Tag: Rozanne Stevens

Lamb Chuan'r (Kebabs)

I haven’t been writing much for the last while. Various minor and major illnesses among family and close friends have conspired to interfere with my concentration. But today is my birthday (and my Mum’s, yes we share the same date – happy birthday Mum!) so it’s time to to put the traumas of the first half of the year behind and turn to happier thoughts.
Claire and Mike have arrived home from Australia for a brief visit for his brother’s wedding in England and, with the glorious weather, I’ve been plotting what to have for a barbecue that would evoke memories of our visit to my daughter-in-law Shan’s home town of Urumqi last summer. Those of you who have been following the blog will know that Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the remote northwest of China – a vast, dry, mainly desert region that occupies a sixth of China’s territory and is bounded on its borders by Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikstan.
What struck me forcibly on that first visit was that, despite the superficial similarities with other Chinese cities, this is a place apart. Streets signs in an Arabaic-based script and the facial features and dress of many of the inhabitants, are constant reminders that the city has a large Uihgur population – a Turkic-speaking people of Turkish origin who are Sunni Muslims. Men dressed in conservative garb of long coats and knee-high boots and women swathed in shawls or wearing traditional dress evoke the mysteries of the old Silk Road.

Uighur’s in traditional dress

The influence of the Uighur culture is strong. Lamb dominates the local diet and the nomadic history of many of the Turkic minorities – the Kazakhs and the Kirgiz – is evident in the food which has echoes of east and west. Their wide flat or pici like noodles, with their resonance of Italian pasta,  link them with the wheat flour – mian – eaters of northern China.
Their spice stalls sell all my Chinese favourites like Sichuan pepper and star anise but also cumin, cardamon, saffron and other aromatic seasonings more commonly associated with Central Asia and the middle east. There are raisins, dates and other dried fruits in abundance. Their fresh fruits, nourished by the short, hot summers include the fattest grapes, cherries, apricots and pistachios I have ever seen.
Fresh fruit in Urumqi

The locals love their tea but their nomadic heritage is evident in their fondness for yoghurt and other dairy foods. Their golden naan bread makes you feel you have stumbled into a Persia of another era. This is a melting pot of cuisines with its own unique characteristics.
On our first day we had lunch in a Uighur restaurant beside the “This and That Satisfactory Chain Supermarket” – lamb kebabs with sesame seeds (chuan’r) a biryani style rice dish with lamb similar to MaMa’sLamb Rice and lamb with pasta like Shan’s Xinjiang Spaghetti with Lamb. We washed it down with a yoghurt drink and tea.
Shane tucks into the chuan’r in Urumqi

I will forever associate the scent of lamb and cumin lingering in the air on hot dry evenings with Urumqi and I posted a stir-fried Lamb with Cumin recipe recently. Then last weekend Shane and Shan and attended a barbecue in a hutong on the outskirts of Beijing where they had traditional chuan’r kebabs so I set about trawling my recipe books to try and recreate them here. To my astonishment I found the perfect recipe in the Greekish section of Rozanne Steven’s marvellous Relish BBQ book which is my go-to cookbook this summer.
I can only conclude that once upon a time a lonely Greek goatherd came up with this way of cooking fresh goat meat over his campfire as he wandered the hills of his native islands and served it with fresh yoghurt from his herd.  Over the years the traditional recipe travelled, with minor variations, across the world, carried by nomadic shepherds and goatherds through Turkey, Persia and along the old Silk Road to end up as a staple dish in North Western China.
Rozanne’s recipe was too perfect to mess with so I’ve only made one or two minor changes – for instance the Chinese use groundut rather than olive oil and sugar rather than honey. The addition of a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds is also typical of Urumqi. Rozanne serves her kebabs with delicious clumps of grilled grapes bursting their juices whereas in Xinjinag the grapes would usually be served at the end of the meal. I tried this out last weekend in Duncannon. Definitely a winner.
Rozanne’s book is available from her website and all good bookstores and is surely the most inspired cookbook for the summer we are having. If you haven’t got it already go out there and find it before the weekend. It’s packed with hundreds of great barbecue ideas and I mentioned some of them, including my favourite – Norman’s Butterflied Leg of Lamb – in this post.
Now as it’s my birthday I’m going to indulge myself by posting two recent photos of my lovely grandson Dermot now aged 5 1/2 months, one taken before and the other just after his first haircut. His other nai nai adhered to the Chinese tradition of cutting off the straggly baby hair in the hot summer months so that his new hair will grow stronger. Hmmm, I find this idea takes getting used to and I think Dermot might agree…. 🙂
Before….

And after…

What I wouldn’t give for a birthday hug from that little man today.
But it’s fantastic to have Claire, Mike and her friend Diane around to share the occasion for the first time in many years. Time to count blessings.
Celebrating homecomings at China Sichuan Dublin last night

Lamb Chuan’r Urumqi Style 
(with ever so slight variations from Rozanne Steven’s Greekish recipe for Marinated Goat Kebabs and Grilled Grapes)
Preparing the Lamb Chuan’r

Ingredients:

  • 1 kg diced lamb
  • 2tbs ground nut oil
  • Toasted sesame seeds to serve

Marinade:

  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 50 ml groundnut oil
  • Juice and zest of a lemon
  • 3 tbs of finely chopped fresh oregano
  • 1 ½ tbs finely chopped fresh mint
  • 1 tbs finely chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander
  • 1 ½ tbs ground cumin
  • ½  tbs ground cinnamon
  • 1 ½ tbs honey or soft brown sugar
  • Salt and pepper

Greekish Minty Tzatziki:

  • 250 g thick Greek yoghurt
  • ½  large cucumber, peeled, seeded and shredded
  • 1 glove garlic finely chopped
  • Juice of ¼ lemon
  • 1 tbs finely chopped fresh mint
  • Salt and pepper

Lamb Chuan’r by candlelight in Duncannon

Method:

  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a large bowl. Add the lamb. Mix well and marinade for between 3 and 24 hours.
  2. To make the tzatziki, sprinkle the cucumber with salt and leave in colander to drain off excess moisture then pat dry with kitchen paper. Mix in a bowl with the other ingredients and chill for a few hours before serving.
  3. Skewer the lamb onto metal skewers, pushing together tightly.
  4. Spread out the skewers on a hot barbecue. Grill for about 5 minutes each side to seal well, then continue to grill the chuan’r until just cooked and tender (this will depend on the size of the cubes).
  5. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and with the tzatziki. Be careful handling the skewers as they can get very hot.

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 🙂