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

Pho Bo, fo sho

Having only just written about pho I thought it highly appropriate and relevant to write another post about the subject, Pho Bo this time, and well we had guests so what better time to try out something new and untested, no pressure at all, and it’s not like it’s a quick process, only a few hours, not standing in front of the stove though. That wasn’t enough pressure for me though, I also decided it was a great time to wire in a panel heater, I didn’t electrocute myself and I learned how to wire up a loop switch and install a power socket. I don’t want to make it sound hard, it’s not, it’s not even that time consuming, pretty much set and forget for an hour, add something, wait an hour, repeat a few times, so I broke the recipe down to a pretty manageable timeline which I’ll outline below. Adapted from Lucky Peach, which they adapted from somewhere, I forget and I don't have the issue in front of me.

Ingredients
3–4 kg Beef bones
500 g Brisket
200 g Fillet or topside, something lean and tender
3–4 Brown onions
Ginger, a hand sized root
1 Tbsp White Pepper
30 g Palm Sugar
2 Star Anise
2 inches of Cinnamon
4 pods Cardamom
2 Cloves
Salt
Fish Sauce

Day before

• Season the brisket with a tablespoon of salt and place on a rack over a sheet pan and refrigerate.

Pre-timing

• Set oven to 180ºC
• Get a large stock pot full of water and bring up to the boil.
• Arrange onions and ginger on a sheet pan.
• Blanch bones in the water for 3 minutes.
• Dump bones into a clean sink.
• Clean the pot.
• Rinse the bones thoroughly with cold water and add back to pot.
• Fill up the stock pot with enough water to cover the bones by an inch.
• Put the pot on a high heat and bring to a simmer.
• Skim off any scum that forms.

Hour 0 (Start)

• Reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer, add 1 tablespoon of salt. Skim off any scum that forms.
• Put the onions and ginger in the oven.

Hour 1

• Remove the brisket from the fridge.
• Remove the onions and ginger from the oven. Remove the skins from the onions and slice the ginger into 1 cm slices.

Hour 2

• Add the brisket, onion, ginger, sugar and white pepper to the pot.
• Half cover with the lid.

Hour 3

• Add the cinnamon, star anise, cloves and cardamom.

Hour 4

• Get an ice bath set up.
• Remove the brisket and put in the ice bath for 20 minutes. Pat dry and set aside until ready to serve.

Hour 4.5 (4 hours 30 minute)

• Remove the bones with a strainer, and pass the broth through a sieve.
• Adjust the seasoning with salt and fish sauce, I like to go in first with the fish sauce, pretty heavy I must say and then tweak it off with salt.
• Either let it cool and refrigerate until you’re ready, which makes removing excess fat easy, or serve straight away. If the later just keep the broth on a low heat while you get everything else together.

Serving
You can build up bowls of soup for each person, or, as I did, have everything central on the table and have each bowl just contain rice noodles and broth. In either case, Make sure the bowls are HOT and the broth is HOT, lukewarm ain't gonna cut it.

Rice Noodles: I like the medium thickness rice noodles. I put them in a pot, roasting pan for a large crowd, cover with boiling water, put the lid on and leave for 5–10 minutes.

Rare Beef: Slice the topside or fillet as thin as you can, freezing it for 15 minutes or so to firm it up can help, arrange on a plate.

Brisket: Slice thin, arrange on a plate.

Other fixings you can and should have on the table:
Hoisin Sauce
Sriracha
Vietnamese mint
Regular Mint
Spring Onions
Chillis, sliced
Coriander
Mung Beans
Lime

Pho real

Pho has always been a favorite, usually post work stop offs at the locals to get my fix before heading home. Not really quite nailing it at home and feeling dejected and disappointed at my futile attempts which rather left me with a why bother it’s cheap enough to buy out anyway attitude. Homemade isn’t always best, but there is a certain satisfaction in creating something yourself, so it was with much joy I received the latest issue of Lucky Peach, which is dedicated to all things Pho, and recipes to boot. So here is Pho Ga, adapted from Lucky Peach.

Ingredients
1 Chicken, size 16
1.5 kg of chicken necks or carcasses
3-4 Brown onions
1 piece of ginger, about the size of your hand
1 piece of ginger, about the size of your thumb
1 stick of cinnamon
2 cloves
3 cardamon pods
2 star anise
1 dried red chilli
1 Bunch of scallions
White pepper
Salt
Fish sauce
Pho rice noodles (I like the small sized flat noodles, not vermicelli, but each to their own)

• Rub the chicken with salt until the skin is taught and refrigerate overnight, or a couple hours at least. Remove half an hour before cooking.
• Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
• Bring a large pot of water to the boil, you need enough to submerge the chicken and cover it by an inch.
• Slice the thumb of ginger and scallions and add to the pot, also add the dried chilli.

• Lower in the chicken and bring back to the boil, cook for 15 minutes then turn off the heat and cover, let it sit for 30 minutes for a 1.6kg (size 16) bird.
• Slice the onions in half and arrange on a sheet pan with the hand of ginger, place in the oven for an hour.
• Get an ice bath ready. 
• Gently remove the bird from the pot and place in the ice bath. Let it sit for 20 minutes.
• Strain the solids out of the cooking liquid and put it back on the heat.

• Remove the meat and skin from the cooled chicken and put the remains and juices in the pot.
• Take the onions out of the oven and peel, remove any overly burnt bits, slice the ginger in half. Add to the pot along with the necks or carcasses, cardamon, cloves, cinnamon, and star anise. If there is not enough liquid to cover the bones by about an inch add some water.

• Bring the pot to a simmer, add a teaspoon of salt, reduce the heat to low gentle simmer, cover and cook for 4 hours.
• Shred the meat and skin into long pieces, refrigerate until needed.
• Strain the broth into a clean pot. Simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes, adjust and season with salt, white pepper and fish sauce.
• Place the noodles into a bowl and cover with boiling water, let them stand for 5 minutes, or follow the instructions on your packet.
• Place a portion of noodles into a hot bowl, top with a handful of the shredded chicken, sliced scallions and fried shallots. Serve with the fixings below arranged on a plate or two so you can dip into them as you need.

Fixings
Limes
Sliced fresh chillis
Fried shallots
Sliced Scallions
Coriander
Mint
Vietnamese mint
Sriracha
Bean sprouts

Chicken Noodle Soup

Nothing beats chicken noodle soup on a crisp winters day. There are a couple of steps and a couple of pots involved in this version, but it’s not overly complicated or confusing, just keeping the two stocks separate gives a cleaner flavour and lets the chicken stock reduce down and develop deep caramel flavours.

Chicken Stock
Chicken, broken down to fit in the pot.
Ginger
Garlic
Chili, whole dried sichuan
Bay Leaf
Salt

• Add the chicken to a pot and cover with an inch of water, toss in the rest of the ingredients and bring to a simmer.
• Cook until the chicken is done, but not falling off the bone. Transfer the chicken to a bowl.
• Strain the liquid and put back on the heat. Reduce to about a quarter of the original volume.

Vegetable Stock
Wood ear fungus (black)
Shiitake, dried
Garlic
Ginger
Onion
Bacon, fatty rashers
Celery
Carrot
Chilli
MSG (optional)

• Add all to a pot and cover with water. Bring to a simmer and cook for half an hour. Strain.

Building the bowl

• Pick the meat off the chicken, and set aside.
• Combine both the stocks, taste and season with salt, soy and sesame oil. Reduce a little if required.
• Cook fresh noodles.
• Portion the chicken and noodles into bowls, pour over hot broth, add spoon or so of chilli crisp (or oil), and a little bit of pickled daikon. Slurp and enjoy.

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.

Spaetzle and Beef Stroganoff

Beef stroganoff is a definite guilty pleasure, it’s a highly unlikely the following recipe is at all authentic, but it’s an easy throw together meal. The rich mushroom-beef creamy stew was ladled over a bed of slightly crisp buttered noodles called spaetzle.

Spaetzle get made now and then when, I feel the urge and am willing for the clean up that follows, using a spaetzle press (or ricer) is no clean feat. The other method is scraping off noodles from a board one at a time into boiling water, a skill I have very little desire to practice and no one to show me anyway, plus it looks far messier than the noodle press. To compound issues, I also managed to misplace my recipe (or list of quantities) and as I haven’t blogged previously about it, I had to start from scratch.

I guess I may of put you off, all this talk of mess, well don’t worry I have solved that problem. All you need is a zip-lock bag, no need for spaetzle presses, colanders dripping over pots or ninja knife board scraping skills. Just a simple bag that you can nip the corner off and a large pot of boiling water. You don’t end up with one long noodle, as the dough hits the water they break into perfect lengths of noodle. The noodles can be made ahead of time and chilled in an ice bath before being stored in a container in the fridge, just remember to toss them in a little oil so they don't stick to each other.



Spaetzle
250g Flour
195ml Milk
8g Salt
2 Eggs (130g)

• Combine the dry ingredients together and form a well in the centre.
• Whisk together the eggs and milk, pour into the well and beat well, you really want to work the gluten.
• Allow the mixture to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.
• Get a deep pot with salted water on the boil.
• Transfer to a piping bag with a thin nozzle, or as I do, a zip-lock bag with the corner lopped off.
• From a height steadily pipe the bag into the simmering water, it will break up into noodles an inch or two in length, this will need to be done in batches (2-3 depending on pot size).
• Cook for a minute or two, or until floating on the surface.
• Scoop out and transfer to a colander set inside an ice bath (or to a waiting pan to sauté in butter).
• Once cooled, toss in a little oil and transfer to a container. Refrigerate until you're ready to cook.
• For the above, I sautéed the spaetzle in butter, crisping it around the edges then added arugula until wilted.

Beef Stroganoff

• 400g of beef schnitzel sliced into half centimeter strips tossed in flour seasoned with garlic powder, mustard powder, hot paprika and salt.
• Sauté in a hot heavy based pan with a good dash of butter and oil until crisp and golden, remove and set aside.
• Generously dollop in another knob of butter, when foaming add in half a finely diced onion and generous amount of sliced button mushrooms. When cooked down, and colored, Stir through a couple of minced garlic cloves, paprika, Dijon mustard and tomato paste.
• Pour in some beef stock, about 400 ml in total, when all has been incorporated and begun to thicken add the beef back to the pan.
• Adjust seasoning.
• Splash in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, lower the heat, and stir, reduce slightly.
• Before serving fold through some chopped parsley. Serve up with some spaetzle sautéed with rocket.

Ramen

Alkaline noodles

400g Flour
200ml Water
12 g Baked Soda*

• Dissolve the Baked soda in half the water (warm) then add the other half (cold). 
• Add the flour and knead for 5 minutes, it’s tough work rather like kneading a brick. 
• Wrap in cling-film, leave for 20 minutes at room temp. 
• Knead for another 5 minutes, it’s a little less brick like but still damn hard work. 
• Re-wrap and place in the fridge for at least an hour. 
• Cut into 5 portions and run through a pasta machine getting it down to the 2nd thinnest setting.
• Either slice by hand or run through the fine cutter.

Cook for 2–3 minutes in plenty of salted water and give a quick rinse in cold water once cooked.


*Cook baking soda in a 120ºC oven for an hour.

---

Pork Cheek

Pork Cheek
Ginger
Garlic
Chilli flakes
Katsuobushi
Oyster sauce
Cider vinegar
Soy sauce
Water
Tamarind
Rice wine
Fennel
Red onion
Celery
Apple
Parsley
Star anise
Bay

• Heat a heavy based oven proof dish over a medium high heat, brown the cheek all over.
• Add the vegetables, large dice, and all the liquids & spices, add enough water to almost cover everything. Place on a lid and braise for 2.5 hours at 130ºC.
• Cool, remove meat and refrigerate in a tight fitting container with some of the cooking liquid.
• Strain the remaining cooking liquid and refrigerate, when cooled the fat will solidify on the top, use this to crisp up the sliced pork cheek.

---

Dashi

• Put 3 Litres of water in a pot, add 4-5 six inch pieces of kombu to the pot, bring to the boil cover and turn off the heat, leave it for an hour. 
• Add a packet of dried shiitake mushrooms, simmer for 30 minutes. 
• Scoop off the mushrooms and put in a container, cover with soy sauce, cool and place in the fridge (soy pickled shiitake). 


• Add a good portion of katsuobushi, about 1 cup heaped, simmer for about 30 minutes. 
• Strain, cool and refrigerate until ready to use.

---

Soup base

Add a 50/50 mix of Dashi and pork cheek cooking liquid to a pot and bring to a simmer, adjust seasoning with vinegar, chilli flakes and salt.

---

13 minute egg

• Bring a pot of water to 75°C, using a large volume of water will make maintaining a constant temperature easier. 
• Place eggs into the water and cook for 13 minutes, don’t use eggs straight from the fridge. Transfer the eggs to an ice bath to cool. 
• Reheat the eggs at 60°C for 10 minutes (run under the hot tap), or store in the fridge for up to 2 days. 
• Crack around the fat end of the egg, remove the shell and pour the egg out.

---

Build the bowl
Add the cooked noodles to the bowl and lay on slices of the pork cheek, either sliced thinly cold or sliced thicker and grill to give it a nice caramelised side and warm through, pickled vegetables (ginger, daikon), soy pickled shiitake, chilli flakes or fresh slices, scallions, nori sheets and 13 minute eggs, up to you really. Gently pour over the soup base.

sweet, sour, salty braised pork with hand pulled noodles

I’ve covered hand pulled noodles before on this site, so this is not a rehash of the noodle recipe, how to make the slurpy tasty noodles can be found in previous posts. The following is a tasty sweet, sour, salty braised pork dish that is unctuous, sticky and delicious. Served with the liquids and vegetables tossed through the fresh cooked noodles and topped with slices of the wobbly caramelised pork belly, makes for an insatiably devourable dish.

Pork belly, bones removed (put in the braise if you have them)
2 Oranges, zest and juice
1 Large chunk of ginger, peeled and grated
5 Cloves of garlic, grated
Large Bunch of coriander, leaves chopped and root set aside
4 or 5 large dried red chillies
1 Large fennel bulb, sliced thinly
1 Large onion, sliced thinly
3 Tbsp of fennel seed
6 Allspice berries
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
Oyster sauce
Palm sugar (or brown)
Rice wine vinegar
500ml Chicken Stock
Salt

Preheat the oven to 160ºC, fan forced.

Heat an oven proof casserole pan over a medium high heat, or use a large frying pan and transfer to a dish later, season the pork belly all over with salt and then place skin side down in the pan and brown for about 5 minutes, flip and brown on the flesh side.

While the pork cooks, grind the allspice and fennel seeds together. Combine about 2-3 Tbsp each of the fish, soy and oyster sauce, also grate the same amount of palm sugar, you may require more depending on how sweet your oranges are.

Remove the pork from the pan and set aside. Sauté the onion and fennel until translucent, add the garlic, ginger, dried ground spices, chillies and coriander root. Cook until fragrant. Pour in the orange juice and zest and reduce. Add the fish, soy and oyster sauce along with the palm sugar and chicken stock.

Simmer for a few minutes, taste and season with oyster sauce, sugar and rice wine vinegar. You want a good balance of sweet/sour/salty, you need enough sweetness so it will become a lovely sticky sweet and sour sauce.

Stir through a handful of coriander leaves, keep some aside for garnish, nestle the pork into the sauce and cover. Cook for 2.5 hours. Remove the lid and cook for a further 30 minutes.

Slice the meat with a sharp knife and let it rest in the sauce while you prep and cook the noodles. Toss the cooked noodles with some of the soft fennel and onion and a good helping of the liquid, top with slices of melt in the mouth pork, garnish with mung bean sprouts, chilli oil and coriander leaves.

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.