congee

congee is a rice porridge commonly eaten for breakfast in asia, but i love it any time of the day for its comforting qualities. it is basically rice cooked in lots of water until the rice is soft; the amount of water used depends upon one's preferences and the region where one comes from. while i'm not cantonese, this is a cantonese version.

2 cloves garlic
a small knob of peeled ginger
a generous slurp of sesame oil
a generous slurp of rice bran oil
100 grams jasmine rice, rinsed
1 teaspoon salt
a splash or chinese rice wine
1750 grams water

place the ginger and garlic into the thermomix bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 7.

add the sesame and ricebran oil to the thermomix bowl and saute the ginger and garlic for 3 minutes at 100 degrees on speed 2.

add the rice, salt and rice wine and saute for 3 minutes at 100 degrees on reverse speed 2.

add the water. bring to the boil at 100 degrees, reverse speed 2, and reduce the temperature to 90 degrees. cook for 25 minutes. raise the temperature to 100 degrees and allow to come to the boil. add your choice of meat and vegetables and allow to cook for a few moments before serving.

my favourite addition is chicken...i also like preserved bean curd with it...sigh...

steamed minced pork with salted eggs

whenever i want something comforting and i'm feeling somewhat jaded with cooking, i turn to the simple things in life. this is one of them. i don't really have a proper recipe for this, but i used these approximate quantities the other day.

3 or 4 salted eggs
500g minced pork (i usually buy the lean mince, but it is really good with the fatty mince)
a little stock or water
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 or 2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
grated ginger
spring onions to garnish

separate the egg whites from the yolk - this is easy because the yolks are solid. set the yolks aside and place the egg whites in a large bowl.
place the pork, stock/water, cornflour, sesame oil, pepper and ginger in the bowl with the egg whites and stir together until well combined - i like using the hand held electric mixer to do this - less elbow grease. pour into a shallow bowl large enough to contain the mixture. place the egg yolks on top and steam for 20 minutes or until done.
sprinkle with spring onions and serve with rice or congee and vegetables.

some recipes also add in a fresh egg or two while mixing the mince and also add soya sauce; i do sometimes, but i didn't this time because i had so many salted eggs of my own.

sweet and sour sauce

yesterday, i my post was about making wontons...and there were no specific quantities given, but now i give specific quantities for sweet and sour sauce. i know people who eyeball this, but i like my sweet and sour sauce consistent.
i love deep fried wontons with this. i really do.....

1/3 cup vinegar (i use apple cider vinegar)
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
3 tablespoons tomato sauce

2 tablespoons cornflour/1 tablespoon wheaten cornflour
2 tablespoons water

place the vinegar, water, sugar, salt and pepper and tomato sauce in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil.
meanwhile, dissolve the cornflour in the water and pour into the boiling vinegar, whisking the whole time. once the sauce has come to the boil, it is ready to serve with the deep fried wontons....or whatever you like.

if you want the sweet and sour sauce they have with pork, just add some stir fried capsicum, onion, carrots and pineapple to the sauce. if you decide to do this, don't waste the syrup from the pineapple (if you're using canned pineapple) and use it to replace the water whilst making the sauce.

wontons

there was a time i was making these all the time because i'd be buying the 2 kilogram packets of wonton wrappers because they were so cheap. so everytime there was something on, i'd turn up with a huge basket of deep fried wontons and sweet and sour sauce. my friends don't associate me with wontons, but i do wonder if miss k and miss c's freinds do....maybe not, because i haven't done them for a while.
anyway, i thought i'd better post an entry today, and why not this?
i'm only going to give a list of ingredients and leave it to your own discretion as to the quantities. i do use more greens (garlic chives, spring onions and coriander) than meat (minced pork/chicken/beef/lamb) - i had dumplings in hong kong once from the roadside and there was hardly any meat! the greens i use are usually treated as herbs, but i use them by the bunch as vegetables in wontons. in fact, i use bunches of each to very little meat.
i also add eggs, fried eggs....eggs fried in tons of oil.... i was watching this girl from china make the filling once, and she used eggs fried in tons of oil. if i wasn't mistaken, i'd say that there was half the quantity in oil in the frypan to the quantity of eggs. need i spell it out? one cupful of eggs is fried in half a cupful of oil. the eggs are beaten lightly, stirred into the hot oil to cook, left to cool in the oil, chopped up and placed, oil and all, into the mixing bowl with everything else.
so what's everything else? i better list them:

mince (your choice)
soya sauce, both light and dark
sesame oil
chinese rice wine
pepper
salt (if you use tons of soya sauce, this is optional, of course)
spring onions
garlic chives
coriander
chopped, fried egg
chinese mushrooms
chopped spinach
water chestnuts
cornflour, 1 or 2 tablespoons per kilogram of meat
wonton wrappers

for some reason, i don't measure anything for this, even the cornflour is a bit hit and miss.
i use an electric handheld mixer to combine everything together because i don't like getting my hands dirty and smelly, and also, because i think it does a much more thorough job and quicker than i could ever dream to do it.
at this stage, it's really useful to have a large area to work on and a friend or two - that really speeds thing up, especially if you want to make tons like i always do. yes, i like to make a ton of wonton.......sorry.
layout the wrappers on the work bench and place a small amount of filling in the centre of each one; don't try to use to much filling because that will only lead to tears of despair when the filling cannot be enclosed properly and falls out either before or during the cooking process. you have been warned....try to be a little frugal here.
brush the edges of the wonton wrapper with a smidge of water and seal the filling in the wrapper. you can be fancy with the wrapping and put little pleats in the edge, as miss k does, or do as i do and simple fold the wonton wrapper in half to form a triangle and roughly squish to make pretend pleats, or just put the wrapper in your palm and squeeze, as i have seen some people do.
once an adequate number of dumplings have been made, it's up to you to decide as to whether you want to boil or deep fry the dumplings. that's it.

pei mei's green onion pies revisited

i'm a very itchy person....sometimes. there are some recipes i will use over and over and not even want to change it at all. then there are some where i will tweak here and there and not be content to leave alone. pei mei's green onion pies is such a recipe that i have not been able to leave alone......i've been tweaking.....
to date, i have tried different combinations of flour and water and the combination which has yielded a dough which is easy to work with is one which uses 9 cups of continental sharps flour to 5 cups of boiling water. continental sharps flour is a textured flour which is higher in protein than that popularly found on the supermarket shelves. i have found it in supermarkets, but you have to look for it - sometimes it's found in the deli section, other times, in the flour sections. probably the easiest is to ask a deli if they stock it.
all the other instructions are the same as for the original.

minced pork with salted fish

this is a homey chinese dish blutsie and i enjoy when we want something comforting. salted fish can be found in asian shops and can come dried, dried and soaked in oil or frozen. the dried variety from malaysia is my favourite, but difficult to come by. the salted fish soaked in oil is much more easily available and is from hong kong.
serve with steamed rice and blanched bok choy.

500g minced pork
2 eggs
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornflour
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1 inch piece ginger, shredded finely
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 palm sized pieces salted fish
a few stalks spring onions and coriander

stir together the pork, eggs, sesame oil, cornflour, soy sauce, half the ginger, pepper and salt.
transfer to a serving dish large enough to contain the mixture. sprinkle the remaining ginger over the pork and place the 2 pieces of fish on top.
steam for 15 minutes.
serve scattered with chopped spring onions and coriander.

pei mei's green onion pies

pei mei is this famous chinese cookbook writer. i have her three volume cookbook set, and i have to say that it is pretty comprehensive and covers just about all the authentic chinese dishes i have had or heard about.
her green onion pies are known by many other names: spring onion pancakes and scallion pancakes are just two.
this is one of those chinese snacks everyone tells me is easy to make but i confess that i still find them to be quite time consuming. i did do a cheat version earlier, but with some things, it's nice to have the real thing.
this isn't a bad recipe; i'm still trying out the different types of flour to see if there are any significant differences between them. i also intend to try making them using my pasta machine for rolling the dough to see if i can speed things up a bit.

3 cups wheat flour (this is a chinese cookbook, so there has to be a distinction between flours)
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cold water
6 tablespoons lard or oil (we used oil because we don't have lard...i don't don't know whether we would use lard if we had it though)
3 tablespoons chopped green onions
3 teaspoons salt
1 cup oil

place flour in bowl. add the boiling water and mix with chopsticks immediately. let cool. after three minutes add cold water and knead the dough thoroughly until it is smooth. cover and let rest a while.
remove the dough to a floured board, divide dough into 6 even pieces (or more than 6), knead and roll each piece of dough into 10" round as in making pie crust. rub 1/2 tablespoon lard on dough and sprinkle the whole top with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 tablespoon chopped green onion. roll up as for jell roll making sure the ends are tightly closed now form into a round snail shape tucking in the final end into the centre of the bun, then press down and roll out until 1/4" thick.
heat 2 tablespoons oil in frying pan, place the pie in and fry about 2 minutes. use low heat and cover this pan. flip over and splash 1 tablespoon oil down side. continue frying until this side is golden and crispy, shake and juggle the pan often while frying as this action make a flaky pastry.
cut into small pieces to serve.
note: these may be kept in a barely warm oven until all are prepared.