• Car seat… Check
• Travel cot… Check
• Buggy… Check
• Random impulse buy of two outfits for 3 – 6 month baby boy from Next… Check
• Purchase of four books of Adam’s Amazing Adventures by Benji Bennett to read Dermot to sleep… Check
• Shan’s Irish entry visa… Check
• Shane’s Beijing resident’s permit and visa to return to China… Check
• Lively 3 month old grandson… now in possession of Chinese exit visa and Irish passport and watching his bags being packed to travel to Ireland for the first time this day week… CHECK!!

Dungarees on impulse

A big “thank you” to my Twitter friends who helped me borrow the equipment needed. We will be poised and ready to welcome the three of them home next Saturday. We can hardly contain our excitement.

Meanwhile it’s strange the way food can evoke memories and cumin combined with lamb is a case in point.

Cumin is grown in Xinjiang province, the vast north western province of China where Shan comes from, and where the Muslim Uighur street vendors use it whenever they cook their trade-mark lamb kebabs on portable barbecues. For me the distinctive aroma of cumin and lamb combined will be forever associated with our first trip to visit Shan’s family.

The other night I was playing around with a lamb version of Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe in her Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook for beef with cumin when the scent of the cumin, mingled with sizzling red onion and lamb and flecked with ginger, garlic and chilli, plunged me back into a backstreet in Shan’s home town in Urumqi, Xinjiang province one hot, dry night early last July.

That day we had visited Tianchi – Heaven’s Lake which is perched at an elevation of 2,000 metres above the gobi desert plains below and lies 112 km east of Urumqi. A place apart, Tianchi deserves its Chinese AAAAA– level scenic spot status and its brochure description “like a shy girl deeply encircled by mountains you can even not find another one like it in the heavens and the world.” It also deserves, and will get, a blog post all of its own.  Tianchi freezes over in the winter so it is only accessible in the summer months and is fed by the snows as the ice melts.

Tianchi – Heaven’s Lake

We had trekked for more than 2 hours up 2,500 steps and over a distance of about 7 kilometres to finally come over the crest of the mountain to the vista of the beautiful lake with its backdrop of snow-capped mountains. I had marvelled at the stamina of Shan, who was in the early stages of her pregnancy at that stage, and her little 5 year old niece Xuen Xuen who had matched us step for step.

It was 9.30 pm by the time we arrived back to the outskirts of Urumqi. Our driver asked, through Shan, what we felt like eating for dinner and having worked up an appetite on mountain air we said anything served with a cold beer (Shane and I had the simultaneous thought that we supposed a burger and chips would be out of the question!).

Our driver took us at our word and whisked us into Urumqi city centre through the rush hour traffic. On a bustling summer evening, this city of 4 million people was growing on me, revealing its own haphazard charm. Suddenly we were on a back street, just metres from the heart of the city, with run down apartment blocks on one side and a ramshackle building on the other which housed a pop-up restaurant on the ground floor spilling over on to the street and serving only kebabs (“chuan’r”) and beer.

Pop-up dining in Urumqi

This was one of those places you would never find without insider knowledge, or if you stumbled upon it it’s most likely that you wouldn’t risk eating there. It doesn’t have a name but it was our driver’s local and, during the summer, the eating and drinking goes on there until the early hours on plastic tables strung along the side of the street. The young couple who run it come down from further north near the Mongolian border for the summer months and build up their reserves from the takings to survive the harsh, bitterly cold winters.

Waiting to get fed!

Our driver brought us inside to pick our chuan’r and they were dusted with a spice mix of cumin and chilli, cooked on barbecues outside and brought on platters to our table with large bottles of beer – water and tea were not available.

Choices, choices

Decisions made

Outdoor cooking

Grill action!

The selection of chuan’r for our table of 10 included: duck pieces, whole small lake fish, squid, crab sticks, chicken wings, chicken stomach, chicken pieces with soft bone, blood (a kind of black pudding), courgettes, green beans, leeks, aubergines, potatoes bread and of course lamb, all dusted with spices. The vegetables and bread were sliced thin like crisps and cooked over the barbecue.

Xuen Xuen and her Mum and Dad enjoying the food

This was delicious food, zingy fresh, all char-grilled without oil and an experience of street food we would never have had without local insight. As the sun finally set and the scent of cumin and chilli wafted across to us on the night air, the Chinese chattered on around us and the cold, weak beer lulled us into that particular sense of peaceful wellbeing that only healthy exercise followed by a good meal can produce.

Eating out Urumqi style

Night-life in Urumqi

At the end the owner simply counted up the sticks – long ones for meat, medium ones for fish and short ones for vegetable and calculate the total bill at 2 or 3 RMB per stick. The bill for the lot, for 10 people including beer came to around €35.

Before we left, the owners insisted on having their photos taken with us as the first westerners ever to eat there while the other locals wanted to know all about us. Ireland is now very popular in that part of the city of Urumqi and in a small village near the Mongolian border.

Posing with the owner

Lamb with Cumin – zi ran yang rou

Sizzling lamb with cumin

Ingredients:

• 400 g lean lamb
• 3 cm piece of fresh ginger
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 red onion
• 2 fresh red chillies
• 2 tsp dried chilli flakes (or more to taste)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• salt
• 2 spring onions (green part only)
• 400 ml groundnut oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil

For the marinade:

• 1 tbs Shaoxing rice wine
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbs potato flour
• 1 tbs water

Method:

1. Cut the lamb across the grain into thin slices.
2. Mix the marinade ingredients, add to the lamb and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.
3. Finely chop the ginger, garlic and red onion; finely chop the red chillies discarding the seeds.
4. Thinly slice the spring onion.
5. Heat the oil in a seasoned wok to about 140 degrees C. Add the lamb and stir gently. As soon as the pieces separate, remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon, drain well and set aside.
6. Pour off all but 3 tbs of the oil. Heat the wok to medium, add the ginger, garlic and red onion and stir-fry briefly to soften.
7. Increase the heat to high and add the fresh chillies, chilli flakes and cumin and stir-fry briefly until the fragrance is released.
8. Return the lamb to the wok and stir well over high heat, seasoning with salt to taste.
9. When all the ingredients are sizzling and well mixed, add the spring onions and toss briefly. Then remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

Well its about time that I revealed the answers to the last competition on the blog and some of the things I learned along the way – like the fact that two of the ingredients were not what I thought they were and it took readers of my blog to put me straight! Here are the answers to those fiendish questions.

Who am I and what am I used for?

1. Chinese cooking wine – liao jiu

1. Chinese cooking wine – liao jiu

Cooking wine  - liao jiu - is an essential seasoning in Chinese cooking.  The rice wine used in cooking is quite young and is about 15% by volume.It is often used to “purify”or marinade  meat or fish before cooking and to improve the flavour.

Higher grade rice wine is called hua diao. Here in Ireland I’ve been using Shaoxing cooking wine - shooxin hua diao jiu - which comes from an area outside Shanghai which is famous for its wines. It is readily available in Asian markets.

You will find cooking wine popping up in many of the recipes on the blog, even to marinade the small amount of minced pork used in fried green beans or fish fragrant aubergines. Here’s one recipe I used it in a while back – Sichuan Stir-fried Duck (and it’s strange to re-read that post and be reminded of a time before baby Dermot arrived into our lives.) In a pinch substitute dry sherry or a little white wine.

2. Bai jiu

2. – Bai jiu

This one confused a lot of readers who thought it might be rice vinegar. The clue was in the alcohol content which is 42%. Although bai jiu translates literally as “white wine”, it is in fact a distilled spirit with a kick like a mule. I used it recently in the recipe for braised pork rib where I also describe the rituals associated with bai jiu. A relatively tasteless spirit like vodka could be used as a substitute.

3. Aged Chinese black vinegar – lao chen cu

3. Chinese aged vinegar – lao chen cu

Chinese black vinegar is another essential seasoning for Chinese cooking and is also used as a dipping sauce for dumplings. Shanxi and Zhenjiang are famous for their vinegars. Here in Ireland I usually buy Chinkiang vinegar which comes from near Shanghai and is lighter in colour and flavour and I think that it’s name might be a variation on the pin yin spelling of Zhenjiang.

But I love the rich flavour and colour of aged vinegar like the one above. Watch out for vinegar with a total acid content above 6.0g/ 100 ml and aged for over 5 years.

Balsamic or sherry vinegar could be used as a substitute if you’re stuck.

4. Chopped salted chillies – duo la jiao

Chopped salted chillies – duo la jiao

These chopped salted chillies have a hot, sour, salty taste. They are used in Hunan cuisine and crop up regularly in recipes in Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, the veritable bible of Hunan cuisine. I have used them recently in Hunan Steamed Fish, a recipe I learnt at Hutong Cuisine cookery school in Beijing recently.

The good news is that the brand I used in China, Tantan Xiang, is available for just a few euro in the Asia Market here.

5. Fermented black beans - dou chi

5. Fermented black beans – dou chi

These fermented, salted, black soya beans are used as the base for black bean sauces but they also pop up in small quantities in Sichuan and Hunan dishes such as my own Sichuan Seafood Duncannon style and Hunan Steamed Fish.

6. Sweet bean paste

6. Sweet bean paste

Yes well… I actually bought this thinking it was sweet flour paste - tian mian jiang - which is a sauce made from fermented wheat and often used as a dip for raw vegetables or with roasted duck. But in fact this is a sweet bean paste made with red beans which is used to fill Chinese pastries such as sweet sesame seed balls or moon cakes.

7. Pixian Broad Bean Paste – Douban Jiang

Pixian Broad Bean Paste – Douban Jiang

This fermented broad bean and chilli paste, also known as Sichuan chilli bean paste, is an essential ingredient in Sichuan cooking. It is used in recipes such as Twice Cooked Pork and Ma Po Dou Fu and crops up regularly in recipes in Fuchsia. Here in Ireland you can find versions such as Lee Kum Kee’s Toban Djan widely available but the best brand comes from a county in Sichuan Province called Pixian and now that I have discovered it I can’t do without it. Its intense, rich colour and flavour creates at taste sensation that is as addictive as the sichuan pepper that it often partners.

I haven’t  found a source of supply of Pixian chilli bean paste in Ireland yet so I’m relying on regular deliveries from Shane for the time being.

8. Ground Sichuan Pepper – hua jiao

8. Prickly Ash Powder – Ground Sichuan Pepper – hua jiao

I picked this sachet up in a Chinese supermarket thinking I was buying peng hui - the ash of a kind of grass that grows in north-west China that is used as an ingredient to stiffen the dough used for hand-puled noodles. I was puzzled when I started getting replies to the quiz identifying it as Sichuan pepper but, sure enough, that’s what it is.

I usually buy whole peppercorns and dry roast them, then grind them when needed. It turns out that this powdered version has very good flavour and has come in handy when I need to make up the salt and pepper mix in a hurry, for instance for chilli salt and pepper seafood or cauliflower. So thank you for enlightening me kind readers.

9. Sichuan Preserved Vegetable – Ya Cai

9. Sichuan Preserved Vegetable – Ya Cai

This is another “must have” ingredient – the special magic ingredient used in Sichuan dry fried green beans and many other Sichuan dishes such as dan dan noodles. it is a speciality of the southern Sichuanese city of Yibin and is a type of preserved mustard leaf. I picked up these handy little sachets in Beijing and I understand they are available in some Asian supermarkets here. If you can’t track them down, you can use Tianjin preserved vegetable instead which is available in earthenware jars in Asia Market. See Chinese Kitchen Essentials for more information.

By the way, the Chinese characters for ya cai are the same as those for bean sprouts so, as Sichuanese ya cai is not well known outside the province, I’m not surprised that some readers identified this ingredient incorrectly as bean sprouts. I also now understand why Shan’s MaMa sent me an ingredient I couldn’t place last Christmas which turned out to be preserved mustard tubers - zha cai - as the pin yin for these two is often confused.

10. Whole Pickled Chillies

10. Whole Pickled Chillies

These whole pickled chillies are used in Sichuan Province to make a classic fish fragrant sauce where they are pounded to a puree with a cleaver. See Two Different Takes on Fish Fragrant Sauce to see how they are used. I love the sweet yet spicy undertones they give to fish fragrant dishes.

And the winner is…

Well actually there were two winners:

• Joanne Cronin who writes the blog Stitch & Bear and
• John Thompson who writes a very engaging blog called Sybaritica.

Although they used slightly different words to describe the ingredients, both got all the answers right – no mean feat since it turns out I didn’t know what some of them were myself!

I’m not at all surprised that two people passionate about Asian cuisine came up with the right answers.

You are probably already familiar with Joanne’s excellent blog which tells of her food adventures in Dublin and Ireland and beyond (and if not you should be – it’s my essential guide to eating out in Dublin) but you may not have come across John before as he lives in Canada’s Northern Territory of Nunavut and works as a lawyer. His blog is packed full of glimpses into life close to the arctic circle, “notable noshings”, restaurant reviews and descriptions of foodstuffs and ingredients. I’m intrigued by the foods he is able to track down in that remote area with less than a dozen restaurants within 2,000 km of his home.

As you know the prize was a copy of  Serve  the People – A stir-fried journey through China. The book is written by Jen Lin-Liu, a Chinese American journalist and food writer who decided to enrol in cooking school in Beijing and went on to found Black Sesame Kitchen, one of the two cookery schools I attended while I was there.

I thought I was going to have to toss a coin between John and Joanne, but when I informed John that he had tied for first place, he let me know that he already owns the book in question so, with his agreement, I’ve  awarded the prize to Joanne.

A number of other followers of the blog came very close with 9 out of 10 correct answers. They were Marie McKenna, Elaine Cassells and Deirdre McCann. Well done ladies.

I hope you all enjoyed the fun. Back to cooking now for me and another competition coming up soon.

It is this simple. Without  Baby Shananigans there would have been no Shananigans blog.

I was already smitten by Chinese food and culture when we visited Beijing last July but it was the news that a baby was on its way to Shane and Shan that spurred me on to deepen my understanding of the world into which the child would be born and to capture it in tales and recipes.

On 5th February, baby Dermot arrived into our world to cement the relationships between the O’Neill and Gao families. Where  ”Baby Shananigans” was an idea, the real live Dermot was a bundle of soft skin, sounds, baby smells and thick silky hair, with a distinctive personality from the moment he was born. Though I may be a long-distance nai nai the bond I feel with this little man on the other side of the world is extraordinary and at times heart-wrenching. We hope his feet will touch Irish soil very soon and I look forward to giving him post bath cuddles.

Post bath snuggles this morning

Meanwhile, yesterday he was 100 days old, a very important milestone in China. I will let my son Shane tell you a little bit about it. After all it is his story to tell…. and maybe if I ask nicely MaMa will give me the recipe for her 100 day long-noodle dish.

一百天 

“It’s almost impossible to believe that our little dragon, Dermot, has been with us now for 100 days. Mostly because it seems like just yesterday we were welcoming him to the world, but also, somewhat paradoxically, it feels as though he has been in our lives forever.

One thing that helps me to put this time in perspective is the radically ever-changing Beijing weather. I cycled to work today in blistering heat, through warm wind and beaming sunshine. When I first stepped out of the hospital in the early hours of the morning of February 5^th having just met my son for the first time, there was a fresh blanket of snow covering the cars, roads and trees of our little corner of this great city.

He has changed so much in the past three months it’s hard to keep up. He’s growing so fast I can almost see him stretching out each day, and for the precious hour I spend speaking to him each morning before work, he visibly is trying so hard to respond you can almost hear the words “Dada, Mama” coming from his little mouth… but I’ll admit some of that is wishful thinking.

100 days is a rather auspicious age for a child in China. As the first three months are considered the most risk-filled for a child’s health, many Chinese babies (and indeed their mothers) barely leave the home during this time. As such, the 一百天 or “yi bai tian” ritual is a sort of coming out event. It’s a chance for family and friends to welcome your child into the community, celebrate their life, and see them up close for the first time. To draw a parallel, it most closely resembles a Christening back home.

I went to my first yi bai tian just under two months ago – that of our good friends’ son, William – a joint event held by another mixed race couple and their close Chinese friends, both of whom had baby boys born just a few days apart. As Shan and I had little intention of keeping our child in quarantine for three months, this was also our first time taking Dermot out in a crowd, which he seemed to revel in. The host of the gathering, being an American living in China for over two decades, made a fantastic speech in English and Chinese. Since that fun filled day, all of our friends have been regularly asking when we would be having Dermot’s 100 day party, and reminding me that I too will have to make a speech…

I came home from work this Wednesday, giddy and looking forward to holding my 100 day old son, only to find him sleeping peacefully and not the least bit aware of his auspicious day. I also arrived home to a big bowl of long noodle & pork soup, specially prepared by Mama to encourage longevity in our little man’s life. Whilst eating through the delicious feed, we finalised the details for the get-together this coming weekend.

Traditions and rituals surrounding yi bai tian seem varied and quite open, although it always involves the parents treating their guests to food and drink somewhere other than their home. Guests would usually bring a hong bao of lucky money or gifts for the child, although most of our friends and family have already been very generous during their first visits to meet Dermot in our home.

Planning a formal gathering is not the easiest thing to motivate yourself towards when you are juggling life as a new parent and running a business, but in truth I’ve been really keen on the tradition ever since first learning it existed. We’ve opted to make it more of a party, and have booked out a section of the lovely outdoor deck in a Parkside Bar & Grill near our home, just at the entrance to the park where we walk with Dermot every few days. We’ve arranged loads of beer, soft drinks, platters of food and decorative balloons, and have invited about 30 of our closest friends along with Shan’s family.

Our party plan took a little talking around with Mama – being of a different generation and always a venerable hostess, she found it difficult to understand why we would spend that kind of money on casual drinks and finger food, when we could spend less taking everyone to a nice local restaurant for a proper meal. Quick to accept new customs though, she appreciates that an outdoor party in the sunshine is a fitting celebration for a child. Not wishing to entirely offend local sensibilities, we’ve compromised by inviting Shan’s family to our house first for a home cooked lunch, and then migrate over to greet all the laowai at Parkside.

All in all, it should be a fun afternoon, and while I don’t expect Dermot will remember it or understand it at the time, hopefully he will enjoy all the attention on the day and the photos we will cherish for years to come. As for my speech, I’ve heard the trick is to keep it short and sweet…

Shane”

Fresh snow in Beijing on February 5th 2013

Our first long-distance glimpse of Dermot

MaMa’s 100 day long noodles

Dermot aged 100 days old

Happy 100 days Dermot. We wish we could be there to celebrate with you. May you live for 100 years. – Nai Nai Julie

Our little grandson is due to arrive for his first visit to Ireland this day 3 weeks. He has been growing in our absence. Here he is enjoying his first stay in a hotel room after his first plane journey to the city of Changchun where Shan has her hukou and where they travelled to try and sort out the permits for his journey home. I will explain the complex hukou system of household registration and its ramifications some other time when I have figured it out for myself but for now I’m reminded of the biblical journey to Bethlehem to register for the Census, albeit with more comfortable accommodation and not a donkey in sight.

Dermot enjoying his first hotel room

To distract myself while I await his arrival, I’ve been cooking again and tonight I recreated the braised pork rib recipe that Chef Chao taught me when I attended Hutong Cuisine cookery school in Beijing. This is one of the dishes I served at our Shananigans’ Feast in Sydney the following week where it was a big hit.

It is simplicity itself to prepare but needs to be cooked slowly over a low heat to achieve the correct sticky, melt in the mouth texture. The magic ingredient is a few tablespoons of bai jiu - which translates literally as  ”white wine” but is in fact a distilled spirit with an alcohol content by volume of between 40% and 60%.

Bai jiu for cooking

In China, the best quality bai jiu is associated with the practice of toasting gan bei style – the Chinese equivalent of “cheers” which translates as “dry glass”. The liquor can be horrendously expensive with a price of a bottle for a special occasion banquet running to €100 or more but you can by a cheap and socially acceptable bottle for less than a euro. It is knocked back in shot glasses.

My first encounter with bai jiu was when we visited Shan’s family in Urumqi in Xinjiang province last summer. During our visit we attended a number of formal family banquets and on each occasion the ritual of formal gan bei toasts was an important part of proceedings. There is a definite hierarchy to these toasts.  The host will toast the most important guest first, then the next most important and so on. The toaster always stands to make the toast and the glasses are filled to exactly the same level (in practice to the brim) as to do otherwise would imply disrespect. The glasses are clinked gently and low in a manner reminiscent of bowing. Sipping is not an option. Each toast involves the proposer walking around the table to stand beside the person proposed too while the rest listen in respectful silence and then cheer noisily. Mercifully only those directly involved in the toast are required to drink.

The first family gathering held in our honour was an amazing experience. Twenty five people gathered in an ornate private room in a local hotel at a big round table with a lazy susan at the centre. A large screen TV remained on at low volume in the background throughout but for the chatty Gao family this wasn’t a distraction. A chandelier hung over the table and a huge flower display, formed the centre piece.

Family gathering in Urumqi

The family was arranged strictly in seniority order – as honoured guests we were at the top of the circle, Shan’s MaMa to our right, first uncle and wife to our left, 2^nd and 5^th uncles to either side beyond them with their own direct offspring, their spouses and children if present. Next in order the daughter of Shan’s MaMa’s sister, her sister’s daughter and first cousin and finally any remaining members of that generation. Everyone was addressed by title and family rank rather than name. Nai Nai if you were the granny generation, Ayi for the aunt, Shu Shu for uncle.

The consequence of this table arrangement was that Shane and Shan were a long way away from us leaving us pretty helpless at making conversation as only one of the younger son-in-laws at the far side of the table had any English at all.  Still we got by as the food started to swirl around the lazy susan, hot and cold dishes of local fare and what they called “hotel fare”. Shan’s Mum, who I had only just met at that stage, was trying to teach me the names in Mandarin for tofu, pork, beef, lamb, chicken, noodles, dumplings and many vegetables I didn’t then recognise.

It wasn’t long before the ritual of bai jiu started.

First Shan’s Mum proposed a toast of welcome to us, then, with our permission, she passed the responsibility of host to first uncle. Second uncle repeated the ritual with the same challenge to “gan bei”. And so it continued around the table as, one after the other, each branch of the family said their piece and made us welcome with Shan translating every speech.

Generally speaking only the men were required to toast but Derry was off the hook as he doesn’t drink alcohol. Instead he responded with a perfectly pitched speech on our behalf, and managed to make Shan cry as she translated it. Meanwhile I decided to do my bit for the family honour and quickly earned a reputation as being li hai (deadly) by downing two shots of bai jiu in a row. The truth is that I swallowed the first one fast to avoid the taste and was immediately proffered another one. I quickly migrated to red wine in tiny glasses but by then the Uncles had decided I was good fun and insisted on telling the entire family of my prowess with bai jiu for days to come.

Shane had the bigger challenge. As someone entering the family on marriage, he had to make an individual toast to each of the uncles and male family members present – no shirking for him and I’m astounded he was still standing by the end of 10 toasts and able to walk home in the summer heat.

Toast number one – first uncle

Toast number 9…

Shane ended by toasting Shan, the woman he loves, making her cry again and then her brother Gao Feng spoke in his capacity as head of the immediate family, asking us to take good care of his sister who he loves very much – more tears and by this stage we were all emotional wrecks.

There was much talk of welcoming us into their family and of making their already large family an international one and huge appreciation of our coming such a long way to visit them and saying how easily we fitted in. There was even a toast for me from First Auntie when she realised I had once worked for the Department of Transport in Ireland because she works for the equivalent Department in Xinjiang province.  Another was needed between me and one of the cousins when the lazy susan stopped with the whole fish pointing head to me, tail to the other end of the table. I made a brief toast to Shan’s Mum at the end thanking her for making me feel so welcome and like a sister and saying how special Shan was. Cue more tears.

Eventually we were asked about the proper way to bring a family gathering like this to a close in Ireland and we explained there was none so the honour fell to First Uncle to make a final toast and invite us all to dinner on our last night in Urumqi so that we could do it all over again. He enquired if we were Catholics and if that meant there were any foods we couldn’t eat and on having been reassured on that score they planned another Chinese meal.

The meal below is more like Chinese comfort food than banquet cooking but the use of bai jiu brings back happy memories indeed, especially now that Dermot has arrived to cement the family relationships.

The bai jiu I used is one I picked up for about 70c on my shopping expedition with Shan’s MaMa in Beijing and is 42% proof. If you cant get a bottle of it in your local Asian market, substitute vodka (or potcheen which is closest to the flavour!!) The eagle-eyed among you will recognise it as one of the 10 ingredients featured in the recent competition on the blog.

Braised Pork Rib with Soy Sauce and Sugar - Hong Shao Rou

Pork gently cooking

Ingredients:

• 1 kg belly bork or pork ribs
• Cooking oil
• a few slices of ginger
• 200 ml water.
• 2 pieces of star anise
• 1 1/2 tbs of dark soy sauce
• 4 tbs light soy sauce
• 4 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs bai jiu (at least 30% alcohol)
• 4 tbs Chinese black vinegar

Method:

1. Chop the pork into sections about 5cm long.
2. Brown the pork pieces and ginger slices in a few tablespoons of oil for about 5 minutes.
3. Add 200 ml of water, star anise and all the other ingredients.
4. Bring to the boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
5. Cover and cook over a low heat for 1 1/2 hours.
6. Remove the lid and reduce any remaining liquid over a higher heat until the pork is coated in a thick sticky sauce.

Serve with boiled rice and a simple stir-fried vegetable dish such as:

Stir-fried baby corn and peppers

Simple stir-fried baby corn and peppers

Ingredients:

• About 400g baby sweetcorn
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• Cooking oil
• Salt

Method:

1. Cut the baby corn into 2 cm lengths and the peppers into chunks of similar size to the sweetcorn.
2. Heat a few tbs of oil in the wok, add both vegetables and stir-fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes until the corn is tender.
3. Season to taste and serve immediately.

Chinese comfort food

Silver linings at Duncannon 4th May, 2013

Competition time! – [Competition now closed - winner to be announced shortly!]

Well it’s the May bank holiday weekend and the sun is shining here in Duncannon, Co. Wexford. Today our grandson Dermot Gao O’Neill is 3 months old. I’ve just been speaking to him in Beijing on FaceTime or, rather, he has been staring in some bemusement at me on the screen of an iPad…

Dermot with his Daddy today, aged 3 months

Now I’m in the mood for a long walk down by Loftus Hall and Hook Head Lighthouse where there are lots of fun things going on this weekend. I’m also feeling too lazy to cook today so instead it’s time to have a bit of fun on the blog too and to give something away to one of my lovely followers.

When I was in Beijing to meet Dermot in March I picked up a spare hard-back copy of  Serve  the People – A stir-fried journey through China. The book is written by Jen Lin-Liu, a Chinese American journalist and food writer who decided to enrol in cooking school in Beijing. She went on to found Black Sesame Kitchen, one of the two cookery schools I attended while I was there.

Her book is a mouth-watering tale of her exploration of Chinese food and culture and paints a wonderfully vivid picture of Chinese society and it cuisine. It is a good-humoured insight into life in China and what its like for a la0 wai (outsider – literally old strange), even one with Chinese parents, to break into that world and live like a local. There are lots of recipes dotted through the book to whet your appetite further. And it has been signed by noodle master Chef Zhang who features as one of the fascinating host of characters in the book and now teaches at Black Sesame Kitchen.

Serve the People

To be in with a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment on the blog identifying as many as possible of the 10 ingredients pictured below. It would be great if you can also suggest a recipe each ingredient can be used in but that’s not essential.

The competition will close at midnight on Saturday next 11th May and I will post the book to the winner.

Who am I and what am I used for?

Ingredient 1

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I brought all of these food items back from Beijing but most are available in Asian markets here in Ireland although the brand names may be different.

(Hint: I’ve used all but two of them in recipes on the blog and many can be used in more than one dish.)

If there isn’t an outright winner, I will draw the winner at random from those who get the most right answers with my decision being final as to what’s a correct answer. Ooh the power

The competition was prompted by my daughter Claire sending me the same question with photos of some of these ingredients which she had taken back to Australia from Beijing – and no you cant enter this time Claire because you already know the answers!!

So have fun and learn a bit along the way.

Today felt like the first day of summer here in Dublin and I came home on a high after taking part in the Irish Tatler Business Academy organised by that dynamo Norah Casey. It’s a long time since I’ve spent the day in the company of 450 women and I came away buzzing from the positive energy in the Dublin Convention Centre and the extraordinary openness and honesty with which the panellists spoke about their personal adventures on the road to leadership. Women are good at revealing their hearts and inspiring energy and positivity in those around them. Passion with purpose is what I saw today.

And I loved the time I got to spend in the “green room”,  (now doesn’t that sound posh), with such special women as Clodagh Higgins Online Marketing Specialist, Marie Chawke of Aghadoe Heights Hotel, Margaret Nelson CEO of FM104, Ros Hubbard casting director, Aubrey Tiedt, Vice President of Etihad Airways, and Emmeline Hill, Co-founder and Chair of Equinome Ltd.

Twitter pic posted by @Tamso at last session of #irishtatlerbiz

Now passion and positivity is all very well but as the in-domnitable Ros Hubbard said “what’s the point of being beautiful and fabulous if you’re broke,” to which I might add “what’s the point of being in high good humour if there’s not a thing in the house to eat.”

I arrived home to a near empty fridge and tried to figure out what I could rustle up with some vegetables left over from earlier in the week. Back last September, on one of those miserable Mondays that heralded the onset of winter (and what a long winter it has been) I had posted an impromptu recipe for winter vegetable chow mein. You can check it out here. So I searched for it on the blog, dusted it off and recycled it in a summer dress. Here goes.

Summer vegetable chow mein

Ingredients (serves 3 -4)

• 4 nests of whole wheat noodles
• 4 spring onions
• Piece of ginger – about 4 cms
• 2 – 3 cloves garlic
• 1 whole fresh red chilli
• 2 large or 3 small carrots
• 8 baby sweetcorn
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 red, yellow or orange pepper
• 10 stalks of tenderstem broccoli
• 10 – 20 mangetouts
• Groundnut oil
• Salt and white pepper
• A pinch of sugar
• 2 – 4 tbs light soy sauce
• 2 – 4 tbs Shaoxing rice wine
• Heaped tsp of Chinese 5-spice powder

Preparation:

1. Prepare the vegetables first. Thinly slice the spring onions, Peel and finely dice the ginger and garlic. De-seed and finely chop the chilli.
2. Cut the carrots into thin batons and the pepper and celery into thin slices.

Cooking:

1. Cook the whole wheat noodles as per packet instructions – about 3 minutes in boiling water.
2. Meanwhile heat a few tbs of oil in a large wok over high heat. Add the spring onions, garlic and ginger and stirfry for 1 minute to release the aromas. Add the chilli and stir for another few seconds to release the chilli flavours.
3. Add carrot and sweetcorn and cook for a few minutes keeping them on the move all the time with the back of your ladle, then add all the other vegetables and stirfry for a couple of more minutes until they are heated through but still crunchy
4. Season well with salt, pepper, sugar and scoop out of the wok and set aside in a dish.
5. Drain the noodles. Reduce heat under the wok to medium and add a small amount of oil. Add in the cooked noodles and 5-spice powder. Season with soy sauce and rice wine to taste.
6. Cook, stirring for a minute or two. Return the  vegetables to the wok and toss the lot together over heat. Adjust seasoning with soy sauce and rice wine.
7. Tip into a serving bowl and serve. Drizzle with home made chilli oil if you have any. I’m addicted to this homemade condiment and we have it with everything, even pizza! Wok to table in 15 to 20 minutes.

Verdict and Variations:

This hit the spot on a Thursday evening – really tasty and crunchy and a satisfying vegetarian meal. I had a glass of Prova Régia Arinto from Portugal with it, a wine Elaine Cassells introduced me to. Thank you Elaine!

Every element of this recipe is just a guideline and I didn’t  measure anything. Just use whatever vegetables you have to hand. Mushrooms, chinese cabbage, sugar snap peas would all work well. Experiment and enjoy.

PS

In the context of  the Irish Tatler Business Academy, Matt Cooper had a panel discussion on women and leadership on The Last Word on Today FM yesterday and I took part with Anne Marie Graham of Health Force and Orlaith Carmody, CEO of Media Matters. If you are interested, you can listen back to the podcast here.

I’ve been enjoying cooking “fish fragrant” recipes since I started this blog and I have discovered several different ways of creating the salty, spicy, sweet, sour yu xiang flavour which the people of Sichuan love to use in their land-locked region to recall the flavours they associate with fish. The description often causes confusion among westerners as there is no fish or fish sauce used in these recipes.

The first time I made fish fragrant pork I used a recipe given to me by Chef Ricky when I went inside the kitchen of China Sichuan in Dublin and you can read it here. That version used chilli garlic sauce and owner Kevin Hui told me that in the early years they described it as Pork in Spicy Garlic Sauce on the menu to avoid putting off diners!

Chefs preparing fish fragrant pork at Taste of China (Photo by Solange Daini)

More recently I’ve cooked fish fragrant pork using fish fragrance marinaded peppers, as prepared by the chefs of China Sichuan at the Taste of China cookery demonstration. Before I left for China I promised to post the recipe for using this marinade and it is now below.

I know some of you have had these marinaded peppers in your fridge for at least 3 weeks now so it should be nicely flavourful. I used my now 9 week old marinade tonight, this time with chicken, and it was delicious.

Fish Fragrant Chicken with a dash of Chilli Oil

When I visited Beijing recently, I learned how to make a classic fish fragrant sauce based on pickled chillies chopped to a puree with a cleaver blade. The recipe for fish fragrant aubergine below is the one taught to me by Chefs Chun Yi and Chao at Hutong Cuisine in Beijing and is the way Chun Yi learnt to make it when she trained as a chef in Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

Hutong Cuisine fish fragrant aubergine - yu xiang qie zi

Practising Fish Fragrant Aubergines at Hutong Cuisine

Ingredients:

• 500g aubergine cut into small fingers
• 2 tbs minced pork marinated with 2 tsp of rice wine
• Cooking oil

Spices:

• 3 – 4 pieces of pickled chilli, finely minced
• 1 tbs minced ginger
• 6 cloves of garlic minced, about 2 tbs

Seasoning:

• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tsp black vinegar
• 50 ml water

Garnish:

• 3 spring onions minced, about 3 tbs
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Method:

1. Heat the wok over high heat, season with 1 tbs cooking oil. Reduce the heat to medium, add the aubergine and stir-frry until soft. This will take anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Remove the aubergine from the wok.
2. Season the wok with 2 tbs oil and, over a low heat, add the pork and stir-fry until it separates and changes colour.
3. Add the chilli, ginger and garlic and stir-fry for a few moments to release the aromas. Add back the aubergine then stir in the salt, sugar, soy sauce and vinegar and mix well.
4. Pile the food in the middle of the wok, add 50 ml of water around it, cover and cook for a few minutes until all the water has done.
5. Turn off the heat, add the spring onions and sesame oil. Mix and serve.

China Sichuan fish fragrant pork shreds - yu xiang rou

Plating up the pork at Taste of China (Photo by Solange Daini)

Fish fragrant marinaded peppers

• 500 g red peppers
• 500 g sweet red pepper
• 60 g salt
• 25 g ginger
• 25 g garlic
• 1 shot of vodka     (30 to 35 ml)

Prepare and deseed peppers.  Dice the peppers, chop the ginger and garlic. Place in a clean bowl and add the salt and vodka.  Wrap with cling film and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 3 weeks. Blend roughly with a hand blender at the end of the 3 weeks. The marinade will keep well in the fridge.

Fish fragrant – yu xiang – sauce

• 250 ml water
• 100 ml black vinegar
• 80 g sugar
• 2.5 g salt
• 10 ml chicken stock

Mix all of the ingredients for the yu xiang sauce and bring to the boil.

Pork shreds

• 200 g pork fillet, trimmed
• 1 egg beaten
• a good pinch of salt
• 1 tbs potato flour
• 1 tbs water
• Cooking oil
• 1 to 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• The equivalent amount of ginger finely chopped
• 100 g fish fragrant marinade
• 200 g fish fragrant sauce
• 1 heaped tsp potato flour
• 100 ml water
• 4 to 5 spring onions chopped
• ½ a fresh chilli chopped or a dash of home-made chilli oil (optional)

Method

1. Prepare the pork fillet by trimming all the fat.   Slice against the grain and then shred in to matchsticks.
2. Add in the beaten egg,  salt and a little potato flour. Mix with your hand or long chop sticks and set aside.
3. Mix the potato flour and water and leave to one side.
4. Heat the wok until hot.  Add sufficient oil to coat the wok and stir-fry the pork until it is cooked, then drain and leave aside.
5. Using  the same wok, add a little more oil and heat up to a medium heat.
6. Stir fry garlic, ginger and  fish fragrant marinade until the aromas are released.
7. Return the pork to the wok and fry for 30 seconds, mixing well .
8. Add the  fish fragrant sauce.
9. Bring to the boil and add potato flour and water mixture  to thicken and produce a nice glossy consistency (add a little more potato flour and water mix if the consistencey is not thick enough)
10. Add chopped spring onion to garnish and sliced chilli if desired or add a good dash of home made chilli oil if you prefer a spicier taste.
11. Served with steamed rice.

Note: This recipe works equally well with chicken shreds.

I enjoy playing around with the ingredients and methods used in these recipes and I see lots of scope for experimentation. For instance Sichuan chilli bean paste – toban djan - can also be used to create the spicy kick. If you come up with any new variations, let me know.

Post script:

As I write tonight Im thinking of the many families in Sichuan Province affected by the recent devastating earthquake which left at least 200 people dead, over 12,000 injured and tens of thousands homeless and living in makeshift tents or on the streets as the efficient Chinese authorities rushed support to their aid. What those lovely people would give for a simple dish of yu xiang qie zi or yu xiang rou tonight and for some certainty about their future.

I also cant get out of my head a little story from the Irish Times by Michael Harding that Barbara Scully sent to me today – “The hug that’s more valuable than gold”. It reminded me forcefully that “generation emigration” is not just one-way traffic and that, just as we miss our far flung children and grand-children every day, there are mothers and fathers in China longing for their children who are here with us in Ireland. Read it. It’s beautiful.

Anyway this little man is now an Irish citizen. He just seems to be a little bemused at the prospect

Dermot Gao O’Neill – Irish citizen