Chinese-Style Sweet Pork Jerky

I never thought the day would come when I'd make my own sweet pork jerky, a favorite treat of mine growing up. Well, my friends, that day has come. And once again, it was SO MUCH EASIER than I thought it would be.


Sweet pork jerky, made in thin sheets, is a popular snack food in Chinese culture. In Cantonese my parents called it "ju yok gon" (literally, "pig meat dried"). In Hokkien, it's known as "bak kwa." There's also a beef version, but I like pork better. And with pork, there are two variations, one made from slicing off solid blocks of meat, and one made from minced meat. I like them both, though the latter is easier to prepare at home, and is also easier on your teeth.


The recipe calls for finely ground granulated sugar, which I grind up in a coffee bean grinder (but not for too long, or the heat will make the sugar melt!) that I reserve for such use. You can also use Baker's Sugar if you have that lying around or don't mind buying it. This ultra-fine sugar dissolves easily.


One thing I've found with homemade pork jerky is that once I've stored it in the fridge (which I have to do, because I can't and shouldn't eat an entire batch in one go), a very slight layer of fat from the meat appears on the jerky, hardening in the cold and making it lose its customary shine. This is solved by reheating, either in the microwave or the toaster oven. Commercial pork jerky doesn't seem to have this problem, but I assume it's due to additives/preservatives. It helps to pat down the jerky with some paper towels after it's done to soak up excess grease (as you would pizza), but it's not foolproof.

Obviously the solution is to have your family and friends enjoy the jerky fresh. They'll be amazed!



Chinese-Style Sweet Pork Jerky

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1/2 cup finely ground granulated sugar (Baker's Sugar)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
• 4 drops of red food coloring (optional)

Method

1. Combine marinade ingredients (all except the pork) in a medium bowl or large freezer bag and mix well.
2. Add the ground pork, mix it well with your hands or a wooden spoon, and let it marinate overnight (or at least 4 hours).
3. Preheat the oven to 200°F.
4. Using canola oil spray, lightly grease an 11 x 17" baking sheet.
5. Spread the pork mixture onto the sheet as thinly as possible. You should be able to cover the entire sheet.
6. Place the sheet in the oven on the middle rack. Close the oven door, but leave it slightly ajar -- you can close the door on a wooden spoon, for example. This will allow the steam from the meat to escape, drying it out. Cook for an hour.
7. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and prep your broiler -- set it to "high" or about 450°F.
8. Meanwhile, carefully lift the pork up off the sheet and flip it over -- the top of the jerky will appear drier than the bottom, so we want to give the bottom a chance to dry out as well.
9. Place the sheet under the broiler and broil for about 4 minutes, until the meat just starts to blacken around the edges (or if you don't like the char, as I do, watch it carefully after every minute). The meat should look shiny.
10. Remove the sheet from the broiler, carefully flip the jerky over again, then broil another 4 minutes (or to your preference) on the other side.
11. Using tongs, place the jerky onto a wire rack to cool, using a pan or towels below it to catch drippings. If you desire, you can use paper towels to blot out extra grease.
12. When completely cool, use kitchen shears to cut the jerky into desired shapes. Keep uneaten portion in the fridge.

Restaurant-Style Cha-Siew

You may or may not remember that I was not thrilled with my first attempt at "cha-siew," Cantonese-style BBQ pork. My primary issue with the recipe was that the sauce, while good, caused the meat to have more of a soy-sauce flavor, when more authentic cha-siew has more of a sweet flavor. I also wanted to create acceptable results with an oven (rather than a grill).



To that end, I adapted a few recipes I found online and made various adjustments to achieve the results I wanted -- with great success! I'm happy to say that this attempt resulted in cha-siew that is very close to version you'd get in a Cantonese BBQ restaurant.



Proper cha-siew is traditionally made with maltose, which is malt sugar. According to Wikipedia, it's half as sweet as glucose and one-sixth as sweet as fructose. If you only needed sweetness, maltose might not be necessary, but it also adds a very specific sheen and gloss that substitutes like honey just can't duplicate. The texture of maltose is extremely thick -- it's about ten times thicker than honey; it's hard to get a spoon into it, and when you pull it out, it peaks and hardens very quickly. So if you can find it, I'd recommend using it over a substitute. I found a small tub of maltose next to the honey at my local 99 Ranch.



The first time I made cha-siew, I used pork leg. This time, I used pork butt (which is a cut from the shoulder... yeah, I don't know how these names happen). They both worked fine, though if pushed I'd say I liked the leg better. Maybe. Anyway, either works fine. Just don't use pork loin, which is less tender and flavorful, and less forgiving when you cook it.

Restaurant-Style Cha-Siew

Ingredients

• 1lb pork butt or leg, sliced horizontally into 1 1/2-inch hunks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 2½ tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp maltose (or honey if you must)
• 1 tbsp Chinese rose wine ("mui guay lo")
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp 5 spice powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 6 drops red food coloring (optional)

Method:

1. Wash the pork and remove skin and really large chunks of fat.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine all the ingredients except for the pork and the food coloring. Heat the marinade only until the sugar (and maltose, if using) dissolves. If it gets too hot, cool it to room temperature. Add food coloring, if using.
3. Put the pork in a container that fits it snugly (I just used the plastic bag that it came in from the butcher's), then pour the marinade on top. Let this marinate for at least 4 hours or overnight. Try to ensure that all the surface areas get some marinade.
4. Remove the pork from the fridge about 40 minutes before cooking, to allow it to return to room temperature.
5. Preheat the oven to 410°F.
6. Line a roasting pan with foil (for easy clean up). Place a wire rack on top of the foil. Lay the pork on the rack. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes.
7. Pour the marinade into a medium saucepan, remove the chunks of garlic and heat to boiling, then keep simmering at a low heat to reduce the sauce. It's been sitting with raw pork so you want to make sure to kill all the microbes. Dirty foam will float to the top; skim this off and discard.
8. After roasting for 15 minutes, baste the pork with the marinade and turn it over. Reduce the heat to 360°F and roast for another 15 minutes. (If you chose to use tenderloin despite my dire warning not to, it might be done now.)
9. Baste the pork without turning and return to the oven for another 10 minutes. In the last 4 minutes, put the pork under the broiler, 2 minutes for each side, basting each time. That will give it a nice, pretty charred look that's characteristic of cha-siew.
10. Remove the pork from the oven. By now the foil will be covered with raised black bits and you'll be very glad you used it. Baste both sides of the meat again with the reduced sauce, and let it sit on the wire rack for 10 minutes undisturbed before slicing. Serve with the sauce.

Cha-Siew (Chinese BBQ Roasted Pork)

I know, I know, it's known everywhere as "char-siew" but I have no idea where that "r" at the end came from.  This is a Cantonese dish, I speak Cantonese, and it's "cha-siew," damn it!



Ahem.  This was incredibly easy to make.  The recipe I based this off of comes from Shiokadelicious, a now-defunct food blog written by a woman named Renee.  I got my hands on the recipe from Digital Dish, a collection of food blogger recipes compiled and edited by Owen at Tomatilla!.  It sounded so simple that I had to try it out, because like many people, I love cha-siew.

Renee reveals that maltose is used in the marinade of virtually all store-bought cha-siew, and gives it that glossy sheen.  Honey, corn syrup, and similar don't really make for good substitutions if you want that look and glazed texture.  Renee says: "Maltose is rather hard and extremely sticky and gooey. It gives a certain viscosity to the marinade, and more importantly, it imparts a high gloss and shine to the meat, which is also an important part of the appeal of char siew. And unlike honey, when cooked, it has a less sticky feel to it. The sweetness of maltose is also different from that of honey. I personally feel that maltose is quite an integral part of the char siew marinade. However, if it is unavailable, I think honey does make for an acceptable substitution."  However, I didn't want to specially find and purchase maltose for this purpose as I don't know what else I would use it in, so I substituted anyway and just accepted from the beginning that it wasn't going to be exactly the same.



I used pork leg meat, but pork shoulder is apparently also fairly common.  Other online recipes advocate the use of pork butt or pork tenderloin, but I'd avoid the latter because it's the least flavorful cut.  I purchased the leg meat with the skin still on, because it was cheaper, and removed the skin and most of the extra fatty tissue before marinating.

As for food coloring, to give the meat that characteristic 'red' edge, Renee used powdered food coloring.  I only had the liquid kind, but the marinade is really dark and even after using 5 drops of coloring it didn't really change, so I just gave up.  The raw meat, even after marinating overnight, didn't actually look red.  It kind of does after cooking, as you can see in the photos, but I don't know if that's really from the food coloring or just from the soy-sauce based marinade cooking into that color.  I'm personally doubtful it was the result of the food coloring.  I would think if the coloring were going to stain the meat red, it would have done so on the raw meat as well, but the raw meat showed no redness at all.  So if the red color is important to you, you might want to try using powdered food coloring as Renee did.  Personally I'm not convinced that adding the coloring at the marinade stage is the way to go... I'm going to have to do some more experimentation.



Now, as to how it tasted.  It was incredibly, wonderfully tender.  It wasn't like the kind of cha-siew you get at Chinese BBQ places; it did taste more soy sauce-y than sweet (both my cousin and I came to that same conclusion).  And while I am going to try this a few more times in order to try and get to a cha-siew that more closely resembles something you'd get at a restaurant (like Sam Woo) -- it probably involves actually buying maltose -- I have to say that this was quite delicious in its own right.  And so easy!  A simple marinade, wait overnight, then roast for about 40 minutes the next day.  The only challenge is not gobbling it all up in one sitting.

Cha-Siew (Chinese BBQ Roasted Pork) (recipe adapted from Shiokadelicious, in Digital Dish)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs pork (leg or shoulder meat preferred)
• 5 tbsp light soy sauce
• 5 tbsp maltose (or honey or corn syrup)
• 4 tbsp white sugar
• 4 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
• 4 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 2-inch piece of ginger, sliced into 4 pieces and smashed
• red food coloring (optional)

Method

1. Wash the pork and remove skin and really large chunks of fat.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine all the marinade ingredients except for the food coloring.  Heat this only until the sugar (and maltose, if using) dissolves.  If it gets too hot, cool it to room temperature.  Add food coloring, if using.
3. Put the pork in a container that fits it snugly (I just used the plastic bag that it came in from the butcher's), then pour the marinade on top.  Let this marinate for at least 4 hours or overnight.  Try to ensure that all the surface areas get some marinade.
4. Remove the pork from the fridge about 40 minutes before cooking, to allow it to return to room temperature.
5. Preheat the oven to 410°F.
6. Line a roasting pan with foil (for easy clean up).  Place a wire rack on top of the foil.  Lay the pork on the rack.  Roast in the oven for 15 minutes.
7. Pour the marinade into a medium saucepan, remove the chunks of garlic and ginger, and heat to boiling, then keep simmering at a low heat to reduce the sauce.  It's been sitting with raw pork so you want to make sure to kill all the microbes.  Dirty foam will float to the top; skim this off and discard.
8. After roasting for 15 minutes, baste the pork with the marinade and turn it over.  Reduce the heat to 360°F and roast for another 15 minutes.  (If you chose to use tenderloin despite my dire warning not to, it might be done now.)
9. Baste the pork without turning and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.  This next part is optional.  What I did is, in the last 4 minutes, I put the pork under the broiler, 2 minutes for each side, basting each time.  That gave it a nice, pretty charred look that's characteristic of cha-siew.
10. Remove the pork from the oven.  By now the foil will be covered with raised black bits and you'll be very glad you used it.  Baste both sides of the meat again with the reduced sauce, and let it sit on the wire rack for 10 minutes undisturbed before slicing.  Serve with the sauce.

Shanghai-Style Drunken Chicken

When I was a little girl, my maternal grandmother made this dish frequently.  She was quite known for it.  As she grew older, cooking became more difficult, and she hadn't made drunken chicken in years by the time she passed away.  I was too young to ask her how she did it when she was making it, and I wasn't interested in cooking until after she was gone.  Huge failure on my part.  It's just one of the things I miss about her.



The good news is that I remember what it's supposed to taste like.  The other day I had a sudden craving for it, and this is one of those dishes that may be a little obscure for a restaurant to have, and even if they have it, it doesn't quite taste the same.

The most important thing, other than the Shaoxing wine that flavors the meat, is the texture of the chicken.  In Cantonese, my mom would say that it should be "wat" -- a direct translation is "slick"; basically, the meat should be extremely tender and moist.

I prefer dark meat (as did the writer of the article I read where I got the recipe), but traditionally this is made with a whole chicken.  It's supposed to be served cold, and when sitting in the fridge, a nice wine-flavored aspic will develop.  This is normal and desired.  It's yummy!

For true Shanghai-style drunken chicken, the chicken pieces should be bone in.  The challenge, then, is in chopping the chicken after it's cooked into even, bite-sized pieces.  You need a heavy-duty cleaver, like the kind the butchers use at Chinese BBQ restaurants to chop roasted duck into those delectable slices.  And even then it's not easy -- I still need a lot of practice, as my chicken looked practically hacked to pieces!  Remember the scene in Titanic where Rose is attempting to save Jack by breaking his handcuffs with an axe?  And he tells her to try a couple of practice swings, but her second swing lands nowhere near the first?  That's how it was with me and chopping this chicken.  I may not have been decisive enough, or perhaps the cleaver I purchased wasn't strong enough, but be warned, this is definitely not as easy as those butchers make it look!  Do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- use a regular knife or chef's knife to do this, you'll only ruin your blade, and if you have nice knives that I do, that would be a terrible loss.

There are two methods of cooking the chicken -- poaching and steaming.  I had originally intended to steam the chicken, but I don't have a great steaming solution, especially not for that much chicken, and I was short on time.  So instead I went with the poaching method, which is apparently more traditional anyway.  I think I used a bit too much water, because my chicken didn't develop the desired aspic. :(  I'll try steaming next time and see if that gets me better results.

Finally, a quick tip on the green onions.  I used my mother's trick with these and it worked perfectly for this recipe, since the onions aren't intended to be eaten, just to add flavor.  It saved some time and clean up afterward.  Take the length of white part, place the tip of your knife almost at the very end of the onion farthest away from you, and slice it lengthwise down the middle all the way through.  It should still be held together at the very tip.  Turn it 90° and perform the same action.  The length of onion should now be opened up like a flower.  Toss the whole thing in the pot and repeat with the others.  When done cooking, fish them out easily.

Shanghai-Style Drunken Chicken (recipe adapted from Rasa Malaysia)

Ingredients

• 3 lbs chicken, whole or in pieces
• 2 tbsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground white pepper
• 1-inch piece of ginger, thinly sliced
• 4-6 green onions, white parts only, sliced lengthwise
• 1 1/2 cups Shaoxing rice wine
• 2 tsp sugar
• ice cubes and water

Method

Mix the salt with the two peppers. Rub the chicken all over with the salt and pepper and let it sit for an hour.

Poaching

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a Dutch oven or large pot, then add the green onions and ginger. Add the chicken, make sure there is enough water to cover the chicken, and return to a boil. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. If you’re using a whole chicken, during the simmer time, lift the chicken out of the water and make sure the stock in the cavity empties back into the pot. Do that 3 times for a whole chicken. For chicken pieces, gently stir the pot once or redistribute the pieces so they cook evenly. After 10 minutes, cover, turn off the heat, and allow the chicken to poach undisturbed until the water cools almost to room temperature.

Steaming

Bring water to a boil in the steamer. Place the chicken in an even layer, scatter the green onions and ginger all over, and steam over medium heat for 30-40 minutes or until the internal temperature near the bone reaches 170°F. If the chicken pieces are larger, they will take longer to steam. If any of the pieces are touching, make sure to redistribute them in the middle of cooking so they cook evenly.

Mix the ice cubes and water and shock the chicken in ice cold water for 2 minutes. If you poached the chicken, shock it after the chicken has cooled to room temperature. If you steamed the chicken, shock it immediately after steaming.

After cooking, chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces, or simply score the chicken meat with a knife. Put the chicken pieces into a large container. Mix 3/4 cup to 1 cup of the chicken stock (the liquid you poached the chicken in or the liquid that comes out of the chicken after steaming) with the sugar and Shaoxing wine. Taste the marinade and add salt if needed.  Keep in mind that when eating cold food, our taste buds are numbed a bit so a bit of extra seasoning is beneficial.  Pour the liquid over the chicken pieces and let it sit in the fridge over night or longer before serving. Serve cold.

Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns

I love hot dogs. I wish I didn't, but I do. My favorite kind are the ones sold in an outdoor setting, whether it be a sporting event or a street cart vendor in D.C. or New York. The polish sausage at Costco is good too. Sanitation and health issues aside (after all, if you're eating a hot dog, you're eating it for the pleasure of eating it and nothing else), it's a wonderful treat. I like my hot dogs grilled, and prepared two ways: served in a fresh bun with regular yellow mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut and/or diced onion; or with chili and cheese. The first way is sour and mouth puckering, while the second way is hearty and rich. The one thing I will not eat on a hot dog is relish. I'm just not a relish girl.



One of my favorite snacks growing up was hot dog buns from Chinese bakeries. That might sound a little strange -- what's so good about a plain bun? Ah, but a "hot dog bun" in a Chinese bakery isn't just a long, cushiony hammock for a sausage, as you might buy in packs of 8 from a grocery store. No, these come with the hot dogs in them, neatly wrapped inside a soft, sweet bread. They're really handy as snacks or a quick meal on the go.



I recently read a couple of posts where people have made their own Chinese bakery-style hot dog buns, and being that it's now warmer and I love working with dough, I had to try it out for myself. I wasn't sure how my first results would turn out, so I lazily did not capture a lot of the in-process dough formation on camera, but next time I definitely will. I tried out two shapes, one that required a bit of braiding, and another in which you looped the dough around the hot dog. For the latter, I find that the shape comes out better when the loops aren't rolled super thin, so that they touch each other even before the rise (a tip for myself for next time). In this batch, I used some shredded cheese in the braided version -- next time I'll use more cheese, as you can barely tell it's there.



The recipe for this dough isn't quite as sweet as what I'm used to getting in Chinese bakeries, so I'll play with the amount of sugar next time. I don't like to adjust first-time recipes too much.

Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns (recipe adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 300g bread flour
• 1 package active dry yeast (about 7.4g)
• 10g sugar
• 6g salt
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten and divided
• 170g milk, at about 90°F (egg + milk should equal about 220g)
• 30g unsalted butter, softened
• 8 hot dogs
• sesame seeds

Method

1. In a stand mixer bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add in 1 of the lightly beaten eggs and the milk, stirring until it starts to come together. Attach the bowl to the stand mixer.
2. Using the dough hook attachment, knead on medium-low speed (#4 on my KitchenAid) for 5 minutes. Add the softened butter and knead another 3 minutes or until the butter has been completely and thoroughly absorbed into the dough. The dough should feel smooth, satiny, and not sticky. If it's sticky, add more flour in tablespoon increments until you reach the right texture. The dough should pass the windowpane test (you can stretch it out very thinly without it breaking). Knead until it does.
3. Spray a good size bowl with cooking spray. Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and form into a ball, pulling the sides down so that it becomes taut. Place the ball of dough in the greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise in a warm area for about 90 minutes, until about doubled in size.
4. Take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 8 equal pieces, about 72g each (deflating the dough is fine).
5. To form the braided rolls, roll out one of the pieces into a rectangle, with the longer side about the length of your hot dogs. Slash both sides of the rectangle into about 7 strips, without actually cutting through to the other side. Spread shredded cheese down the center if you wish, then place the hot dog on top. To seal, fold the strips down in an alternating pattern. (See detailed instructions here.)
   
   To form the poofy rolls, roll out one of the dough pieces between your hands until it's about 2 to 2 1/2 times the length of the hot dog. If you want the center to be bigger than the ends, make sure you roll your dough accordingly, so that the middle of your long piece of dough is bulkier than the ends. Wrap the length of dough around a hot dog; it should be enough to make 3 loops, with the tapered ends at the bottom of the hot dog. (See detailed instructions here.)
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the shaped buns on the paper, leaving enough room in between each for the dough to have a place to go while it's rising.
7. Cover the buns loosely with plastic wrap or a clean cloth (you don't want to ruin the rise by having to peel anything off them). Let the dough rise again for another 90 minutes or so, until it's about doubled in volume and look nicely plump.
8. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400°F.
9. When the buns have risen, gently brush egg wash (the remaining egg) generously onto each, making sure to get the sides as well, and sprinkle sesame seeds on top, if desired.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 5-8 minutes, until the buns are an attractive golden brown.

Red-Braised Beef

A traditional Chinese dish (one of my favorites) is "red"-cooked beef and tendon. I think the reason it's called "red" is due to the resulting color, which isn't really red as it is rich, shiny, and wonderful. I suppose you could say it has reddish tones.



The flavor is indescribably good. It's flavored with soy sauce, sugar (in the form of rock candy), rice wine, and star anise. That's it. And yet the transformation of the meat once it's been braised for hours is quite incredible.

Most commonly this dish is made with beef brisket, but my mom likes to make it with beef banana shank because it has less fat content. Once it's all been cooked, the beef is so tender and falling apart that the difference between the two is minimal, so I'm good with going with the healthier version.



Just as important as the beef is the tendon, a creamy white substance that connects muscle to bone. The only way to eat it is when it's been cooked for a long time, so that it becomes soft, melty, slightly sticky, and delicious. Both the beef and the tendon need to be pre-boiled, to get rid of some of the surface blood and impurities, and when you do this, they both become very hard and solid. Only hours of cooking will coax them into being as tender as they need to be.

The recipe I got from my mother is imprecise ... she's a wonderful cook, and as is the case with most wonderful cooks, does no actual measuring. Grrr. So I had the ingredients and the general method down, but actually making it turned out to be more challenging. I made this about 3 times (always too salty) before I finally perfected it this last time. The key is not to use too much soy sauce. It'll seem like it's not enough, just a small amount sitting at the bottom of the pot, with huge hunks of beef and tendon on top -- what chance does the soy sauce have of seasoning it all? Don't worry, it will.

Speaking of soy sauce, the absolute key to red braising is using dark soy sauce. If you don't, it won't get that deep, dark, 'red' color, which is what makes a red-braised dish so appealing. However, you also don't want to use only dark soy sauce, which contains molasses, as it hasn't got the same flavor as regular soy sauce. You want to use a mix of both. Dark soy sauce is available at Asian markets like 99 Ranch, but in this day and age your local Safeway may carry it also.

If you find that you have star anise but it's in bits and pieces, use a cheesecloth and some kitchen twine to make a pouch for it. It's important not to let a bunch of stray pieces of star anise get lost in the pot, because at some point you'll need to fish them out (if you leave them in for the entire duration of cooking, your dish will end up bitter -- at least according to my mom). As for the rock candy, it's traditional to use it (and very common in Chinese grocery stores, so if you're there for the star anise, might as well pick up a box), but ultimately it's really just sugar, so if you don't want to bother, substitute with plain sugar and I'm sure it'll be fine. Here's the rock candy that's popular in our household:



Finally, you can cook this in a pot on the stove (as my mother does), but that requires a little more attention as you don't want the sauce to burn. If you're more like me and want to use something you can turn on and pretty much not have to worry about, use a slow cooker.

Red-Braised Beef and Tendon

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb beef tendon
• 1.5 lb beef banana shank (whole)
• 1/4 cup dark soy sauce
• 1/4 cup regular soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tbsp rice wine (I like Shaoxing)
• 2-3 slices of ginger (about 2 inches in length)
• 1 medium-sized chunk of rock candy or 1 scant tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 whole star anise (phonetically called "bak gok" in Cantonese)

Method:

1. Boil a large pot of water. Add tendon and shank and boil for a few minutes, to let the blood and other impurities out -- there will be foamy gunk. Remove tendon and shank from water and put them into a clean slow cooker or pot, arranging the pieces so that you get maximum surface area.
2. Pour the soy sauces directly over the meat, doing your best to splash a bit on every surface of the meat and tendon. Tuck the ginger in between the pieces of beef. Add the star anise, making sure that it's in the soy sauce (same thing if you're using a pouch). Add the water and rice wine. It will seem like there's very little liquid in the pot; resist the temptation to add more.
3. Set your slow cooker to 'high' (or simmer this on the stove using low heat) and cook for a few hours. Periodically, about once an hour, check on it and turn the pieces, as well as skim off any fatty oil that accumulates on the surface.
4. After about 3 hours, remove the star anise and add the chunk of rock candy. Cook for another 2-3 hours, again turning the pieces every so often and skimming off fat.
5. After 5-6 hours, the beef will be soft enough to cut. Remove the meat and the tendon from the pot and cut into smaller pieces (the meat may be so tender at this point that you can just use tongs to pull it apart). Add the meat back into the sauce, stir everything to coat, and cook an additional 30 minutes to an hour.
6. Serve with rice and some veggies (like garlic stir-fried spinach)!

Malay Satay Hut

One of my favorite Asian restaurants in the Puget Sound area is Malay Satay Hut. The food is always fresh, good, and high quality. The prices are decent. The service is definitely lacking -- the waitstaff there seem perpetually sullen. So go with an interesting companion or immerse yourself in a good book, and that part won't bother you as much. There are apparently two locations, but I've only been to the one in Redmond. I hear that they're both about the same in all those qualities. Best time to go is during lunch, when they offer a wide selection of their menu at slightly lower prices, and everything comes with a small bowl of soup as well.


The best appetizer on the menu, in my humble opinion, is the roti canai. It's a fried bread similar in texture to a scallion pancake, slighty crunchy and chewy at the same time. Dipped in the small bowl of potato curry that it comes with, and it's a little bit of heaven.


The soup of the day is usually a clear, flavorful broth with a few bits of veg.


Their spicy prawn noodle soup is very good, and not very spicy at all, despite how red it looks. A friend from Singapore ordered this particular bowl with half rice noodes and half thick egg noodles -- her favorite way of eating noodle soups.


My favorite entree is the curry beef brisket. It comes with delicious melting tendon. I've never had this underdone at Malay Satay Hut. Some places don't cook brisket for long enough, and there's nothing worse than hard, stringy brisket. It should be tender and practically melt in your mouth. I've never been disappointed. There's also a sister item to this one on the menu -- curry beef brisket noodles. Sometimes I'll indulge in that, if I want a really rich meal. The curry soup is extremely flavorful (and probably immensely fattening).


Another shot of the curry, with mostly potatoes peeking out. It's not a large portion, but it's enough to fill you, particularly after the soup and appetizer, if you order one.


Curries also come with a 'bowl' of rice.


The best thing to do, of course, is to mix the two. There's nothing better than spooning hot, fragrant, slightly spicy curry onto rice and eating them together. Simply delicious!

Friday Dinner: Slow Cooker Congee

One of my all-time favorite comfort foods is jook, which is a Cantonese rice porridge. It's also known as "congee." It came about because the Chinese hate waste, and families would use leftover rice (including the kernels that stuck to the rice cooker and couldn't be easily scooped out) by soaking it in water overnight. This rice would then be used to make congee.



I've tried several times to make it at home, with results that were satisfactory, but not exactly right. My goal was always to get it to be the consistency of restaurant congee, which is a perfect in-between mix of thick soup like chowder and thin soup like broth. While the congee I made at home was definitely edible and even good, it wasn't that perfect consistency.

Every recipe I found online for congee involved cooking it on the stovetop, for an hour or so. Using this method never yielded results I wanted -- the rice didn't break down enough, and the congee was always too thick. Plus cooking it on the stovetop requires a watchful eye, with constant stirring to make sure the rice doesn't stick and burn (mine always burned a bit). It was obvious to me that I'd need a way to break down the rice further, but that required more time, and more time meant more liquid, and of course, more time meant more time taken up watching it.

That's when it occurred to me that using a slow cooker would be the perfect method of making congee, if I could get the right ratio of ingredients. A slow cooker would enable me to cook the congee for a long time without fear of it burning. Yet searching online for a slow cooker recipe for congee proved difficult. I read about people asking for such a recipe, I read posts alluding to such recipes, but never actually found a recipe.

Therefore for this week's Friday dinner, I had to compose a recipe, which still needs some perfecting, but was considered a success for both me and Trix. (Trix and I had congee in New York, which was the first time she'd ever had it, and enjoyed it greatly.) The slow cooker did its job well, breaking down the rice without us needing to watch it constantly. It did take some time though, so this isn't one of those recipes you can throw together without any forethought (though it is convenient in the sense that you can toss everything together and not spend a lot of time in the kitchen, making it the perfect winter food). If you make your own broth that will take more time also, of course, but using canned broth will also work.

Congee is very personal -- some like it thick, some like it thin, and some like it somewhere in between. My preference is somewhere in between, where the rice and its starch have broken down enough to thicken the broth or water, but not so much that all the liquid's been soaked in and it turns into something like thick oatmeal. The ingredients you use are also very much to preference, though traditional congee tends to be "meat" oriented -- beef, fish, pork and preserved egg -- nothing that lets out too much liquid on its own. You can also have plain congee. Trix and I found out that cooking it is also very personal, dependent on your own slow cooker, so the recipe is just a guideline. If you decide to make yours on a stovetop, be sure to use extra liquid, as more evaporation takes place. If you're using leftover cooked rice, use less liquid. I don't have an exact proportion, as I haven't tried that method yet. If you're making plain congee, try adding half a pig's foot, which will give the broth some extra dimension.

For this particular attempt, I used duck broth, as I had leftover duck from making Duck L'Pomegranate. The duck broth ended up coloring the congee brown, though traditional congee is white, made with water and/or chicken broth. This made it no less delicious, however. I also used shredded duck meat, shiitake mushrooms, and preserved eggs.

My next experiment with congee will definitely involve making plain congee, with mostly or all water. As much as I love making congee with broth, it not only makes it a little more work, it's also a cheat -- anything tastes good made with a good, deep broth! If I can get plain congee to taste good, then I'll really know I have the right recipe.



Slow Cooker Congee

Ingredients

• 8 cups of broth (preferably duck, chicken, or pork), water, or a mix
• 3/4 cup medium- or short-grain white rice, uncooked, washed twice
• 1 cup shredded duck or pork, cooked
• 2 century eggs, diced
• 4-6 shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted, thinly sliced
• 2 thin slices of ginger
• salt to taste- white pepper to taste

Optional Post-Cooking Ingredients

• green onion, thinly sliced, for garnish
• peanuts, for garnish
• dash of sesame oil

Method

1. Wash the rice. Measure it out to a small container and fill it will water. Swish it around and rub it between your hands. The water will be cloudy. Drain the dirty water and repeat.
2. In a slow cooker, put the rice, broth, and ginger. Cook on low for 12-16 hours. If you're pressed for time, you can put the slow cooker on high for less time.
3. Half an hour before serving, add the shredded meat and eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the ginger slices when the cooking is done.
4. To serve, ladle congee into a bowl. Top with a scatter of peanuts, green onion, and dash of sesame oil, if using.

Crab and Lobster FEAST!

This post is not for the faint of heart. If you have a weak stomach, or are squeamish about touching live things, or I suppose more to the point, killing them to eat, turn away now. There is graphic crabicide ahead. Don't say you weren't warned...



So after my birthday feast a couple of weeks ago, I've been wanting to eat crab again. This was helped by the fact that my uncle asked me for a scallion and ginger crab recipe, because he wanted to make it. I've made the dish once before, but it was years ago and I remembered the recipe being long and unnecessarily complicated. I did another search and there were many simpler recipes available that sounded pretty good. I sent him one that looked promising, and he reported back (with pictures) that it was indeed good. Seeing those pictures made me want crab even more -- and to make it scallion and ginger style!

If you've ever been to a Chinese seafood restaurant, chances are you've ordered -- or have seen others order -- scallion and ginger crab. It's a very common, traditional dish. And it always begins with a live crab. No self-respecting Chinese restaurant would dare serve this dish made from a crab that hadn't just been plucked, splashing and limbs flailing, from its tank right in the restaurant. The restaurant's patrons are far too discerning about their seafood. Flesh from live seafood is firmer and sweeter than its already-dead counterparts, which has been decomposing for who knows how long. Cooking seafood at home holds to the same principles. It's also usually less expensive than getting seafood at a restaurant -- though of course at home you're also responsible for killing and cooking it.

Your average American consumer is so squeamish about live food (or in some cases, even bones in meat, to remind them that it had once been part of an animal -- is this why Americans typically also prefer breast meat, which is usually sold boneless?), that the lower-quality seafood is an okay trade off for them. Indeed, if you can't tell the difference by taste or texture, then saving yourself the trouble of slaughtering your own seafood is probably the way to go. And I'm not judging. Even if it tasted super fabulous, I'm not sure I could slaughter a chicken -- but then, I've never been tested.

In any case, I required a live crab if I were to make this dish. Western supermarkets sell their seafood at notoriously high prices, but even if I were willing to pay those prices, the chances of finding a Safeway or Albertsons -- or any other Western supermarket -- with live crab would be very slim. The only place assured of carrying live seafood is that which caters to live seafood connoisseurs: a Chinese supermarket. Which, near me, means 99 Ranch. The day I went the Dungeness crab had gone up in price from $3.99 to $4.99 from just a couple weeks ago. Originally I had planned to make two crabs, as the recipe called for, but at that price I was only willing to buy one. I did see, however, that live Maine lobsters were on sale for $7.99, which is just about as low as I've ever seen. So I also got a 2-lb lobster. For both of these items I paid just a fraction of what I probably would have had to pay for one of them at a seafood restaurant.



I knew what I was going to do with the crab, but what about the lobster? I decided to go the easy route and prepare it the way I prefer my lobster -- boiled in salt water and served with drawn butter. There's no better way to eat it. Plus setting a salted pot of water to boil and tossing the lobster in could not be simpler.





Then came the crab (and the part I warned you about at the beginning of this post). The easy method of cooking crab is also to throw it in a pot of boiling water, but that wouldn't be possible with the way I wanted to go it. I needed to section it raw. My uncle had tried to suffocate his in a plastic bag in a fridge for 4 hours, to no avail. He finally had to take a knife to it, slasher style. I'd have to do it the way my mom does it -- which is no less horrible but hopefully allows the crab to suffer less. Her method involves taking off its shell (head) while it's still alive. With a swift and steady hand, there's very little time for the crab to suffer (and I believe this is how predators in the ocean eat crab -- possibly they aren't even that nice and just start munching on the limbs while the poor thing is still alive).

First, fortify yourself with your liquid of choice. I chose a salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks. Yours may involve alcohol of some kind.



Next, I usually put a chopstick into each of the crab's claws so that it has something to grab onto that's not me.

When you start pulling on its head, it naturally starts to get distressed, so you need to do this as quickly as possible, or you'll just traumatize you both. The crab should be lying right-side up, on its belly, with its back to you. I'm left handed, so what I do is I hold down its legs/body on the left side with my left hand, and pull on the shell with my right hand. The crab is usually narrower here so you should be able to get a decent hold. Get a grip that you're comfortable with. Some shells come off quite easily; others are stubborn and require some force. Don't worry about cracking the shell, I've never had this happen. As long as you keep up the pressure, the shell will lift eventually.

At this point, you might want to walk away for a few moments, take a breather, get your racing heart under control. It also allows for any last reflexes the dead crab's limbs may have to expend themselves, saving you the sensation that it's still moving while you're sectioning it. Sometimes you may have to wait quite awhile -- I've done this several times so it doesn't bother me as much anymore.

However long you wait (preferably not more than a few minutes, as you don't want the flesh to decompose -- allowing it to do so would be to negate the whole point of having gotten it live in the first place), you'll have to clean and section it eventually. You can do this with a strong butcher's knife, or as I prefer, simply pull it apart with your hands. Before sectioning I always clean the crab, pulling the little "tab" at the bottom and removing that, dumping out any extra water, pulling off the gills and other iffy bits, etc. I leave the "crab butter," or more the more anatomically correct term "gonads" in, because I love it. That's the orangey-yellow stuff. It's considered a delicacy in many countries, but if you don't like it, I've read that you can clean a crab simply by rinsing it under cold water. I think it's delicious.

When you're ready to section the crab, grab its legs on both sides and put your thumbs right down the middle of its body and apply pressure. It should break in half cleanly. You can then chop or pull until each leg is its own section, which may or may not be attached to the body. I just do what the crab allows me to do and go with its natural breaks.

Now that you've got your crab ready, the rest of it is easy. Chop up some ginger, garlic and scallions (a lot of it!), mix some chicken broth with soy sauce, sugar and sherry, and prepare a slurry of water and cornstarch.

Heat up some oil, and when it's ready, toss in the scallions, ginger, and garlic.



Stir fry that for a bit, then add in the chicken broth, soy sauce, sugar and sherry.



Next, add in the sectioned crab.



It doesn't take long to cook, so pretty soon your house will be filled with the fragrant scent of ginger, and green onions, and crab. Eating it is even better -- makes all the work you did totally worth it. Dip pieces of crab meat into the sauce, and eat the scallions whole, as they've become so tender and infused with the flavor of the stir fry that they're almost the best part.



Ginger and Scallion Crab

Ingredients:

• 1 live crab, roughly 2 pounds
• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 bunch of scallions (green onions), sliced -- 1-inch strips for the leafy part, then finely chop the stem (see photo above)
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sherry
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• dash sesame oil (optional)
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 3 tbsp water

Method:

1. Clean and section crab as described above. If you really can't do it, I think 99 Ranch or whichever supermarket you get the crab from is probably willing to kill/section it for you. If you opt for this, make sure you cook the crab as soon as you get home.
2. Heat cooking oil in a wok. When it's ready, add the ginger, garlic and scallions, and stir-fry for about 20 seconds.
3. Measure out the chicken stock. Mix in the soy sauce, sherry, sugar and sesame oil (if using) and pour the mixture into the wok. Bring it to a boil.
4. Add in the sectioned crab. Stir fry to coat the pieces. Cover the wok and lower the heat, then cook until the crab shells turn red, about 5-10 minutes.
5. Create a slurry with the water and cornstarch, then stir it into the crab.
6. Bring everything back to a boil, stir frying a bit to make sure the heat is being evenly distributed and each crab piece is being coated with sauce. Serve while hot with a crab cracker and an empty bowl for the shells.

Don't throw away the discarded shells! Save those up and dump them into a stock pot. Fill the pot with water and leave it to boil, and you'll have delicious, rich shellfish stock, ready to be used in another recipe. I used part of mine for a lazy seafood bisque. Because how else could you improve upon a stock made with lobster and crab shells than to add a bunch of cream?



Quick recipe: Throw all your discarded shells into a large stockpot. Fill it with water, about an inch over the shells. Throw in 2 ribs of celery, cut into large chunks. Also toss in a few slices of ginger. Heat until it boils, then turn down heat and let it simmer for two hours. At the end of those two hours, pour in about half a cup of white wine. Let it simmer for another half hour. Line a strainer with cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl or another soup pot. Carefully pour or ladle the soup into the strainer, discarding all the solids. You may or may not want to salt the stock. If you're making a bisque, reserve 2 cups of the shellfish stock. Heat it until it's simmering, then add a tablespoon of tomato paste. Mix until it's well blended into the stock. Pour in two tablespoons of white wine. Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream to the soup and heat until it's hot enough to serve -- you want to avoid boiling it. This is a very lazy way to make bisque, which is why it suits me. When I want something a little more authentic that involves butter and shallots and a blender, this is a good recipe. Usually I don't have any leftover meat to use in the soup, but it's just as well since the shellfish stock is usually quite rich and strong -- it's amazing how much flavor those shells still have.

For dessert, why not try a pear and hazelnut frangipane tart? This is the one I finally made on my own, and I think it came out fairly well for a first-time attempt. Tasted just as I remembered. Just need to work on the aesthetics! I used home-rendered lard in place of the vegetable shortening the recipe calls for. Healthier and even more delicious!

Noodle Soup

After making dinner last night, I had a large pot of leftover chicken broth. While there are plenty of recipes that use chicken broth, I was in the mood to have it straight up -- after all, there are few things better in life than a hot bowl of pure chicken essence.

While I could have easily enjoyed the soup plain, with no enhancement, I was also realistic. While delicious, a bowl of broth will only fill me for so long. So I turned to a staple in Chinese households: noodle soup.



There are thousands variations to this hot, filling, comforting meal, and this is just my take on it this particular day. But there are two basics that provide the foundation and never change: soup and noodles. What else you put in can and probably will change, depending on what you have on hand. And that's why I love making noodle soup so much: as long as you have a base for soup (even water + soy sauce will do, if you're really pressed), you have noodle soup. Everything else is an improv, and depending on the maker can be teeming with meat and vegetables, or an austere experience, with few if any additions.



Since not everyone is fortunate enough to grow up with a mother who made noodle soup fairly consistently on a weekly basis when they were young (as I did), it might not be second nature to quickly and efficiently whip up this delicious meal. But once you have the right equipment and ingredients on hand -- and it doesn't take much -- I guarantee any feelings of hesitation or intimidation will go away, and you'll make it all the time.

Here are some of the basics.

1) You need a soup base. This can be leftover homemade stock, canned/boxed stock, a water-based sauce mixed with water, a quick broth made from boiling shrimp shells, or even, as mentioned before, water mixed with some soy sauce. Heck, you could even rip open a package of ramen and use the soup base from that. Use your imagination; it doesn't take a lot to create a usable stock for a bowl of noodles. Of course, the higher quality the soup base, the better your soup noodles will taste. :-)

2) You need noodles. I like soft noodles with medium thinness, somewhere between spaghetti and capellini. But you need the Asian kind, not Italian pasta, in order to make proper noodle soup. You wouldn't make pasta with Asian noodles, and the reverse is true as well. If you go to an Asian supermarket (such as 99 Ranch), the variety of noodles -- both dry and fresh -- can be overwhelming (rice, egg, flour, round, flat, thick, thin, everywhere in between). You can try each one, of course, to find your favorite, but as a quick recommendation for those who don't want to bother, this is the one I'm currently using and like it quite a lot:


Asian Taste Shandong Ramen (Thin), 5lb box

I like the size and consistency, as well as the simplicity of the ingredients: wheat flour, water, salt.



Sometimes I like much thinner noodles to have in broth, in which case I turn to these Japanese dried noodles, which has the same simple ingredients as the one above:


Japanfood Tomoshiraga Somen, 3lb box.

3) You may want to add additional ingredients to the noodle soup to liven it up a bit. The possibilities here are endless, but the key is that you want ingredients that cook fast: leafy vegetables, shrimp, sliced fish, mushrooms, fish balls, tofu, thinly sliced meat, cooked leftovers from previous meals (you'll have to use your judgment), or even crack a whole raw egg in (an excellent standby, as nearly everyone has eggs in the fridge).

The sky is the limit when it comes to personalizing your own bowl of noodles -- it will be delicious regardless of how much or how little you add to it. :-)

4) You may want to have additional condiments on the side, such as spicy chili sauce, seasoned tofu, pickled turnips, century eggs, again the possibilities here are endless. Roam the aisles of an Asian supermarket and you'll find a large selection to choose from. Again just to help you narrow things down if you're making this for the first time, here are my two staple condiments for noodle soup:



Some kind of chili sauce is essential to me, and I absolutely LOVE this one; I could eat it all on its own. Though I can and do eat very spicy foods, this particular chili sauce is fairly mild -- but it has a wonderful flavor. The pickled chili radish is also a favorite of mine, though again very mild.


Left: Kimlan Chili Radish; Right: Yonk Sing Chili XO Sauce

There's really not much to putting it all together.

First, boil a large pot of water. When the water's boiling, throw in some dried noodles. You can put just enough in for however many servings you're making, or enough for several extra servings if you have a lot of broth to use up. Generally I like to make extra, for the energy-saving benefit (you're boiling a pot of water either way) and also for the time benefit. Subsequent bowls of noodle soup will take half the time or less than it took to make the initial bowl.



When the noodles are soft and cooked through (about 6 minutes, or as instructed), turn off the heat and pour everything into a colander. The hot water will drain away and you'll be left with a bunch of hot noodles. Rinse the noodles with cold water to stop the cooking (you don't want them mushy), using your hands or chopsticks to move the noodles around to make sure they all get hit with cold water. Let that drain for a bit, then transfer the noodles to a large bowl. At this point, if you're ready to make the noodle soup, you can just portion out what you'll need, or if you're planning to make the meal later, stick the noodles in the fridge.



Regardless of what kind of noodles you choose, you should do this "wash." This step, though it might seem extraneous, is actually very important. Boiling the noodles washes out extra starch and any impurities, and perhaps more importantly, also reconstitutes the noodles, which soak up a lot of liquid. In this case, they'll soak up the water. If you throw dried noodles in with your soup base, they'll use that liquid to reconstitute, and you'll be left with no broth. When I was on my own and making this for the first time, I skipped this step, and the resulting bowl of noodles wasn't nearly as good as the ones my mother and grandmothers served. The initial boil-wash solved that. Also, it lessens the prep time for making subsequent meals if you've made extra noodles, as later on all you're doing is warming up the noodles in the soup rather than cooking them.

In a pot with plenty of room, start heating up enough broth to supply however many bowls of noodles you're serving. At this point I usually add ingredients that might take a little more time to warm through but that don't need to be cooked quickly (like raw eggs), such as large pieces of tofu, cauliflower, sliced fish, shrimp, fish balls, thickly sliced meat, mushrooms, etc., so that they're warming up at the same time as the broth.

When the broth comes to a boil, add items such as leafy greens, thinly sliced meat, or crack a whole raw egg or two into the soup. In this case, I used cooked chicken (from making the broth), cooked carrot (ditto), sliced mushrooms, and a few fish balls, all of which I added to the broth as it was warming up. Once it was boiling, I added a handful of spinach. Once you've made this a few times, you'll get a sense for when to add your additional ingredients. The one thing you want to avoid is adding too much at the end, after you've already included the noodles, because the longer the noodles cook in the soup (remember, they're already cooked), the softer they'll get and the more they'll soak up the liquid, which might leave you with a bunch of fat, mushy noodles and no broth.



Lastly, add the cooked noodles to your soup base. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for a minute or two -- not much longer. Turn off the heat, portion out the noodles, ingredients, and soup, and you're done!

If you've made extra noodles, the next time you make this meal it will go even faster. Just start heating up the broth and any extra ingredients, and when it's boiling, take the cooked noodles out of the fridge and toss them in. Unless you've got some really complicated additions (but why would you? The beauty of this is how delicious yet fast it can be), it should take you 10 minutes tops to put a hot, steaming bowl of noodle soup on the table -- a meal that's filling, satisfying, and easy.



I should also note that adding ingredients and extra condiments to instant ramen noodles -- the kind you cook on the stovetop, not the kind you microwave -- is also a tried and true method for a fast and satisfying (though less healthy) meal. Ramen soup base is usually ideal for cracking in a raw egg once the soup is boiling -- you can then let it cook whole, or swish it around a bit and you've got an egg drop soup going.