u m a m i

Shallots, chorizo & gorgonzola pasta-in-a-pan

I don't own any pasta cookbooks but if I do this would be a standby recipe because it is easy, fast and versatile not to mention very tasty. It doesn't contain much meat but would satisfy meat lovers, children would not know that they are eating a bunch of vegetables and  few adults would not succumb to the "sauce" which is essentially melted gorgonzola. If you stick to using hard vegetables (vs 'wet' ones like chinese cabbages or leafy greens that leach water upon cooking) you can make extra and it'll keep well for lunch the day after.

The base is made up of roasted vegetables and some tasty meat. Here I used a packet of chorizo sausagemeat which I bought from Bellota Bellota but I've had really good results with Italian sausages and fresh sausages from my market charcuterie.

I love roasting vegetables like leeks, onions, shallots, and going down the bitter and anise flavour profile, fennel, endives and even brussels sprouts. For a different effect, roast eggplants and zucchinis as I did when these vegetables were abundant in late summer. Equally happy to go into the mix are carrots, green beans and broccoli. On this occasion I used leeks and some leftover shallots, and broccolli which I could have roasted but didn't because I did not want to crowd the roasting pan. 

Try to time the pasta to finish cooking at the same time as the vegetables. All ingredients except the cheese should be hot at the moment of mixing otherwise the dish would cool too quickly. I reserved some pasta cooking liquid just in case the pasta sticked, but it was not really necessary.

Ingredients

Pasta

2 leeks, cleaned, sliced in diagonal chunks

2 shallots, quartered

1 cup chorizo sausagemeat

1/2 head broccolli, cut into florets

1 slab gorgonzola, cut into small chunks

1. Roast shallots and leeks at 190C (200C if not using convention oven) for 30 minutes then add chorizo and continue to cook until vegetables are soft.

2. In meantime, boil broccoli in oiled and salted water until tender. Set aside. Just before mixing reheat in a microwave or plunge into boiling water for 1 minute.

3. Cook pasta in oiled, salted, boiling water until done. Drain.

4. Take leeks out of the oven, quickly put pasta, broccoli and cheese into the pan and stir briefly. Serve.

 

Ginger-Assam Ducky Stew

I probably shocked my friend Florence once by telling her I hate to handle raw meat, especially chicken. It's not difficult to chop up a chicken but I would prefer not to do it because my cleaver cannot cut cleanly through the bone. Fortunately my regular vollailer, or poultry stall at the market, understand what I want. The owner and his son, as well as some of their more experienced workers, can strip a chicken from its bony skeleton, although this is a pretty unusual request because most French people nowadays don't know what to do with the carcass. They will obligingly cut up a whole chicken, or even chicken or duck thighs, into small pieces that is typically called for in Asian dishes. My mother would probably not approve but I really appreciate the convenience, it cuts down a lot of prep and washing-up time.

So, three juicy duck legs all cut up ready for the pot; what does one do with them? A stew, perfect for the cold weather. In any case, I always make some sort of a stew or braise once a week; it gives the impression that I am dedicated housewife and fills the apartment with tantalising smells.

I thought of the block of assam, or tamarind paste, languishing away on the bottom of my fridge; it would give a mellow sourness which is great for such a fatty meat. Rounded off with sweetness from dark sugar, kicap manis (sweet Indonesian soya sauce) and carrots. I used a cube of the dark ginger sugar that Andrew gave me last year- the mahjong tile-sized cube has fresh ginger preserved in between sticky black pressed sugar, the ginger added a welcome warmth. When my stash is used up I will probably substitute with fresh ginger and unprocessed soft brown sugar or even palm sugar.

The result was gratifying, neither an adobo nor an itek sio, but something in between, with lots of velvety soupy sauce that husband gleefully poured over his steamed rice. The child liked it too, the ginger spiciness not too overwhelming for her, in any case she was distracted by the tender duck meat and carrots cooked to an almost candylike state. 

3 duck legs, cut into small pieces, bone in. Peel off/remove as much fat and skin as possible.

2 carrots, peeled, cut into chunks

Flavouring

4 tbsp assam paste, made into slurry with 6 tbsp hot water, strained to discard seeds. 

2 tbsp kicap manis 

2 tbsp dark soya sauce

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (optional)

1 cube ginger sugar (or 1 tbsp soft brown sugar and a thumb-sized piece of ginger smashed up)

Black pepper (optional)

1. Put duck pieces into a pot. Add cold water to cover the duck. Bring to boil and discard the water, along with the scum that would have risen to the top.

2. Return duck to pot. This time, with just enough water to cover 70% of the duck.

3. Add all the flavouring ingredients. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a slow simmer. Let it cook, covered but allowing a little steam to escape, for 30 minutes.

4. Carrots go in and the stew cooks a further 45 minutes. Taste again and adjust seasoning. Remove surface oil if there is a lot of it. If is not sour enough, or is too sweet, finish with some lime juice or a few dashes of good vinegar.

Hey Presto Pesto

Ages and ages ago I saw on BBC TV how pesto is made. It involved  a marble mortar and pestle and much slow grinding of pine nuts and dribblings of olive oil, you know, the old mama cucina way, with sun dappled Tuscany mountain view a requisite backdrop. That kind of intimidated me and thereafter I only ever ordered pasta with pesto sauce in restaurants. Eventually I stopped eating pesto altogether, because restaurant versions became watered down or weirder e.g. crusted on salmon steaks, and it  kind of fell out of fashion. Readily available commercial versions didn't help either, most are too salty or taste like crushed up grass.

Fast forward to May 2009. I went to BHV and was so seduced by the Magimix demo (grated carrots!, coleslaw!, aioili! the chef magicked them all up on the spot) that I bought one on the spot. There was a recipe for pesto in the manual, and looking around my pantry and fridge I did have all the ingredients on hand. Chunks of 26 month old organic parmesan, fresh basil, pinenuts sitting in the fridge waiting for this very fate ( I toasted them slightly but it was quite a redundant move), couple of cloves of garlic, olive oil and salt. As simple as that. I think the proportions was something like 2 cloves garlic: 200g nuts: 200g cheese: 1 bunch of basil.

All the dry ingredients together with half the basil leaves were pulsed with a little olive oil and salt until roughly chopped, then the rest of the basil went in and the button pressed to "blend". Olive oil was dribbled in until the pesto became creamy, et voila, we had pesto. The kid licked the spoon and pronounced it yummy. I thought we would smear it on toast but we ended up eating it neat as it was so delicious.

I saved some to dress some linguini the next day, mamma mia it was a good lunch.

Really Old-School Char Beehoon

Here we have a plate of Char Beehoon (Chow Mai Fun in Cantonese, Cao Mi Fen in Mandarin). It is one of my favourite dishes, this, together with fried rice, was the dish I requested without fail every time I came home for term breaks and holidays. Yet I hardly ever make it myself because I always make a mess of it, ending up with a sorry pile of broken rice noodles each time. 

Knowing how much I like this dish, Chan-Che - who is now cooking for our family again- made it for me a few days before I left KL. Watching her cook was as ever, a pleasure and a learning experience at the same time. She does things the old fashioned way, methodically, patiently taking the time to do each step properly.

When I entered the kitchen, she was already frying up lard in some cooking oil. The lard renders more fat into the oil and turns into little nuggets of crispy porky bits.

Meanwhile, on the chopping board, she got ready to slice carrots and mince some garlic. There were also some shallots nearby, to be peeled and sliced in 2-3 mm semi-circles. I looked around and noticed the other ingredients.

Chinese cabbage, rinsed and sliced.

A stack of of omelettes cooked earlier. It would be sliced into thin strips.

A colander of beehoon, soaked in hot water and then rinsed and drained, ready for cooking.

The crispy lard pieces are set aside.

She stir-fried the shallots first, qickly cooking them until they lose their bite and yet were still sweet and crispy.

The shallots set aside, the wok was readied for sauteing some minced garlic. Garlic sticks easily, it's important to have a low fire and enough oil in the wok.

When the garlic released its aroma and turns to a shade of pale gold, the carrots were stirred in and tossed.

Followed by the cabbage. 

 

The cabbage and carrot are cooked till soft but not mushy.

In the now-empty wok, she heated some oil to saute some more garlic.

From the refridgerator, she took out a bowl of sliced pork which she had marinated with some soy sauce and pepper and cooked that with the garlic.

Water was added to deglaze the wok and make a simple meat gravy that will give tonnes of flavour to the noodles.

The noodles went in. This is a crucial step. She handled the noodles real gently, hardly stirring them, instead, she  used a pair of chopsticks to loosen the strands so they can absorb the gravy

More chopstick action when the cooked cabbage and carrots were returned to the wok.

Shallots went in right at the end.

My plate of noodles, topped with omelet strips and crispy lard bits, with some fresh cut chillies on the side. Bliss.

She sometimes add dark soy sauce which would turn the noodles a beautiful brown colour and add a tinge of caramel saltiness to the dish, but not that day because my nephew was on a restricted diet. My mother favours a more adult version which I love too, where the noodles are cooked till very dry, almost the texture of the original uncooked state. I like very much also the street version, usually nothing more than noodles, dark soy sauce, MSG and beansprouts. I like my Char Beehoon with fried shallots toppings, or with a fiery sambal belacan accompaniment. I like them fried with sardines, with tinned pork trotters, with seafood, with pickled vegetables, heck I've never not like any that came my way.

This version though, is the one I come back to often. It's homely and familiar, and delicious too. 

Pilates congee

I don't know what people think about when they're doing their  Pilates. My thoughts are always on food, specifically, lunch; as my classes end at 11 am this leaves about 1 hour to shop for something, return to the apartment to finish housework left over from the morning rush, and serve my tired and very hungry body some food as soon as possible.

It was during one of those sessions that I built up this recipe in my head. Hot watery congee, just the thing to go with fu-yu, the fermented bean curd's assertive umami flavours mellowed by the warmth and velvety texture of the porridge. Eggs and frozen vegetables for added nutrition. On the way home I stopped by the supermarket for milk and juice and somehow a bag of Knacki hotdogs found its way into the shopping basket. 

It was quick to put together with minimal prep work, and the result was very tasty yet  a a little trashy on account of the hot dog. Fresh meat would balance the dish, but that would not be in the same spirit. I used organic eggs and peas because the flavours are better,  but that belief may be psychological.

Serves one.

1/4-1/2 cup rice depending on how thick you like your congee

1/4 cup frozen vegetables e.g. corn and peas 

1 egg

1- 1.5 cube fu-yu (normal or chilli version)

2 hotdogs

1. Put washed rice and about 2 bowls of water - use the bowl you're going to serve the congee in- to boil. A few drops of vegetable oil in the congee will give the congee a smooth finish. Let it bubble and simmer at medium heat.

2. Dump frozen vegetables in when rice grains swell up. In the meantime, slice hotdogs, I used scissors which means you don't need to take out the chopping board.

3. When rice is soft and disintegrated and the liquid has reduced in half, the congee is 95% done. Crack an egg into a bowl and slowly drizzle it into the pot so the egg cooks in ribbon-like strands. Stir in the hotdog and fu-yu, turn off the heat and voila, lunch is ready. 

Ways with purple potatoes

I am still in KL, recovering from a severe viral attack- full works of headache, fever, coughs, sore throat and nasal congestin. There is only about a week left to enjoy the food here, so posting will continue to be sporadic. Here we have some dishes made from purple potatoes I cooked way back in February.

Googling for recipes for purple potatoes will inevitably throw up salads which in our household is never a popular thing during winter. What I did was to stir-fry them with some chicken cubes, as one would potatoes, but finishing with a scatter of dried shrimps and rice vinegar to add some interesting contrast, making a dish that would go well with a bowl of steamed white rice.

4-5 little purple potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks

1 Chicken breast or thigh- cut into cubes, seasoned with salt & pepper, a little soy sauce & sesame oil

2 cloves garlic- finely minced

Handful dried shrimp- washed and patted dry

Stock or water

1. Boil the potatoes until 90% cooked. Drain. 

2. Heat up the wok and then 2 tbsp cooking oil to gently fry the dried shrimps until golden and crisp. Scoop out and set aside on some kitchen paper.

3. Clean the wok. Heat it up again and add some oil to stir-fry the garlic before adding the chicken. Return the potatoes to the mixture and toss everything up. Add a cup of stock or water to the wok and bring everything up to a boil and let simmer on medium heat for 5-10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Stir in a teaspoon of rice vinegar at the end.

4. Garnish with fried dried shrimps and chopped scallion greens if available.

These potatoes were quite amenable to roasting as well, so I cut them as finely as I could, parboil them and toss them with some salt, pepper and olive oil before roasting in a hot oven. Not as crispy as the bagged chips one buys in a supermarket, but still delicious and very popular with husband and the child.

Grilled Sole à la Canton

One day I bought a piece of sole. I had intended to steam it whole but found myself asking the fishmonger to descale and fillet the fish. I could still steam them as they were but my daughter has developed a liking for crispy fish skin so an idea came into my head to please both the traditionalist in my husband and feed V's new habit. The fillets were grilled quickly, one piece was set aside for V to enjoy, while the other three pieces were covered with a traditional Cantonese style-soy sauce of aromatic seasonings that was absolutely delicious with steamed rice.

1 Sole- cleaned, descaled

2 tbsp premium soy sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp sugar

white pepper

2 spring onions- greens chopped in small rings, whites in 1 inch stalks and bulbs cut into 4 longitudinal sections

2 cloves garlic- sliced thinly

1 cm ginger- sliced thinly

2-3 small red chillis- sliced through from stalk to tip, shake to release seeds

1. Just before cooking, pat fish dry and sprinkle some salt on both sides. Lay them on an oiled grill pan and grill for 7 minutes. If the fillets are very long, score the skin before cooking.

2. While fish is cooking, heat a wok or saute pan till hot and pour 1.5 tbsp neutral cooking oil. When oil is hot, add the garlic, ginger, chilli and the bulb and white stems of the spring onion  to let them sizzle and take on some colour but not cook through. The oil will be infused with the flavours of the aromatics. Turn heat off.

3. Mix the soya sauce, sugar, white pepper and sesame oil in a bowl until sugar is dissolved.

4. When fish is done, remove from the grill pan and place on serving dish. Drizzle with the soya sauce mixture and pour the aromatic oil containing all the onions, ginger, chilli and garlic on top. Sprinkle the top with the green parts of the spring onion. 

Variations: Coriander on the top is lovely. Some shavings of lemon on top would not be sniffed at either. Enjoy!

Roast pork belly twice over

I made roast belly of pork and told Sui Mai about it. She asked for the recipe and she was delighted with the results, saying I should blog it, so here we are.

You should start with fresh pork if possible. I missed this crucial fact when I read Yan Kit So's recipe, from her Classic Chinese Cookbook, the first time round. Still, as the pictures show, it is possible to get halfway decent crackling from frozen meat, if we use all the tips and tricks at our disposal, or, in this case, gleaned from my maternal grandmother and the Internet. I bought from my butcher a piece of pork belly without bones, about 1.5 kgs in weight.

Other ingredients:

Salt- at least 1/2 tsp, I used about 2.5 tsp.
More salt= more crispiness, also more saltiness. You choose.

Update: Reader Lee Yuen has a great tip: Use lots of salt, then scrape excess away before roasting

Marinade: 

1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp miso (Yan Kit's recipe specified yellow bean paste which I didn't have)
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp five-spice powder.

1. Rinse and pat pork dry with paper towels. Pierce all over with a piercer if you have one (it's like a metal brush with spikes) otherwise I used a cake pick.

2. Turn meat over so meat is facing up, make cuts to the meat 1 inch apart and 1/2 inch deep. This step is very useful when you want to cut the meat later. 

3. Turn meat over again, this time skin is facing up. Bring over to the sink and pour boiling water over the skin only. I held the meat by its top edge with my free hand while pouring over the dangling lower half, alternating sides to make sure all the skin got scalded. (If you have meat hooks it will come in handy for this step). Don't worry if a bit of hot water scalds the sides. 

4. Place meat skin down on some kitchen paper. Prepare the marinade.  Rub all over the meat side only, use fingers to massage right into the cut grooves. 

5. Turn meat over and rub salt over the skin.  Place on a roasting rack to airdry-for at least 3 hours or even overnight. Again, if you have meat hooks it'll be cool for this job. .

I remember my grandmother used to do steps 3 and 5 at least twice. I did it only once, which probably accounted for my distinctly less impressive results. I'll probably repeat this step in future attempts. 

Alternatively, use reader Lee Yuen's tip to rub lots of salt and  remove excess before roasting. If the weather is humid, she also recommends drying it, skin side up, uncovered, in the fridge.

6. Roast on a rack placed over a pan or tray of hot water to catch the drippings. 200C for 15 minutes then 190C for 1 hour. As mine is a convection oven I did it at 10 degrees lower. Don't open the oven to check (Yan Kit So was very insistent on this point). At the end of cooking time, test with a pick, if juices run clear it's done. 

7. If crackling looks dull, crank oven to 230C and watch it closely. It'll bloom and flower. I went off to do something else and some parts turned black, these bits can be scrapped off with a serrated knife.

8. Rest the meat on a chopping board for 15 minutes before cutting it up with a meat cleaver. 

It was gratifyingly easy and oh-so-delicious. I cooked down some chopped leeks to go with all that meat and fats, and served two dipping sauces alongside- one of fermented baby shrimps with lemon juice and another of dark soya sauce with cut fresh chillis.

1.5 kg of meat was a big amount, there were plenty for husband's lunch the following day. I also saved half the roast for another home-cooked favourite, Garlicky Roast Pork, which I learnt from watching my mother. As usual in these kind of guess-timate cooking, I eyeballed the quantities. What is important is the amount of chopped garlic: one should use as much as possible, it gives character to the dish.

Here I used about 8 cloves, I should have thrown the whole head in. Have on standby your cooking alcohol (I used Stone's ginger wine), dark soya sauce and sugar.

1. Heat about 1/2 cup oil in a wok to medium heat, and fry the garlic gently and slowly until they turn crispy and brown. It'll take about 6 minutes, be very careful not to burn it.

2. Add the roast pork and stir to mix well. Splash some cooking alcohol on the side of the wok. There will be sizzling and spluttering, turn down the heat if it gets overwhelming. Add dark soya sauce and sugar, start with ratio of 1 tbsp: 2 tsp and adjust to your preference. It should be garlicky, smokey from the garlic and wok-tossing, and dark soy sauce-y with fleeting caramel notes, the sugar rounds up the flavour spectrum but this dish is not meant to be sweet. Scoop out when sauces and garlic are well integrated into the pork.

If you use a well-seasoned cast-iron wok, it will not stick so there is no need to add water which will cause the garlic pieces to swell and bloat unappetisingly. However, I was using an inox wok on the induction top in our rented kitchen, and it got sticky and almost charred on the bottom rather quickly, necessitating the addition of a little water to deglaze the pan.

The garlicky pork goes really well with steamed white rice, and maybe some cold beer or sake. Our family loves this dish so much my mother frequently set aside some meat just for this purpose. This recipe also works well for other cuts of roasted pork, especially from a suckling pig.

Of course, as my mother reminded me when I called to tell her I made roast pork, the siu yuk will be great sauteed with vegetables like kai lan or brocolli. By then, we had eaten up every last bit of the pork, so we'll just have to wait for the next occasion.

Fragrant noodles recipe

In case anyone wanted the recipe for this simple noodle dish, voila! I put it together to use up quickly the spring onions and coriander sitting in the fridge drawer, and was also in the mood for lots and lots of sweet-bitter and crisp-crunchy fried garlic and shallots. It's delicious and I love the idea of flavours coming mainly from members of the garlic and onion family. Of course meat and vegetables can be added but this is the minimalist version to allow better appreciation of the aromatic ingredients. 

2 cakes dried shrimp noodles

3-5 cloves garlic minced finely

5-6 shallots sliced finely

2 spring onions sliced in 2 inch stalks, reserve the bulb for other purposes.

Bunch of coriander, washed & torn roughly

Flavourings: soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, cantonese style chilli oil (optional)

1. Cook the noodles as you would pasta, with lots of water and a few drops of oil. Salt is not necessary, the taste of dried shrimps is already incorporated for flavour. 
2. In a wok, heat up 2-3 tbsp oil (6-7 on my induction cooker, small flame if you are using gas) and fry the shallots slowly and gently. When shallots are 40% done, add the garlic. Gently does it, we want them to turn golden brown, not stay pale or worse, go black and bitter.
3. Put cooked pasta into wok. Add spring onion and coriander. Drizzle flavourings according to taste and toss everything until well-mixed.

Kid's variation: V ate the noodles happily- in her portion I omitted the spring onion, coriander, vinegar and chilli oil. 

Coming up next- roast belly pork!

Fragrant noodles

Shrimp noodles tossed with fried shallots & garlic, wilted scallions & coriander. Delicious. Taking my time away to cook. Cheers!