lotus buns

lotus buns before steaming
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

These 'lotus leaf buns' (heye jia or 'lotus buns') have been on my to-make-list forever. At least, since I rediscovered them on my trip to China last May, where we had them several times in both Beijing and Shanghai. These lotus buns are a Chinese steamed bread-variety, made from the same dough as baozi, mantou or other steamed goodies. But their fun lies in the fact that they open up so you can stuff them with things and eat them.. like a bun. I had them with wonderfully crisp pork slices, spring onions and cucumber strips.

Of course there is no way I could surpass the beautifully shaped buns I had in a Shanghai restaurant (click here to see the picture) - really I would love to know how they become so prettily puffed up and with curves in all the right places. I searched the web for some photo instruction, but didn't find any - only for the most basic of shapes. Finally I found the recipe in good old Pei Mei (volume 1, p. 365). Not that she helps out with the shape much...

For the dough, you will need: (makes about 20 small buns)
1.5 cups of flour
0.5 cup of water
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of lard (if you want, otherwise omit or substitute little oil)
a pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
sesame oil

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, lard and water until it forms a dough. Knead well, then roll in snake-shape and cut or pinch into 20 pieces. Flatten the pieces out with your hand or small rolling pin until round in shape. Brush the top half of the circle with a little sesame oil and fold over.

Now is the time to be creative and try to shape it in a beautiful form, like a shell or lotus leaf. Use a blunt knife to make a criss-cross pattern on top (of the folded over half-circle), or imitate the pattern of a lotus leaf. Then use the back of the knife to dent the lotus bun from the folded open side to make it more like a leaf. Study the picture above to see what I've tried, but be creative here! I am open to new shapes or to an explanation on how to make the beautiful buns I had in China.

Steam over high heat in a bamboo steamer for 10 minutes. Enjoy with pork strips, charsiu meat, red-cooked pork belly or whatever you like.. you'll love it!

Beef with orange peel

Beef with orange peel by kattebelletje.

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? I must say, after starting the site tokowijzer I really didn't see the hype coming! The new site was very well received; we got a lot of good reviews and more visitors that kattebelletje ever had. I have spent many hours updating the site and making pictures. And I have been lurking in Chinese supermarkets for even longer times than before. I have tried many ingredients I wouldn't have bought otherwise - and I have tried out more frozen dumplings than I have in the last 5 years!

This is one of the dishes I made with the ingredient orange peel, chenpi niurou. It is one of my favorite Szechuan beef dishes : it has a dark flavor, mildly spiced by the red dried peppers and with a very fragant flavor of the orange peel. The beef is chewy and has a sweet tinge. I used to use fresh tangerine peels, but stocking up on these dried orange peels is very easy, so all you need is a chunk of beef to get you going.

For this recipe you will need:

500 grams of braising beef (klapstuk, sukadelap)
6 to 7 slices of fresh ginger
4 dried chili peppers (the long pointy ones)
6 pieces of dried orange peel (Chinese shop)
Shaoxing rice wine
soy sauce (light and dark), sugar, rock sugar, salt

Cut the beef in bite size pieces. Slice the ginger. Snap the orange peel into smaller chunks. Fry the ginger and dried pepper in a couple of tablespoons of oil until fragrant (careful, don't burn!), then add the beef and brown on all sides. Splash with almost a cup of Shaoxing rice wine and add 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce (or a little more). Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and a walnut-size chunk of rock sugar and stir. Bring to a boil, take off the scum of the surface of the liquid, then put a lid on and leave on a slow simmer.

The beef has to simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours; check regularly to stir and to check if there is still enough liquid. Add a little water if needed. At the end of the cooking process taste the sauce and add more salt or soy if needed. For extra flavour you could add some orange juice, too. The beef has to be dark and the sauce has to cling around the meat - the rock sugar makes the sauce have a beautiful shine.

Take the beef off the heat, sprinkle on some sesame oil, and put on a plate. This dish can be eaten hot or cold: a perfect starter or a perfect dish for a Chinese meal - at least it is not a last-minute stir-fry to worry about. You can eat the pieces of orange peel if you like, they will taste of pepper and soy and beef. Lovely.

nieuw site: tokowijzer

tokowijzer by kattebelletje.

Zojuist is de nieuwe website 'tokowijzer' live gegaan!

De tokowijzer is een samenwerkingsinitiatief van Kok Robin en kattebelletje. Allebei zijn we nogal fanaat met Chinees eten en koken, en op Flickr waren we al ieder voor zich bezig met het fotograferen van pakjes, zakjes en andere ingredienten uit de toko.

De opzet is om bij tokowijzer een verzameling op te bouwen van vaak gebruikte, voornamelijk Chinese ingredienten. We leggen uit hoe het heet, wat het is en hoe je het moet gebruiken, wat er te koop is, en welke het lekkerst is. Dan is er nog ruimte voor opmerkingen en zijn er links naar recepten waar dat ingredient wordt gebruikt. Ook is er een lijst van grote toko's in Nederland.

Hopelijk wordt deze website een handig hulpmiddel bij het winkelen in de toko. Suggesties of commentaar? Ga naar de site, kijk rond, doe inspiratie op, en ga lekker winkelen in een toko bij jou in de buurt ! Zie je op tokowijzer!

eindelijk: 8-8-8

cooks eating by kattebelletje.

De Chinezen hebben lang genoeg gewacht. Ze begonnen al meer dan twee jaar geleden met de Grote Countdown vanaf het Tian'anmenplein, die de dagen telde tot op vandaag. Ik was net op tijd thuis van een weekje weg om hun gigantische show in het Vogelnest live op tv te zien.
Opeens is China heel erg in het nieuws en wordt overal gegoogled naar Chinese recepten. Gisterochtend had De Pers een artikel over de 'nieuwe' Chinese keuken, en 's avonds kwam zelfs het NOS nieuws met een item over de Olympische menu's, iets waar ik in april al een blog post over schreef.

Omdat de zoekfunctie van deze blog soms te wensen overlaat, ik nooit echt een overzicht heb gemaakt, maar ik de afgelopen jaren toch al een behoorlijke verzameling Chinese recepten op dit blog heb verzameld, geef ik hier een overzicht van recepten en verhalen over China. Wel in het engels, maar dat kan geen probleem zijn toch?

• Algemeen:
  * Hier meer over de Chinese spraakverwarring over de Olympische menu's - de hilarische vertalingen van Chinese gerechten die al jarenlang op menukaarten staan en die bij buitenlanders prachtige foto's opleveren
  * Conimex naar Peking : hoe Conimex hun eigen versie van de Chinese [=Indische] keuken in stand probeert te houden, ook nu;
  


• Verzameling Chinese koude voorafjes :
  * Duizendjarige eieren - een hoog griezelgehalte, maar daarna een acquired taste
  * Salade met reepjes tofu, sesamolie en koriander als het zomerweer is
  * Chinese geplette radijsjessalade met link naar video
  * Chinese komkommer in het [zoet] zuur knapperig voorafje, overal in China te bestellen
  


• Chinese klassiekers:
  * Mapo tofu - pikant gerecht van tofu met gehakt uit de Sichuankeuken
  * Ganbian sijidou: drooggebakken sperciebonen, Sichuan style - boontjes, gedroogde garnalen en gehakt
  * Terug-in-de-pan vlees [twice cooked pork] (met video) - speklapjes met knoflook en lenteuitjes
  * Gongbao chicken [Chicken Kung pao], kip met nootjes
  * Fotoinstructie op Flickr : hoe maak ik Gongbao Chicken
  * Bangbang chicken [Kip klopklop] - koude kipreepjes met sojasaus en sesamolie
  * Aubergine met sichuanpeper-zout gefrituurde schijfjes met dip
  * Mongoolse hotpot (Chinese fondue) klassieker, een ouwetje al


• Vis & vlees:
  * Gestoomde zalm op z'n Chinees
  * Kabeljauw met zwarte boontjes makkelijk, snel en lekker
  * Garnalen uit de wok (met video)
  * Reepjes varkensvlees met knoflookspruiten
  


• Groente:
  * Gebakken aardappelsprietsjes bijzondere manier om aardappels te eten
  * Koreaanse salade knapperige zomersalade met zoet-zure smaken
  * Jiaobai: exotische groente in de Chinese supermarkt
  * Eten Chinezen tulpen? : eetbare lelies
  * Bloemkool met garnalen, simpele stir-fry
  * Zelf rode pepertjes inleggen [1] en [2]


• Dumplings en noedels:
  * Olympische dumplings de lekkerste kant-en-klare dumplings uit de supermarkt
  * Vegetarische dumplings vulling voor jiaozi
  * Jiaozi [Chinese dumplings] met nieuwjaar
  * Pannenplakkers [potstickers guotie, gyoza] gebakken dumplings
  *Yinyin-saus: het lekkerste sausje voor dumplings
  * Koude Sichuan noedels - klassieke favoriet
  * Dandan noedels (met video)
  * Xiaolongbao [kleine gestoomde Shanghaidumplings]
  *Baozi [Chinese bapao's]
  

Voor wie meer wil weten over de Chinese keuken en Chinees koken, kijk ook op Flickr bij mijn laatste verzameling eetfoto's uit China en mijn sets instructiefoto's, hoe maak ik... Jiaozi, Chinese dumpings; Mapo tofu; chili-olie; Hagau - dimsums met garnalenvulling; hoe vouw ik een wonton; Chicken Gongbao; Bangbang chicken; Twice-cooked pork en nog heel wat andere kookinstructies. Veel plezier ermee!

Oil blasted shrimp

[youbao daxia
I just love watching Chinese cooking videos. I brought lots of them home from China, but to my surprise I found there are many clips uploaded on YouTube, ripped from Chinese dvds or vcds. The videos are very unlike the trendy chef-lifestyle videos you have in the West, where the focus is on close-ups of the chef's face and cooking gear instead of on his or her cooking basics. Chinese chefs take their time, sometimes even real time, to show their knife techniques and cooking skills.

Everything is shown step by step, the cutting preparations and the final assembling and stir frying moves. You sure can learn a lot about Chinese cooking by watching these videos! As not everyone understands Chinese, I have translated the directions they give in the video, so you can watch the techniques, and read the directions for assistance. Try for yourself! View more of my Chinese cooking playlist at YouTube...


This is a rather easy recipe, with great flavours enhancing the tastyness of shrimp. You will need: 350 grams raw shrimp, with heads on, but cleaned; 25 grams soy sauce; 5 grams spring onions; 15 grams Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing wine); lots of [vegetable] oil; 25 grams of sugar and 15 grams of Chinese vinegar.

First: dry the shrimp and fry them briefly in medium hot oil (the Chinese call this 60% hot), take out; then turn up the heat and fry them again in hotter oil (70% hot). There surely is a lot of oil in the wok. You can see the really big ladle with holes in it, like a strainer, with which the Chinese chef scoops out all the ingredients in one go, he also has a large container at hand for pouring in the excess oil when necessary. OK, pour off all the oil and add just one or two tablespoons of oil in the pan, then add the shrimp, rice wine, sugar, vinegar, soy, spring onions and stir to combine. Don't fry too long, take out and arrange prettily on a plate. Chef of this video: Chen Yongqing from Hangzhou.

making xiaolongbao

making baozi by kattebelletje.

A scene from Shanghai: making xiaolongbao - small steamed buns with a meat filling. From the window, one could look into a room full of girls in white aprons and white hats in Shanghai's old town, busy making xiaolongbao in a production line.

A mountain of dough on the left hand side on a large table in front of the window, from which the girls pinched small balls. Also on the table a bowl with oil for oiling the dough chunks, and to the far right a large bowl with minced meat filling. The girl in the center scoops up a basketful of balls for her part of the production line: stuffing some meat filling inside a round of dough and pinching the sides until you get a beatiful shaped round xiaolongbao.

She placed them in a bamboo basket and when full, they were steamed until risen and done in about 10 minutes. They didn't look happy doing this, and looked even more annoyed when I took pictures. Perhaps I would too, if people stared at me all day cooking. (I found a video on YouTube with exactly the same girls! Check it out!) But I was impressed with their swift technique and obviously so were the customers, who were queueing outside to buy them.

potstickers (guotie)

guotie by kattebelletje.

Making guotie (potstickers, gyoza) is a quite long affair! Made from scratch, they taste delightful. Prepare a dough from flour and water, roughly ration 2 to 1. Knead until supple and leave to rest for half an hour.

Meanwhile, prepare a filling with a food processor: mince fatty striped pork and a about 1cm of ginger until completely smooth. Put into a bowl and add water in which you have soaked shiitake dried mushrooms (the black Chinese mushroom you can buy in Chinese shops). Add water, soy sauce and rice wine; add salt to taste. Add sesame oil. Add chopped spring onion, chopped shiitake and, optional, some chopped cooked spinach. Also, add chopped Chinese cabbage, after squeezing all water out. Stir this filling until smooth.

Now shape the dough into small rounds with a wooden rolling pin and put your filling in the centre. Fold the dumpling in the typical half moon shape and leave on a bamboo jiaoziboard (or plate dusted with flour). For dumplings or jiaozi, cook in water; but for panstickers fry in oil in a pan, then add water, wait until all water has evaporated and fry intil crispy on the bottom and succulent in the centre. Enjoy with a hot sauce or just plain Chinese vinegar. See more photos on Flickr.