by Fuchsia Dunlop I was thrilled to recognize so many dishes. I’ve adapted Fuchsia’s recipe a little bit by using the Sichuan Chili Oil I prepared earlier, which turns this into a quick and easy recipe.

RECIPE

450 gram lean beef
¼ t salt
1 T shaoxing ricewine

Cut the beef against the grain into thin slices about 2 x 4 cm.
Add salt and shaoxing wine and set aside to marinate while you prepare the rest.

Make a mixture of
4 T potatoflour and
4 T cold water
(or 6 T cornstarch with 6 T water)
and set aside

3 T peanutoil
3 T chili bean sauce (toban jiang)
950 ml chickenstock
2 t dark soysauce

Heat the 3T peanut oil until it will just begin to smoke.
Turn heat to medium and add the 3T chili bean sauce (toban jiang).
Stirfry for about 30 seconds, until the oil is red and fragrant.
Then add 950 ml chickenstock and 2t dark soysauce.
Bring to the boil. Now this is the base for the beef to boil in.
But stirfry the vegetable first.

4 T Sichuan Chili Oil
4 spring onions (julienne) (so in the picture I did it wrong)
1 chinese cabbage or iceberg lettuce (in stripes)

Stirfry the spring onions and cabbage quickly for about 1 minute in 4 T sichuanpepperoil.
Transfer to a bowl or bowls.

Take the marinated beef.
Add the potatoflour (or cornstarch) mixture and stir well in one direction to coat all the pieces of beef.
Make sure the sauce is boiling vigorously when you drop in the beef. Wait for the sauce to return to the boil and then use a pear of chopsticks to gently separate the slices. Simmer for a minute or so, until the beef is juist cooked and then spoon it onto the waiting vegetables. Pour over the sauce.

Sprinkle some roasted sichuanpeppercorns and additional spring onion over the dish and carefully pour over another 3 T of smoking sizzling hot oil. (I skipped this the other day)

Although Fuchsia doesn’t mention anything about it, I don’t think you are supposed to eat the sauce. It’s too greasy.

 

I developed my own way of eating it.  I would take some rice with my chinese spoon, then with my chopsticks fish some lettuce from the bottom of the bowl, add a piece of beef and at least 1 sichuanpeppercorn. After a while some of my chinese colleagues copied this. Maybe they still eat it like this. :-)

 

Tips

• I like to use the frozen beef for this dish. Not just because it’s cheaper, but also because it’s easy to cut if it’s still a little bit frozen.
• Fuchsia’s recipe asks for flank steak. (Bavette in French or Bavette ‘d aloyau. I think. It’s not very common in the Netherlands, so I’m not sure)
• In my memory it was always made with iceberg lettuce. When you use that, be sure to really, realy quickly stirfry it. It should still have a little crunch. I used chinese cabbage, because I think that’s a more substantial vegetable than watery lettuce. So it makes a more balanced dinner.  
• Don’t make the mistake I made (twice!) to just chop the spring onions instead of cutting them julienne. Otherwise it’s more complicate to eat. Julienne is much easier to pick up with your chopsticks.
• After adding the beef to the stock, really wait for it to come back to the boil and then carefully seperate the pieces with your chopstick. If you do it too soon, the soup will thicken from the cornstarch/potatoflour, as you can see on the first photo. The picture below is from my second attempt. It looks much better. (Tastewise it doesn’t make much difference though)
• Serve with white rice and Spicy Aubergine from Sichuan

 

Sichuan Chili Oil

 

The combination of chillies and sichuan peppercorns is just divine. And so typical of sichuan cuisine. I used to live in Beijing for 2.5 years. In this time I absoblutely fell in love with chinese cuisine, but sichuan cuisine in particular. And the sichuan peppercorn is largely responsible for that. I just love the tingly, numbing, citronny, sharp taste.
(Wikipedia about Sichuan Pepper)

So I was delighted to discover this home-made chili oil.
To me, it’s simply Sichuan in a Bottle.

RECIPE

6 T sichuan peppercorns (see picture above)
8 T chili flakes (ready bought or chop some dried chilies yourself)
1 t salt
1 T sesame oil
360 ml peanut oil

Put everything except the oil in a heat proof container.
Heat oil between 107 to 122.5 degrees Celsius and pour over the other ingredients. Be carefull because it will sizzle. (Or actually, when you have a thermometer, like I do, you will notice it won’t sizzle at all. If you don’t, then yes, be careful)
Leave to cool down. After the flavors have blended for a day you can sieve the oil, if you wish. Store in your refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

 

Funny thing is that with my version it always “sets”.

When I take it out of the fridge it will become nice
and translucent again, but cold it looks like this.
I’m quite sure it doesn’t make any difference to
the taste, but if anybody knows why this happens, please tell me!

Fermented Black Beans

Black beans or tausi are made by fermenting and salting soybeans.
The process turns the beans black, soft, and mostly dry.
The flavor is sharp, pungent, and spicy in smell, with a taste that is salty and somewhat bitter and sweet.
(Wikipedia on Fermented Black Beans )

I’ve eaten so many delicious dishes with this ingredient, but it took me a long time to find a brand I’m really happy with.
The ones in the white plastic bag (second on the photo) were always “just not it”. Instead I would prefer the Lee-Kum-Lee ready-to-go black bean sauce (on the left). But this sauce is only good when used in things like stirfries. You can’t use it to make e.g. one of my favourites, steamed oysters.  

Then I discovered these moist black beans (on the right).
They were okay. Still not brilliant, but okay. But it had this disadvantage that, once opened, you have to store them in the fridge.

But then I tried those Yang Jiang Preserved Black Beans with Ginger. And I looooove those. They are probably what all chefs are using. And they keep forever in your cupboard. You can just quickly rinse them with cold water and they are ready to use.

Recipes with fermented black beans:
Steamed Oyster with black beans and spring onion
Steamed Salmon with black beans and coriander
Steamed Trout with black beans 

 

Kecap Manis

 

Kecap Manis is a thick, sweet, indonesian soysauce.
In the Netherlands you can find the above brands.

Which is best?

I think ABC-brand is the best.  (second from the left in photo)

Steamed Salmon with Black Beans

Up until a few years ago I didn’t even like salmon. And today I have no less than 3 absolute favourite salmon recipes to choose from. The first one comes from Ken Hom. It’s easy to prepare, although for some it’s probably already too much trouble. But I can assure you it’s worthwhile. And because you can do a lot of the preperation on forehand, it’s an ideal dish to make if you have guests for dinner. It’s light and fresh and pure and delicious. The sauce/liquid is lovely with simple steamed white rice.

 

THE RECIPE

450g fresh salmon fillets

Rinse and dry the salmon.
Place on a heatproof plate.

2 T black beans, rinsed and chopped
1½ T garlic, chopped
1 T fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated

Mix the above together and divide over the fillets.

1½ T sha