Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

This must be the first time ever that I’m blogging about tonight’s dinner. I’m so impressed with it I feel like I have to write about it now. Generally, I only put successful cooking attempts up here so please don’t take it the wrong way when I keep saying this recipe rocks my socks. I usually get very excited when a cooking attempt (especially one where I didn’t consult any recipe) turns out well.

I bought a really nice piece of sashimi-grade salmon from Queen Victoria Market on Thursday, intending to turn it into sashimi to serve with cold somen. That didn’t work out because I ended up forgetting the fish in the work fridge and so it ended up being a day old and I just wasn’t sure if I should be eating a day old fish raw. Since we went out for such a huge meal last I wanted something simple so I decided on steaming it. I have had it a few times in Chinese restaurants and I thought I could try to replicate it. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time I went to David & Camy’s in Box Hill, I bought some frozen standard pork dumplings. They were a bargain at 15 for $6.50. Actually I suspect they give you 16 because both bags had 16 in them.

First things first, never ever try to defrost them. I made that mistake once and it ended up being really horrible because they just turned into mushy, wet things and they couldn’t be cooked and had to be tossed out.

Basically, you just need to boil up a large pot of water and toss the frozen dumplings in. They will sink so you will need to keep stirring them for the first 5 minutes or so. You can tell they are cooked when they start to float. If you want them fried, you can then just fry them in a bit of oil. I also use the pre-made dumpling sauce I got from an Asian grocer, which is really rather good so I never tried making my own.

What my esteemed Chinese cookbook told me was that twice-cooked pork is a popular dish where pork is boiled and then stir-fried in chilli bean sauce. I rather thought that that would be a good way to use up the leftover roast pork.

What we would need for two hungry people:

1. 150 g. of roast pork, sliced into bite sized pieces*
2. 200 g. of yellow noodles**
3. 1/2 onion, sliced
4. 1 cup of sliced cabbage
5. 1 cup of snow peas***
6. a few green beans
7. 2 tbsp of chilli bean sauce
8. 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
9. 2 tbsp of shao hsing rice wine
10. 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
11. a few drops of sesame oil Read the rest of this entry »

I have half a packet of fresh rice noodles and beansprouts leftover from my attempt at char koey teow (failed, but I’ll write about it. For now I feel like writing about an experience that actually didn’t fail) and Beef Chow Fun seems to be right for a quick weekend lunch for all the ingredients I have.

(marinated beef, spring onions, red capsicum)

This is enough for two:

1. 250 g. fresh rice noodles*
2. 100-150 g. of beef  (rump, sirlion, non-stewing cuts.), sliced into bite-sized pieces
3. 3 spring onions, chopped into long strips
4. 1/2 red capsicum, sliced into thin strips
5. 3 cups of beansprouts
6. 1 tsp of chopped garlic
7. 1 tsp of chopped ginger
8. 2 tbsp of light soy sauce**
9. 2 tbsp of oyster sauce
10. 2 tsp of corn flour
11. 1 tsp of sesame oil
12. a pinch of sugar
13. fresh coriander, for garnish (optional)

(fresh rice noodles)

First of all, what’s really important in this dish is that the wok or the frying pan must be very hot. The noodles need to be mildly charred to give it the full ‘breath of a wok’ effect which you need in all stir-fried rice noodle dishes. What I do now, since my wok is out of commission and my stove isn’t a killer, I fried the noodles in two batches on my $4 Ikea non-stick pan on my hottest hob, which worked out rather well. Note that the ingredients are for two serves so you’ll need to halve things if you do two batches.

First of all, marinade the beef with1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of light soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, corn flour, garlic and ginger for about 1/2 hour. Or if you’re in a hurry, just marinade for however long it takes to slice other veggies and separating the rice noodle strands.*

Heat your frying pan or wok on very high heat. Add a tbsp or so of vegetable oil to the frying pan when it’s hot. Add the capsicum strips and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the beef and cook until the meat is nicely browned. Add the rice noodles to fry. Keep the heat as constant as possible. This means after adding new ingredients, make sure the pan is reheated before you add the next ingredient. Keep stirring. Add beansprouts, the rest of the soy and oyster sauces. Add spring onions and stir for a minute and then turn the heat off. The whole process shouldn’t really take more than 4-5 minutes for one serve.

* You can fresh rice noodles at supermarket or Asian grocery. Microwave them on high for a minute or so to warm them up before separating the sticky strands one by one so you don’t end up frying a cake of noodles. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a satisfactory shortcut.
** I do believe the traditional Cantonese method includes dark soy sauce so you end up with noodles that darker and a little bit sweeter (such as Vegie Hut) but I prefer without. If you like, substitute add 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce to the noodles when frying instead.

This is one of my favourite Chinese dishes of all time. Thanks to my new (well, kinda new) Chinese cookbook, I think I have finally managed to crack the mapo tofu sauce. I used to buy those expensive Japanese pre-made sauce packets. While good, they are rather expensive (around $4-5) and they’re definitely not spicy at all!

To cut the long story short, this is what you need for a big serving of mapo tofu for four lucky people:

1. 100 g. minced pork
2. 2 packets of firm tofu*
3. 3 tbsp of light soy sauce
4. 2 tbsp of shao hsing rice wine
5. 1 tsp of sesame seed oil
6. 2 cloves of garlic
7. 2 tsp of chopped ginger
8. 1 red chilli
9. 1 tsp szechuan pepper (husks removed and crushed)
10. 1 tsp of tomato ketchup
11. 2 tbsp of chilli bean sauce (picture)
12. 4 spring onion, chopped
13. 1 tbsp of corn flour mixed with 2 tbsp of water

Marinade the minced pork with 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of rice wine and 1 tsp of sesame oil. Set aside for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop and crush some ginger and garlic. Cut the chilli into slices. Cut the tofu into cubes.

Heat a little bit of oil in a non-stick frying pan or a wok on very high heat and fry the mince with ginger and garlic until it’s golden. Add sliced chilli, the rest of the soy sauce and rice wine. Add 1/3 cup of water and bring to boil. I use the tomato ketchup to round off the taste but you can use a pinch of sugar instead. Since the dish is strong-flavoured, you wouldn’t notice the tomato taste while it will give you nicely rounded taste without the dish being at all sweet. Hardly traditional but I do like the balance of flavours in my dishes.

Just taste the sauce and see how you feel. It should be quite strong because you’re about to add a lot of tofu to it.

Thicken the sauce with corn flour mixture, one tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired thickness. Add water if it’s too thick. Bring the sauce to boil and add the tofu and the spring onions. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve sprinkled with the szechuan pepper.

* This is what you get at your local supermarket in the tofu/fake dairy section. Getting tofu at your Asian gricery store is a bit more challenging. You basically want a tofu that’s soft enough. So don’t get those hard tofu cakes, sometimes labelled as firm. But also firm enough so that it doesn’t fall apart, so don’t get silken tofu.