I used to order this side dish every time I went for take-away at my indonesian toko in Rijswijk (Toko Pasar Makan). Until they changed the recipe! So then I had to recreate it myself and I think with the recipe below I’m getting close. You can serve it hot or cold, as part of your dinner or as a snack. With a nice cold beer, beats a bag of crisps anytime.

RECIPE

400g tempeh
5 red chilipeppers (lombok)
5 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
1 piece of fresh galanga (about 3 cm)
½ t tamarindepulp
2 T gula Jawa (or brown sugar)
1 t caster sugar
salt (or chickenstockpowder)

Slice the tempeh in small stripes. Deepfry in portions at 170°C for about 4 minutes until golden brown and crisp. They should really be crisp and golden al the way through. So it’s best to test one before you take them all out.

Make a nice currypaste (boemboe) from the chopped sjalots, garlic and galanga. (I use a blender)
Fry the currypaste in 2 T oil until fragrant. (about 3 minutes)
Add the chopped chillies after about a minute.
Add the tamarind, gula jawa, sugar and salt and stirfy for another 3 minutes.
Be carefull not to burn the sugar.
Add the tempe and stirfry for another 2 minutes.

The tempeh should be coated with this dry but sticky, sweet, sour and spicy paste.

Simple yet perfect way to prepare scallops. I love the way the salty, sweet, sour soy-dressing cuts through the fatty scallops. Match made in heaven. The first time I made this it was because  I was scared the fish I was serving for our main course wasn’t going to be enough. But it’s getting a habit now of also buying 2 or 3 scallops every time we have steamed fish.
 

RECIPE

6 scallops
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
2 T oil
12 Chinese spoons

For the dressing:
1 T light soy sauce
½ T clear rice vinegar
1 T shaoxin rice wine
1 t sugar

Rinse the scallops and cut them in half, so you have twelve.
Place them on the Chinese spoons. 
Steam them in 1 or 2 minutes until only just cooked.
Sprinkle some spring onion on top of each scallop.
Drizzle with the soy-dressing that you heated in a little pan.
Heat the 2T oil until sizzling hot and carefully drizzle half a teaspoon of hot oil on each scallop. The spring onion should sizzle.

From: Wokken met Ming by Peh-Fo Pak.

This is one of China’s most famous dishes. Even in our Dutch Chinese restaurants you can order Chicken Kung Pao. Not always recognizable, but hey, it’s on the menu! And maybe the same can even be said about the Chicken Kung Pao served in Beijing? Originally, it’s a sichuanese dish, so it should be hot, hot, hot (and probably even numbing). But in my recollection it wasn’t that hot, it was even a little bit sweet. With lots of peanuts and big chunks of almost leek-like spring onion and just a little bit of chopped dried chiles. With so many versions of this dish, I’m not ashamed to share mine.

RECIPE

400 gr chickenbreast
cut into cubes and marinate in mixture of:
1 T eggwhite, beaten
4 t light soy
4 t shaoxing ricewine
1,5 t cornstarch
0,5 t salt

Heat the wok and stirfry in some oil for a few seconds:
4 smal dried chillies

Then add:
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 cm ginger, chopped

and stirfry untill fragrant, then add the chicken and stirfry for a minute or 2 until browning a little. Then pour :
1 T shaoxin ricewine

from the side of the wok. When it stops sizzling add the sauce, made of:
1 T light soysauce
2 T tomato ketchup
1 T chilisauce
1,5 T white rice vinegar
3 cm chinese brown sugar
1 T cornstarch
6 T water/chickenbroth

Heat through and add :
80 gr unsalted, roasted cashew nuts
4 spring onions, cut into 1 cm-pieces

Serve with white rice. And my favourite vegetable with this dish is simply cooked green beans. There is so much flavour in the chickendish, you don’t need to do anything fancy with the beans. At least, that’s my philosophy.

The variations I’ve seen: 
* chilisauce, chilibeansauce, no chilisauce
* sichuanpepper, no sichuanpepper
* peanut or cashew
* clear rice vinegar, dark rice vinegar, no vinegar
* light soysauce, dark soysauce or both
* ginger, no ginger
* chickenbreast, chicken thigh

I’m a big fan of the fresh taste of a Thai green curry. But the more warmthy flavour of a red curry is nice too. Like my green curry paste, I like to make my own. It’s not that much work, you can do it in advance, double the amounts and freeze it in badges. But the best reason is, you decide yourself what’s in it. I love galangal and corianderroots, so I use a little bit more than the recipe requires for.

RECIPE

10-12 dried red chilies (the long cayenne variety)
5 garlic cloves, chopped
150 grams red onion or shallots, chopped
1 T fresh lemongrass, thinly sliced
6 slices galangal
zest of 1 lime
6-8 coriander root, washed well and chopped
fresh ground white pepper
¼ t shrimp paste or 2 anchovy (from a can)
½ t ground cumin
½ t ground coriander
2 T bright red paprika powder

Soak the chillies in 5T hot water for 1-2 hours.
Put the chillies together with their soaking liquid, into a blender, along with all the remaining ingredients in the order listed. Blend.

Now Madhur Jaffrey suggest you keep pushing everything down with a spatula until you have a smooth paste. But my way is to vigorously shake the blender. I know it wasn’t designed to do that, but it works perfectly for me. Just shake it like a madman and as long as you hear there’s something blending and moving at the bottom it’s fine. If you hear there’s nothing blending, that it’s really stuck or idle, okay, then use the spatula and maybe a little additional water.

This recipe is for about 2-4 servings.

Recipe from: Curry Bible by Madhur Jaffrey.
Recipe for green curry paste: here

With this great vegetarian recipe you can enjoy all those lovely mushrooms available in the shops these days. Just use whatever you can find, dried shii-take, dried porcini, oyster mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, enoki, japanese shimeji, chestnut mushrooms or even your plain button mushrooms. Although I don’t often make a dinner without any meat, with this dish I really can do without. Serve with a simple green salad.

PREPARING THE STOCK

1 shii-take stockcube
1 liter of water
3 T sake
soaking liquid from the dried shii-take and porcini

Dissolve 1 stockcube into 1 liter of boiling water. Add sake and some of the soaking liquid from the dried shii-take. Just enough to make the stock rich and nice (be careful, there can be sand in this liquid). Keep tasting it until you like it.

PREPARING THE MUSHROOMS

4 dried shii-take
2 T dried porcini
150g fresh oyster mushroom
200g fresh king oyster mushroom
200g fresh enoki mushroom
oil and butter

Soak the dried shii-take and porcini for half an hour (or longer) in some boiling hot water. Don’t throw away the liquid, but use some to intensify the stock you’ll need for the risotto.
Cut the shii-take and porcini in little chunks. (disregard the stems of the shii-take)
Tear the oyster mushrooms in strips.
Cut the king oyster mushroom in bite-size chunks.
Chop the root end of the enoki mushrooms, gently separate the stems.

Heat a frying pan until really hot. Add some oil and pan-fry the king oyster mushrooms on really high heat for about 2 minutes, until golden brown. Add the shii-takes and porcini chunks and pan-fry some more. Then add the oyster mushrooms and quickly after that a big lump of butter. I like to add the enoki mushrooms now too, but maybe it’s better to add them later, directly into the risotto. Anyway, set aside this pan with mushrooms to prepare the risotto. If you’re a pro in timing you can pan-fry the mushrooms just before finishing the risotto. I don’t like timing problems, so I do it before I start stirring in the risotto.

MAKING THE RISOTTO

150g arborio rice (75-100g per person)
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 T sake
olive oil
handful grated Parmesan
2 handfuls coriander or parsley

Saute shallots and garlic in oil until translucent. Add rice and stir, to coat with oil. Add sake, 1/2 ladle hot shii-take stock and stir well. Cook, stirring constantly, until all liquid is absorbed. Continue to add stock in 1 ladle increments and stir until each successive batch has been absorbed, stirring constantly until rice mixture is creamy and “”al dente”". (±15-20 minutes, but really, you should taste it)
Remove from the heat, stir in a big handful of grated Parmesan. Then add back the reheated mushrooms. Add the coriander or parsley. Serve immediately.

Another favourite dish while living in Beijing was what we called “Japanese tofu”. Golden coins of egg tofu (a tofu-variety made of soybeanmilk and eggs) deepfried and served with a big pile of crispy crumbs of “thingies”. I’m not sure what it was. Panko, garlic, spring onion, things like that. Today I would be much better at recognizing the ingredients, but back in those days I wasn’t that much into cooking, just into eating. The wonderful pudding-like, warm, savoury tofu with the crispy, salty crumbs were a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately I’ve never managed to recreate this dish. And I’m sure I won’t be able to find it at any restaurant here in Holland. But maybe some memories should stay memories. So I’ve tried to do something else with it. Serving the coins with a simple gingersauce.  

RECIPE

egg tofu tubes (à 100g)
some cornstarch for coating
oil for shallowfrying
spring onion, chopped

2 t ginger, finely chopped
2 t oil
6 T chickenstock
1.5 T shaoxing ricewine
2 t cornstarch in cold water

In a small pan, gently sautee the ginger in a little bit of oil. Then add the ricewine and stock. Thicken with some cornstarch mixed with cold water. That’s it. You can do this in advance and reheat later.

Cut the tube with egg tofu in half and while you gently squeeze out the tofu, slice it in 2 cm coins and carefully drop them on a plate covered with cornstarch. Dust with some more cornstarch and quickly transfer them to a frying pan with 1 cm of hot oil. Shallow fry them for about 1 minute each side until golden, but not too brown.

Carefully arrange on a plate (sizzling plate for extra effect) or chinese spoons (for an amuse bouche). Sprinkle some spring onion on top. Add the sauce, but not too much, you don’t want it all to go soggy. Serve immediately. 

This recipe for cinnamon beef is slowfood and fastfood at the same time. It’s slowfood because it will take a few hours of stewing to tenderize the meat. But in China it’s considered to be fastfood, there are numerous noodle bars serving great noodle(soup) 24/7. McDonald’s is for the children, noodle bars for the adults!

I’ve adjusted this recipe a little bit by adding a jar of “game stock” from the shops because I love a deep, rich stock.

RECIPE

10 spring onions (or just 1 big red onion)
10 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
6 slices of ginger, crushed
1½ t chili bean sauce (Toban Jiang)
2 sticks of cinnamon
2 staranise
125 ml light soy sauce
1 kg lean beef for stewing, cubed
400 ml game stock

Noodles
Spinache
Spring onion

Stirfry the onion, garlic, ginger, chilipaste, cinnamon and staranise with some oil in a very hot wok untill fragrant for about 1 minute. Then add the light soysauce, 1 pot of game stock and 2 of those pots with water.
Bring to the boil. Add the meat, bring back to the boil again. Reduce heat and simmer for about 4 hours or until tender. (I used my crockpot : 1 hour on high and 9 hours on low)
Taste the soup, reduce if too watery, add water if too salty.

To prepare a bowl of soup:
Cook the noodles, drain, rinse and divide them over bowls.
Boil, steam of stirfry some spinach. Also divide over bowls, on top of the noodles.
Bring soup to the boil and add to the bowls, on top of the noodles and spinach.
Sprinkle with spring onion.

About the noodles
Traditionally this recipe is done with rice noodles, but somehow I haven’t found any that I like. Well, I’m not a big pasta-fan, so maybe it’s just me, but next time I will try this recipe with chinese wheat noodles (gan mien) or cantonese lo mein noodles or japanese udong noodles or maybe even glass-noodles.

As this is my contribution to the “chinese-weeks” at a fellow dutch blog koken.blog.nl , I’ve added this recipe in dutch, after the break.

Noodles met rundvlees en kaneel

RECEPT

10 lente uitjes (of gewoon 1 grote, rode ui)
10 teentjes knoflook, in dunne plakje
6 schijfjes verse gemberwortel, beetje gekneusd
1½ t chilibonensaus (=Toban Jiang, een soort sambal)
2 kaneelstokjes (geen poeder!)
2 steranijs
125 ml lichte sojasaus
1 kg (magere) runderlappen, in dobbelstenen
400 ml wildfond

Noodles
Spinazie
Lente-ui

Roerbak de (lente-)ui, knoflook, gember, chilibonenpasta, kaneel en steranijs in wat olie in een zeer hete wok of koekenpan.  Ongeveer 1 minuutje. Voeg dan de lichte sojasaus toe, de pot wildfond en dan nog 2 keer zoveel aan water.
Breng aan de kook, voeg het vlees toe en kook voor minstens 4 uur of zolang nodig is om het vlees heerlijk mals te krijgen. (In de slowcooker deed ik het 1 uur op hoog en 9 uur op laag)
Proef even om te zien of je water moet toevoegen of ‘m juist in moet laten koken.

Voor het klaarmaken van een kom soep
Kook de noodles, giet af, spoel af en verdeel ze over de soepkommen.
Kook, stoom of roerbak wat spinazie en verdeel dat ook over de kommen.
Verdeel de kokendhete soep over de kommen.
Bestrooi met wat lente-ui.

Over de noodles
Traditioneel wordt dit recept met rijstnoodles gegeten, maar ik vond nog geen merk dat ik lekker vond. Vandaar dat ik een volgende keer gewoon een andere noodle-soort ga gebruiken. Waarschijnlijk japanse udon-noodles of chinese tarwenoodles of misschien zelfs wel glasnoodles.

One of my most memorable restaurant experiences was in February 2004 at Oud Sluis. I remember my friend and I were a bit disappointed when reading the tasting-menu, it didn’t look that exciting. But wow, were we wrong!  Every single bite was as exciting and thrilling and mindblowing as the other. Cooking at this level truely is art. Not just “an art”, but really art! It was unbelievable, I had never experienced anything like it before. Off course we didn’t have that much experience at eating in michelin star restaurants then, but now we do, my memory of this dinner is still my dearest. And it all began with a Kir Royal made with a homemade lemongrass & ginger liqueur. Simply brilliant.

I’ve searched the shops and internet for a similar liqueur, but never found it. The restaurant didn’t (want to) tell me how they made it and the liqueur-hobby-club I wrote to ask if they would make it on commision never showed any interest. But then one day I was joining some friends on the internet in a project of making your own coffee liqueur. You take ½ liter of brandewijn/vodka. Add 60 coffeebeans, 250 grams of brown rocksugar and a vanillapod. Shake it daily for 6 weeks and then enjoy your Tiam Aria. This simple recipe inspired me to try and make my own lemongrass & ginger liqueur. But after 2 weeks, the lemongrass looked a bit “off”. I was totally disappointed, gave up on it, but was too lazy to clean out the bottle. So the bottle kept standing there and then, after 2,5 months when somebody asked me about it, we decided to taste it anyway and it was just lovely. I even enjoyed drinking it pure, on the rocks. But off course, the best way is still to pour about 1 or 2 tablespoons in a champagne glass and top it up with prosecco, cava or any other dry, bubbling wine. Brilliant way to start an asian oriented dinner for which it’s difficult to find accompagnying wines anyway. And in summer it’s a brilliant apéritif for any meal.

RECIPE

1 ltr vodka or brandewijn
150 gr fresh ginger (the youngest you can find)
4 stalks of lemongrass
500 gr light rock sugar

Peel and cut the ginger. Try to use perfect bits only. Peel the outer layer of the lemongrass and bruise or cut it to release the flavours. Combine everything together in a jar or bottle that’s big enough to keep it all. (1.5-2 ltr) Be patient for at least 2 months, but taste it now and then to see if it’s sweet enough. It is a liqueur, so it’s supposed to be quite sweet. I forgot how much I’ve put into mine, so you need to find out for yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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)

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.