twice cooked pork (huiguo rou)

This classic Chinese dish, lovely pork slices in a spicy, garlicky sauce, never fails to please. It is called twice-cooked (actually it is called 'back to the pan-meat') because it is first cooked, then stir-fried with seasonings. I found a video which shows you exactly how to make this. First the ingredients.

For this recipe you will need: 400 grams of hind shoulder of pork (with fat layer) - I don't know if there is a western equivalent cut for this... - Dutch people: use speklap); two or three white leeks (sometimes white cabbage is used); some Shaoxing rice wine (left) -10 grams, 50 grams of vegetable oil (about one cup), 4 grams of salt; 5 grams of sugar, 4 grams of MSG; 10 grams of ginger, 10 grams of spring onion; 75 grams of Pixian chili bean sauce from (the most famous chili bean paste from Sichuan), 30 grams of sweet bean paste (the kind you have with Peking duck).

Now watch the video, the cooking starts at 1:25: Put the whole piece of meat in a pan of boiling water, cover with a lid and boil for about 10 to 15 minutes (until "70% tender", you go figure it out...). Take the pork out, cool slightly, and cut into very thin square slices (you can prepare this beforehand). As you can see, each slice is part lean meat, part fat. Heat oil in a wok and stir-fry the slices in hot oil until slightly browned. Add ginger and spring onion and keep stirring. When it starts to smell delicious, add rice wine and sweet bean paste. Put in chili bean paste, salt, MSG, soy sauce, leeks.

After just a short mixing of ingredients, put on a plate and serve. The plate looks a bit on the small side, but as you can see, the sauce is very delicious and coveres most of the plate. Enjoy!

boiled jiaozi for the Chinese new year

cooking jiaozi, 5 by kattebelletje.

Happy Chinese new year, everyone! Traditionally, you have to eat jiaozi [boiled dumplings with a filling of pork] on New Year's eve. This time it was very easy; I used ready made dumpling skins from the store (from Korea, they were, the Chinese store only stocked wonton wrappers), and the filling I took ready made from the freezer, since I made jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) a couple of weeks before. With the egg timer, I proved you can make about 15 jiaozi in 10 minutes. (View my Flickr jiaozi set here to see the whole procedure)

The ready-made jiaozi wrappers are made from a mixture of flour and cornstarch, they have a much drier feel than home-made ones. Therefore you need to dip your fingertips in water and wetten the edges before pinching them close. This makes shaping the jiaozi a bit tiresome, but of course it is better than starting from scratch if you don't have time and just want to eat it as a snack!

After wrapping, boil the jiaozi in boiling water and cook until done (when the water comes to a boil, add a cup of cold water, then wait until it comes to a boil again and repeat, after 3 times the jiaozi are said to be done. You can see it when they float on top and look shiny. Serve in small bowls with Yinyin sauce on top; the filling is hearty, the jiaozi hot and succulent, and the sauce spicy and truly delicious. Don't stop eating!

cheese fondue

Chalet Fondue by kattebelletje.

Now, look at this picture... it looks like a real ancient tin of food, doesn't it? It is the oldest tin in my cupboard, probably from the 1970s; a ready mix for cheese fondue from Switserland probably. There is no due date on the tin anywhere, because it dates from a time where that wasn't obligatory... Don't be scared, I didn't eat it and I don't think I ever will! I made some fresh cheese fondue, which I love. It is not very hard to do: buy some good cheeses, wine, and good French / Italian bread - no-knead bread is perfect, too.

For 3 to 4 people, you need: 300 grams of grated Emmenthaler, 300 grams of grated Gruyere, about 0,4 litres of nice white wine, one clove of garlic, crushed, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch diluted in a little bit of water, and a slog of kirsch (cherry spirit).
Take a heavy pan and pour the wine into the pan, add the crushed garlic and the two cheeses, bring to a boil. Stir to mix the cheeses, which will start to melt, with the warm wine. Keep stirring until they have completely melted. Meanwhile, cut the bread and prepare some vegetables to to with this meal, if you want any. You could have a crispy green salad, or eat gherkins and sweet and sour onions with your fondue.

Have everyone take their seats and heat a rechaud. Now, stir in your cornstarch mixture until it thickens the fondue, add some pepper and a splash of kirsch to get this true cheese fondue flavour. Sit down and dip your bread into the hot melted cheese; you will get long strings of cheese strands. It is funny with cheese fondue: first you cannot stop, but then after an x amount of bread, suddenly, you simply stop eating because you just can't have one more bite!

chicken in egg-lemon sauce (avgolemono)

chicken in egg-lemon sauce
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

There were drizzly days last week, and I felt like eating some comforting food. For me, chicken stewed for a longer period of time is one of these comfort foods, especially with rice. I remembered the Greek style of thickening sauces with lemon juice and eggs (avgolemono), and felt that was what I wanted to eat! Take 4 chicken legs and brown in a saute pan with some chopped onions in some butter and olive oil. Put on pepper and salt, add a little white wine, and so much water it almost coveres the meat. Let simmer on a slow fire with a lid on top of the pan until chicken is done, so much it almost falls from the bone - this might take 50 minutes, but there is no fuss in cooking this, you just have be patient a little while. Meanwhile, make a pilav style rice: fry some very finely chopped onions in butter and add washed rice. Stir around in the pan until all rice grains are translucent, add 1,5 times the amount of water to the rice and some saffron if you like. Cook for 20 minutes until done; you could add some peas to the rice to make it look prettier and more interesting. When your chicken is finished, leave the chicken legs like this, or take the meat off the bone for more easy eating later. Put the juice of one lemon with one egg in a bowl and beat it together. Take your chicken sauce off the heat and put one ladle of sauce in the bowl with the egg and lemon mixture. Stir to combine, then add the mixture to the sauce, add it slowly and make sure the egg doesn't curdle. The sauce becomes velvety, lemony and very delicious. A small salad on the side doesn't hurt and you could eat this forever! Add more pepper to the chicken if you like that. Enjoy!

Sichuan chili peppers

Sichuan chili peppers
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

Yes, I am so happy! This is what is inside of the Lazi ji "Spicy chicken". spice mixture, which I bought 2 weeks ago but hadn't opened yet. I couldn't wait any longer, took a large pair of scissors and cut it open to view what was inside. This mixture, said to prepare your own Sichuan style spicy chicken, cost only € 0.80 in the Asian store, and to my great surprise it did not contain just packets of chili oil and other flavorings, but also the real thing: a type of round and short dried chili peppers from Sichuan(and some huajiao thrown in for flavour). You don't see this type of chili peppers on the market anywhere here, so you can imagine my delight of this discovery! I will be rushing back to the store very, very soon to buy their whole shelf of hot chicken mixture for my storage and, of course, to give to my chili-loving friends.... now I can make true gongbao jiding with the right kind of pepper, for Fuchsia Dunlop says the Thai chili is too spicy for Chinese dishes, and this Sichuan chili is much more aromatic and mellow, so I will try out soon!

fish soup

fish soup
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

It was cold yesterday, but I didn't mind. I was going to make this lovely soup, filled with all kinds of fish. I try to be true to my new year's resolutions, being, 1. eating more fish, 2. eating more vegetarian dishes, and 3. eating organic meat. It can be hard, especially since organic meat is so much more expensive, but I try not to go for cheap chicken or other cheap lousy meat. Actually, it doesn't really matter what you all put in this fish soup, as long as the base is the cooking juices of 2 kilos of mussels. First, clean the mussels (leave the suspicious ones - the ones that don't close as you clean them - out), and fry some onion slices in a saute pan with olive oil. Add your mussels and some white wine and water, and wait until the mussels are just open. Then drain them in a sieve, saving the juices. You have to strain the juices later through a sieve with small holes and be careful to leave the small grits behind so they won't ruin the end result. Wait for the mussels to cool slightly before taking the meat out - you will end up with a little less than 400 grams of mussel meat. Then, clean your pan and add some new olive oil. Put in one stick of celery, chopped, one carrot, chopped, one onion and 3 cloves of garlic, fry them slowly; then add a tin of peeled plum tomatoes and chop them up. Add the strained mussel juices and extra water, let simmer. You can add some chili flakes for extra flavour, some pepper and salt, but be careful with the salt though, as the mussel juices are quite salty by themselves. Add a bay leaf, too. As you are almost ready to eat, add chunks of white fish, peeled (precooked) shrimp and the mussels. You can add all kinds of fish to your liking, but serve it as soon as the fish is tender (no more than 10 minutes). As you can see in the picture, I added some bigger shrimp with their shells on, but I don't recommend it, since you have to get them out of the soup one by one, and then fiddle around with the shells, which will frustrate you greatly because it makes you stop eating. Have a slice of nice bread with this soup with some garlic mayonaise or rouille on top. This is the nicest meal I have cooked in a long time, and I will definitely make this again!

chicken liver pate

chicken liver pate
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

Happily reading in Nigel Slater's Appetite, which I am enjoying at the moment, I came across this pate. I really like pates once in a while, and simple ones even more. There is one in one of Marcella Hazan's cookbooks which I made a couple of times, consisting of sauteed calf's liver and butter - and browned onions, too, if I remember correctly. It is probably in her 'Marcella's Kitchen' book. Nigel Slater's chicken liver pate looked very similar, and dead easy to do. It is not the kind of pate you have to put into a slow oven au bain marie and all that stuff, it is basically frying liver and after cooling, adding butter to make it into a spread. I adapted the amount of liver, because not everyone here in the house is into liver pate, and I expected to eat this all by myself. Take 200 grams of chicken liver, clean it, soak it in milk for half an hour, drain, and chop into halves. Fry the liver pieces in a big spoonful of butter and be careful, as liver will splatter all over you while frying. Add salt and pepper and take off the heat. Whizz in a kitchen blender (or use a stick blender) with a large chunk of butter until it is a smooth paste. Then put through a sieve (that's the only chore here) and taste for salt, then put in a pretty dish and leave in the fridge to cool. When cooled, melt some butter and some goose fat (my adaptation) in a small pan and pour over the pate. Leave to set in the fridge and eat after a night in the fridge on toast , crackers, or just some nice bread. View more of the chicken liver pate process here.