Lionheads(Traditional chinese dish)

I discovered this recipe in one of Ching He Huang's book, Chinese food made Easy. I think I own all her books now, and recommend them highly (and I have no commercial interest there!). I love that she promotes healthy traditional dishes, accessible and very Chinese. I am lucky that I can source all the ingredients so easily as I live next to chinatown. All the ingredients are already in my cupboard.
It a very traditional, home type of food, which is very healthy, tasty and so easy to make. 

My HongKong friend remembers the dish from her childhood, named so because of the ressemblance with lion's heads, the meatballs being the head and the cabbage the mane, what a great way to entice kids into eating it -  not that they need so much enticement mind you as it tastes so great!

Since trying this dish, I made it many times, and it has become one of my favourites.
I adapted the recipe a little, as I tend to prefer bigger meatballs, use the whole leaves of the cabbage and I also felt the need to add some sichuan pepper for a kick.

Makes 4 big meatballs

- 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
- 750ml Water or preferably stock
- 4 dried chinese mushrooms
- 1 Chinese dismantled leaf by leaf
- 1 Tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon cornflour blended with 2 tablespoons cold water (optional)
- 2 large spring onions, sliced
- Sichuan pepper, a pinch
- sea salt and ground white Pepper
- steamed jasmine rice

For the meatballs

- 500gminced beef, pints water or vegetable stock
- 4 garlic cloves, finely diced
- 2 tables spoon freshly grated root stem ginger
- 1/2 pinch of sea salt
- 50ml Shaoshing rice wine or dry Sherry
- 2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tablespoon cornflour
- 1 pinch of ground white pepper

1. Put all the ingredients for the meatballs into a large bowl and stir to combine.
Using wetted hands take a large mound of the mince mixture and mould into a ball slightly smaller than a baseball. Place on a Plate and repeat with the remaining mixture.

2. Pour the oil into a large deep pan on high heat. Place each meatball in the pan.
Turn very carefully with a big spatula when brown, and repeat until all sides are brown (the meat is sealed, not cooked).

3.Arrange the cabbage leaves curving them lengthway around the meatballs, like a nest. Add the stock, mushrooms and soy sauce and sichuan pepper and bring to the boil.
Cover the pan, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Add the blended cornflour, stir until thickened.

4. Take off the heat. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to serving dish and sprinkle with spring onion and serve with Jasmine rice

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Source: recipe adapted from Ching He Huang's recipe, photos, myself



A light salad for the summer

When it's hot and sunny, I always crave for fresh ingredients, and a cooling and refreshing dish . Nothing better than a salad, like I've eaten all my youth, when I was living in France. Over there, people decline salad to infinite. today I would like to share a salad with you, my favorite in fact...:

For 2 people:
- 1 can sweetcorn
- 4 medium tomatoes
- Optional: rice, 100g
- 100g hard cheese (emmenthal, gruyere) diced
- 200g cooked (shallow fried or grilled) chicken breast in strips (OR diced surimi sticks OR a vegetarian alternative but you have been warned, chicken works best ...)
- optional: Cervelas (Swiss sausage) diced (Or cooked frankfurters sliced thickly but really not as good as cervelas)

For the vinaigrette sauce:
- 1 tblsp of honey vinegar or Xeres vinegar
- 2 tblsp of rapeseed oil or light tasting olive oil
- 1 tblsp of water
- 1 tblsp honey

Mix all the ingredients together,
Mix the vinaigrette
Pour the vinaigrette on top of the mix, and leave for 10-20 minutes to marinate, then serve.

This salad is rather sweet and sour, and is easy to take to work for lunch. It is balanced, tasty and light, colourful and takes minutes. what else could I say to convince you!?....

Bon Apetit!

Kung Po Chicken - quick chinese fix

Kung Po (also spellt Kung Pao)was one of the grades for officials in China. The inventor of this chicken dish was a "Kung Po" official in China who named the dish according to his grade.

This makes a great hot dish that doesn't demand too much time... Don't skip the dried chilis, they are really adding something... I like this dish very very very hot!

INGREDIENTS for two

- 2 large chicken breasts cut in strips (vegetarians/vegans use Quorn)
- (1/2cup) water chestnuts (optional)
- 1 handful unsalted roasted peanuts (Monkey nuts 20 min oven 200degC then peeled) - or you can use cashew nuts
- 5 dried Chinese chilis cut in half (they are the ones looking like mini red bell peppers). Remove the seeds if you think it's too hot for you.
- a handful of runner beans or green beans cut in strips

For the sauce:
- 4 tablespoons white wine
- 4 tablespoons soy sauce
- 4 tablespoons sesame oil
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch (dissolved in 2 tablespoons water)
- a tblpn hot chili paste (chili oil)
- 2 tblpn rice vinegar
- 4 tsp golden syrup
- 4 green onions, chopped
- 1 garlic clove chopped
- 2 tablespoon minced ginger (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Make the Sauce: In a small bowl combine wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch/water mixture, chili paste, vinegar and golden syrup. Mix together and add green onion, garlic.

In a small wok, heat sauce slowly until aromatic. (you can use the sauce as a marinade for the chicken and then cook it if you prefer)

Saute the chicken in a large skillet until the meat is opaque and white and the juices run clear

Add dried chilis (water chestnuts and) peanuts and runner beans, cook a few minutes more.

Add the sauce,

Let simmer together until sauce thickens.

Source: my experience of the dish in restaurants + various sources

Melaka chicken Rice Balls

I travelled to Malaysia this year and had wonderful food experiences that I want to share with you. No recipe for this post I'm afraid, although if anyone knows how to cook this please let me know, I'd love to cook it myself.

On my way to the historic Square of Melaka (Malacca) from my hotel (Hotel Puri, I could make a whole post on it, it was beautiful), I got a bit Peckish and had a sudden want to try chicken rice balls in a small restaurant that was doing take away too. I would have preferred to stay in, but my travel companion did not want to spend too much time sat down in a restaurant so the consensus was that I took away the dish.

When I finally opened the box and tasted it I could not believe my tastebuds: it was so flavoursome, tasty, the texture and association was incredible. The chicken was juicy and moist, the sauce was soft and meaty, the vegetable were working perfectly with it, and the texture of the rice balls was perfect..

My travel companion regretted then not to have stopped in the restaurant and in the evening, we stopped in an other restaurant at a corner in the same street that claimed a bit louder to do that dish. I had something else then, but her chicken rice ball was nowhere near as good as the one I had for lunch.

So next day lunchtime, we came back to the older quainter looking restaurant (the one just before the mini roundabout and the bridge!), sat down, asked for the menu. No menu. Only one dish! So of course we ordered it! A family of other westerners sat down next to us and quickly went out as soon as they realised there was no menu, their loss!

It turned out that the owner, a lovely lady, had made that dish in that same restaurant for 42 years! No wonder it was so good!

Sticky rice and Mango

I've wanted to try the dessert for ages before I actually could. I'd heard it was so delicious... So I tried it as soon as I could, but I've never been too satisfied with it. I suspected that I might have to hunt it at the source. So when I went to Thailand, I hunted it in the streets, and at last, found the gorgeous dessert I'd been hoping all along. I found out the secret of it as soon as I put it in my mouth, and from then was able to reproduce it. It goes like that with a lot of thai foods: it's all about balance, and when you've found it, you can't forget it.

So you'll ask, what was the secret of a gorgeous sicky rice and mango?
it is...tadaaaaa.... Salt!
Don't pull this face. yes. salt. It's a balance between sweet and salty.
For 2 people, count 100g rice per person, rinse the sticky rice with cold water - not til the water goes clear, because with sticky rice, it never will. Add a small tin of coconut milk (preferably the Chaokoh brand because it is young coconut scrapped). Addd some water. cook until the rice is soft (add morewater if needed). Add sugar, then add the salt until balance is reached.
When ready, dish the rice and add on top the best (sliced) ripe mango you can find.
That's it, a delight. Soooo easy!