Month: June 2013

Shananigans Chongqing Chicken

Some of my regular readers don’t eat red meat and have been asking for more recipes using chicken or fish. This Chongqing Ji Rou is especially for you Siobhan and there are more chicken recipes to come.
Chongqing is a mountainous city that lies east of the capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu. It used to be part of Sichuan Province but is now a separate municipality. It’s one of the so-called “huo lu” furnace cities, like Turpan in Xinjiang Province which I visited with Shan’s family last summer. The response of  residents to summer heat and humidity is to eat even more chillies and Sichuan pepper than their neighbours in Chengdu.
According to local lore the Chongqingers look down on the people of Chengdu for being lazy and out-of-date in their eating habits, while the inhabitants of Chengdu regard Chongqing food as coarse and crude and in need of the refining touch of Chengdu chefs. Chongqing Chicken – Chongqing Ji Rou – is a simple dish but what it lacks in complexity it makes up for in colour and flavour.
I had Chongqing Chicken in the China Sichuan restaurant in Dublin a few months back and loved its authentic ma la, hot and numbing flavours. It contained diced chicken pieces seasoned with coarsely ground Sichuan pepper and mixed with chunky cashew nuts and lots of dry and fresh chilli. The large pieces of dried Chinese chilli topped the serving dish and added texture and colour. The dish packed a powerful and delicious punch – just enough chilli heat perfectly balanced by the numbing and addictive Sichuan pepper, the chicken succulent and tender.

China Sichuan’s Chongqing Chicken

Dried Chinese chillies from Sichuan, sometimes known as “facing heaven” chillies because of the way the plants grow, are a lot milder than their more fiery Thai cousins but they are not intended to be eaten. Chinese people pick them up with their chopsticks, suck any sauce that adheres to them and pile the discarded chillies shells in a neat pyramid beside their rice bowl.
I couldn’t find a recipe in any of my Chinese cookbooks so this is my attempt at recreating Chongqing Chicken at home based on what I know of the principles for creating a Sichuan stir-fry that I learnt at Hutong Cuisine in Beijing. The results were pretty close to the original and went down well in our house last night. I could probably have used a little more dark soy sauce to deepen the colour but that’s a matter of taste. I made it with chicken thighs as I prefer the flavour and texture of the meat. It’s a particularly quick and easy dish to prepare.
Shananigans’ Chonqing Ji Rou
Shananigans’ Chongqing Ji Rou

Ingredients:

  • A good handful of cashew nuts
  • 2 chicken breasts or 4 chicken thighs
  • 1 tbs light soy sauce
  • 1 tbs of Shaoxing rice wine
  • A pinch of salt
  • A thumb sized piece of ginger
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp of Sichuan pepper finely chopped
  • 1 spring onion
  • I large fresh green chilli
  • A handful of Chinese dried red chillies
  • A dash of dark soy sauce
  • A dash of Chinese black vinegar
  • A pinch of sugar
  • Vegetable or groundnut oil

Preparation:

  1. Roast the cashew nuts on a baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees C or dry fry in a hot wok until golden. This should take no more than 10 minutes but keep an eye on them as it is easy to burn them.
  2. Meanwhile dice the chicken into small pieces (about 2 cm cubes). Mix first with salt and light soy sauce and then with the rice wine and let rest in a dish while you prepare the other ingredients.
  3. Finely dice the ginger and garlic.
  4. Finely chop the Sichuan peppercorns.
  5. Finely slice the spring onions, separating the white and green parts.
  6. Finely slice the green chilli.
  7. Break the dried chillies into pieces about 2 cms long and discard any seeds.

Cooking:

  1. Heat some oil in the wok to over a medium heat.
  2. Fry the minced garlic, ginger, spring onion whites and Sichuan pepper for a few moments until they soften and the fragrances are released, being careful not to burn them.
  3. Increase the heat to high and add in the marinated chicken and stir-fry over high heat until cooked (about 3  minutes).
  4. Add in the spring onions greens and green chilli and stir-fry until heated through and the fragrance is rising from the pan (you don’t want the green chilli and spring onions to lose their texture).
  5. Add the dried red chillies and cashew nuts and heat through quickly.
  6. Add a spash of dark soy sauce and Chinese vinegar to darken the colour and a pinch of sugar to taste.
  7. Serve with steamed rice.

Shananigans Crispy Chilli Beef Gets a Makeover

I’ve been going through the blog this weekend to decide which recipes to include in the Taste of China Demo at Donnybrook Fair Cookery School on the evening of Wednesday 3rd July when chef Robert Jacob will cook a selection of Chinese dishes while I talk through the techniques of Chinese cooking and regional variations in cuisine.
Robert is one of the great “foodie” friends I’ve made through the blog and Twitter. He was a fashion designer before he became a chef and has worked with Ross Lewis in Chapter One and Paul Kelly in The Merrion. You can read Marie Claire Digby’s recent True Character profile of him for the Irish Times Magazine here. Before we got to know one another I attended a course he gave in knife skills so I owe any ability I have to dice and slice to him.
It’s a real privilege to team up with Robert for this class which is a first for Shananigans.
It’s less than 11 months since I started the blog and it’s always intriguing to see what recipes readers return to again and again. It gives me particular pleasure when I discover that one of the many lovely people I have met though the blog has taken one of the recipes and given it her own twist.
The crispy chilli beef recipe that I posted last November has been consistently one of the most popular recipes. Before I started the blog I would occasionally order something similar from the local Chinese takeaway but I always regretted it afterwards because it left me feeling heavy and bloated. So I had set out to create a lighter version at home using egg white and potato flour for the batter which makes it suitable for coeliacs and the wheat intolerant.
One of my most supportive readers Marie McKenna has taken the recipe a step further by adding pak choi. Sometimes she substitutes chicken for the beef or adds whatever other vegetables she has to hand. She sent me the two photos below of her results which I have reproduced with her permission.
I made crispy chilli beef for dinner for last night and we really loved the addition of the pak choi so I’ve tweaked the recipe to include it and made a few other minor changes. Thank you Marie for the inspiration and the photos. That’s what these recipes are for – to be shared and adapted.
Shananigans Crispy Chilli Beef – Xiang ciu niu rou pian – 香脆牛肉片

Photo courtesy of Marie McKenna
Serves 3 – 4

Ingredients:

  • 400g sirloin steak or bavette of beef
  • 2 egg whites, beaten
  • Good pinch of salt
  • About 4 tbs potato flour
  • A pinch of baking powder
  • Oil for deep frying – use good quality sunflower or groundnut oil
  • 2 carrots cut into thin matchsticks
  • 2 heads pak choi, root removed and trimmed (optional)
  • 2 spring onions thinly sliced at steep angles
  • 1 garlic clove, chopped
  • 2 red chillies, de-seeded and thinly sliced at steep angles
  • About 80 g caster sugar
  • 3 tbs Chinese black vinegar
  • 2 tbs light soy sauce
  • Roasted sesame seeds (optional) to garnish
  • Coriander (optional) to garnish
  • Rice to serve

Preparation:

  1. Cut the beef into slices against the grain and then into thin shreds.
  2. Dip in the egg white and mix with your hand, leaving it to rest for a few minutes.
  3. Mix the potato flour with salt and baking powder.
  4. Drain off any excess egg white and dip the beef strips in the flour mix, shaking off any excess.

Cooking:

  1. Blanch the carrots in boiling water for one minute,
  2. Fill a wok quarter full with oil and heat to 180 degrees (or until a piece of bread fries golden brown in 15 seconds).
  3. Add the beef quickly, stirring using long wooden chopsticks, a Chinese “spade” or a spatula to separate the strands. Cook the beef for 3 – 4 minutes, stirring to keep the strands separate, until it is really crispy.
  4. Remove with a mesh strainer or slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.
  5. Pour the oil from the wok leaving about 1 tbs.
  6. Reheat the remaining oil over a medium/high heat. Stir fry the pak choi, if using, for a few minutes until wilted. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a warm serving dish
  7. Add another small amount of oil to the wok and re-heat over a medium/high heat.  Add the spring onion, garlic and chilli and stir-fry for a few moments to release the aromas.
  8. Increase the heat to high, add the beef and carrots and stir to mix and heat through.
  9. Add the sugar, soy sauce and vinegar and stir to combine and dissolve the sugar. When heated through and bubbling, serve on top of the pak choi, if using.
  10. Garnish with coriander and/or lightly toasted sesame seeds, if using, and serve with steamed rice.

Variations:

Photo courtesy of Marie McKenna
You can use almost any steak in this dish. At the start I used to use fillet steak but it is not necessary to have such an expensive cut. I find bavette of beef (also known as flank steak), which is available at good butchers, is a drier cut which responds particularly well to this recipe. It is also much better value. Sirloin works well and last night I used rib eye because I had two left over from a BBQ during the week.
Chicken thigh or breast can be used instead of beef and the chicken strips will take a little less time to cook.
Chinkiang Chinese black vinegar is readily available in all Asian supermarkets here and in some good grocers. It has excellent flavour. Last night I used aged Chinese vinegar – lao chen cu – which I brought back from Beijing. It is the type used as a dipping sauce for dumplings in China. The result was tangy and delicious. If you cant get hold of Chinese vinegar, use aged balsamic vinegar. The result wont be quite as authentic but it will still taste good.
If you are not using pak choi, you could serve this with a green vegetable such as steamed tender stem broccoli, or add a few green beans or broccoli florets to the stir fry.
 

Eighteen days of Dermot – Relished

Goodbye to Shane, Shan and Dermot and safe journey back to the welcoming arms of MaMa.
Goodbye to baby chairs and travel cots and car seats and rattles and noisy toys and all the paraphernalia needed to play host to a four month old baby.
Goodbye to the constant stream of visitors – young friends like modern magi with their  gifts, chatter and wisdom.
Goodbye to conversation and the strumming of guitars drifting from the garden on rare balmy June evenings, to food served as it should be – communally, on platters, for sharing – hot from the BBQ or sizzling from the wok, to catering for an ever changing crowd.
Goodbye to the infectious sound of giggles from the kitchen downstairs as your Grandad Ye Ye teaches you a new game or soars you through the air like an airplane.
And to my own sacred moments, walking the bedroom floor to soothe you while your parents have a rare night out, feeling the unexpected weight of a buggy as I push you around Shanganagh park and show you a glimpse of the Irish sea, reading you your first nursery rhymes, proudly strolling through Stephen’s Green to introduce you to the ducks, a novice Nai Nai on the loose, holding your gaze.and rapt concentration  as you clutch my fingers and wrist from your car seat…
Singing with you each morning and waltzing to the strains of Tiny Dancer, marvelling at how in a little over two weeks your  legs have strengthened, your body lengthened, your attention span and field of vision increased, you’re even more inquisitive and the sounds you make are words in a language known only to you.
That’s what I forgot about babies, how quickly they change, but nothing, nothing in this life had prepared me for the rush of love that goes with being a grandparent.
So goodbye for now to special encounters and unforgettable moments – you  learning to play “clap hands” with your great granny Tai Tai, puzzled as your feet touch the ticklish grass of Irish ground for the first time, meeting countless O’Neill and Corcoran relatives, frowning initially and then relaxing as if to say “I have you now”…
Well Dermot, you certainly have us –  in the palms of your tiny hands…

 
Safe home little one agus go n’eiridh on bóthar leat. May the ancestors you didn’t get to meet – your great granny Alice and your great Grandads Seamus and Sean mind you on your way.
Relish BBQ
Every special time has its own soundtrack or, in my case a cookery book that keeps me company along the way.
For Dermot’s first visit to Ireland it has been my copy of Rozanne Stevens  Relish BBQ book which is already dog-eared and spattered with splashes of marinade from the grill.
I’ve cooked 8 or 9 full dishes from it so far, each one a winner. If you buy just one cookbook this summer make it this one. It’s packed with recipes with Rozanne’s unique  “ish” factor from around the world and is available from Rozanne’s website or in most good bookshops.
I’ve adapted her sticky marinade/ basting sauce below slightly to make it even more Chinesish by substituting Shaoxing rice wine for dry sherry. I made it using homemade chilli jam from the recipe given to me by Tom Walsh chef at Samphire @ The Waterside, Donabate but a bottle of sweet chilli sauce will also do the trick. It’s great with pork ribs and chicken and is already one of my favourite sauces along with homemade chilli jam and chilli oil. My Mum took home the left-over sauce from Duncannon on Sunday and has discovered it works well in the oven too basted over pork ribs that have been simmered in boiling water for 10 minutes then drained.
Thanks Rozanne for helping make our celebration meals special.
Rozanne’s Chinese Sticky Marinade and Basting Sauce

Ingredients

  • 8 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely chopped
  • 2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, grated or finely chopped
  • 250 g dark brown sugar
  • 200 g honey
  • 250 ml hoisin sauce
  • 250 ml Shaoxing rice wine (or pale dry sherry)
  • 200 ml light soy sauce
  • 200 ml Tom Chef’s Chilli Jam (or sweet chilli sauce)
  • 50 ml groundnut oil (or sunflower oil)
  • 2 tbs Chinese five spice powder

Method:

  1. Mix all the ingredients together in a pot and simmer, covered on gentle heat for 10 minutes.
  2. Use as a marinade for pork or chicken and to baste chicken wings, sausages and vegetables on the barbecue.

 

When two met one over a summer BBQ and Duck Spring Rolls

We’ve a little thing going on my four month old grandson and I. We dance around the bedroom to the same song, “Tiny Dancer”, each day of this his brief visit home. He joins in the fun as I sing along out of tune.
We converse. I tell him what I think is important, how I feel about him, what it’s like to have him snuggle against me and chew my shoulder with his teething gums, how I will never forget these moments. He stretches his legs, bounces on my lap and answers with intense concentration, with burbles and giggles and smiles as he struggles to articulate … He seems to understand….
I thought of that tonight as I listened to the writer John Banville in conversation with Olivia O’Leary. What distinguishes humans from animals, he said, is the ability to use words, the capacity to create sentences. I wonder what sentence Dermot will speak first and in what language…
We had our own little Gathering last Sunday, one of those days from which memories are carved.
We were joined for a BBQ in our garden by my Italian friend Solange, her Argentinian husband Agustin and their identical twins, just 10 months old.
The last time we adults had all been together was for Christmas 2011 when Shan came to visit us for the first time. That was very special as Claire and her Welsh husband Mike were also able to be with us from Australia for part of the time, an event described by one wit on Twitter as a cross between the Davos Convention and an international rugby tournament.
This time we were feeling the absence of Claire and Mike but the sun was beating down from a cloudless sky, and it was still a day to savour.
While she has attempted to teach me Italian, I have kept company with Solange through her journey into motherhood and she has supported me as I adapted to being a long distance granny, sharing hugs from her little boys. It felt important to introduce these three little people to one another with the hope that some day “i cugini” might become friends.

When two meet one

Well “introduce” might be pushing it a bit but they all got to eye one another up with varying degrees of interest while one set of parents remembered what it was like to cuddle a snuggly little person and the others imagined a day when their little man would be taking off on all fours at a rapid pace to explore a small urban jungle.
Between us we had at least 6 languages – English, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Romanian and Irish  – and 5 nationalities, but the 3 little boys all hold Irish passports and are set to be multilingual citizens of the 21st century.
Ni hao Fred and Oli, or is it Oli and Fred…

Ciao Dermot!

Go n’eiridh an t’ádh libh Shane & Shan

In all the circumstances it seemed appropriate to have a barbecue that was a bit Irish, a bit Chinese and a bit Italian so a big thank you to Rozanne Stevens for the inspiration in her new Relish BBQ book.
From it I chose:

  • an Italianish main course of Norman’s butterflied leg of lamb with lively salsa
  • an Asian mushroom, pak choi and potato salad and
  • a Chinesish dessert of lychee jam jar cheese cake.

All were a resounding success.
For starters I recreated an Irish take on a Chinese classic – confit duck spring rolls from Chef Tom Walsh of Samphire at the Waterside in Donobate who gave me this recipe for a post I did for Taste of China during this year’s Chinese New Year Festival. Tom was one of the nominees for chef of the year in the Dublin regional finals of the Restaurant Association of Ireland Awards this week. Pay his restaurant a visit and enjoy his great food.
Tom Chef’s Confit Duck Spring Rolls

Solange’s photo of our duck spring rolls

1. Confit Duck Legs:
Ingredients:

  • 2 duck legs
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 jars of duck fat or goose fat
  • A few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme
  • A few whole cloves garlic
  • 2 star anise

Preparation:

  1. Allow the duck legs to dry out at room temperature and season well with salt and pepper.
  2. Place in a small oven proof dish along with the rosemary, thyme, garlic and star anise.
  3. Melt the duck or goose fat and pour over the duck legs making sure they are covered completely. (Top up with light olive oil or sunflower oil if necessary.)
  4. Cover with foil and confit slowly in the oven at low temperature until the duck meat is falling away from the bone – at least 1 ½ hours at 130 degrees C, or you can cook at 110/120 degrees C for several hours.

2. Duck Spring Rolls:
Ingredients:

  • 2  confit duck legs (as above)
  • 1 carrot cut into thin julienne strips
  • 1 red onion thinly sliced
  • 100g bean sprouts
  • 1 tbs oyster sauce
  • 1 clove garlic (crushed)
  • 20g pickled ginger*
  • 25g chopped coriander
  • 25g chopped chervil
  • 6 sheets of spring roll pastry 10’’ square
  • 1 egg white
  • Sunflower oil for deep-frying
  • Chilli jam* to serve
  • Corander and/or chervil to garnish

*See below
Preparation:

  1. Shred the confit duck leg and mix with all the other prepared ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasoning to taste.
  2. Take  1 ½ sheets of pastry for each spring roll.
  3. Placing a full sheet down and a half on top, from one corner, fill the doubled-side, near the centre with some duck mix.
  4. Starting at the doubled corner, roll to half way then fold in the sides and continue rolling to the end.
  5. Brush some egg white on the far corner to stick the pastry together.
  6. Fill a wok about a third full with sunflower oil and heat until a cube of bread turns golden in a few seconds. Deep fry the springrolls until golden.
  7. Slice each spring roll in two on the diagonal and serve with the chilli jam garnished with coriander and/ or chervil.

3. Pickled Ginger:
You can buy pickled ginger but I love Tom’s homemade version which keeps for weeks in the fridge.
Ingredients:

  • 200g fresh ginger
  • 250g white wine vinegar
  • 125g still mineral water
  • 125g sugar
  • 2 star anise
  • 4 cloves
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Good sprig of thyme

Preparation:

  1. Weigh all the ingredients, except the ginger into a saucepan.
  2. Bring to the boil all and leave to chill.
  3. Peel and slice the ginger and steep in the chilled pickle.
  4. Store in a sealed container in the fridge.

 4. Tom Chef’s Chilli Jam

Tom Chef’s Chilli Jam

Since Tom gave me this recipe, I have served it as a dip with everything from crisps to barbecued chicken wings and my guests rave about it. Bottled chilli jam will never again cross our threshold. It keeps indefinitely in a Kilner jar in the fridge. It is very simple to make, just take a little care to cook it slowly so that  it doesn’t burn.
Ingredients:

  • 6-8 red chilli peppers chopped roughly
  • 300g castor sugar
  • 300g white rice wine vinegar (ordinary white wine vinegar will do)

Method:

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

5. Homemade Chilli Oil

Hutong Cuisine Homemade Chilli Oil

And while I’m on a roll, here’s another store cupboard condiment that transcends western and Chinese flavours and is great for barbecues. I picked up this recipe at cookery class in Hutong Cuisine in Beijing. It is simple to prepare and, once savoured, you will never want a shop bought version again. In recent weeks I’ve brushed this over prawns and crab claws and sizzled them on the BBQ, painted it on to fish fillets to be baked in the oven and drizzled it over Italian pizza, even though it was originally just intended to accompany this Sichuan Spicy Chicken Salad.
Ingredients:

  • 200g rapeseed oil (or sunflower oil, groundnut oil or vegetable oil)
  • 2 pieces star anise
  • 2 thumbnail size pieces of cinnamon (preferably the wider Chinese type)
  • 1 tsp of Sichuan peppercorns
  • 1 large cardamom pod, crushed to release seeds (preferably the large black Chinese cardamom pods)
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 4 tsp Pixian broad bean paste (Lee Kum Kee Toban Djan chilli bean sauce, which is readily available in Ireland can be used instead)
  • 2 slices of ginger
  • 1 spring onion, white part only, cut in two
  • 4 tbs crushed chillies
  • 2 tsp sesame seeds

Method:

  1. Heat the oil in a wok over low heat and add all the ingredients except the chillies and sesame seeds. Stir slowly over gentle heat for at least 8 to 10 minutes until the spices have begun to turn brown in colour, released their fragrance and infused the oil.
  2. Sieve the oil and discard the spices. By this time it should have turned into a gorgeous warm red colour. Return it to the wok with the crushed chillies and sesame seeds. Stir over a very low heat until the chilli has turned light brown in colour.
  3. When cool, pour the oil into a glass container and keep over night before use. Store unused oil indefinitely in an airtight jar.

Yes when Chinese meets Irish meets Italian, who knows what fun things can happen.
Grazie Solange, Agus, Oli e Fredi per la giornata indimenticabile 🙂

Sichuan fried green beans to celebrate Dermot's arrival in Dublin

Regular readers will know that it’s very unusual for me to let a weekend go by without writing a new blog post. But this weekend I had an excuse – Shane, Shan and Dermot arrived from Beijing on Saturday and I had forgotten how much one small, precious person can turn a house upside down, become the focal point of all your attention, grab hold of your heart strings and turn your brain to mush!
The bank holiday weekend has been a whirlwind of family get togethers leaving little Dermot somewhat bewildered as he encountered one new face after the other with every relative wanting to give him a hug and a cuddle so today he is having a well deserved rest.
From all the memories made in the last few days, some will remain with me forever.
After a long, restless journey, Dermot was asleep when he arrived at Dublin Airport and he opened his eyes in Ireland for the first time in the car on the way home to find me sitting beside him in the back seat.

Now who might you be? Nai Nai?

Then yesterday came a moment we had all been waiting for when his great granny got to meet him at last.
Hello tai tai

On that beautiful, sunny bank holiday Monday, Shane fulfilled a promise made as he and I watched the Kerrygold “Made of Ireland” ad last Christmas – that his baby’s feet would touch Irish soil first. Dermot loved the tickly sensation of the grass.
He may have been born in China … but his feet touched Irish soil first

And yesterday morning Dermot, who will be 4 months old tomorrow, “danced” on my lap in fits of giggles to Tiny Dancer, a moment too special to interrupt with camera or video recorder.
On Sunday night we had a rare moment of quiet while Dermot slept and visiting was done for the day. So I took my courage in my hands and cooked a Chinese meal for Shane and Shan, conscious that I am up against stiff competition in the culinary stakes from Shan’s MaMa in Beijing.
It seemed appropriate to include in the meal the dish that inspired me to start this blog last July and the very first that Shan taught me to cook long distance – Sichuan fried green beans. Since my first post on 29th July of last year, I’ve tried several variations of fried green beans including Shan’s recipe, the version prepared by the chefs in China Sichuan and the one in Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice. I suspect every Chinese cook has their own variation. This is the recipe I was taught at Hutong Cuisine in Beijing last March by Chunyi who trained in Chengdu in Sichuan province and has now become my definitive version of the dish. Shane and Shan gave it the thumbs up for flavour although Shan said I could chop the beans smaller and add some more minced pork if I wanted to create a slightly different texture.
Dry stir-fried green beans – gan bian si ji dou
Sichuan fried green beans

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