Sausage Rice in Clay Pot

It is cold windy and wet out these days and this is the very seasonal simple thing to eat. Just add a little dark soy sauce to the rice and it is good to eat. Best when lazy.

Shrimp Roe

This is tofu with shrimp roe. I usually make it like most do: the tofu is soft and the sauce is wet. Here I wanted something crispy so I pan fried the tofu till brown with ginger and then added the dry shrimp roe to toast and finally some sugar, soy sauce and a touch of chicken stock. After a few second this is the result. I rather like it.

Variation

Beef noodle soup is a great standard, but after a while, no matter how well you make it, it gets a little old, a little boring. Here I added some sweet sweet zicai seaweed to change it taste a little, and the result is no longer dull.

Pork Chops, Winter Melon, and Cauliflower Mushroom

I usually make the winter melon soup with salted egg yolk, but it is cold now and I got these cauliflower mushroom so I make the soup with jinhua ham and the mushroom. Jinhua ham is just great with mushroom, particularly wild ones. Grilled some pork chops too, marinated with ginger, garlic, Shaoxing liquor, sugar, salt and sesame oil. Very simple, very good.

Chicken with Shiitake Mushroom

This is one dish I always love growning up. Here I cut up a small chicken, browned it a little with a little ginger and garlic, then stewed it for about half an hour with xiaoshing wine, dark and light soy sauce, and a little water, salt and sugar.










Sometime I leave it sauce but this time, when it is almost done I started to boil away most of the sauce to make a thick coating sauce. Because it is cooked in skin and with bones, the reduced sauce is very sticky already and need no extra thickening. Very simple to make and so very tasty.

Fun Snack

Poppadoms are cheap from Indian market and quick to crisp on the stove. It is great fun to watch it bubbles.

Pop-The-Losing-Rose-Over Pudding

Since my last attempt at Yorkshire pudding was not entirely successful, I am making this again, in a muffin pan this time. Exactly the same batter but I had no more beef fat so I used something healthier--grapeseed oil. Without the beef dripping, these are more popover than Yorkshire puddings, if you insist on making a distinction. In any case, they are crispy on the outside and creamy in the inside. Wonderful!











Put them together this way, it is just like they are being served in an old pub.

Yorkshire Pudding by Request

A friend of mine told me about her visit to the old GB and how she enjoyed Yorkshire pudding. She asked me to show her how the pudding is made here. So, here is my attempt.
First, of course, roast the beef. I brown the meat first after salt and peppering the rib cut. I got it to 145℉ in a 400℉ convected oven. This is not how people usually like to do it, the oven is a little too hot, they say. I like the crispy bits so I cook it this way.




After the roast is done, there is fat in the pan. And the brown things are great for the sauce. But the thing this time is the pudding so I used it all in the pudding.










I also got these wild chanterelles and they go well with the beef. I toss them with some of the beef fat and roasted them.










Back to the pudding, the batter, made of ¾ cup of flour, an egg, ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of water and a little salt. The steam from the liquid in the hot oven will puff it. I just poured the batter into the roasting pan and put it back into the 425℉ oven.








This is how it came out of the oven. I realized I didn't have enough batter to make it look proper but it still puffed. Unfortunately it collapsed into pancakes.










The beef cut up very nicely.














And the final ensemble. Really good eatin'! And the Yorkshire pancakes are really really good too.

Shanks and Tendons

This is one of the all time favorites with Cantonese: stewed beef tendons and beef shanks. This is the small shank meat and "double" tendons. It is cooked in a pressure cooker with dark and light soy sauce, rock sugar, Chinese cinnamon, star anise, sichuan pepper, ginger, rose cooking liquor, yellow wine, and water (okay, my spicing is not exactly classically Cantonese). Perfect for the pressure cooker, done in an hour. The tendons are creamy and the meat soft and smooth. Looks good in the clay pot too.

Repackaging

I know this dish had appeared before but this time in a pot and some crisply focused scallions on top, it is worth a posting, no? Well, I have been eating out the last couple of days so I have no more new dishes on the ScanDisk. This simple lunch will have to do...

Eel

One of my all time favorite dish is the stir fry eel from Shanghai area. I found these precut 'yellow' eel in frozen packages. I figured this would take the difficult part--prepping the eel--out of the recipe, so I decided to try to make it myself. The first attempt is not entirely successful. I turn the stove off accidentally when I need the heat the most and I should have used lard and dark soy sauce instead of peanut oil and light soy sauce. It is very eatable but not quite the way it should be. Need work.

Pork Chops

Lean pork chop is particularly suited for this grill because you don't have to worry about grease fire and smoke.

Serving

A big piece like the ham hock, it is better for it to rest in the sauce for a day or two before eating. Add some vegetable (here large mustard greens) and it is the most complete and comforting dish to eat with rice.

Stew Ham Hock

This is a favorite cut, particularly cooked this way. It is cooked in a pressure cooker with ginger, star anise, dark and light soy sauces, dark raw sugar, rock sugar and water. A lot of people think this is a very fatty dish, and it does taste that way. It is, however, not very fatty at all. The mouth feel is mostly due to the creamy connective tissues so abundant here. After cooking for a long time, it has the most decadent texture. I felt asleep and cooked this for too long. As you can see here, it is not dry at all but soft and creamy, just falling apart a little bit. Lovely as can be.

Importance of the Noodles

I have made this a hundred times, just some mao gua, some dry shrimp, a slice of ginger, some stock and a couple pieces of meng bean noodles. This time, unfortunately, didn't turn out very well. The problem is the a new brand of noodles and it is not good, starchy; and it just about kill the dish, still eatable but not too enjoyable. Why did I take the 50 cents sale?!!!!!!!!!

Wired Grill

This grill is a lot less smokey and bake the cook top less but water is needed underneath the heating element to prevent flair up.







The result looks like what you get from a Korean cafeteria.

Cast Iron Grill

The good cast iron grill works very well too, but does generate a lot of smoke. But then, it is grilling after all...

Cleanup Meal

There are little of this and that in the fridge so I put this together to get rid of them. Giant mustard green, Jinhua ham, shiitake, tofu soup and reheating some Chinese roast pork. Very old fashion but good.

One Pot

Some hot Italian sausages, an small onion, a yellow pepper, a tomato, some rice and water and that is it, quick and simple.

Lamb Shoulder

Most people like roast lamb. Racks are great and my dad likes to say mine is better than anyone else's, well he is just use to eating mine. Leg are comforting, it is the holiday cut, family and friends. Shoulder though is my favorite. All that flavour, not lean like racks and legs so you can cook it pretty much to medium. I pounded some parsley, thyme, rosemary, sage, garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle then spread the paste on to the boned shoulder, rolled it up, tied it, brown it on a pan and then roasted it in 450 until it reads 150F. With fluffy pita just out of the over and tomato from my own garden, this is a happy meal. Looks Eastern Mediterranean, does it?