Steamed Open Dumpling Dim Sum

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

I have tons of cookery books, a cupboard full of everything from £1.99 bargains through TV chef spin-offs to the bible that is La Gastronomique and I can say that I under-use all of them. I tend browse for the basics and then go…freestyle. With mixed results its fair to say

Now, I make a fair bit of Chinese food during the week as it’s fast, and (providing you watch the oil) healthy. The only problem I have is that I can’t say I’ve nailed a recipe or particular dish in the same way I can make, for instance, specific pasta dishes, they tend to be concoctions of whatever I have in the fridge. This was different though – I got the iPad (other tablets are available…) edition of Ken Hom’s Complete Chinese Cookbook recently and was keen to try his recipes with the ingredients as instructed. Being a big fan of dim sum thought I’d try the relatively straightforward open steamed dumplings. Although the implementation probably wavered a bit, I used the ingredients as Mr Hom instructed and they were delicious.

I bought in the wanton cases as we were in the local Chinese supermarket recently. They keep brilliantly in the freezer but there’s nothing too hard about making them. The recipe quoted about 40, but I in fact made 20 presumably large versions. They didn’t seem so big, so who knows, but it didn’t seem to matter. I served them up with a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, chilli oil, dried chilli flakes, sugar and ginger. I kind of did it off the cuff, so don’t remember the proportions, but it was very much ‘to taste’ anyway!

I made my own mince using some good quality belly pork as Mr Hom specified fatty pork mince. I just blitzed it in the food processor and it worked nicely.

So, via Ken Hom’s Complete Chinese Cookbook:

100g/4oz uncooked prawns
350g/12oz pork belly, minced or food processed (or fatty pre-minced pork)
2 tbsp bacon lardons
100g/4oz water chestnuts, tinned. Well rinsed.
2 tsp ginger, finely chopped
3 tbsp finely chopped spring onion
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp dry sherry.
1 egg white
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt and a twist of black pepper
20 wanton skin

Defrost the wanton wrappers at room temperature if needed. This takes a surprisingly short amount of time.

Prepare the pork by mincing or blitzing the pork belly in a processor. Finely chop the prawns and bacon and vegetables.

Then, simply place the the whole lot into a bowl and mix very thoroughly.

Spoon a couple of teaspoons of the mixture onto the middle of a wanton wrapper.

Bring up the sides, pinching firmly and turning as you do to make the open wrapping. Tricky – I’m sure practise makes perfect!

Boil a little water in the bottom of a steamer. Use the bottom of the steamer insert and cut out some greaseproof paper to line the inside. I used a skewer to push though the holes to let the steam through.

Place the dumplings in, not too tightly packed, and steam for about 15 minutes. I used a probe to check the temperature in the middle and they were well done by this time, but may need longer – the recipe said about 20mins.

Repeat in batches until all done!

Slow Cooked Venison and Roast Butternut Squash

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

Well the sun was out, the temperatures were bearable and it’s the half term school holidays next week meaning one thing – everybody was out and about. We headed up to Gibside on the fringes of Gateshead for a walk around the ruined Gibside Hall. It’s eerie and spectacular in equal measure, being now little more than an overgrown shell of a once grand house. The chapel and ‘column of liberty’ have fared a little better and still stand a mile apart and in direct view of one another. Hopefully this lends a scale to the size of the estate. We headed up around the far reaches of the estate for the better views and steeper climbs and before we knew it a couple of hours had passed.

Gibside Chapel

Ruins of Gibside Hall

Column of Liberty

Front of Gibside Hall

And so, a moderately lengthy winter walk requires a sturdy dinner. I’ll admit, I’ve put this together based on a couple of dishes I’ve eaten at The Broad Chare, a favourite of mine, mainly for its rustic British food and locally sourced produce. They were actually starters of braised venison with Elsdon cheese on toast and blood pudding with roasted squash and I kind of pulled the two together. Not having Elsdon (a firm goats cheese), I substituted some Wensleydale which has a similar sharp flavour. The venison was diced shoulder, slowly simmered for two hours in wine and beef stock until massively rich. The sweet butternut squash and sharp cheese were perfect companions!

For someting a little different, I tried an ingredient given to me by a friend in a Christmas hamper – some chocolate extract. Chocolate is seemingly unlikely friend of venison and this did lend a nice flavour to the dish overall, without dominating it. I’ll experiment further though….

Serves 2.

500g diced venison suitable for slow cooking.
2 large glasses of red wine, I used Rioja.
1 tbsp flour
1 garlic clove, 1 carrot, 1 onion and 1 stick of celery finely diced.
1 litre (2 pints) rich beef stock
1 good splash of Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves and a large sprig of thyme, leaves only.
70g smoked bacon lardons
1 butternut squash, halved, seeded and cut into chunks
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Wensleydale cheese to serve
Optional – chocolate extract to taste.

In a heavy casserole dish, heat some oil and fry off the venison and lardons (in batches) until well browned.

Stir in the vegetables and soften them. Return the meat and stir though the flour, adding a little water to make it ‘stick’. Pour in the wine and stock and add the bay leaves. Stir thoroughly.

Put the lid on the pot and simmer on the lowest possible heat for about two hours.

After an hour, place the prepared butternut squash in a tray, season with salt and drizzle with oil. Roast in a moderate oven for about an 45 minutes to 1 hour until very tender.

For the last half and hour of the vension, remove the lid to reduce and concentrate the liquid and for the last 5 minutes, add the thyme leaves. Add the chocolate extract to taste if using at the end – it’s worth a try.

Serve the dish up with shavings of Wensleydale cheese and a large glass of Rioja. Perfect.

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

In the face of recent food supply chain “issues”, maybe this is the answer!

Food and Forage Hebrides

This is a post part of which has been sitting in my drafts for some time and for some reason, I only now get round to publication. This is not least with encouragement of Phil at Food, Frankly and my promise to do so last week. Being a person of my word (most of the time), here is the second volume of the rather graphic venison butchery episode. Be assured that this is somewhat more gentle than Volume 1: In the Flesh and covers making the most of the animal and preparing fine game stock and venison sausages.

Part of the reason I have not posted this so far is that I am not really a very good step-by-step recipe blogger, especially with images as I lack patience and photographic skills for this, and the processes involved very much need this approach. However, if going off on random digressions are…

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Pancakes two ways – savoury and sweet.

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

There was a time long ago, when we had to go to the phone to use it, wireless meant ‘a radio’, Betamax was on the way out and Bluetooth would have presumably meant a trip to the dentist, when I used to eat “Crispy Pankcakes”.

I presume it was a UK thing, but they were basically folded and breaded pancakes that when cooked, by whatever means you choose, disguised a variety of fillings the temperature of molten magma. Now these weren’t haute cuisine by any stretch of the imagination, think savoury pop tarts, only hotter, but as a child I seemed to remember quite liking these things.

Today is Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day of course, so this and the fact Findus (the original makers) has featured heavily in the news of late, lead me to the natural conclusion that I had to replicate these little pockets of lava.

I was late home tonight so I swung by the store on the way back and picked out ingredients for the filling I thought would be quickest to be frank. Spinach, ricotta, bacon and mushroom seemed to fit that profile and is invariably good. And so it was on…

These turned out a little bigger than I remember so I ended up making 4 and freezing two. If I could have gotten them, porcini mushrooms would have had much more flavour, but I couldn’t.

I had to make a sweet one too, I had my orders, and I went for chocolate sauce, banana and flaked almonds. This was a little easier!

For the pancakes:

200g flour
2 eggs
350ml semi-skimmed milk
pinch salt

For the filling:

4 handfuls of spinach
250g ricotta cheese
90g smoked bacon lardon
4 medium mushrooms sliced thinly
A little salt and chilli flakes
Oil
Garlic, finely chopped

To finish:

1 egg beaten
1 tsp of flour
panko breadcrumbs (or regular ones will do fine)
Oil

For the sweet version:

2 pancakes (as above)
About 200ml chocolate sauce (I bought it in)
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 handfuls of almonds to serve

To make the pancakes, simply mix the ingredients in a bowl, adding the liquids to the flour and whisking as you do to avoid lumps. Stir in a good pinch of salt

In a small pan, fry the pancakes in a little oil so as they are thin and about 23cm/9 inches across. Once done, leave to go cool, they will need to be.

To make the filling, blanch the spinach in a little water until wilted. Drain, cool and squeeze out as much water as you can.

Whilst cooling, fry the bacon in a little oil, the chilli flakes and garlic with the sliced mushrooms until any water released has dried up. Set aside to cool.

Chop the spinach and mix into the ricotta. Once the bacon/mushroom mixture is cooled, at that too. Taste and season if needed.

To make the pancakes, first beat an egg in a bowl decant half to a ramekin and mix with a tsp of flour to make a ‘glue’. Spoon about two tbsp of filling onto the middle of a pancake and brush the edge all the way round with the egg/flour glue. Fold it over carefully trying to expel any trapped air.

Brush it with the plain egg and coat well in the breadcrumbs all over.

Fry gently in a little oil on both sides and repeat with the others!

For the sweet pancakes, I simply heated the chocolate sauce with a mashed ripe banana. Spread on the warm pancake (I reheated it in a fresh pan but the microwave will so) and roll up, dust with coco powder and the flaked almonds.

Monkfish, Queen Scallops and Pea Puree

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

I’m so hungry, I could eat a Findus Lasagne…..

The horse meat scandal rumbles on in Europe at the moment and whilst there’s nothing necessarily wrong with eating it, as the French and Italians in particular will no doubt protest, it raises big issues. It makes you think about the chain involved in mass manufactured food and personally, made me think about the source of the food we eat. It was sold as beef, but was nothing of the sort and that’s worrying.

I generally avoid processed foods, as I guess most people reading this will as you’re probably a ‘fan’ of good food like me. I can’t pretend to be pious enough to avoid supermarkets but try to buy better quality wherever possible.

Whenever I can though, I get meat and fish from local butchers and fishmongers where I’m happy the produce is as far away from the likes of Comigel as possible. Once such place is Latimers which I first wrote about a few weeks back.

I went down today and got chatting to the guy behind the counter who was genuinely enthusiastic about the source of the fish, even explaining that the recent weather meant a poor catch, highlighting which fish they’d had to buy in (to keep a decent range in stock no doubt). They have a couple of boats landing fish as often as weather allows and you can phone ahead to see what was bought in and order it to collect later. I love this. Proper sustainable, sourceable food and as fresh as you can get.

One fish that was landed was monkfish which has undergone something of a promotion from little regarded lobster pot bait to an expensive restaurant regular. Now, I’m not a huge fan of this fish, it can be a little bland compared to others, but it works well with accompaniments and strong flavours and sauces rather than being the ‘star of the show’.

When deciding what to do with it, I thought about contrasting the flavours and textures which is pretty much the basis of a good dish I’ve come to learn. So, I combined the monkfish with some sweet tasting Queen scallops (also from Latimers), even sweeter pea puree, salty lardons and crisp, slightly bitter braised lettuce. I was pleased with the results, but next time I would sear the monkfish some more, it would have been well worth it.

Once large monkfish fillet halved into two portions
150g Queen scallops
1 large knob of butter
100g bacon lardons
1 Little gem lettuce halved
200g frozen peas
200ml vegetable stock
Oil
Salt and pepper

Put a couple of plates in the oven to warm, they will need to be hot for this dish.

In a small, lidded, pan bring the peas to a gentle simmer in the stock and turn the heat off. Blend the peas with a little of the stock and some butter (if you like) to make a puree and return to the pan with the lid on to keep warm. Taste and season if needed.

Put a griddle pan on the hob and get it hot. Rub the fillets with oil and a sprinkle of salt/pepper and and lay then on the pan.

Fry off the lardons in a heavy pan and a little oil and remove, leaving the oils in pan. Put the halves of lettuce on the same pan, flat size down for about five minutes to caramelise.

Keep your eye on the monkfish and turn after about 5 minutes.

Remove the lettuce and keep warm with the plates.

Finally, put the lardons back in the pan and with a good knob of butter. Add the scallops and fry on a high heat until just cooked, about 5 minutes max. Don’t over-do them!

Plate up some of the scallops on the pea puree with the rest dotted around with the lardons. Slice the monkfish and pour over half of the butter from the scallops pan. Add the braised lettuce and you’re good to go!

Char Siu Pork

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

I’ve a bit of a fascination with Eastern/South Eastern Asian food. Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese. All immediately evoke memories of food that assaults the senses with checks and balances of flavours and textures. Theres something immediately satisfying about it all especially, for me, in South East Asian food which I’m particularly fond of with it’s wonderful combination of hot, sweet and sour. I’m going to save that for another day and another dish though.

Chinese food retains, in some of it’s dishes, this ‘holy trinity’ of flavours, but is generally much more savoury in my opinion with delicious oyster, black bean and yellow bean sauces delivering that knockout ‘umami’ taste. I’ll admit there is probably at lot of help at times from MSG but having visited a fair number of good Chinese restaurants over the years I’ve rarely left feeling less than satisfied. I’ve had more numerous takeaways, with generally speaking, considerably less good quality food but thats another matter 😉

Newcastle has a Chinatown and with it number of Chinese restaurants although some admittedly are the sort of free for all buffet we try and avoid. Not through any misplaced food snobbery, but because I think you can get better for the same price at regular eateries. We won’t go often, but when we do I always check out the menu in the window. If it’s written in English AND Chinese, that’s a good sign its frequented by people who’ll know much more about Chinese food than me…

Anyway, I digress. I was back in a Chinese supermarket the other day and, like a kid in a candy store, bought back all sorts of jars and dips and oils. It was here that I got all the ingredients I needed for char siu pork with its delicious sweet and savoury barbecue type marinade. I used pork fillet although I know pork with a bit more fat would be a lot tastier.

The marinading took an epic 48 hours and was much the better for it than my previous attempts. I’ll admit, I pinched this recipe from Nigel Slater’s piece in the Guardian as I remembered it was a rather more simple than other versions.

I served it with some rice noodles (for a change really, rather than regular steamed rice) and some steamed greens.

For the char siu pork:

500g pork fillet
2 tbsp honey,
100ml/about 6 tbsp hoisin sauce,
1 tbsp soy sauce,
1 tbsp yellow bean sauce,
2 tbsp rice wine – but I used dry sherry, it’s quite similar and I had loads left from Christmas 😉
1 tsp of sesame oil.

Simply combine the ingredients and marinade the meat for 24-48 hours. Like the recipe I linked to, I used a plastic food bag as it covers the meat much more effectively, using far less marinade. In fact, I do this for any marinading.

To cook it, get the oven on to about 180ºC/350ºF/ Gas 5.

Get a roasting tin with a rack and place the pork fillet on top (keeping the marinade for later). Fill the bottom of the tray with hot water and carefully place it in the oven for about 40 minutes. Basting and turning the meat avery 10 minutes. Once done and nicely dark on the outside. Cover and leave to rest. Put the remaining marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer to reduce for a sauce.

To serve it I simply softened and stir fried some rice noodles (vermicelli) with sliced spring onion/scallions in a little sesame oil and chilli salt. I steamed some sliced greens and bok choi in the steamer for only a couple of minutes and stirred though some soy sauce and a little Oyster sauce for depth. Pour over the reduced marinade. Delicious.

Breakfast Sausage and Thyme Omelette

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

Wow, two in a row here I think everyone. Stuck for breakfast ideas, I once again found myself rummaging through the fridge/freezer for inspiration and found some frozen sausages. The quick addition of some shallots, and some mini bell peppers and thyme from the garden and ‘voila’, sausage and thyme omelette.

These were Cumberland sausages which worked particularly well, being rich in herbs and flavouring but I’m betting good Italian or Toulouse varieties would be good too.

I won’t go into details here, it was only an omelette, but it’s simplicity itself really: just skin the sausages and break into small pieces and fry it off with a couple of sliced shallots and the peppers until cooked through. Season with salt and pepper and add the leaves from a couple of sprigs of thyme.

Beat four eggs and pour it in. Once the sides begin to appear cooked, finish it off under the grill for a few minutes until all the egg is set.

And that’s it…I would use butter ordinarily, but the calorie count would have taken a battering and to be honest, it was none the worse without it.

Made a lovely breakfast with a decent pot of coffee and some Wilkin & Sons brown sauce.

Really Quick Pork and Beans Chilli

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

Sometimes, but only sometimes mind you, a meal just comes together completely unplanned and turns out better you’d expected.

Last night was the end of a very long week and I’d planned to phone out for pizza to be honest. But, after a quick route forage through the fridge, freezer and cupboard (much to Helen’s despair – the kitchen was immaculately tidy until then) I came across these ingredients and the “pork and bean chilli” was ‘on’.

I had some minced pork in the freezer and chorizo, which to be honest I always seem to have, in the fridge. I added a lot of chilli to this though as I had quite a few to use up that were beginning to look a little long in the tooth. I’m not one of those pretentious guys who insist on sweating and wincing their way through a meal if it involves chilli as some form of ‘test’, but occaisionally I’m in the mood!

I used a carton of pasata for speed along with chipotle sauce and some sweet smoked paprika for a rich smoky background. I realised after these are most of the flavours in pulled pork – maybe that was the secret….

300g pork mince
100g chorizo. Skinned, halved and thinly sliced.
1 garlic clove
2 green chillis, sliced thinly – seeds and all plus extra to serve.
1 heaped tsp sweet smoked paprika
1tsp cumin, ground
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp chipotle sauce
1 onion, halved and thinly sliced.
1 can mixed beans, drained and rinsed
1 can pasata (400g)
Salt.

In a large pan, simply fry off the garlic, onions and chilli and continue until the onions have softened. Add the pork and chorizo and brown nicely

Next put in the paprika, cumin, and beans and stir well.

Cover with the pasata, a little water, the sugar and chipotle sauce and simmer for a few minutes with the lid off.

Serve with rice and extra sliced chilli ( 😉 )

Harissa Spiced Lamb and Moroccan Style Bulgar Wheat

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

Ordinarily, this would have been a shoe-in for the barbecue – hot spice rub and lamb still on the bone is heaven for me. It is still January (just) and therefore in order to prevent the neighbours sending round the men in white coats, I thought I’d get the iron griddle pan out.

I got the lamb, ready trimmed, at a good butcher in the Fenwicks department store Newcastle. I rubbed with a Harissa spice mix from the mmm… deli in the local market. It was very good actually but I think I’ll give it a go myself next time. I finished it off with a simple yoghurt sauce made from some home-made mint sauce, pinch of sugar and, of course, yoghurt.

Keeping with the theme, I made a side dish of bulgar wheat using North African type ingredients and flavours including turmeric, raisins, cinnamon and cumin. I know that cous-cous is the usual choice here, but I actually prefer bulgar wheat as it has a much better texture in my opinion. It’s also high in fibre and low in GI, which, I’m told, is a good thing.

I finished the thing off with a spicy fresh made coleslaw, using a little of the harissa spice and paprika to add a bit of ‘zing’.

Helen is not a fan of lamb I’m afraid to say, but I’ve forgiven her for this 😉 So, for her I made the same with a pork chop from the same butcher and she said, looking a bit flush, it was “tasty, but a bit spicy”

2 lamb cutlets.
2 tsp harissa spice mix, combined with 2 tsp oil to make a paste

(Spoon the mix onto the lamb and leave to marinade in a food bag overnight or for as long as possible).

100g bulgar wheat
handful of dried mixed fruit (sultanas and raisins)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 onion finely diced
1 garlic clove, finely sliced
handful of almonds
handful of pumpkin seeds
chicken stock
salt

For the coleslaw

half an onion
handful of sliced white cabbage
1 small carrot
A good pinch of paprika, Harissa spice and a small pinch of salt
Mayonnaise

For the yoghurt sauce

4 tbsp yoghurt
1 tsp mint sauce
1 good pinch sugar

Make up the stock with boiling water (I used cubes as I didn’t have any made up). Fry off the onions and garlic in a little oil in a medium pan (with a lid). When soft, add the bulgar wheat, dried fruit, nuts, spices and the stock. Bring to a boil, cover and turn the heat off. After about 15 minutes the water will have been absorbed. Taste and add a little more boiling water if underdone. Season with salt if needed.

Heat the oven to 180ºc/350ºF. Heat the griddle pan until searing hot and place the seasoned lamb cutlets on. Seal for a few minutes and turn them over. Pop them in the oven for about 5-10 minutes – I like them still pink.

Whilst doing this make a blazing quick coleslaw: blitz half an onion, a handful of white cabbage and a small carrot in a food processor. Empty into a bowl withth spice spice and mix through enough mayo to coat.

Make the mint sauce by simply combining the ingredients.

Triple Cooked Oxtail and Sweet Potato Rosti

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Phil @foodfrankly

Well Ok, we nearly finished pescetarian January with integrity intact but I couldn’t resist this once I got the idea. To be fair though I think we both agreed, that meat free meals will feature a lot more in our week. If anything, it will save us some money. In the UK meat, or rather, good quality meat is becoming increasingly expensive. I avoid the cheapest supermarket alternatives wherever possible as I’ve seen the factory-like breeding and processing that goes on and it doesn’t sit well with me personally. So the answer? Buy better, buy locally and eat less of it I say.

But anyway, I’ll step off this soapbox and moral high-horse (burger) and get on with it.

Over Christmas I made some miniature oxtail pasties as a kind of canapé when everyone came over. As tends to happen in the Food Frankly household, I made waaay too much and froze most of the filling for a rainy day. Digging through the freezer today I came across it and immediately the cogs started spinning….

In fact, everything else in this dish was found rummaging in the fridge and I allowed myself to feel a little smug about that. Considering the amount we spent on “restaurant week” though it’s largely misplaced, but small victories eh?

Quite a lot went into this, so I won’t write it all down here, I think I might try and post the individual elements in their own right over this coming week. It actually tasted great, I was pleased with this dish. It had just the right combination of flavour and texture and the oxtail, if anything, had improved in flavour. The presentation wasn’t the best but it’s not my strength to be honest and I’m working on it!

Sprout tops

Basically though oxtail had been roasted, then braised in stock for a few hours. I picked the meat out and blended it it with a little stock and Worcestershire sauce to make the pasty filling. I froze the excess and I simply defrosted what was left and cooked it using cooking rings to keep the shape in a hot pan, finishing them off in the oven.

I did virtually the same for the rosti to cut down of the oil used and it also worked out pretty well:

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