I haven’t been creating many new Chinese recipes recently. That’s partly a reaction to all the cooking I did over the Twelve Days of Shananigans Christmas.  But I have also been pining a little for my family returned to China and Australia and I have been busy with work.

Things are getting back to normal now in our three Shananigans households. Shan, Dermot and her Mama will return from Urumqi to Beijing tomorrow night to be reunited with Shane. He has used the time they stayed on with her family in Xinjiang Province to catch up on work and watch lots of films but he has had enough of the semi-batchelor life for now and is looking forward to their hugs and company.

Meanwhile in Sydney, Claire and Mike have become home owners for the first time. Australian citizens, now owning a house there – I guess their Australian adventure is set to last.

There is something about your first-born child buying a house that makes you acutely aware that she is all grown up – a responsible adult with a mortgage, many impressive spreadsheets compiled by Mike to cover all the budgetary implications and a life of her own on the other side of the world. I am so delighted for the two of them as they set out on this next stage of their lives together. Two young emigrants from Ireland and Wales who made good.

I fell in love with their Federation house in Randwick in the suburbs of Sydney as soon as I set eyes on the photos. It is a happy place that must store its share of good memories deep in its walls. In my imagination I can already glimpse the memories still waiting to be made there like shadows dancing around the still empty rooms, rooms waiting for their photos, their souvenirs, their infectious energy. All going well this is where we will celebrate Christmas 2014 with Shane, Shan and Dermot.

I love the natural light in the house which flows past bedrooms and a living/ dining room to a large kitchen and a patio out the back. And I am green with envy of the six burner gas hob in her kitchen. Claire tells me that  I can get lots of practice on it in December. That was enough to set me thinking about what I would cook for them all.

The recipe that gets most hits on the blog is Shananigans Crispy Chilli Beef. I know that lots of readers substitute chicken for beef in this dish and several have wondered if it would be possible to make a version of it without chillies. Well here is a variation based on a traditional Beijing recipe for sweet and sour pork. This is not the cloying sauce you might associate with chinese takeaways. Instead black vinegar, sugar and light soy sauce provide the delicate, tangy balance. No chillies need apply.

As for Claire and Mike, much as I miss them, how can I be anything but happy for the life they have built on the other side of the world. Claire sent me this Sunday morning photo earlier today as they celebrated their house purchase with an early swim at Icebergs near Bondi Beach. She captioned it simply “gratitude”.

Shananigans Crispy Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ingredients:

• 300g chicken breasts or chicken thighs, off the bone
• 1 egg white, beaten
• Good pinch of salt
• About 3 tbs potato flour or cornflour
• A pinch of baking powder
• Oil for deep frying – use good quality sunflower or groundnut oil
• 2 carrots cut into thin matchsticks and blanched for 1 minute
• 2 heads little gem lettuce, root removed and leaves torn into shreds (optional)
• 2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp leek or the white part of spring onions, finely chopped

For the sauce:

• 65 g caster sugar
• 120 ml of Chinese black vinegar or Chinkiang vinegar
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 80 ml water
• 2 tsp cornflour mixed with a little water
• Roasted black and white sesame seeds  and the green part of spring onions, sliced to garnish (optional)

Preparation:

1. Cut the chicken into slices against the grain and then into thin shreds.
2. Dip in the egg white and mix with your hand, leaving it to rest for a few minutes.
3. Mix the potato flour with salt and baking powder.
4. Drain off any excess egg white and dip the beef strips in the flour mix, shaking off any excess.
5. Mix the sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and water in a small jug and stir to combine and dissolve the sugar.

Cooking:

1. Fill a wok quarter full with oil and heat to 140 degrees.
2. Add the chicken, using your fingers to separate the pieces as they go down in the wok. Let them sit for about 30 seconds until the batter hardens, then use a ladle or chopsticks to separate the strands. Cook the for 3 – 4 minutes, stirring to keep the strands separate, until the chicken is crispy and golden.
3. Remove with a mesh strainer or slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Drain off most of the oil from the wok
4. Reheat the remaining oil over medium/ high heat and cook the carrot for 1½ minutes before removing and draining on kitchen paper. Add the little gem lettuce and stir-fry for a few minutes until wilted and set aside with the carrots.
5. Add another small amount of oil to the wok if necessary and re-heat over a medium heat.  Add the leek or spring onion and garlic. Stir-fry for about 5 seconds to release the aromas.
6. Increase the heat to high, add the sauce mix and stir for 20 seconds or until the solution bubbles. Add the cornflour water mix and stir thoroughly.
7. Add back the chicken, carrots and lettuce and toss to coat and heat through. Add a dash of sesame oil for shine, garnish with sesame seeds and the green part of spring onions sliced at an angle and serve with steamed rice.

Tips:

1. You can substitute pak choi, green beans are sugar snap peas for the lettuce. If using the beans or peas blanch them first. You can also substitute beef or pork for the chicken.
2. Check the seasoning when you add the sauce and balance to your taste with a little more soy sauce, sugar or vinegar if necessary.
3. You will find Chinkiang vinegar in the Asia Market, any Asian supermarket and some good greengrocers. At a pinch you could substitute balsamic vinegar but the flavour will be different. Check out my post on Chinese Kitchen Essentials for a handy check list of Chinese ingredients.

It’s snowing outside here in Shankill – well just a flurry but it is real snow. In Urumqi it’s -19 degrees C, too cold for Dermot to venture out but Shan tells me he loves to play with the texture of a snowball gathered from the window ledge and stares in intense concentration as it dissolves in his warm fingers. Shane is already back working in Beijing where it is a mere -7. The Spring Festival is drawing to a close this weekend and China is grinding back to it’s normal winter rhythm.

I’ve had many Chinese meals over the past two weeks including the superb New Year’s Banquet at China Sichuan Dublin where we celebrated both the Chinese New Year and, in his absence, Dermot’s first birthday on 5th February. But I had this notion that I wanted to create a Chinese Pizza to mark the arrival of the Year of the Horse, one that I could cook on the Big Green Egg.

I love making pizza dough and normally use the recipe in this post for the base but, thanks to my Italian friend Solange, I’ve recently discovered Pizza da Piero by the Artisan Pizza company whose products are hand made in Rathmines. These thin, light bases short-circuit the work of preparing a pizza, especially on a stormy Monday night when the rain is teeming down outside. They come in resealable packs of three and cook in about 10 minutes to crisp perfection.

I had decided to build my topping around confit duck and I had consulted Twitter about what else to include in it. I got lots of interesting suggestions and my favourite came from Tom Walsh, head chef at Samphire@theWaterside. And so Confit Duck Pizza with Chilli Jam, Sweet Pickled Peppers, Goats Cheese and Rocket was born.

For ease of reference, I’ve set out all the steps in the recipe below. But in practice I make this pizza the day after I’ve cooked a batch of confit duck legs. I roast some off in the oven that day and serve them with puy lentils or duck fat roast potatoes and pickled red cabbage. I save the rest to make confit duck hash and pizzas.

Tom Chef’s chilli jam and sweet pickled peppers can also be made well in advance and these days I always have some of each in the fridge in kilner jars. You will find you can put them to all sorts of uses in Asian and western dishes.

With these ingredients to hand it takes just moments to make up the pizza and you can relax while your oven heats to temperature. In my case the most challenging bit of preparing the pizza was the dash outside to the Big Green Egg in the lashing rain. But then I delegated that… and proved, once again, that the Big Green Egg can cope with any extremes of weather, even if I can’t!

Confit Duck Pizza with Chilli Jam , Sweet Pickled Peppers, Goats Cheese and Rocket

(makes 3 pizzas)

Ingredients

• 3 Pizza da Piero bases
• 2 confit duck legs
• Tom Chef”s Chilli Jam
• Tom Chef’s sweet pickled peppers
• 1 log of soft goat’s cheese
• a large red onion thinly sliced
• 3 large handfuls of rocket

Preparation

1. If using a Big Green Egg, place your pizza stone on stainless steel grill over the plate setter legs up and heat to about 220 degrees c. Alternatively heat your oven to 250 degrees c.
2. Shred your duck legs including some of the crispy skin.
3. Spread a thin layer of chilli jam on each base.
4. Scatter over pickled peppers, confit duck and sliced onion.
5. Break up some goats cheese and dot over the top of the pizza.
6. Bake for 7 to 12 minutes depending on your oven temperature until the base is crispy and the goats cheese just melting.
7. Scatter with rocket and serve.

Confit Duck Legs

Ingredients

• 6 duck legs
• Enough duck fat to cover the duck legs when melted (about 4 jars)
• About 6 cloves garlic
• about 4 Star anise
• Some springs of rosemary and thyme
• A few bay leaves
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. Dry out the duck legs at room temperature. Tuck the cloves of garlic, star anise, rosemary, thyme and bay leaves around them, season with salt and pepper and cover with melted duck fat.
2. Slow-roast them in the oven at 120 to 130 degrees for 3 to 4 hours until the meat is melting off the bone. Allow them to cool until the duck fat has set.
3. When ready to use, gently prise the duck legs out of the fat, saving the infused fat for glorious duck roast potatoes. Reheated the confit duck legs in the oven for about 15 minutes by starting them at 170 degrees C and crisping off the skin at 230 degrees C.

Tom Chef’s Chilli Jam

Ingredients

• 6-8 red chilli peppers chopped roughly
• 300g castor sugar
• 300g white wine vinegar

Preparation

1. Place all the ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to the boil and  cook gently to reduce to a syrupy, jam-like consistency being careful not to burn.
2. Blend with a stick blender.
3. Store in a sealed container in the fridge.

Tom Chef’s Sweet Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

• 4 to 6 long pointy red peppers
• 400g white wine vinegar
• 400g castor sugar
• 6 star anise
• a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

1. Slice the peppers into thin strips.
2. Pace the vinegar, sugar and star anise in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, add the pepper strips.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool slowly.
3. When cool add a drizzle of olive oil to taste and store in a sealed container in the fridge.

The birthday boy

On Dermot’s first birthday he fulfilled the Chinese tradition of choosing his “destiny” from an array of objects – a ritual  remarkably similar to the Romanian one we witnessed for twins Oli and Fredi at their first birthday party and which I wrote about in Images and Flavours of Tuscany last August.

From the array of items on display, Dermot first chose a golden pig (wealth), a statue (power) and then a jade bracelet.  So much for literary pursuits (sigh). Ah sure go on Dermot… at this stage of your young life, you may as well aim to rule the world.

 

 

It’s the Year of the Horse , the Wood Horse to be precise. According to China Sichuan it will be a time of fast victories and unexpected adventure, a great year for travel when energy is high and productivity is rewarded, a year when decisive action brings victory. You have to act fast in a Horse year but be careful not to gallop. My daughter in law Shan is a “Horse”. This will be an auspicious year for her, she will wear something red every day to bring good luck.

This year I was more conscious than ever of the importance of the Spring Festival to Chinese people wherever they are in the world. On January 30th, New Year’s Eve, Shane, Shan and Dermot were back in China, enjoying dumplings with the Gao clan in Urumqi in Xinjiang Province. Claire was celebrating her birthday in Sydney and eating jiaozi at Din Tai Fung. I was preparing dumplings in Dublin Business School. Three continents – one world.

I was feeling the absence of my off-spring on the other side of the world on the day when all Chinese people, wherever they are, mark the importance of family. A random email from Anne who lectures in marketing at Dublin Business School had diverted me from melancholy thoughts. Would I make dumplings for her class of 2o students who are volunteering for the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival, she wondered, as the college wanted to mark the Spring Festival.

Now I love making dumplings but I’m still only learning and wasn’t confident about my ability to do a live demonstration. So I asked my friend Wei Wei to help. Wei Wei lives here in Ireland with her Irish husband Oisin. She was Shan’s bridesmaid at their wedding in December.  She has her own blog Wei Wei’s Chinese Kitchen and has been cooking since she was a young girl in Tianjin.

We got together  in my house the night before and prepared some jiaozi and fillings. I loved working alongside her and hearing her stories of growing up in China and how her family celebrate the New Year. Last year she had spent the holiday with them and, like me, she was missing her family. You can read her blog post about Chinese New Year here. Wei Wei is a natural, intuitive cook and I learned a lot just from watching her work.

At 11:00 on New Year’s Eve morning we set up our pop-up stall in the Common Room in Dublin Business School in Castle House in Dublin. In a weird coincidence, this was the same open-plan space where I had my first desk as a very young civil servant in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners back in the early 1970s. The memories came flooding back. How strangely the years turn.

It was Fresher’s Week and the group of marketing students quickly morphed into a much larger crowd of hungry young people who caught the aroma of jiaozi cooking. Our little stall was overrun. Mao Restaurant supplied platters of spring rolls and other appetisers to keep the hunger at bay. Some of the students rolled up their sleeves and set to helping us meet the demand. The Chinese girls among them proved to be a dab hand with the cleaver but we also had help from Vietnamese, Irish and other students willing to learn how to roll out and fill the dumpling wrappers.

My photographer friend Solange Daini was on hand to capture the atmosphere. A small selection of her photos is below  - click on them to see the full image.

By 3 pm Wei Wei and I had prepared hundreds of dumplings, boiled, pan-fried and pot-sticker style. We used five fillings in all. Wei Wei had prepared her special “Three Treasures” filling of egg, prawns and Chinese chives and another of beef, carrot and onion. I made Shan’s First Auntie’s recipe - Da Gu’s ‘ pork, Chinese cabbage and star anise - as well as my two favourite  Black Sesame Kitchen Fillings - vegetarian tofu, carrot, shitake and lamb with cumin and Sichuan pepper. You will find another of  Wei Wei’s dumpling recipes here as well as her special dipping sauce.

Our last customer was one of the lecturers who had heard rumours filtering through the college of strange goings on in the students Common Room… and free food.

We were tired at the end of the day but I felt a real sense of satisfaction at being part of a global Chinese celebration of family, friendship and good food. It was a fitting way to enter the Year of the Horse.

Thank you Wei Wei, Solange, Anne and the students of Dublin Business School.

The Spring Festival continues for two weeks and you will find recipes every day on the Taste of China section of the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival website.

Chun jie kuai le - happy Spring Festival.

Ma dao chong dong - wishing you success in the Year of the Horse.

In Sydney, Claire and Mike have just celebrated their first Australia Day as Australian citizens. In Beijing Shane, Shan and Dermot are packing their bags to fly to Urumqi to celebrate Chinese New Year with the Gao clan. The year turns once more, the Year of the Horse is upon us. Thursday 30th January is both New Year’s Eve and Claire’s birthday.

Here in Dublin we are deciding how best to celebrate both these events in the absence of our offspring. We will certainly join in the fun of the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival and I have enjoyed providing some of my favourite recipes for the last year for their Taste of China website. Watch that space for daily recipes from Eva Pau of Asia Market over the two weeks of the Festival. I look forward to trying them out.

Meanwhile Twitter friends and followers of the blog, including those with offspring studying in China, have been asking me for suggestions for recipes to serve at a dinner party to mark the occasion with friends. So here goes.

Tips for a Chinese dinner party

• Food should be served on dishes for sharing – give every guest a bowl and chopsticks (or a plate and fork if you must!) and let them help themselves.
• Typically there should be one dish for each person plus one or two to spare including rice. The concept of “starters”, “side” dishes or “plating up” food doesn’t really exist in China – each dish should be capable of serving 2 to 4 people and should be brought to the table as it is cooked to be passed around among guests.
• For example for six people you could serve three meat and poultry dishes, a fish dish, two or three vegetables and a large bowl of steamed rice. Pay attention to colour and texture to ensure there is a good variety – that will also help ensure a balance of nutrients in the meal.
• It’s a good idea to have two dishes that require slow-cooking, so that they can be prepared in advance, one dish that can be ready to be steamed in a few minutes and the remainder capable of being stir-fried quickly.
• The trick with the stir-fried and steamed dishes is to have all your ingredients prepared in advance and lined up by recipe in the order in which you will use them in the dish. That way you can cook and serve them and still not miss out on any of the fun.

In China the dinner served on New Year’s Eve is regarded as the most important of the year. On the table you would expect to see plenty of pork, chicken and a whole fish. In Chinese the word for “fish” - yu - is similar to the word for plenty or surplus so it symbolises a year of wealth and plenty.

For the first of the Twelve Days of Shananigans Christmas, I prepared a buffet for Shan’s family as they arrived off a plane from China. It went down a treat with the weary travellers. I’ve included most of the recipes I used that night in the sample menu below with links to the recipes on the blog. I’ve also included a steamed fish dish but I have adapted it to western tastes by using fish fillets instead of the whole fish.

Some menu suggestions

• Braised Pork Rib - a perennial favourite in our house that benefits from gentle cooking for an hour and a half. Don’t worry if you can’t get to an Asian Market to get Bai Jiu, use vodka!

• Beer Duck - the bones in the duck add texture and flavour. This dish will never look pretty but it sure tastes good. It also takes an hour and a half to cook and can be kept warm in the oven, along with the pork, once cooked.

•  Hunan Steamed Fish - get yourself a bamboo steamer, prepare your fish according to the recipe and it will cook in minutes when your guests arrive.

• Gong Bao Chicken or if you prefer Crispy Chilli Beef. You can substitute chicken for the beef if you wish. Both of these recipes require cooking at the last minute but if you have all your ingredients prepared it won’t take long to get the dish to the table. Then wipe out your wok and quickly stir-fry a few vegetable dishes.
• Baby corn and peppers - simply dice the pepper and corn into similar sized pieces (about 1 to 2 cms square), toss quickly in hot oil and season with salt and pepper.

• Broccoli with garlic – break the broccoli into florets, blanch or steam them for about 3 minutes at most so that they retain their bright green colour. Thinly slice a few cloves of garlic. Heat some oil in the wok, toss the garlic briefly being careful not to burn it, add the broccoli and stir fry until heated through. Add in a splash of water if you wish to help the broccoli become tender without over-cooking.
• And don’t forget to have lots of steamed rice. You can use any leftovers for fried rice the next day.

There are lots more recipes on the blog that could be incorporated into a New Year’s Eve Banquet so just root around the site if the ones above are not to your taste.

And finally, a dessert - Steamed Milk Egg with Ginger  - Jiang zhi niu nai zheng dan

Desserts rarely feature in Chinese banquets but I’ve adapted the one pudding recipe I learned at Hutong Cuisine for this special meal of the year. I tried it out on my Italian friend Solange and her Argentinian husband Agustin yesterday and they liked it’s light delicate flavour and texture.

Ingredients

• 250 g whole milk or a mix of milk and cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 large piece of ginger, peeled and smashed
• 4 tbs sugar

Method

1. Weigh the milk/ cream into a saucepan and add the sugar. Add the ginger. Bring slowly to just on boiling point and leave to cool for 30 minutes or so while the flavours infuse.
2. Beat the eggs. Strain the milk through a sieve and add to the eggs, mixing well.
3. Pour into four to six small pudding bowls and steam for 8 minutes until lightly set.
4. Serve in their bowls or tip them out onto a plate and garnish with fresh berries, dark chocolate with orange or crystallised ginger and a dusting of icing sugar.

 Xin Nian Hao - Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family wherever you all may be. 

 

 

(written on 20th January, 2014)

I’m writing this through misty eyes while Dermot potters around finding the most dangerous thing in the room to play with and Shane and Shan try to whittle down their wedding photos to those to be included in their album. Their difficulty choosing photos echoes mine as I sift  the memories of the past five magical weeks.

Tomorrow it’s officially over. Tomorrow Shane, Shan and Dermot return to China to celebrate the Chinese New Year with Shan’s family in Urumqi, the first time the Gao clan will all be together for Spring Festival for many, many moons.

Tomorrow I will gather up the scattered toys around my house and return them to their rightful owners along with the borrowed travel cot. I will straighten out Claire’s room which has recently become First Auntie’s room, then Dermot’s and will soon become Jodie’s again as my niece returns to university this week and to lodging with us. I will put the last of 14 sets of bed clothes on to wash, make up the spare room bed and the house will return to normal or what used to be normal before Dermot infused it with his cheery presence. That’s tomorrow.

But for today I just want to live in the moment with us still under one roof and to absorb some of the memories of a time that will surely become legend in our family history.

Where to start? Shane, Shan and Dermot’s arrival at Dublin Airport on 15th December – a sleepy, lost-looking little boy “making strange” and bewildered after his long journey who quickly made our house his home. An evening in Duncannon on the 20th, quiet time for my Mum with her only great grand child and a splendid dinner for the six of us at Aldridge Lodge.

The arrival of Shan’s family on the day before Christmas Eve, our house suddenly overwhelmed on a stormy night, as the group unravelled out of a people carrier with noise and baggage and laughter, most of them meeting their newest family member for the first time, and sitting down immediately to home-cooked Chinese food before taking off again to make it to Duncannon before midnight.

The unexpected appearance of our daughter Claire and Mike later that same evening, bringing forward their flight from Manchester for fear of being caught by the gales on Christmas Eve – a third dash to the airport in a week. More smiles and tears of joyous welcome and the unexpected opportunity to sit and chat before joining the crowd in Duncannon the next day.

Christmas Eve, chaotic, wind sweeping cartons of drinking glasses out of our hands and shattering them to tiny pieces in a Wexford car park. Peking style duck and rack of lamb served  to 18 from the Big Green Egg alongside Claire’s signature meatballs, Claire and Mike getting used to the scale of our newly extended family.

A tiny Santa on Christmas morning melting all our hearts. The rare sight of 5 Christmas stockings lined up on the fireplace, my off-spring and their families under one roof for a few brief days. Christmas Mass in Star of the Sea, Claire emotional at returning to the Church in which she married and recalling the sad and happy events since her and Mike’s special day.

Exchanging gifts with the Gaos under the tree – their first ever celebration of Christmas – followed by a walk for them at Hook Head and Duncannon beach and, later, dinner with turkey cooked to moist perfection on the Big Green Egg. Blessed by a mild, calm day between the wild storms I didn’t even get wet in the cooking.

A Stephen’s Day walk to The Local at Dunbrody and Mike’s first experience of the Wren Boys, a relaxed day followed by all the last minute wedding preparations and the fun of cooking 8 pizzas on the Big Green Egg – Second Auntie proving to be a dab hand at putting the pizzas together.

The 28th of December, Shan and Shane’s wedding day  and Dermot’s Christening Day in Wexford – ah what a day. From start to finish it was special and the sun even shone for us, only the second break in the wild weather over Christmas. Too special to slip into the middle of a blogpost I gave it one of its own.

Then back to Duncannon to prepare a barbecue for 30 including Shan & Shane’s friends who had travelled from Beijing, a task made considerably easier thanks to Eunice Power, who left me salads, confit duck noodles and homemade beef burgers after the wedding, and Shan’s bridesmaid Wei Wei who turned the left over noodles into a sizzling and spicy Chinese feast.

A frenetic, frazzled morning on Monday 30th, packing up Duncannon and rushing to get Claire and Mike back to Dublin Airport and onwards to Australia. Cue tears and sad goodbyes tinged with happiness at how good the two of them are together and the precious time they had with their new godson Dermot and with Shane and Shan. Returning home slightly nervous at the prospect of 14 of us including our Chinese in-laws under one roof in Shankill for a week but rescued from cooking duties that night by my friend Ann who had made a huge beef casserole to welcome our guests back from Duncannon.

A New Year’s Eve buffet with bling, dumplings made by a super-efficient Chinese production line and a final celebratory dinner at China Sichuan and Chinese tea ceremony at home rounded off Shan’s family’s visit and we saw them off two weeks ago, delighted with their Irish holiday.

Since then it has been quieter but a very precious time with Shane, Shan and Dermot. Time to get to know his moods and moments throughout the day, loosing my rookie Nai Nai status and getting confident minding him on my own, introducing him to the ducks and swings at Stephen’s Green, watching him grow in stature and confidence, acquire his first pair of shoes and move to standing and walking with one finger support. His first steps can’t be long away.

Today, our last full day, I took Dermot off on his own for a Nai Nai adventure. On a beautiful sunny day we walked in Phoenix Park and I introduced him to Aras An Uacthtarain, a symbol of one half of his identity. We had lunch together in the Visitor Centre and we spoke about things that matter, him in baby talk, me in words he won’t remember.

Long after Dermot has been reabsorbed into his Chinese world, long after this house has been returned to a state of order as if the tide came in and washed away the evidence of his being here, long after the border of his tiny finger prints around the coffee table is no more, I will remember this day. I will hold it close to my heart like a little precious gem, as precious as Dermot is and always will be. In the words of my current favourite children’s book “I love you to the moon… and back.”

So that’s it. A job done. A plan fulfilled to the letter. A sense of achievement tinged with sadness that it’s all over and an ache at the prospect of missing watching Dermot grow over the coming months.

Meltdown moments during  the Christmas period (or what my friends call my “choppy choppy” moments) – five (but I’m not revealing them!). Precious memories – uncountable.

Safe journey home little family. I think it’s time to plan a trip to China.

Christmas is over. We’ve packed the last box of decorations into the attic. Claire and Mike have arrived back in Sydney where they are grappling with jet-lag and a welcome return to summer heat. Shan’s family are in an icy Beijing en route to Xinjiang Province for the Chinese New Year. Shane, Shan and Dermot will follow them there in a few weeks time.

It’s a time for getting the house back in order after playing host to 17 under one roof and for reminiscing on a memorable few weeks before taking on the challenges of a new year It’s a time for duvet days if an 11 month old grandson and a work schedule jostling for attention would allow.

Of all the special days of Shananigans Christmas, the 28th December – the day of Shan and Shane’s wedding and Dermot’s christening – stands out. For me that day was the culmination of over six months of planning with them long distance to create a unique celebration of Chinese and Irish traditions. As Shane pointed out in his speech, I even let them have their own way from time to time. Mind you he also thanked Shan for letting him have the fairytale wedding he always dreamed of…

We couldn’t have been luckier with the  group of people who worked so hard with us to make the day a success. They included our very special priest friend Fr. Aodhan Marken who conducted the service at Crossabeg Church, Margaret Caulfield and her parents at Slaney Manor, Ingrid at Slaney Flowers, my sister-in-law Ann Marie Corcoran who sang at the wedding and her brother Patrick Clancy who along with his band Some Like it Hot provided the music, my sister-in-law Colette McKenny who made the wedding cake, our friend Tiedong Yang who helped with interpretation for Shan’s family, my brother Jim and his wife Maria whose unofficial duties included chauffeur and Christian and Dearbhala from Brown Sugar who transformed a number of us women for the day.

I found two of the most important contributors to the success of the day through Twitter. Eunice Power was superb, not just her sublime food that catered for both Chinese and Irish tastes but her personal warmth and efficiency and her fabulous front of house service led by the unflappable Grace O’Callaghan. Paul Sherwood took the official photos and his relaxed, professional style made easy going of what can sometimes be the boring part of the wedding for the couple themselves.

Paul took over 300 photos capturing precious moments throughout the day. The photos below were taken by him except for the one of Shane waiting at the altar, the one of them cutting the cake and the two of Shan in her red dress later in the evening.

Paul took a better official photo of the cake cutting but I love the quirky one caught by a friend and included here. It is Chinese tradition for the bride to wear red during her wedding and Shan changed for their first dance which was to “One” by U2, the song to which she and Shane had their first kiss.

Shane’s best man was his close friend Oisin who he went to visit in China 7 years ago, a life-altering journey for both of them. Shan’s bridesmaid Wei Wei is Oisin’s wife. Her brother Gao Feng “gave her away”. Dermot’s godparents are our daughter Claire and her husband Mike. Lucky Dermot.

I hope the photos give you a little glimpse of a very special day. I know I’m totally biased but wasn’t Shan a gorgeous bride and don’t they make a lovely couple, not to mention our much-loved grandson Dermot.

After the magic, normal service will resume shortly at Shananigans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes life has a way of turning full circle.

Last New Year’s Day I remember remarking on the beautiful morning in Duncannon and the start of a “shiny new year”. Within three days we had lost Derry’s mother and within a few weeks his younger sister Deirdre. Both deaths were unexpected. Suddenly the new year didn’t seem so shiny any more. But you get through things and you get on with it and baby Dermot arrived on the 5th of February to brighten all our loves (that should have read “lives” but the slip seems somehow appropriate). And the year ended on a high note with a true Shananigans of a Christmas, followed by Shan and Shane’s wedding and Dermot’s Christening on 28th December.

I’ve so much to write. So many moments and emotions to absorb after the whirlwind of the last few weeks since Shane, Shan and Dermot arrived on 15th December – a bewildered small child plucked out of his familiar Beijing apartment and plunged into the confusing sights and sounds of an Irish Christmas who quickly made our home his own – followed a week later by nine of Shan’s Chinese family and my daughter and her husband from Australia.

But I’m going to start near the end, back in Shankill, after Claire and her husband Mike had been and gone, leaving behind the imprint of their infectious personalities, after the intensity of the Christmas celebrations.

Truth be told I’ve never liked New Year’s Eve much. I always feel as if I am clinging on for those last few hours to the dying year, to the memories of those loved and lost in the year gone by and with a sense of foreboding about what the coming year may hold. This year I was determined it would be different. It was the first time our Chinese in-laws had celebrated a western new year and it was our own unique Gathering to end a year of Gatherings. I wanted to see it out in style.

Robert Jacob provided my inspiration – a New Year’s Eve buffet with bling. I had attended his course at Donnybrook Fair Cookery School in December. I saw how he put it all together in three to four hours. I had blogged about the menu in my post on the Twelve Days of Shananigans Christmas and, despite being tired after a two weeks of non-stop entertaining, I was determined to deliver.

Well 8 hours of preparation later, including a minor pastry crisis, several phone calls to Robert and accepting his offer to make the gold-dusted Chocolate Log for me, I served  up the full buffet up to our enthusiastic guests including our close friends from across the road. Our Chinese in-laws loved the food and how it was presented. They described it as like a painting – that’s what happens when your teacher is a former fashion designer. There were many warm speeches during the meal marking the extraordinary two weeks we have shared together and suddenly it was nearly midnight.

Preparing and serving the meal left me little time to be maudlin but on the stroke of midnight our thoughts were with Derry’s Mum whom we had spoken to at that moment last year. During the conversation she had proposed 28th December to my Mum as the date for Shane and Shan’s wedding, saying that as the elders of the family they should get to decide these things. Well she did and it had felt good to honour her plan last week.

My thoughts were also with my own Dad. New Year’s Eve 1999, when every household in Ireland had been given a Millennium candle, was also our first in Duncannon and, as we lit that candle to mark the turning of the century, all of us present including my Mum and Dad, my brothers and our children, signed the little note that came with it. Every year since then I have lit that candle for a few minutes for all our loved ones including those that have passed away and those now living far from home. This year my new Chinese extended family and our friends all wrote on the card to mark what surely has been our most extraordinary year end of the century.

That New Year’s Eve meal was the second last culinary challenge of Shananigans Christmas. The last was to be on Thursday night when I planned to make dumplings for us all, mirroring the Chinese New Year tradition and also their association of dumplings with family members parting on a journey – a reminder of how family wrap around you wherever you are in the world.

I got as far as making my two favourite fillings – lamb with butternut squash and cumin and vegetarian which I had learned in Black Sesame Kitchen cookery school in Beijing – and a batch of homemade Chilli Oil as taught to me by Hutong Cuisine.  I was about to start the dumpling dough when my visitors tumbled into the house, windswept and rain-spattered from their sight-seeing and shopping trip to Dublin city centre, in a frenzy of discarded wet shoes and coats, shopping bags and retrieved slippers.

Within minutes my kitchen had been taken over and become a super-efficient Chinese production line. Clearly in charge Da Gu (first auntie) set about making her own pork and Chinese cabbage filling with added zing from ground star anise and cousin Jing Jing made an enormous batch of dough using every scrap of dumpling flour in the house. Xiao Gu (second auntie), Shan, her sister in law Shui Mei, cousin Wei Wei and little Xuan Xuan made the dumpling in relays – cutting out ropes of dough and rolling out the circular wrappers, the younger in-laws filling and folding them until every surface in the kitchen, every platter and cutting board I possess was covered with dumplings just as I always imagined a Chinese kitchen on New Year’s eve.

Even Gao Feng – Shan’s brother – was drafted in to cream garlic to go with the black vinegar and chilli oil condiments. I was redundant in my own kitchen and relegated to the happy role of observer. Dumplings made, it was time to cook them in batches, boiled and pot-sticker style, and platter after platter appeared at the dining table. It is amazing how many dumplings you can eat at one sitting without noticing.

It quickly became obvious that we had enough dumplings to feed a small army. And so, after a brief stint in the freezer, the dozens of left-overs travelled with us to Ardee yesterday evening where we marked the first anniversary of the passing of a very special lady, my mother-in-law Alice O’Neill.

Dumplings for remembrance and family and the ties that bind.

Below are some photos of  those two very special evenings in our home and the recipe for Da Gu’s pork and cabbage filling.

Happy New Year to you all and thank you for following my tales and learning experiences in the year gone by.

By the way for those of you who would like to learn more about Chinese cooking, my teacher turned friend Robert Jacob and I are collaborating in a Discover China Class at Donnybrook Fair Cookery School on the evening of 16th January at 7 pm. You can book places here. Shane, Shan and Shan’s bridesmaid Wei Wei who is a fabulous Chinese cook will join us for an evening of good food and conversation. I’m hoping that Marie McKenna, who has reproduced nearly every recipe on this blog, will be there too.

Julie

Da Gu’s Pork and Cabbage Dumpling Filling

This is not a precise recipe. it is the way Da Gu has always made her filling and the trick is to get the right balance of pork, vegetables and seasoning and to use the warm oil to get the sloppy consistency of a thick batter.

Da Gu recommends using ground star anise with pork (she ground it in my pestle and mortar) and ground sichuan peppercorns with beef and lamb.

Ingredients

• 500g minced pork
• A thumb of ginger finely minced
• 2 medium leeks, white part only, finely minced
• 1 to 2 tbs of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of ground star anise
• One head of Chinese cabbage, finely chopped and squeezed very hard to remove excess liquid
• About 100 ml of vegetable oil heated to moderate and allowed cool slightly.

Method

1. Mix the pork, ginger leek, soy sauce and star anise.
2. In a separate blow add the hot oil to the cabbage.
3. Mix this well with the meat mixture and season with salt to taste – only add the salt after the oil to avoid drawing more liquid from the cabbage.

PS. The next post will be photos Shan and Shane’s Wedding and Dermot’s Christening