I always wanted to cook for a crowd at Christmas. With just two children in our household, the day was sometimes on the quiet side and I would glance with envy across the road to where our neighbours had uproarious parties until the early hours – charades and karaoke – while we dozed in front of the fire, sleeping off enough food to feed a cast of thousands. I used to feel tempted to rush out into the streets to rustle up a crowd but the most I ever served for dinner was six and one year it was just the two of us. I still produced the full Christmas dinner but it just didn’t seem quite right.

Well this year my dream looks set to come true in more ways than one. Santa is to make a return visit to our house for the first time in over 20 years, to do the needful for our little grandson’s first Christmas. Dermot, now aged 10 months, is arriving next Sunday from Beijing with his Mum and Dad, but that’s only the start of it. The following weekend eight of his Chinese aunties uncles and cousins and his Chinese Nai Nai join us to celebrate Christmas, Shane and Shan’s wedding and Dermot’s christening. And as if that’s not enough, our daughter Claire and  her Welsh husband Mike, who have just acquired Australian citizenship, will arrive on Christmas Eve, Claire’s first time home for Christmas Day since she emigrated to Sydney six years ago.

But it’s not just a matter of cooking for Christmas Day. For most of Twelve Days of Christmas I will need to put together a meal for 18 people or more and make sure everyone has somewhere to lay their head at night. My excitement is building to fever pitch and planning has reached a nearly obsessive level as I make my lists and check them at least twice so that I can be well-prepared and able to join in the fun. As it’s Shan’s family’s first trip outside China we want to give them a real taste of an Irish Christmas and wedding but with a few touches that might make them feel a bit more at home.

So here’s the plan so far.

Day 1 – 23rd December – Chinese welcome buffet in Shankill

Shan’s relatives will arrive in the early evening, tired from their long-haul journey and we will have a Chinese meal ready for them before they transfer to Duncannon in Wexford – Beer Duck, Gong Bao Chicken, Braised Pork and a nice selection of vegetable dishes to ease them into the newness of Ireland.

Day 2 – Christmas Eve in Duncannon

Peking Style Duck barbecued on the Big Green Egg and served with all the trimmings followed by Adam Perry Lang barbecued rack of lamb - our Chinese in-laws are from Xinjiang Province and love their lamb – served with girdled marinated courgettes.

Oh and maybe some Jamie’s Italian Meatballs because it has been our family tradition for Claire to cook these on Christmas Eve whenever she is at home. She will be on the meatball detail.

Day 3 – traditional Christmas Day dinner

The works, but cooked 0n the Big Green Egg. I’ve had a practice run at cooking this for 17 in October and know I can pull it off if nothing goes wrong. Here’s the menu.

Day 4 – Lá le Stiofain

Cook will be on strike but there will be lots of leftovers and perhaps we can rustle up the turkey version of  Bang Bang Chicken I never got to make last year.

Day 5 – Pizzas on the Big Green Egg

I figure if Shan’s MaMa could teach me how to make dumplings, I can return the favour by showing our visitors how to make pizza dough using Birra Moretti. Some of the pizzas we will bake on the Big Green Egg are  in these blog posts - Lamb and Aubergine Pizza with a nod in the direction of the Old Silk Road with more typical italian toppings here.

Day 6 – Wedding Day

The 28th December, is Shane and Shan’s wedding day so the cook gets the day off , we all head for my hometown Wexford town to be joined by a much wider group of family and friends. Eunice Power will do the cooking in a unique Irish/ Asian fusion feast. Yeah!

Day 7 – Morning After BBQ

Shane and Shan’s friends from Beijing will be descending on an unsuspecting Duncannon and we will put together a casual BBQ including some typical Chinese street food to feed them all up before they adjourn to a local hostelry. The Big Green Egg and our old gas barbecue will be on the go all day. Cook will attempt to stay awake.

Day 8 – A Great Big Stew

This is the day we all return to Dublin so that our Chinese guests can sample some of the treasures of our capital city and environs. It’s also the day Claire and Mike will leave to visit Mike’s family in the UK. A VERY kind friend has volunteered to make a very large stew for me that day which we will serve with lots of vegetables and mash.

Day 9 – New Year’s Eve Buffet

I was a bit stuck for ideas as to how best to celebrate ringing in the new year so I used up my Rewarding Times voucher for Donnybrook Fair Cookery School yesterday and learned from my good friend Robert Jacob how to put together a New Year’s Eve buffet with bling. Sorted! Now all I have to do is cook it.

Day 10 – New Year’s Day Dumplings

We will greet the New Year in the manner familiar to our Chinese guests by making jiaozi. I’m hoping my guests will get stuck in when they come home from sight seeing and we can have a dumpling party. Lots of recipes for fillings are here.

Day 11 - Hotpot

Lot’s of coming and going planned for this day with a few side trips from Dublin so the meal will have to be easy to prepare – I’m thinking of variations on the hotpot I prepared for Claire’s friends last year.

The following day our visitors will spend the night in Kilkenny enjoying the hospitality of the Pembroke Kilkenny and an Italian meal at Rinuccinis. That day is also the first anniversary of my mother in law’s sad passing so it will be important for us to take some time out from the celebrations. It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly a year since I wrote this grief-numbed post about her – In Memory of Alice.

Day 12 – A Farewell Banquet at China Sichuan

Our guests return to Dublin to pack for their long trip back to Beijing, Shanghai and Urumqi. What better way to end their visit than with a farewell meal at China Sichuan Dublin. I’ve no doubt that Kevin Hui and his team will give them the send off they deserve with a unique Irish take on the tastes of home.  Shane, Shan and Dermot get to stay on in Ireland for another few weeks so we will have time to re-group with them and absorb the memories of what promises to be a most extraordinary Christmas.

Table Talk at Donnybrook Fair

Now about that New Year’s Eve buffet, well Robert Jacob’s class yesterday was an inspiration and great fun too. He has a lovely, relaxed teaching style and it wasn’t just the food but his ideas for presentation that made this class special. Thanks to him my party menu will go something like this:

Cherry Red Gazpacho with Prawns

****

Maple Syrup and Mustard Glazed Wexford Ham

Smoked Haddock Leek and Gruyere Tart

Stilton Tart

Winter Pear and Goat’s Cheese Salad

Crab Salad with Goatsbridge Trout Caviar

Remoulade of Celeriac and Green Apples

 Carrot and Broccoli Salad

****

Blingy Chocolate Chestnut Log

Peach and Raspberry Mock Trifle

That was a lot learnt in a four hour class. The chefs at Donnybrook Fair Cookery School including Niall Murphy and Robert put on a great selection of courses and they have lots of interesting guest chefs and food writers too. I want to attend them all!

In fact Robert and I are collaborating on a Discover China evening on 18th January. It will be Part 1 of their new Table Talk series. I will talk about Chinese food, he will cook recipes from the blog and dinner will be served afterwards. The honeymoon couple Shane and Shan will still be in Ireland so they will come along to share some of their insights and reminiscences about the food of Shan’s homeland. it would be lovely to see some of you there.

You can find out more about the classes here on DonnybrookFair.ie. It’s a great website for last minute Christmas gift vouchers for the food lover in your life.

Enjoy the run up to Christmas lovely readers. I will pop in from time to time to report on progress and the inevitable mishaps.

It was a gloomy November Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after I had arrived back from Beijing. Winter had sneaked up on Ireland while I was away, the evenings were closing in and there was a noticeable nip in the air. I was jet-lagged and disoriented, my head and heart still drifting between two worlds, seeing in my mind’s eye the now familiar rituals of Shane, Shan and Dermot’s Sunday afternoon.

I took refuge in cooking. I made two large batches of dumplings while catching up on the episodes of Downton Abbey that I had missed. As I punched and kneaded the dough and found the rhythm of rolling out near perfect discs, I felt the connection with my family and the world I had left behind in Beijing. Cooking is therapy.

It was Li Dong on 7th November, the first day of the Chinese winter. As if on cue, the weather in Beijing had changed from a balmy 17 degrees to a sharp, dry chill in bright sunshine. Legend has it that if you don’t eat dumplings on Li Dong, your ears will fall off when the cold snap comes. I was taking no chances and tucked in with gusto to Shan’s MaMa’s pork, cabbage and shrimp dumplings served with her  homemade chilli paste.

The previous day I had attended a dumpling class at Black Sesame Kitchen. This was my third dumpling class. I had been to one at Hutong Cuisine in March and another led by the chefs at China Sichuan in Dublin during the last Spring Festival. But you can never learn enough about making dumplings and every class brings it’s own tips and tricks plus some lovely new recipes for fillings. Besides dumpling lessons are great fun and a great way to make new friends over a glass of Chinese beer (loosens the dumpling wrapping skills I’m told!) as you compare your misshapen efforts. I came home with left-over dough which MaMa turned into noodles for Dermot’s dinner. No waste in China, ever.

Now back in Dublin, I wasn’t taking any chances on the falling off ears thing (it wouldn’t be a good look for the wedding!) and I also wanted to put the techniques into practice before I forgot them again. First I had to find the right flour and pick up a few ingredients that weren’t in the store cupboard.

The flour we used at Black Sesame Kitchen was described as all-purpose flour. I consulted Niamh Shields - Eat Like a Girl - as to what I should use here in Ireland as I knew she had recipes for dumplings in her cook book Comfort and Spice. On her suggestion, I tracked down high gluten dumpling flour at my local Asian Market in Bray where Tony has adopted me like a member of his extended Chinese family. It worked like magic to create a supple, pliable dough.

If you can’t get hold of dumpling flour, Niamh suggests you mix plain flour with cornflour in a ratio of 90:10 or up to 75:25 to make the dough more “gentle”. Make sure it is plain flour though and not a cream flour or the like with added raising agents. Check the label, it should only contain wheat.

I’ve set out below the instructions for making the dough along with filling recipes similar to those I learned in Black Sesame Kitchen. You will find other filling recipes in one of my earlier posts here. The technique for rolling out the wrappers is hard to explain. I described it in some more detail in this post after I attended the class in Hutong Cuisine last March. You can pick up frozen gyoza wrappers at the Asian Market but once you have experienced the taste and texture of freshly made wrappers there is no going back.

I’ve used cup measures below as Chinese cooks would never weigh ingredients for dumplings, they judge by eye and taste. Thanks to this handy infographic from James Whelan Butchers, I just fill to the 250 ml level of my measuring jug to gauge a cup.

Start by making your dumpling dough and, while it is resting, make up your fillings. At that stage you can start rolling out the dumpling wrappers and filling them as you go. A dumpling party where your guests fill and wrap their own dumplings can be a fun way to spend an evening. I’ve every intention of putting my ten Chinese guests to work when they visit over Christmas. The dumplings freeze well and can be cooked from frozen, just allow a little longer cooking time, and a little more water for the pot-stickers.

Dumpling dough (makes about 50 jiaozi)

Ingredients

• 6 cups high gluten dumpling flour
• 3 cups water

Kneading the dough

1. Place the flour in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Stir in 1 cup of water, working the water into the flour with your hands.
2. Slowly add more water, about ¼ cup at a time, mixing thoroughly so the water is fully incorporated before adding more.
3. Stop when the dough is springy and soft, not too dry and not slippery.
4. Transfer to a clean work surface and knead for 3 to 5 minutes until the surface is smooth.
5. Leave to rest for at least 10 minutes covered with a damp cloth.

Vegetarian Dumpling Filling

You can experiment with vegetarian fillings. The mix below is the one we made at Black Sesame Kitchen. Just think about colour, texture and your protein source. I used fried tofu for the protein. Fresh soft tofu would not hold it’s shape.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
• ¾ cup rehydrated glass noodles (mung/ green bean or rice)
• ¾ cup shredded and chopped carrot (use a mandolin to create julienne strips and then chop into fine dice)
• ¾ cup diced dry tofu
• 2 tbs leek (white part), finely minced
• 2 tsp ginger, finely minced
• A handful of fresh coriander finely chopped
• 1 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp chicken bouillon – ji jing (optional)
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• A handful of toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Method

1. Rehydrate the shiitake mushrooms overnight in a bowl of warm water or, if your stuck for time, place them in a bowl of boiling water and leave until the water cools.
2. Rehydrate the glass noodles by pouring warm water over them in a bowl for 5 minutes and leaving them to drain.
3. Make sure your mushrooms, carrots, glass noodles and tofu are very finely chopped in similar sized pieces and mix well.
4. Add the leek, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and five spice powder.
5. Check your seasoning to ensure that it is sufficiently salty to complement the unseasoned dumpling dough and then it is ready to use.

Lamb and Butternut Squash  Dumpling Filling

The trick with this and any meat filling is to have the mixture wetter and saltier than you might think necessary. This creates a delicious, melt-in-the mouth texture in the steamed or pot-sticker filling. I was lucky to have my husband around as a willing assistant to dice the butternut squash. It was a slow job and can be short-circuited by using a mandolin to julienne the squash first.

You can substitute pork, beef or prawns for the lamb. Chicken is not traditional as it is regarded as too dry but I have used it successfully in a Gok Wan recipe featured in this post where you will also find recipes for a few other fillings. You can also use your choice of shredded or finely minced vegetables. If using vegetables with a high water content such as Chinese cabbage, aubergine or courgette, chop them up, salt them and place in a colander with a weighted plate on top for at least 30 minutes to drain out excess moisture.

In class we made pork and butternut squash dumplings without added cumin and these were equally delicious.

Ingredients

• 350g minced lamb
• ¼ cup light soy sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbs Shaoxing rice wine
• 1½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp white pepper
• 1 tbs ground cumin
• ½ tsp chicken bouillon
• 1½ tsp finely minced ginger
• 1 tbs finely minced leek, white part only
• About ½ cup water
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups of  finely minced butternut squash seasoned with salt, pepper and a dash of sesame oil
• A handful of coriander, finely chopped
• I tbs sesame oil
• 2 tbs vegetable oil.

Preparation

1. Place the minced meat and all the other ingredients, except the water, egg, vegetables and sesame oil, in a large mixing bowl and mix well. I use long chop sticks for this.
2. Add the water, about ¼ cup at a time, and beat into the meat mixture in a clockwise direction. Ensure all the water has been incorporated before adding more. When all the water has been beaten into the mixture it should resemble a thick cake batter.
3. Add the egg and beat, in the same circular direction, for about 20 to 30 strokes.
4. Add in the vegetables and sesame oil. Blend well.
5. Add in the  vegetable oil and mix well so that the filling has a sloppy consistency and is ready for use.

Rolling out the dumpling wrappers

1. Divide the dough in 3 equal parts. Cover two with the damp cloth until you are ready to use them so that they won’t dry out.
2. When ready to use, roll each piece into a long rope about ¾ inch thick.
   

   Not my neatest “rope” ever

3. Slice the rope into ½ inch long pieces, making a half turn of the “rope” between each cut.
   

   Ready to be flattened

4. Sprinkle the pieces with flour, roll lightly to form balls and flatten with the palm of your hand into discs.
5. Working with a short, skinny rolling ion and one piece of dough at a time, start from the centre of the dough, roll outward, then back to the centre. Turn the dough a few degrees, pulling it away from you lightly and roll again. Keep going until you have made a full revolution. The trick is to get a perfectly round and flat disc, a bit bigger than the palm of your hand and slightly thicker at the centre. It’s a knack that comes with practice (and lots of misshapen wrappers along the way!)
   

   (Almost) a perfect round

6. Keep your wrappers covered with a damp cloth as you go so they don’t dry out.

Wrapping the dumplings

1. Place a dumpling skin in your palm. Place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the centre.
2. Fold the skin in half and pinch the top of the semicircle together.
3. Starting from one side to the centre, at the back of dumpling only, and continuing with the other side, pleat and pinch the edges until the filling is fully sealed and the dumpling has the shape of a crescent.
   

   (Possibly) my most perfect dumpling ever

Boiling the dumplings

1. Fill a large pot with boiling water and bring back to the boil over high heat. Add the dumplings in batches.
2. Cook for five minutes. Drain with a slotted spoon and serve immediately.

Cooking “pot-sticker” dumplings

1. Heat a flat bottomed deep frying pan and add a good layer of oil to coat the bottom.
2. Place the uncooked dumplings in a single layer on the pan, shaking a little to make sure each gets a bit of oil on the bottom.
3. Add hot water ¾ way up the dumplings. Cover for 7 to 8 minutes and cook until the bottoms are  crisp and golden and most of the water has evaporated. Do not turn the dumplings during cooking.

To serve – home made chilli oil and Chinese black vinegar 

In Beijing dumplings are usually served with a a small bowl of Chinese black vinegar for dipping. MaMa and I like to mix this with some chilli oil to taste. See this recipe on the blog for home made chilli oil or make a simple version by heating vegetable oil or rapeseed at 140 degrees C for about 3 minutes and pouring it over a few tablespoons of ground chilli or chilli flakes, with finely chopped garlic, ginger, leek and coriander added to taste. Allow to cool before using and store in an airtight jar.

If you ever get a chance to go to a dumpling-making class, do. It’s great fun. In fact I must see if I can get another one organised here in Dublin sometime soon.

And, if you ever get to Beijing, make sure to attend a class at Black Sesame Kitchen. Classes run from 10 am to lunch time and cost 300 rmb or about €37 including eating the proceeds of your efforts (and drinking some beer). The classes are very popular so book well ahead.

Meanwhile Dermot has been enjoying his weekend in Beijing. See you this day three weeks Dermot, Shane and Shan. Let the celebrations begin then.

What can I tell you about my grandson who was 9 months old this week …

That he has the most infectious giggle and finds the adults around him hilarious.

That he loves to play nai nai hugs, careering around his Beijing apartment at break neck speed in his inappropriately named “walker”.

That he loves his books – My First Gruffalo and This is Not My Panda – especially the soft furry bits.

That his first word was “yeah” uttered at loud volume and accompanied by a cheerful yell, his second  ”bao bao“, the Chinese word for hug and his third “ba ba“, the Chinese for Dad.

That he never sits still for a moment, preferring to pull himself up to standing on any surface he can find, even an arm or leg will do or cliff-hanging on the edge of the kitchen table with three fingers.

That he loves his food (family trait that) and really wants what we are having unless it’s spicy in which case he is most put out. Duck and noodles are his favourites and dragon fruit and watermelon. It’s in the genes.

That he hasn’t yet learned that in this world there isn’t always someone there to catch you when you fall and it is wiser to fall forward and save yourself rather than backwards into empty space.

That his smile would light up a continent and you could lose yourself in his dimples.

That his world so far is full of people he loves and trusts – his mamma, baba, two nai nai and a ye ye and gu gu at the other end of a Skype line.

That his world is full of wonder and fun.

That he is a budding guitarist if bashing a plastic guitar off any surface that he can find to set it playing it’s three repetitive tunes counts – no wonder parents are never the ones to buy noisy toys for their kids.

Yes that’s what I learned about Dermot in the two special weeks I shared with him, in his world in Beijing with Shan, Shane and his Chinese nai nai. And every parent and grand parent will know that, while every child is special, there is none quite so special as the baby in your life right now.

I’m back now in the transit lounge of Dubai airport reflecting on all the new things I discovered in those two weeks – about Dermot, about China, about Chinese food. I have a notebook full of new recipes and insights gleaned from this visit to share. Every time I go there I feel I understand China and its culture that little bit better but it’s like scratching the surface. When the time comes to leave I realise what a vast amount I have still to learn before I truly “get” it, if I ever will.

One day last week I took myself out to a local, western style cafe, Twosome on Jiang Tai Xi Lu, for a fix of coffee and “space”, the European in me briefly overwhelmed by China. An old Carole King song “Far Away” was playing on the stereo and the line “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place any more” caught me at the back of the throat.

It’s the lot of our generation of mammies and grannies to be torn between continents – my daughter Claire and her husband in Australia, my family and friends in Ireland, my son and his wee family in Beijing. And yet I know how lucky I am to be able to travel to them and have them home fairly often.

Just for these few moments I want to sit here between all those worlds, listening to the sounds of morning prayer, with that feeling of appreciation mixed with longing.

Normal service, including some great new recipes, will resume shortly.

 

 

 

One of the many things I love about a trip to Beijing is the chance to attend a few cookery classes, pick up new recipes and tips and improve techniques under the watchful eye of a professional Chinese chef. This recipe for Gong Bao chicken from my recent visit is so good that I feel like taking to the streets with a placard and megaphone to encourage everyone to try it. It has to be one the tastiest and best value winter warmers around and perfect for the coming cold snap. But first a bit of the back story on the recipe.

I am particularly fond of Hutong Cuisine where the cheerful and practical Chunyi, who trained in Sichuan Province, takes you through the class in her own inimitable style. I had attended classes there last March that I wrote about in this post and several other posts in April.

There had been a few changes since March. Chunyi’s brother Chao has opened another branch of the cookery school in Chengdu in Sichuan province and Chunyi has built a new kitchen in her house in the hutong with more work stations so that she can take bigger groups. Nothing ever stands still in Beijing for long but  cooking with her still reminds me of being in my granny’s kitchen.

This time I attended a Sichuan class in the company of two young professional chefs, one from England and one from Australia, who work on a private yacht. They were touring China learning authentic Chinese recipes to adapt for the yacht and had already been to cookery schools in Chengdu and Yangshou. Can’t you just feel my envy. Happy cooking guys and thanks for your company.

Whenever I cook in China, whether at home with Shan’s MaMa or at a cookery class, I am reminded of how deep frugality runs in the veins of Chinese cooks – a legacy of the famine years. Food is never wasted. Only the small amounts of ginger, garlic or spring onion needed for a dish are prepared. Left overs are retained for future use. Scraps go into cooking oil to flavour the oil used  for drizzling or deep frying. Water used to blanch meat of its impurities is thrown over herbs growing in the garden or in a pot on the window ledge. The cheapest ingredient available is always used – peanuts instead of cashew nuts, cornflour instead of potato flour, leeks instead of spring onions.

Growing up in Wexford in the 1960s, we called salad “lettuce and leeks”. When I came to live in Dublin I learned that what I called “leeks” were actually “scallions” or “spring onions”. I was amused to find the same language at play in Beijing in the 21st century where the terms leek and spring onion are used interchangeably because leeks are plentiful in the north all year round and a good, cheap substitute. Leeks also tend to work better in the heavier northern Chinese dishes using beef or pork while spring onions are best with more delicately flavoured Cantonese dishes and with fish. Either can be used with chicken.

We prepared five dishes. One of them was gong bao ji ding - Gong Bao chicken, a classic Sichuan dish named for a Qing dynasty governor of Sichuan province whose title translated literally as “palace guardian”. You will find variations of it on the menu  of many western Chinese restaurants and take aways where it is sometimes described as Kung Po chicken but  it rarely bears much resemblance to the authentic Sichuan version. Chunyi’s recipe comes from Sichuan Province and the result is a magical combination of hot and numbing ma la flavours balanced out by the sweet sour sauce.

Here are a few useful tips I learned from Chun Yi for getting the perfect result.

Score the chicken in a cross-hatch pattern at about ½ cm intervals so that it absorbs more of the flavour of the marinade.

The cornflour in the marinade is used to seal in the flavour. It needs to be fully absorbed into the chicken – see the description of “velveting” the chicken below. In the sauce it is used for thickening.

A handy way of deseeding the chillies is to chop them into lengths and then toss them into a strainer over your bowl for catching scraps. The seeds fall away easily and it saves effort tidying up (and chasing stray chilli seeds with a dustpan!).

Cook the chilli and Sichuan peppercorns in oil over low heat to release their fragrance. The idea is to flavour the oil left behind in the wok so that it gently suffuses the rest of the dish. In the past I have made the mistake of starting with the heat too high, setting off myself and anyone else in the kitchen in a coughing and spluttering fit, when the peppercorns and chilli hit the hot oil, and creating a smoky, burnt flavour.

The Chinese don’t usually eat whole Sichuan peppercorns. They consider them too difficult to digest. They are used to flavour the oil and then discarded, leaving behind as much as possible of the oil. The mildly numbing sensation is retained by the oil and, when combined with the dried chillies, gives the dish its classic Sichuan ma la flavour. They don’t eat the  dried chillies either but pick them up with chopsticks to suck the sauce off them and then leave them to one side.

The peanuts or cashew nuts can be deep fried or, as a healthier option, dry-roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes at 150 degrees C before use.

Now back home in Dublin, I cooked this dish last night using dry roasted cashew nuts and 450g chicken thighs boned out for me by a lovely young butcher at James Whelan’s award winning butcher shop at Avoca Food Market in Monkstown.

I prefer to use chicken thigh rather than breast in this dish and the result was succulent and lip-smacking. Long after dinner I was still sucking the last remnants of the caramelised sauce from the dried chillies.

Gong bao chicken - gong bao ji ding

Serves 2 – 3 people as one of a number of dishes or 2 as the main course. For a single main course for 3 people increase the chicken to 450g and adjust the other ingredients accordingly but use a roomy wok.

Ingredients:

• 300 g skinned chicken breast or thigh, scored in a criss cross pattern and cut into 1½ cm cubes
• 2 tbs of dry roasted cashew or peanuts
• Cooking oil (groundnut or sunflower)

Marinade:

• ¼tsp salt
• 1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine*
• 2 tsp light soy sauce*
• 4 tsp water
• 4 tsp cornflour

Seasoning:

• 2 garlic cloves,thinly sliced
• equivalent amount of ginger in thumbnail size slices
• 2 spring onions, white parts only, cut into 1½ cm sections
• 10 pieces of dry chillies (Sichuan “facing heaven” chillies or Chinese long chillies), cut into 1½ cm sections and seeds removed*
• 2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns*

Sauce:

• 6 tsp sugar
• 3 tsp light soy sauce*
• slightly more than 1 tsp Chinese black vinegar*
• slightly less than 1 tsp dark soy sauce*
• 6 tbs water
• 1 tsp cornflour

Method:

1. Add the soy sauce, rice wine and salt to the chicken and combine well with a spoon, chop sticks or your hand until all the liquid has been absorbed and the meat it sticky.
2. Mix the remaining marinade ingredients – the cornflour and water – together  and add to the chicken pieces. Mix well until all the liquid has been absorbed by the chicken. This process, known as “velveting” the meat, tenderises it and seals in its flavour. Set aside for 15 minutes.
3. Combine the sauce ingredients and set aside.
4. Heat your wok over a high flame to season the wok. When the wok is getting warm, add about 4 tbs of oil, swirl around and reduce the heat immediately to low. Make sure the oil is not too hot.
5. Add the dried chillies and deep fry until they turn from red to brown. Remove and set aside, leaving the oil behind.
   

   Deep fry the chillies

6. Add the Sichuan peppercorns and deep fry until they turn brown in colour. Then remove and discard the peppercorns, leaving the flavoured oil behind.
   

   Gently brown the Sichuan pepper

7. Still on a low heat, add the ginger, garlic and spring onion and stir to release their aromas.
8. Increase the heat slightly until the garlic just begins to brown.
9. Add the chicken pieces gradually and stir them in gently, pushing them to one side as they become white and separate before adding more to the centre of the wok, until all are cooked through. Be careful to keep all the ingredients on the move so as not to burn the seasonings.
   

   Gently stir in the chicken

10. When the chicken is cooked, add back the chilli, give the sauce a quick stir to ensure the sugar is dissolved and pour it around the chicken.
    

    Add the chillies and sauce

11. When it comes to the boil, mix well with the chicken so that it thickens and coats the meat.
    

    Thicken the sauce

Turn off the heat, add the nuts, mix well and serve immediately with plain steamed rice.

*You can get these ingredients in any Asian market and the good spice ranges include Sichuan peppercorn. See this post on Chinese kitchen essentials for more information. I brought back a large bag of wonderful Sichuan peppercorns from Beijing so if you would like to try a small sample of the real thing just email your postal address to julieoneill@me.com.

Enjoy!

Moments don’t come much sweeter.

Throughout the 18 hour journey from Dublin I quelled my nervous anticipation about meeting Dermot again. I practised my “happy face” to mask my disappointment when he reacted warily to me. I warned myself to hold back, not crowd him or drown him in slobbery kisses while he connected the face and the voice with a pixellating image he is vaguely aware of once a week on an iPad and perhaps some tiny memory of his visit to Ireland nearly five months ago.

Shane was at Beijing International Airport to greet me with a hug. MaMa, my quin jia, had a bowl of noodle soup on the table when I was barely in the door of their 21st floor apartment. Shan was waiting to show me my room (Dermot’s room really) . More hugs and smiles. I felt a swooshing release of tension at arriving at my Beijing home. Dermot was having his afternoon nap.

So I waited some more, weary after the journey and with the surreal sense that I had come all this way and perhaps my beloved grandson was a figment of my imagination despite the baby paraphernalia all about. I snuck a look at his sleeping form to reassure myself . He was indeed real.

An hour later a sleepy whimper… I held back as Shane went in to release him from his sleeping bag and lift him over the bars of his cot. Surfacing out of sleep he turned to me, frowned for a moment as the wheels whirred in his little brain and then broke into excited burbles and giggles of pleasure, reaching into my arms.

Moments don’t come much sweeter and Shane had an iPhone in hand to capture it.

 

What is it with an eight month old baby? a familiar voice, a memory of touch and smell, of me crooning to him out of tune in the early hours in Duncannon last June, a recognition of his father in me? All I know is that when our eyes locked we were connected again as if by an invisible thread. For the next hour he examined me closely, my face, my hands, my finger nails painted a suitable Chinese red “ooh, tasty…”, my rings, my watch, as if he too wanted to confirm that I was real.

And now we are pals again, getting to know the Gruffalo and a noisy toy guitar, him careering around the apartment in his walker for nai nai hugs – our very own “Derminator”, plopped on the floor of his play room with my quin jia and a neighbouring nai nai with her one year old grandson PePe, swapping words using Google Translate so that his grannies can tell him the names of animals and numbers in Mandarin and English. And when we are on Skype to his Grandad in Dublin, he cranes his neck to look back up at me and stares intently at the iPad screen as if to say “ah, now I’m beginning to get this Skype lark.”

Shan’s MaMa, my quin jia, is a special woman, warm, generous and with an engaging sense of fun. We have found a way of making sense to one another when alone and then Shan and Shane fill the gaps when they are at home. She has been trying out pizzas in their tiny electric oven since Shane introduced her to the concept at a local Italian here in Beijing and she is very enthusiastic about helping me make them in Duncannon at Christmas.

So here, as promised, are the three other toppings I tried with the Pizza Stone on the Big Green Egg recently. I made these using the Birra Moretti base and cooking method set out in the last post. I would love some more  suggestions for toppings that might appeal to my Chinese visitors in December.

Butternut Squash and Goat’s Cheese Pizza

This recipe came from my Italian friend Solange. She and Agustin based it on their favourite pizza in her local pizzeria in Pontadera, Italy. It’s what the Italians call a “white pizza” as it doesn’t have a tomato base.

Ingredients

• ¼portion of Birra Moretti pizza dough (see last post)
• 1 small or half a large butternut squash
• Olive oil
• Sea salt and black pepper to season
• 1 small packet of sliced goat’s cheese
• 2 tbs of chopped fresh rosemary
• Semolina for dusting the pizza peel

I used this goat’s cheese that Solange buys in Ireland.

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Slice the butternut squash in two and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Roast uncovered in the oven on a baking tray until the flesh is tender and can be pierced with a fork. Allow to cool completely then scoop out the flesh and dice.
3. Roll out your pizza base and cover with a layer of goats cheese. Scatter over the butternut squash and rosemary.
4. Drizzle with a little olive oil, season with black pepper.
5. Bake in the Big Green Egg (at 220 – 250 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes or in a conventional oven (at 200 – 220 degrees C) for 18 to 20 minutes until golden with a crisp base.

Potato, Pancetta and Shiitake Pizza

Pizza with potato and bacon topping has always been one of my favourites at Gotham Cafe in South Anne St., Dublin where it is called a “Flatiron”. I created my own variation of it and added in some sautéed Irish shiitake mushrooms which I found in The Happy Pear in Greystones. This year is a wonderful year for wild Irish mushrooms so ceps or other native varieties would also work. This is also a “white pizza”.

Ingredients

• ¼portion of Birra Moretti pizza dough (see last post)
• 2 to 3 medium potatoes, peeled
• 100g pancetta, diced
• 100g fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 2 tbs of chopped fresh rosemary
• 100g Taleggio cheese, diced
• 50g Parmigiano cheese, grated
• Light olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Semolina for dusting the pizza peel

Method

1. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for about 20 minutes until tender. Leave to cool then slice thinly.
2. Meanwhile fry the pancetta in a dry pan over medium heat for a few minutes until softened but not crispy, then drain on kitchen paper
3. Fry the mushrooms in a little light olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes to soften, then drain of any excess liquid.
4. Roll out your pizza dough and arrange the slices of potato on top. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake for about 8 minutes in the Big Green Egg (at 220 – 250 degrees C) or for 15 minutes in a conventional oven (at 200 – 220 degrees C).
5. Then scatter with the pancetta, mushrooms, cheeses and rosemary, season with salt and pepper, drizzle again with oil and bake for a further 4 to 5 minutes on the Big Green Egg or 7 to 8 minutes in a conventional oven until the cheese has melted.

Roasted Peppers, Mozzarella and Basil Pizza

To be honest this was just a way of using up left overs from the other three pizzas I made that weekend and a reminder of how simple and delicious a pizza can be.

Ingredients

• ¼portion of Birra Moretti pizza dough (see last post)
• About 5 tbs spicy tomato sauce, cooled (see last post for recipe)
• 1 to 2 roasted and skinned red peppers (mine were from the deli counter at Cavistons in Greystones)
• 100g fresh buffalo mozzarella
• A handful of fresh basil leaves
• Light olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Semolina for dusting the pizza peel

Method

1. Sliced the red peppers into segments and the mozzarella into similar size pieces.
2. Roll out your pizza base and brush with the spicy tomato sauce.
3. Arrange the pepper and mozzarella slices in a cartwheel, reserving one piece of mozzarella for the centre.
4. Scatter with basil leaves, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
5. Bake in the Big Green Egg (at 220 – 250 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes or in a conventional oven (at 200 – 220 degrees C) for 18 to 20 minutes until golden with a crisp base.

Enjoy! Next up is cooking lessons from Beijing.

I’m in Dubai Airport waiting to board a flight for Beijing. As I sit here between two worlds in the surreal environment that is the transit area of a major international airport, the temperature is a sauna-like 30 degrees at 2 in the morning and a half moon is sitting like a smiley in the sky, glowing red from the dessert sands. In this part of the world I can’t be too far from the old silk road along which travellers took many moons to reach their destination in places like Xinjiang province in remote, northwest China where my daughter in law Shan was born.

Here the camels have been replaced by A380 planes. Big, lumbering beasts of burden that become suddenly graceful when they soar into the air.

Would you look at who’s waiting for me when I get to my destination – Dermot, camping in the living room so that his Nai Nai can take over his room.

Over the next two weeks I will get to spend lots of time with him, Shane, Shan and MaMa. I’m travelling to Beijing to speak at the Beijing Forum at Peking University next weekend but, of course, I’m adding on lots of extra days to have time with them.

I also hope to take some more Chinese cooking lessons, including spending whole days with Shan’s MaMa. She and I don’t yet have language in common but we can communicate through a mutual love of food and cooking. I’ve been thinking about how I can return the favour when she and her sisters in law and nieces visit Ireland for Shane and Shan’s wedding in December.

MaMa enjoyed showing me how to make noodles and dumplings the last time I was in Beijing so I thought that it could be fun to spend a day making pizza with her and the other ladies of the family. Although, come to think of it, with nine Chinese girls and women, ranging from age 3 upwards in our little house in Duncannon, none of whom speak English except Shan, it might have to be a demo rather than a hands on lesson!

Right down to the youngest girl, Chinese women are naturals at working with dough – flatbread, noodles and dumplings get whipped up from scratch every day – but they don’t have access to ovens and don’t use yeast. I think they would love the rhythm of working with yeast dough and stretching it to make a perfect thin, pizza round.

So cue experiment time. What happens if you take a very Italian pizza base, a topping with the flavours of Xinjiang province loved by Shan’s family and a Big Green Egg and put them together? Magic is the answer. Even if cooked outside in the dark in Duncannon, during a lightning storm, on a wild Autumn evening.

I’d better confess that I had never made a pizza base before last weekend so I’m only a learner pizziola (have I even spelt that right??) but the learning is great fun, and by the fourth pizza, I had almost got the base into a perfect round and I had learned that the best temperature to cook a pizza on the Big Green Egg is somewhere between 220 and 240 degrees C – any hotter and the base is inclined to burn. But, despite my amateurish efforts, the crispiness of the base cooked on the pizza stone in the Egg was just fantastic and I have a bit of time between now and Christmas to improve my technique and experiment with other toppings.

First the pizza base. I did lots of Twitter research and came upon the recipe below which uses an Italian beer, Birra Moretti to moisten the dough. I love working with yeast dough and find it very therapeutic. The use of beer stiffens the dough and makes it more elastic. As a result I was able to make a very thin base. I found the recipe here on the Caldesi.com website. The beer goes well served with the pizza too

Birra Moretti Pizza Base

(Makes 4 pizzas.)

Ingredients

• 5g dried yeast (or 10g fresh yeast if you can get it)
• 500g strong white flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• Semolina for sliding the pizza
• 220ml Birra Moretti at room temperature
• 125ml tepid water

Method:

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl. If using fresh yeast, dissolve in water first. Add in the liquids to the dry ingredients and bring together with your hands.
2. Turn the dough on to a lightly floured work surface and knead for about 10 minutes. Use additional flour sparingly. The dough should be as wet as possible without being impossible to handle. To knead push the dough out into a long oval with the base of your hand, then fold it back towards you to trap the air in. Next give it a quarter turn and push it out again. As Giancarlo of Caldesi.com says: “keep thinking: stretch it, fold it, turn it; stretch it, fold it, turn it.” The dough is ready when it is soft, feels elastic and stops sticking to the board.
3. Shape the dough into a ball and leave in an oiled bowl, covered with cling film or a damp tea towel  in a warm draught-free place to rise until doubled in size. If you have time, leave the dough to rise very slowly in the fridge. (I used half of it the next day without problems).
4. When the dough has risen, divide it in four, shape each in a ball, place on a floured board in a warm, draft free place covered with a damp cloth and leave until doubled in size again. Meanwhile prepare your topping.
5. Take a dough ball, flatten and stretch it out in with your hands into a large round. I find the best way to do this is as demonstrated in this video on BigGreenEgg.com, lifting it with my hands and turning to stretch the edges.

Special Tomato Sauce

I found this recipe in an old cookbook of  mine Ultimate Recipes: Italian. It can be used as a base for lots of different toppings and will keep well in a screw top jar in the fridge for up to a week.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 2 tbs light olive oil
• 3 large tomatoes
• 1 tbs tomato puree
• 1 tsp soft brown sugar
• 2 tsp chopped fresh basil
• ½ dried  oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Fry the onion, chopped pepper and garlic in oil for 5 minutes until softened but not browned.
2. Cut a cross in the base of each tomato. Place in a bowl covered with boiling water for about a minute, then drain and plunge into cold water. The skins should remove easily.
3. Remove any hard core from the tomatoes, then dice the tomatoes and add to the simmering onions.
4. Add the tomato puree, sugar, herbs and seasoning to taste. Stir well, bring to the boil and simmer for gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove the bay leaf , adjust seasoning to taste and leave to cool completely before using on the pizza base.

Xinjiang Lamb and Aubergine Topping

I love this topping which is a meal in itself and brings back memories of the flavours of Xinjinag. Substitute naan bread for the pizza base and goats cheese or a thick yoghurt for the mozzarella and I could be transported back to Turpan on a hot sunny day watching the Muslim Uighur women seasoning their lamb with cumin and coriander. I based it on a pizza topping in my Ultimate Italian Recipes book.

Ingredients

• 1 small aubergine, diced
• ½ a large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large garlic clove finely diced
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 175 g minced lamb
• 1 roasted red pepper (from a jar or the deli counter) thinly sliced
• salt and pepper
• 1 portion of special tomato sauce (above)
• ¼ portion of pizza dough (above)
• 100 g mozzarella
• Semolina for dusting your pizza peel.

Method

1. Place the diced aubergine in a colander, sprinkle with salt and let the bitter juices drain for about 20 minutes. (Note: this step is unnecessary with Chinese aubergines.)
2. Fry the onion, garlic and cumin seeds for about 3 minutes over medium heat. Increase the heat slightly and add the lamb, aubergine and roasted red pepper. Stir-fry for 5 minutes, add the coriander and season to taste. Leave to one side while you prepare the pizza base.
3. Dust your pizza peel well with semolina. Place your rolled out pizza base on the peel making sure it can move freely.
4. Spread the special tomato sauce on the dough base, almost to the edge. Top with the lamb mixture.
5. Arrange the mozzarella slices over the top. Drizzle over a little olive oil and season with black pepper.

Cooking your pizza

Method

1. Prepare the Big Green Egg for indirect heat with the plate setter, legs up, the stainless steel grid resting on the plate setter and the pizza stone on the grid. Heat to between 220 and 250 degrees C. (Note: if using a conventional oven, heat to between 200 and 220 degrees C.)
2. When the Egg has reached temperature, carefully slide the pizza onto the baking stone. (If you watch the guys at work in your nearest pizzeria with a wood-fired oven you will get the wrist movement right!)
3. Bake the pizza, covered, for about 10- 12 minutes or until the edges are crisp and golden – check after 10 minutes and give it a few more minutes if necessary but don’t let the edges go black.
4. Slide the pizza peel under the baked pizza to remove it from the Egg and serve on a wooden board.
5. You can also bake the pizza in a conventional oven, at 200 degrees C for about 18 to 20 minutes.

I think my Chinese friends will love this topping but they might also enjoy three others I tried last weekend: butternut squash, goats cheese and pumpkin; potato and pancetta; roasted peppers and mozzarella – topping recipes to follow.

If you have a favourite topping that you think I should try out with them please share it with me. Now my flight has been just called so I have to run. And it’s an A380. Byeee….

 

Forty one years. It’s not a very auspicious anniversary. If it was a marriage you would find it hard to identify the appropriate gift – land I believe. In China the number would probably be regarded as unlucky because it includes a four. But the thought struck me when I woke up this morning. Forty one years ago to this day I crossed the threshold of the Civil Service Commission and joined the Irish civil service.

I had just turned 17 (I know you can do the sums but I don’t mind). I had no real intention of becoming a civil servant, I just did the “Junior Ex” exams to get a day off school. I travelled up from Wexford with my Mammy and Daddy, my three younger brothers, my Granny and Grandad and my Great Aunt Bella. All of them were crying about the prospect of leaving me behind in Dublin, clueless about how to get around from my hostel in Ranelagh. They were right – the first time I tried to walk home from my office in Hume House in Ballsbridge I ended up in Ringsend because I turned right instead of left at the canal.

I remember every detail of that day – the drab beige walls in the Commission’s office in Parnell Square, the cramped waiting room, the cursory interview – They: “What kind of job do you want to do?” Me: “I want to work with people” (so they put me in the Revenue Commissioners) – pulling up in the car outside Dublin Castle and poring over a map to make sure that we had the right location, trying to figure out what bus I would take to town and what small change I would need to pay for my ticket, running to leap on the  back step of the 46A for my first ever journey alone, the unfamiliar “ding ding” to alert the driver, meeting my new friend Mary from Tipperary, she even younger than me and sharing our terror at the world of work, but excited at the same time at the heady prospect of freedom and a wage packet of our own.

That was the year Ireland joined the European Community. Dublin was a sleepy place catching up with the sixties, the civil service was about to be lurched into action by the impact of our EC membership. The marriage bar was still intact. My pay was less than the guys taken on at the same time as me. I only planned staying a year…

The next 37 years passed in a whirl. Over that time Ireland changed as we grew in confidence with our EU membership, shook off the shackles of dependence on our nearest neighbour, found our feet as a nation and almost lost them again. I changed. I went from being a naive culchee to a city slicker (well kind of), to wife and mother, to senior civil servant and now, four years out the other side, I’ve had fun reinventing again. And it all seems to have happened in a flash. As for the one year that became 37, I don’t regret a moment. For all the knocking it gets, the public service gave me a fantastic career across eight government departments and a huge learning opportunity.

Anyway all that came to mind because I’ve been trying to put together a paper to deliver at the Beijing Forum at the beginning of October on how Europe has transformed itself in an ever changing world and working on it has triggered a trip down memory lane. More of that when I get to Beijing in a little over a week’s time (and to see Shane and Shan and my gorgeous grandson Dermot. Wheeeeee….). But meanwhile my cooking has suffered as I get lost in research.

So here is just a simple recipe to keep you going while I find time to write up my other culinary experiments of recent weeks. This is the starter I plan serving to 17 of us on Christmas day including 9 of Shan’s family over from China.

I adapted the recipe from one for frozen prawns on GrillGrrl.com – an enjoyable blog about adventures of a girl on the grill. The mild smoky flavour of the prawns adds a touch of the exotic to an otherwise simple dish. It can be prepared well in advance and it’s cheerful colours brighten up the meal. I smoked the prawns on the Big Green Egg but I’m sure there are lots of other ways of smoking them and the recipe would also work with unsmoked prawns or crabmeat. You could add a little finely chopped chilli and ginger if you wanted to add an extra kick but don’t overpower the smokiness.

Smoked Prawn Salad from the Big Green Egg

Ingredients