Prawncrackers
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Posts posted by Prawncrackers
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Lamb dumplings! Spiced with cumin and sichuan pepper, boiled, dressed with the usual.
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Let's have a lamb dumpling Cookoff!
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Lamb is quite popular in my Hakka Cantonese family. Braised lamb brisket with shiitake and beancurd sheets is a favourite.
For new year, seeing that it's the year of the sheep, I'll be making lamb dumplings!
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Happy Chinese new year everybody! Here are some Chinese dinners from my past week:
Lor Bak Goh whilst taking a break from making Sheng Jian Bao:
Mapo tofu
Beef dandan mian from scratch:
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Carrot flowers everytime I stir fry them
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Had a friend around today and as we're not going to have the opportunity to cook anything for Chinese New Year I thought I'd cook a chinese meal for us all. Chicken rice again, golden sand lobster with crispy thai basil, steamed black bean razor clams with lobster roe, fish fragrant aubergines and broccoli with chinese bacon.
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Although it originated among the Hakka people, it is also popular here among the Zhuang people. Known as 扣肉 (kòu ròu) which literally means "bowl meat", it is served at pretty much every family festive meal. I'll be eatin git every day through the upcoming Spring Festival. The taro version is the preference here.
It gets the name as the interlaced pork and taro slices are steamed in a bowl, which is then tipped for serving retaining it's bowl shape. Most people seem to buy them ready prepared. Even the local supermarkets offer it.
Here is one I bought and ate recently:
.......
We cook this dish so rarely nowadays in my family, takes so many processes. That combination of soft pork and taro is so good isn't it. What's the flavouring like in your region? I see chilli flakes in there, we would never add chilli to ours. Also do you think the supermarket offerings go through all the cooking processes? Looks drier than we would have it too.
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It's a classic Hakka dish "Woo Tau Kau Yuk" or taro with pork. Basically the pork belly is poached then fried then steamed to ensure perfect soft mouthfeel. The taro is also fried first before steaming with the pork. The flavouring is predominately red-fermented beancurd and Chinese miso (and other secret ingredients). It's a true soul food dish.
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For those that know real Hakka food 芋頭扣肉. Ultimate comfort dish of pork belly and taro. My family's recipe. Refined a little by me. Go on take a bite!
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"Use soy instead of fish sauce if you want to change it to vegetarian". The two things are not and will never be interchangeable.
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Got my hands on some truly remarkable beef this week. Galician txuleta, retired diary cows around 12 years old. I last had this at Asador Etxebarri and to do the memory of that meal justice I cooked this over hardwood embers. Turned out wonderfully, served with romesco sauce and a tortilla de patatas.
Another great ingredient, live langoustines. First time I've seen them in my town so you know I had to buy them! Salt and pepper langoustine, my luxury chicken rice and tong ho choi. A lovely anniversary meal.
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Some fishy comfort dishes this week, first up a small rice bowl of shime saba and avocado, a little garnish of fiddlehead and cuke. It's hard for me to think of anything I like more than vinegared mackerel and soy, maximum umami.
A back to basics meal of steamed sea bream and stir-fried spinach. The bream cooked perfectly, the bone had 一點紅 as we say, a touch of red.
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Prawncrackers that is an amazing looking meal. Can you tell me something about the Banchan, please.
Yes, the top one I have to admit is a Korean store bought fiddlehead banchan (gosari namul i think). The middle one is duck scratchings and the bottom is homemade kimchi.
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Happy new year y'all! Been too busy cooking and eating to post but have been lurking with intent. Here's some fish sauce chicken wings which I did rather badly a couple of months ago but managed to nail it this time.
I had a lot of crab roe and back fat leftover from a NYE meal I cooked. The white meat went to make croquettes so I was stuck with the rest. After some headscratching and several rounds of crab pate toast I decided to make dumplings out of them 蟹子餃子.
Yesterday I bought a whole duck and felt inspired to invent a ducky dish so bought some duck eggs too. Made duck egg noodles, broke down the duck and pressure cooked a duck pho broth broth with the carcass to soak the noodles in. On top a tea-smoked duck breast and a soft boiled duck egg. I rendered the skin scraps down to make scratchings on the side. Shallots were browned in the rendered duck fat for extra flavouring! Shame there weren't any giblets with this duck.
Everything but the Quack:
Oh the link is broken in my last post, here's that duck noodle dish again. I had it the day after too and amped up the broth by adding some chilli bean paste to it. It was an improvement!
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Happy new year y'all! Been too busy cooking and eating to post but have been lurking with intent. Here's some fish sauce chicken wings which I did rather badly a couple of months ago but managed to nail it this time.
I had a lot of crab roe and back fat leftover from a NYE meal I cooked. The white meat went to make croquettes so I was stuck with the rest. After some headscratching and several rounds of crab pate toast I decided to make dumplings out of them 蟹子餃子.
Yesterday I bought a whole duck and felt inspired to invent a ducky dish so bought some duck eggs too. Made duck egg noodles, broke down the duck and pressure cooked a duck pho broth broth with the carcass to soak the noodles in. On top a tea-smoked duck breast and a soft boiled duck egg. I rendered the skin scraps down to make scratchings on the side. Shallots were browned in the rendered duck fat for extra flavouring! Shame there weren't any giblets with this duck.
Everything but the Quack:
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I would get your butcher to salt it three days ahead. It's a big joint. Personally I wouldn't use black pepper, especially if you're searing it.
As for finishing on bbq, clinch it, put it straight onto the red hot coals. That'll impress them!
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Cor! They look like lovely little lion head meatballs. Nicely done.Liuzhou: Love bitter melon this way, especially on top of a plate of ho fun (rice noodles)!
Didn't have any tofu sheets, so I wrapped ground pork, shrimp, waterchestnut in wilted siu choy. Eaten with green beans stir-fried with fuyu.
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Nice plate, with the map of England graphic designs on the plate. :-)
dcarch
Ah the usual, dare I say stereotypical, mistake about our nations. The design is of the British Isles which constitutes Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales (and smaller islands). Sorry I'll get back into my pedants closet. But thanks, I do like this plate a lot.
" cuttlefish throats "
I dont even know what those are, but the look delicious and Id sure like to try them
if they are the mouth area, isnt there a 'beak' there that needs to be removed ?
google failed me completely.
When you tear the head off a cuttlefish or squid you would normally cut the tentacles off below the eyes (assuming the tentacles are pointing down), pop the beak out, use the tentacles and throw everything else away. But if you save that mess of stuff and actually cut everything above the eyes and clean away any attaching innards you're left with the throats. They're meaty like the bodies but much more tender and toothsome at the same time. A real chefs treat.
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Prawncrackers, I like both meals. Excellent photography. Perhaps you might want to consider being a food stylist.
Dcarch and Ann_T: thank you!
Thanks! I'm seriously thinking about it.
Btw cuttlefish throats are delicious hot seared dressed with sherry vinegar, aberquina olive oil and parsley:
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Do not blanch them, they'll disintegrate very quickly. Treat like salmon skin, if you cant deep fry them then brush with oil and bake between sheets. You could broil them but keep an eye as they will go from crispy to burnt in a second.
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Trotting around SE Asia, I've hit Vietnam with Bún thịt nướng chả giò or rice vermicelli with grilled pork and spring rolls. Using up some of the pork in my freezer and all the leftover herbs from cooking Thai food over the weekend.
Cuttlefish never looks promising when you buy it. Invariably covered in ink and a lot messier to clean than squid. But Risotto nero con le seppie makes it worthwhile.
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I live in the UK and there are two hot casual Thai restaurants at the moment in London; Som Saa and Smoking Goat. Both from the same stable of Northern (North East?) Thai cooking of The Begging Bowl also in London. Som Saa is more authentic as far I can tell but I prefer the simpler, sweeter more flavourful dishes at Smoking Goat. All run by farang! I should, being a self confessed food snob, prefer the more authentic restaurant but in the end it's what's on the plate that counts, the rest is BS especially the hype around places like this. For me it's clear the chefs behind them really care about Thai food and ingredients.
I don't know what you would define as 'noteworthy' cuisine, but to me one that is globally recognisable with a long distinct history and evolution of cooking techniques makes Thai as 'noteworthy' as any other cuisine in the world. But above all it's diverse and delicious. There are a lot of Chinese influences in Thai cuisine. Surely there's some aspect of it that would please you?
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I get a little restless when there's no rendang in my freezer and at the moment there is none. The last of my ox cheek rendang vac packed and cooked in the waterbath at 75C from frozen for an hour whilst I prepared everything else namely nasi lemak and sambal ikan bilis.
Time to make some more rendang soon!
I sneaked in some fish sauce wings between meals.
The ingredients for a David Thompson inspired Southern Thai crab curry. A lovely hen brown crab just over a kilo that I steamed for 10 minutes, so only parcooked. You can see how fat it is with roe and backfat. Real crab lovers know that this is the real deal with eating crab like this, sublime flavours, predominately sour curry with hints of sweetness and herbiness.
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We're very lucky in the UK to have some of the best flatfish around. Turbot, halibut, brill, soles and flounders. I find with fish like turbot and brill they actually taste better after a couple of days. When they're super fresh they have little flavour and texture. I wouldn't age round or oily fish but with certain types of flatfish it really works. Good example of ageing fish is tuna for sushi, it's common practise by top sushi masters to age several types of fish.Why buy the freshest fish and then age it for two days?
Looks lovely though
Sounds like you've been hitting the Chablis already!I very much agree.
perhaps you know something about the fish-esss that no one else knows
good
get a Patent. then you can invite me and
to Martinique
where you have stashed at lest 1/3'd of your almost MultiBilliooon wealth
( which would have a Fine Cellar )
Id Like to Eat That Fish There
w a nice Grand Cru Chablis ( Ulta-Cru ?
having bought All Chablis FR Ill bring the PureFizz )
Dinner 2015 (Part 1)
in Cooking
Posted
This looks crazy good! Can you please furnish us with cooking deets please mm?