Wontons

I certainly know how to take a thing and run with it! You should count yourself lucky that this blog is currently drowning in dumpling recipes, I have more than a few to share! Pot stickers drenched in chilli oil, chinkiang vinegar, garlic and scallions is always a favourite. But I have been restrained, until now, now I have made spicy, wonton dumpling, soupy goodness that just needs to be shared! A bonus is that it can be broken down into parts and reassembled as you see fit, don’t want soup, leave out the stock or cooking liquid and have the dumplings swimming in the seasoning oil, don’t want dumplings, cut the wrappers as noodles instead.

Wonton Dough (enough for approx 40 wrappers)

250 g flour
125 ml water
1 egg
1 tsp salt
Cornflour for dusting
Pasta machine

Mix the egg, salt and water together. Put the flour in a bowl and make a well, pour in the water mixture and combine to form a ball of dough. Wrap in cling-film and let it stand 10 minutes to hydrate.

Knead until smooth and elastic, should take about 10 minutes, don't skimp on this, it’s a pretty soft dough so is not too much work to knead. Wrap again and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Dust the dough with corn flour and divide into three.

Take one third and flatten out into a rectangle with your fingers, run though the widest setting of your pasta machine, run it through each setting a couple of times, dust it with corn flour when it becomes sticky, and keep a little tension on the dough sheet when feeding it through. Run it through the machine until you get to the penultimate setting, number 5 on my model. You can now either cut the dough into noodles or continue to make wrappers.

Take the sheet of dough and dust thoroughly with cornflour, square off the edges and measure the width, I usually end up with a 7–8cm wide sheet of dough. Measure and cut the dough into squares, I find one of those rolling pasta cutters better than a knife for this but either will do.

Stack and cover the dough while you repeat with the other two portions, make sure that each square has a good dusting of cornflour otherwise they will stick.

Filling

300g Meat (chicken or pork)
1 egg
1 tbsp dried shrimp (powdered)
1 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sichuan pepper (powdered)
1 tsp salt
1 large scallion (minced)
2 large garlic cloves (minced)
1 inch ginger (minced)

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend for about 30 seconds until a rough paste is formed, mix together and blend again if needed, transfer to a container and refrigerate for half an hour.

Folding the dumpling

Well, excuse the poorly drawn illustration, and I do suggest Googling “wonton folding” for clearer instructions. I usually choose this folding method because it’s easy and I can production line it.

Set up a tray dusted with cornflour. Lay your wrappers out on a bench dusted with cornflour, place a spoonful of filling on half a dozen wrappers. Brush the edges with a little water. Fold the wrapper in half, bringing the top edge to the bottom, press the edges to seal, fold the top half on to bottom half, then bring the top two corners together and pinch to seal. Repeat with the remaining wrappers.

Cooking the Dumpling

Get a pot of salted water on to the boil. When boiling add about 10 wontons at a time, give a gentle stir to stop sticking to each other and the pot, cook for 4 minutes. Scoop out and toss in some sesame oil to stop sticking and set aside. Repeat with the remaining wontons.

If you want to make wonton soup, once the wontons are cooked add in some bok choy and cook for one minute, scoop out. Use the cooking liquid to pour over the seasoning oil (see below), the cornflour dusting on the wontons will give a bit of body to the water and quite a bit of flavour comes out during the cooking process, it is not bland at all.

Seasoning oil/Soup base (2 serves)

1 tbsp sichuan chilli oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp chunkiang vinegar
1 tsp sichuan pepper oil
2 garlic cloves (minced)
1 inch ginger (minced)
1 scallion (minced)

Mix all together and allow to sit for 15 min or so.

Serving

Place half the seasoning oil in a bowl and place cooked wontons on top, either serve immediately, or add cooked bok choy and pour over hot stock or the wonton cooking liquid to make a soup.

Asian Burrito

A Frankenstein's monster of bits and pieces from all over, not at all authentic, but its own creation. Should these things be put together? Probably not, but the end result is magical, something fiery, hot, fulfilling, and perfect with something cooling and refreshing to wash it down.

There isn't much to making it, but presentation is everything, something is just not the same unless it’s wrapped up snugly in a layer of tinfoil and left to stand for a few minutes before being unwrapped, like a greedy child on Christmas morning, make it hot enough and it’ll be the gift that keeps on giving, the rest in its sheath allows the heat and moisture to permeate through the burrito, warming and softening the tortilla, the rice noodles soak up the excess oils from the chilli pork and everything equilibrates to a perfect eating temperature.


The only real cooking is the chilli pork, which I’m not sure how much instruction you need. Take a good wok, get it hot, add a dash of sesame oil and a tablespoon or two of peanut oil, stir fry the pork mince until cooked through, tip into a bowl. Get the wok back on the heat, add another splash of peanut oil, when nice and hot toss through some sliced ginger and crushed garlic, add the pork back, take care not to add any liquid that may of seeped out, cook until the mince is golden with some tasty crunchy bits. Add in some chilli crisp, that wonderful condiment that you get in jars from asian marts with the surely multi millionairess on the label, somehow disapproving of buying it and giving her more money, if you can’t find her chilli crisp, chilli in oil is good too, get the one with peanuts in it, three ingredient chilli sauce is a winner too, I think she can do no wrong when it comes to her combinations of oil and chilli and other bits and bobs. Back on track, add in a spoon, two, half a jar, two jars, whatever you think your palette can take. Cook through until the meat is coloured that wonderful golden red and the house carries that scent that if you sniff too hard you’ll be hacking up half a lung. Toss through some scallions, add the resting liquids and tip out into a bowl ready to assemble.


The rest is a cinch. Get a square of tinfoil bigger than your tortilla, lay the tortilla on the square, spread with gochujang, add a layer of rice noodles, I use that wonderful Pho brand with the elephant on it, soaked for 10 minutes in boiling water before draining and placing in a bowl with cling film over them, on the nest of rice noodles add the chilli pork, dot with as many Thai red chilli as you think you can handle, add the cabbage, scallions, and mung beans. Finally top with a scattering of the seaweed and fried shallots. Tuck the ends over and roll up, you don’t have to be too tight or careful just make the general idea of a burrito, place it seam side down on the tin foil, fold the foil ends over and then roll up tightly, take care not to use too much pressure though. Set aside in a warmish area.

What you’ll need for the above
Tin Foil, a must for authentic classy presentation.
Tortillas
Rice Noodles
Chilli pork: pork mince, chilli crisp, ginger, garlic, scallions
Gochujang
Korean seasoned seaweed, shredded
Red cabbage, shredded and tossed in fish sauce
Pickled Thai red chilli
Mung bean sprouts
Scallions
Fried Shallots

Hot braised pork and noodles

This is a hot dish, it’s meant to be, it looks like the fiery red pits from hell when cooked, but it’s a little deceiving, the spice hits you hard, climbs up your nose and slaps you round a bit, then the sweetness comes in, gives you a hug and lets you know everything is going to be OK, then it headbutts you and calls you its bitch, and in a daze you slurp down another noodle, scoop another spoonful of rich saucy soup into your mouth as it splashes and flicks burning dots of oily red pain into your eyeballs. But you don’t care, it’s all worth it.


Hot and spicy braised pork belly
This is a little to taste, not precise if any measurements, so trust you palette. The main ingredients are:
500g pork belly, cut into bite size pieces.
2 onions, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
2 tbsp Gochujang, heaped, add more if you like
2-4 tbsp soy, sweet kicap soya*
1 tbsp Korean chilli powder, heaped, more if you want
1 tsp five spice
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
6 large garlic cloves, minced
1 large thumb of ginger, minced
2 tbsp sesame oil
Salt
2 cups chicken stock**
2–3 tbsp rice vinegar

* add some sugar if you have regular soy
** more if cooking traditionally.

• This recipe is done in a pressure cooker, you could do this in a heavy based pan over a low heat simmering for a couple of hour until everything is tender.
• Heat the sesame oil in the cooker, add a large pinch of salt, toss in the pork and cook until browned.
• Add the Gochujang, dry spices, garlic and ginger, stir through a cook through a little.
• Stir through the pepper, onions and soy, make sure it’s all nicely coated.
• Pour in the stock, bring up to high pressure and cook for 60 minutes.
• Remove from the heat and taste, adjust the seasoning with salt and rice vinegar.

Serve with pulled noodles and some sprouts, wet wipes are handy too!


Hand pulled noodles
The recipe and method can be found covered in the Cheat Sheet and in more depth via couple of posts on this blog, Cumin lamb with hand pulled noodles is a good one.

The basic run down of the recipe is as follows:

• Form a ball of dough from 5 parts flour with 3 parts water, and 1% salt by weight.
• Cover and rest for 15 minutes.
• Knead by rolling in to a log and folding in half and repeating for 15 minutes.
• Wrap and rest for 60 minutes.
• Shape into a log and cut into 1cm slices, coat in oil and place on tray.
• Refrigerate and leave for 60 minutes.
• Pull out of the fridge 10 minutes before cooking.
• Stretch the noodles and cook in salted boiling water for a couple of minutes.

Chicken and Waffles

Savoury and sweet sometimes it's an odd combination to get your head around, no doubt it works and works well, especially sweet and salty, bacon and maple syrup, salty licorice candy, fruit paste and cheese, to name a few easily reconciled combinations. But there are some combinations that at first thought just kind of make your brain kind of go hurrrrr, not that they should, take fried chicken and waffles, perfect crunchy on the outside chicken with nutty crisp waffles doused in syrup, no harder than sweet and sour pork to understand right? Maybe it’s the obvious mash up of dessert and mains that I have the psychological barrier with, but I don’t feel the same about bacon, pancakes and syrup, but then maybe bacon transcends course definition altogether and just is. Anyway, enough rambling, here's my version of chicken and waffles, the starch instead of flour in the dredge keeps the chicken crisp and the masa adds a wonderful flavour. Pickle juice in the brine was a revelation, it really picks the chicken up.


Brine (baker's percentages)
100% Buttermilk
50% pickle brine*
4% salt
3% chilli powder
1% smoked paprika

* If you don't want to use pickle brine, just skip it, but keep the salt at 4%. We want the salt levels at about 3–5% by weight, and the above percentages are best guess to what the pickle brine is bringing to the party.


Dredge
250g potato starch
150g masa
1% salt (4g)


Fried Chicken
Chicken thighs are the best cut they are juicer and have more flavour. Use boneless thighs, if you feel confident and want to save a few bucks, buy bone-in a do the work yourself (the difference is usually $5/kg here in NZ).

The night before:
Mix the brine together and add the chicken thighs, refrigerate for at least few hours or overnight.

Ready to cook:

• Mix the dredge together in a bowl, pass it through a sieve.
• Remove the chicken from the fridge.
• Get a fryer on, or a heavy base pot on the stove over a medium-high heat with a few inches of rice bran oil (or other frying oil), you want to get the oil to 190ºC before cooking.

Cooking:

• Get a rack ready for the cooked chicken.
• Pull a couple of thighs out of the brine and shake off any excess liquid.
• Toss them in the dredge making sure they're coated all over.
• Shake off any excess dredge and carefully place the chicken in the hot oil, make sure to lay it away from you so it won't splash back at you. My cast iron pot isn't huge so I only do 2 at a time.
• Cook for 3–4 minutes, they should be cooked through and be golden brown, a good indicator is when the the bubbling starts to slow down.
• Move the cooked chicken to the rack and leave to rest, they’ll stay nice and crispy thanks to the potato starch (DO NOT "drain" on paper towels, they are the enemy of all crispy fried foods).

Serving:
Well it’s really up to you, fill up a bowl of chicken goodness with lashings of hot sauce, share or don't. But I do suggest you try the combo of chicken and waffles at least once, below are the steps for my version, a whole wheat waffle and crispy fried chicken doused in zesty spicy syrup, topped off with some fresh pickled daikon to cut through the richness and a bottle of Tapatío hot sauce on the side to give a little extra chilli kick.

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Pickled Daikon
Daikon
1 part mirin
1 part cider vinegar
salt

Mix together the mirin and vinegar, season with the salt, the daikon is a little bitter so a little extra salt won't hurt. Cut a 6 inch length of daikon off and peel, use a mandoline or speed peeler to cut thin ribbons, stacking them as you go. Cut lengthwise into fine strands. Toss the daikon in the vinegar mix, cover and let sit for about an hour. When ready to serve, remove the daikon from the liquid and squeeze out any excess liquid.


Zesty spicy maple syrup
100 ml Maple syrup
1 Lime, juice and zest
Chilli flakes
Salt

Add the lime juice and zest along with the syrup to a pot and place on a medium-low heat. Add chilli flakes to taste. Allow to simmer and infuse for a few minutes. Taste and add salt accordingly, a small pinch, grains, should do, just enough to take the super sweet edge off.


Waffle mix
150g Whole Wheat flour (~1 cup)
250ml buttermilk
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tbsp rice bran oil
1 egg
1.5 g salt

• Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and make a well. Whisk the wet ingredients together and pour into the bowl. Fold together, don’t over mix.
• Lightly grease the waffle iron and cook as per your cooker. Transfer to a rack in a warm oven (~50ºC), if preparing well in advance transfer to a rack to cool, and then reheat in a warm oven later.

Courgette and mint salad

One thing we are never short of in the garden is mint, we have two plants, a standard mint and a basil mint, and they just grow grow grow, you can cut them back, abuse and misuse them but they just keep growing and if kept unchecked I'm sure would take over the garden. This salad will take good advantage of a glut of mint, and add a good zing to fresh crisp courgettes, we got ours in the garden a bit late, but buds are coming so hopefully we’ll get a late crop. The salad is bright and zingy that really highlights fresh courgettes and is perfect on a hot summer's day.

4 decent sized courgettes
Handful of mint leaves and tips
1 Lemon
Olive oil
Chilli flakes
1 Garlic clove
Flaky Sea salt (or kosher)

• Get a griddle pan on a high heat.
• Slice the courgettes as thin as you can, or use a mandolin (I used the second thinnest setting).
• Griddle the slices on one side until charred.
• Arranged cooked slices on a board in a single layer, don’t stack them or they will steam.
• As they are cooling sprinkled with salt.
• (Optional) Slice the lemon in half and griddle until caramelised.
• In a large bowl squeeze in the juice from the lemon and add olive oil, I like a 2 parts oil to 1 part juice but do it to your own taste.
• Finely mash or grate the clove of garlic into the bowl, and add chilli flakes to taste.
• Take the larger mint leaves and thinly slice and add to the bowl.
• Toss the courgettes through the dressing, use your hands, taste and adjust the seasoning.
• Let it rest 10 minutes or so before plating up.
• Arrange on a plate and sprinkle over the mint tips.

Hot thighs

Well I had planned to actually deep fry the chicken, you know go the whole hog, brine, dredge, egg wash, fry and get greasy spicy chilli oil everywhere. However the day kind of got away from me and quite frankly I had lost all motivation to get a pot full of oil and control temperatures, and then clean up the mess, so I looked to my previous tried and trusted methods of oven “fried” wings, spiced it up and adapted it for some juicy thighs. There aren’t really any proper quantities below, they are all to taste, it’s more the method of getting pieces of chicken with a crunchy exterior and a steamy moist interior without having to resort to deep frying. The method is a little more time consuming than chucking a bunch of chicken in a hot oven and cooking, but not by much.

• In a large bowl mix together flour, salt and cayenne pepper, as much or as little as you want, go a little heavy on the salt as it will be the only seasoning the chicken will get.
• Toss the chicken pieces through the flour mix, make sure to pat the mix into all the crevices. Place on a sheet pan with a rack and refrigerate uncovered for an hour.
• Get two bowls out, in one get an egg wash ready, 50/50 mix of egg and water, in the other mix together 1 part flour and 1 part semolina, spice with cayenne and chilli flakes.
• Dip the chicken in the egg wash and then dredge in the flour mix, return to the rack. Refrigerate uncovered for at least an hour, you could do this the day before.
• Preheat the oven to 220ºC, remove the chicken from the fridge 10–15 minutes before cooking, place the tray in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. The short cooking time is to “set” the coating in place before meddling. Reduce the heat to 200ºC.
• Remove and brush the top of the chicken with chilli oil (store bought or canola blitzed with dry hot chilli flakes), return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes.
• Remove from the oven, turn the chicken over and brush the exposed side, return to the oven for another 20 minutes.
• Last time, remove the chicken, flip it, don’t bother brushing it, you shouldn’t need to, cook for a final 10 minutes.
• Transfer the cooked chicken to a cooling rack to rest for a 10 minutes, lace with hot sauce and devour with a cooling slaw and pickles, always pickles.

Extra hot chicken

For a long time I had avoided deep fried foods, much for the same unguided reason I avoided the fat in food, I was brainwashed to believe fat in means fat on, not the reality that it’s just a source of calories no different from the other calories going in, maybe a bit more dense in calories and possibly not as nutritional. I also had the impression that fried food equal greasy fatty food, this maybe true for things such as french fries which can be a whopping 50% fat by weight and food cooked incorrectly, but not at all the case for foods cooked at the correct temperature. The other main reason for the avoidance, or at least at home, has always been the smell, but get a thermometer, a heavy based pan, don’t overcrowd it, and that shouldn’t be a problem either, heck even the crappy domestic extraction system should be enough to deal with it.

So, deep fried chicken, getting thoughts of poorly cooked greasy fast food? Well, don’t, think crisp, crunchy, steaming hot, not at all greasy, fiery hot spicy goodness that will leave you red in the face and dripping with sweat.

3 Chicken legs, portioned to thigh and drum
Canola oil


Brine
All percentages are by weight (eg. 1000 ml water, 50 grams salt)
Water
5% Salt
2.5% Cayenne powder
1.5% Garlic powder
1.5% Onion powder
2.5% Chilli flakes
0.5% Hot sauce
0.5% Morita Chilli

Heat the water in a pan and dissolve the salt, add all the other ingredients and cover, let it cool to room temperature. Place a large zip lock bag in a bowl and add the chicken, pour in the brine and remove as much air as possible while sealing the bag. Place in the fridge for 12–24 hours.


Dredge
Flour
Salt
Cayenne Pepper*
Chilli Flakes*
*The more you add the hotter it’ll be, so add heaps!

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry, toss in the dredge, shake off excess flour and place on a tray with a rack on it. Refrigerate for an hour, uncovered. Do not dispose of the remaining dredge yet.

Egg Wash
1 part Egg
2 parts Water
Salt


Cooking

• Remove the chicken from the fridge and let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
• Heat several inches of oil in a heavy based cast iron pot to 190ºC.
• Dip the chicken pieces in the egg wash, shake off any excess, toss in the dredge again, and shake off any excess flour.
• Cook the chicken in batches, carefully laying the chicken away from you in the oil, cook until the internal temp reaches 65-70ºC (depending on how paranoid you are, the temp will rise at least 5ºC while resting).
• Remove the pieces to a rack, not paper towels, to drain and rest while you cook the remaining chicken.

Serve with some sour pickles and lashings of hot sauce (if you can take the heat).

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Bonus, oven baked extra hot wings


Brine
Water
5% salt
Chilli flakes*
Cayenne pepper*
*As much as you can handle, more the better I say.

As above, place wings in cooled brine in zip lock bag and refrigerate for 12–24 hours.

Dredge
2 parts flour
1 part fine semolina
smoked paprika
cayenne

• Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. 
• Shake excess brine off the chicken and place in the bowl. 
• Cover tightly with a couple layers of cling film and shake (you could do this in a bag), make sure the chicken is evenly coated. 
• Place chicken on a rack set over a sheet pan and refrigerate uncovered for at least an hour. 
• Use a spritzer to coat the chicken in a fine film of olive oil, or gentle toss the chicken in a bowl with a little oil (take care not to dislodge too much coating). 
• Use a sieve with some fine semolina to put a light coating on both sides of the chicken. 
• Cook in a preheated 230ºC oven for 40–60 minutes, turning every 20 minutes. 
• Add lashings of habanero hot sauce and devour.

Chicken wings the egg white version

I do seem to have lot of chicken wing recipes on here, this has to be version six I’ve published on here, and I wouldn't even want to start with the numerous experiments that haven’t made it to the site, I don’t have enough digits. This is a baked version a bit like the hot wings version I did a while back they’ll spend a little while in the fridge so preparing the night before is probably the best, but at a pinch six hours before cooking should be enough.

500g chicken wings
1 large egg whites
2 tsp baking soda
Chilli flakes
Salt

Prepare a baking tray that will fit in your fridge with a rack and set aside.

Whisk the egg whites until they have increased in volume but still runny, we’re not looking for soft peaks just a little volume so coating the wings is easier.

Add the baking soda, chilli flakes (to taste) and salt (about a teaspoon). Whisk together.

Toss the wings through the egg white mixture and transfer to the baking tray, make sure there is space between the wings. Transfer to the fridge uncovered and leave overnight, or prepare in the morning for the evening.

Pre-heat the oven to 230ºC, cook the wings for 15 minutes, turn the wings over and cook for 15 minutes more, turn over again and another 10–15 minutes depending on their size and how well you like you chicken cooked.


Toss the hot cooked wings in your favourite hot sauce, I’m quite a fan of Tapatío hot sauce at the moment, and eat immediately or at least once they’re cool enough for you to handle. A finger bowl and paper towels are a must.

Hand pulled noodles

Pork sautéed with fermented black beans and spicy fermented cabbage on a bed of hand pulled noodles.

If my instagram feed and meals of late are anything to go by you’d be forgiven for thinking that I’ve gone a little bit noodle mad, and well I guess I have. But it’s probably more that I made a large batch of hand pulled noodle dough and it freezes and thaws well. So you’ll have to forgive what is almost a repost of a recipe, but this one has more pretty pictures!

Noodles (enough for 4 portions)
400 g Flour, high gluten such as bread flour
240 ml Water
6 g salt (dissolved in the water)


Tip the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour in the water and mix to form a ball of dough. Don’t worry about mixing it too much, it doesn’t need to be a smooth ball of dough. Cover with cling film and let it rest for 15 minutes.


Place the dough on a clean work surface and start to roll out into a log about 60cm in length, take one end and fold it in half to the other end, repeat the rolling and folding for about 15 minutes, giving it a chance to rest for a couple of minutes every five or so. The dough should be very smooth by now, if not keep kneading. Place the dough in a clean bowl and cover with cling film, let it rest at room temperature for a hour.


Take the dough and shape it into a rectangle about 10 cm wide and 3–4 cm thick, cut off a 1 cm slice, so you should have a rough rectangle of dough 10 cm long, 3 cm wide and 1 cm thick, coat the slice in a neutral oil, such as Canola or rice bran, lay the piece on a tray. Repeat until done. Cover the tray with cling film and place in the fridge for a hour.

Tip: Now is the stage to freeze off portions if you wish to do so, lay the portioned noodles between sheets of baking paper and in an airtight container/bag/cling-film. Just take out of the freezer 20 minutes before you’re ready to pull and cook the noodles.


Take the dough out of the fridge ten minutes or so before you want to cook, and have a large pot of salted water on the boil, you want to stretch the noodles and get them straight into the pot, this is best done one serving at a time, so don’t try and do the whole lot at once, five pieces is a pretty generous serving size.


Take a piece of dough and start to stretch it out holding one end in each hand and oscillating it up and down as you go, slapping it against the bench. Sounds a bit weird, but easy once you’ve got the hang of it. Lay the pulled noodle out on the bench and move on to the next. Once the serving of noodles have been pulled, gently roll a rolling pin over the noodles, don't really use any pressure just let the weight of the pin help even out the noodles.

You can either cook the noodles as they are in salted boiling water, which I think is my preferred way or you can take one end of a noodle and tear it down the middle right to the other end, but don’t tear it in two leave it as one long noodle, cook in boiling salted water for about 3 minutes, once they float to the surface they’re done.


A must have condiment for any noodle dish, chilli oil. Pretty damn easy to make too, Chilli, oil, salt and xanthan gum (0.5%) blended together.

Slowly does it

Well I haven’t really stepped back into the kitchen as yet, maybe still on holiday time, or just lacking a little enthusiasm. I dipped a toe with trying my hand at pulled noodles, which was a fortunate little spark of inspiration, and started a mini affair with all things noodle. So not so much a full on epic of a post that I sometimes rant on about something but a little tiny post of a rice noodle dish that I whipped up on a whim that went down a treat. It uses my now new favourite ingredient, black bean chilli sauce, fermented black beans in a fiery hot chilli oil.

Pork belly and roasted fennel noodles.
Pork Belly
2 Large fennel bulbs
1 Large onion
Black bean chilli sauce
Cooking rice wine

Garnish
Spring onions, sliced
Green chilli, sliced
Coriander
Sprouts, loving radish sprouts at the mo.

Slice the fennel in half and then into wedges, and slice the onion in half and into slices, toss through the black bean chilli sauce and cooking rice wine. Make a bed in a roasting pan with the coated vegetables and place a seasoned scored pork belly on top.

Place into a 220ºC preheated oven and then turn down to 160ºC, cook for about 3 hours. You will need to take it out of the oven now and then to toss around the fennel mix so it doesn’t burn.

Remove from the oven and tip the fennel mixture and cooking juices into a large bowl, cover and set aside, place the pork back in the roasting dish and crank the heat up in the oven, put it back in for about 10 minutes so the rind gets a chance to puff up.


While the pork is cooking, get some noodles onto the boil. Adjust the seasoning of the fennel mix, I ended up putting in a little fish sauce and rice vinegar to balance it.

Take the pork out of the oven and let it rest. When the noodles are cooked drain them and toss them in the fennel mix.

Take a portion of noodles, dripping with all the fennel cooking liquid, and make a bed in a bowl with them, make sure to get a decent portion of the beautiful caramelised fennel in there too. Slice up the pork and lay on top of the noodles, garnish to your hearts content and devour.

Cumin lamb with hand pulled noodles

Finally back from holiday, a week of sun and lounging next to a pool with a cocktail in hand, life was hard, however the cool Wellington weather snapped me back to reality as soon as I stepped out of the airport, gone was the hot 30ºC sunny weather. Unfortunately I didn’t come back with just photos and good memories of the much needed break, I was also covered in jellyfish stings which I sustained on the last day snorkelling through a rather dense patch of their larvae. So after a few days recuperating I set my mind to the next kitchen project. It came together serendipitously as much of my ideas do, I was at Yans supermarket stocking back up on the usual suspects, tapioca starch, fish sauce, rooster sauce and the like, and then killing a little time at the butchers next door waiting for the other half, when I spied a rather good looking, and dirt cheap, lamb fore-quarter. My mind shot back to my last trip to Auckland and Xi'an Food Bar with their amazing hand pulled noodles. I went into research mode, and hunted down methods and recipes, which are a bit lacking in detail online, so this is my version muddled together from many sources, one person's way to knead, someone else's resting times, and quantities fudged by me from what I could find. There are so many recipes just saying ‘enough’ water. How much is enough? Fundamentally it’s just flour and water so surely the ratio is important. I ended up deciding on 60% hydration (10 parts flour 6 parts water), when I first started out I thought it may be a bit dry but with the resting steps the flour hydrates and becomes soft, pliable, and incredibly stretchy with the kneading method.

Noodles (enough for 4 portions or 2 very very generous servings)
400 g Flour, high gluten such as bread flour
240 ml Water
5 g salt (dissolved in the water)

Tip the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour in the water and mix to form a ball of dough. Don’t worry about mixing it too much, it doesn’t need to be a smooth ball of dough. Cover with cling film and let it rest for 15 minutes.


Place the dough on a clean work surface and start to roll out into a log about 60cm in length, take one end and fold it in half to the other end, repeat the rolling and folding for about 15 minutes, giving it a chance to rest for a couple of minutes every five or so. The dough should be very smooth by now, if not keep kneading. Place the dough in a clean bowl and cover with cling film, let it rest at room temperature for a hour.

Take the dough and shape it into a rectangle about 10 cm wide and 3–4 cm thick, cut off a 1 cm slice, so you should have a rough rectangle of dough 10 cm long, 3 cm wide and 1 cm thick, coat the slice in a neutral oil, such as Canola or rice bran, lay the piece on a tray. Repeat until done. Cover the tray with cling film and place in the fridge for a hour.

Take the dough out of the fridge ten minutes or so before you want to cook, and have a large pot of salted water on the boil, you want to stretch the noodles and get them straight into the pot, this is best done one serving at a time, so don’t try and do the whole lot at once, four or five pieces is a pretty generous serving size.


Take a piece of dough and start to stretch it out holding one end in each hand and oscillating it up and down as you go, slapping it against the bench. Sounds a bit weird, but easy once you’ve got the hang of it. Lay the pulled noodle out on the bench and move on to the next. Once the serving of noodles have been pulled, gently roll a rolling pin over the noodles, don't really use any pressure just let the weight of the pin help even out the noodles.

Now for the fun bit, take one end of a noodle and tear it down the middle right to the other end, don’t tear it in two leave it as one long noodle, get them into the boiling water and cook for about 3 minutes, once they float to the surface they’re cooked.


Here’s a good video to show the method of stretching out the noodles, and hey it’s got Andrew Zimmern in it.

Cumin Lamb
1 fore-quarter of lamb or shoulder roast
Cumin
Chilli flakes
Garlic
Salt
Prickly ash (Szechuan pepper)
Rice bran oil
Black Bean Chilli sauce, literally chilli oil with fermented black beans in it.

I had a pretty awesome fore-quarter of lamb, I ended up removing the neck and fore shin for a later use, but a decent shoulder cut should do the job too.


In a blender combine 3 parts cumin, 1 part chilli, 1 part prickly ash, a good tablespoon of salt, 6 or 7 cloves of garlic, a good portion of a jar of the black bean chilli sauce (about a cup and a bit) and a little extra oil. Blitz until it forms a rough paste.


Make slashes in the fat on the flesh side of the meat and generously rub the paste all over the lamb. Wrap tightly in a few layers of cling wrap and leave it to rest overnight in the fridge.


Preheat the oven to 220ºC. While the oven is heating remove the lamb from the fridge and let it sit on the bench for about 30 minutes. Slice up a few onions and make a trivet in a roasting pan with the slices and some coriander, add a splash of cooking rice wine. Lay the lamb on top of the onions, cover tightly with tin foil and place in the heated oven, turn the temperature down to 150ºC and cook for 4 hours 30 minutes.


Getting it all together
Remove the lamb from the roasting dish, carefully, wrap it in tin foil and set aside to rest and also to cool down a little so it can be pulled apart a little easier. When it’s cool enough to handle remove all the bones and roughly shred with a fork. Cover and set aside.


Strain the cooking liquid into a pot with some chicken stock, a 50/50 mix of stock and cooking liquid is good, bring to a simmer and reduce a little, taste and season as you like, I added a little extra chilli. There will probably be quite a bit of fat in the sauce so you can skim it if you like, I skimmed quite a bit off and then tossed it through the shredded meat, a bit decadent.

Get a few containers of garnishes ready it will make plating up much easier, coriander leaves, sliced chilli, bean sprouts, lime, chilli oil, sliced spring onion.

Serving
Place a ladleful of the sauce into a large bowl along with a portion of lamb a few coriander leaves and chili slices. Get the noodles pulled and into the boiling water, when cooked pull out with tongs and toss in the bowl with the lamb, transfer it to a serving bowl and garnish with extra coriander, chilli, bean sprouts, spring onions and chilli oil, or whatever else you have. Get the next portion on the go.

Smoked Carrot and Ginger Soup

Best laid plans and all of that! Well I had the bright idea of smoked carrot and ginger soup, smoke some carrots cook them in the pressure cooker with a little baking soda so they would caramelise and add a bit of depth of flavour, chuck a bit of ginger in there too, purée that up and hey presto tasty soup. Well, I was quite wrong, putrid foul orangey brown gunk that offended just about every sense one has, binned. The house ended up smelling of this smoky concoction from hell for the best part of a day. Not to be put off by hell carrots I started again, with a little smoky cheat, Al Brown’s Whitestone smoked butter would add that much desired smoky flavour to the soup not the carrots.

1 Kg Carrots
25 g Smoked butter
Thumb of Ginger
25 g Unsalted butter
1 Red onion
Coriander, root and leaves.
1 Scant tablespoon Peanut butter
Peanuts, toasted and crushed
Chilli flakes
Chilli oil
1% Xanthan Gum (1% by weight of the finished product)

Peel and dice the carrots, peel the ginger and slice into large chunks, clean the coriander root, peel the onion and slice into quarters. Place into a pot and barely cover with water, add the unsalted butter, bring to a simmer over low heat and cook covered until the carrots are tender.


Strain the carrots (keeping the liquid), place the coriander root, onion and ginger root along with the cooking liquids into a pot and start slowly reducing the liquid.

Work the cooked carrots through a mouli and sieve, I did this a couple of times to get super smooth purée. Use some of the reduced cooking liquid to loosen the purée to the desired consistency.


Place the soup in a blender, add the smoked butter, peanut butter and chilli oil (to taste), start the blender, when a vortex forms sprinkle in the xanthan gum, let it run for about 30 seconds.

Pass the soup through a sieve into a pot, season with salt as needed, heat to desired temperature. Serve. Garnish with finely sliced coriander, roasted peanuts chilli flakes and chilli oil. I went a little further with it and made a crab meat salad, crab meat, sliced coriander leaf, toasted peanuts, chilli flakes and oil tossed together and placed in the centre of the bowl.

Corn and chicken soup

Well I had caught this winters bug and found myself feeling rather sorry for myself and with a bit of time to kill, as well as some bugs, nothing does a better job than a hearty corn soup or a chicken soup. As I was not completely bed ridden, rather just inconvenienced to feel like a steam roller was trying to escape from my face, I mustered up as much energy as I could and put far too much effort into this chicken-corn soup, but it was worth it, the time taken to reduce the liquid down to a thick silky soup was well used to prepare a hot toddy or two to sooth my scratchy throat.


Measurements are volumetric for you today also, well in the two main ingredients anyway, one litre of stock, and one litre of corn kernels, the end result is about 700 ml of soup. It’s all rather simple to begin with, take a pot and add to it: two chicken thighs, a carrot, bunch of parsley, thyme, dried chilli, bay leaves, peppercorns, the green parts of spring onions and one litre of chicken stock. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer, cook until the chicken is cooked through and tender. Remove the thighs from the pot and move them to a bowl and cover with cling-film. Strain the liquid into a bowl and discard the solids, transfer the liquid back to the pot along with the corn kernels.


Frankly it’s winter and I used frozen corn, when the corn has warmed through use a stick blender to purée the mixture, pass through a fine sieve then the remaining solids through a fine mouli, the end result should be a smooth liquid free of kernel skins and a volume of about 1.5 litres, pour this back into the now clean pot and simmer until it has thickened and reduced, I ended up with 700 ml of soup at the right consistency. When the soup has thickened adjust the seasoning, shred the chicken thigh meat and add to the soup, bring it back to a simmer and serve with some spring onion garnish and a good drizzle of a quality chilli oil.