Sharing the Meat Love



Jing Do Zha Jiang Mian ie Chinese equivalent to Spag Bol!

I love any culture that encourages sharing food. Most Asian cultures involve sharing food in large groups with everything plonked on the middle of the table and everyone helping themselves to a little bit of everything. That's how I was brought up. That's how I like to share with my friends and family when I cook at home. The Italians do it well - gathering large groups of people of all ages to talk loudly over each other, eating a continuous flow of fabulous food, over many hours! That is how meals should be and it is so much fun.

The Chinese think it's rather strange that foreigners order individual dishes just for themselves for every course. They always make dishes to share, so everyone gets a little taste of everything. They also don't pile on every type of food that's on the table, onto one plate, mixing up all the flavours at the same time and eating that as a huge individual portion - I hate that too! On the otherhand, I'm also sure that no one likes to be forced to finish a large plate of food, especially if it is not tasty, just to be polite.

At home, I was brought up to always try some of the appetisers and the veg first. Only then was I allowed to help myself to a bit of any meat or fish dishes on offer and you were only expected to eat till you were full  [However this is in theory - I know I always managed to overeat! My mum's food was and still is - amazing!]. Eating together and helping yourself to many different dishes was the main idea and eating how ever much you wanted.

The ceremony of food and the order in which we eat varies from city to city and culture to culture. As an adult, I am used to having a starter, then a main and then maybe a pudding and then finally perhaps some cheese. In elaborate meals there may even be a fish course after the starter and before the meat main. Here in HK some meals end with a refreshing soup! The concept of 3 courses is lost in many places. Things can arrive one at a time when they are ready or as you finish each dish! Sometimes everything appears at the same time! Vegetables are also a bit of an after thought. They are for colour or texture in the presentation or a side order but never the main event. In a group situation, especially for a special occasion, Meat and Fish/Seafood are the stars of the show.

I love the 'special occasion' dishes in Chinese cuisine, not just for the care taken over appearance and presentation but I am very impressed with the amount of love they give their meat. They marinade with huge numbers of ingredients. They massage meat in such precise stages and for such a long time that it's no wonder that the taste and textures are so incredible.

Over the last few weeks I have been learning Regional Chinese Cuisine e.g Cantonese, Fugian, Sichuan etc. The dishes that I really want to adapt and create for my friends and family are the sharing dishes for special occasions found on the Banquet or Feasting Menus.

1. BEGGARS CHICKEN [also known as Fortune Chicken] - It's known as that because the beggars would steal chickens and have no means of cooking them other than wrapping the chicken in clay and putting them into a makeshift oven into the ground [much like a Tandoor]:

Joints released and bones cracked without breaking skin

Massaged with marinade inside out and cavity filled with 2 types of stuffing and skewered shut!

wrapped in lotus leaves

Covered in dough and baked for 3 hours!

Incredible flavours!

1 Chicken to share with the whole family

So this bad boy has been massaged, marinaded, wrapped in lotus leaves and then a layer of dough followed by a layer of foil and finally popped in the oven for 3 hours. So it cooks in all the marinade, stuffing and its own juices in an oven within an oven within an oven and so on! WoW! I thought I made a mean Sunday Roast. I have never given any chicken this much love and attention. Well. Things are about to change! There is also a real sense of ceremony involved in bringing such a dish to the table and cracking it open in front of your guests then unwrapping and serving it! Sunday lunch will never be the same again!

2. CANTONESE DUCK: This is different from Peking Duck which is served straight from the oven to keep the skin crispy. [nb - The Chinese i.e. according to my cooking instructor - find it hilarious that we have crispy duck in the UK which is essentially just deep fried - not baked/roasted in the oven - and not like anything found here!]





Duck marinaded and massaged inside and cavity stuffed with a filling and skewered shut

Hung in front of a fan and under the air con for 6 hours!

This duck was massaged with a marinade, then stuffed with a filling, then painted with a sugar syrup, dried for 6 hours before being roasted for 45min & finally rested for an hour! Can you imagine how flavoursome and tender the meat was? OMG !  By the way, to serve,  it gets carved up into small pieces so as to ensure that every one gets to have a little bite, as this duck would be made to serve and share with the whole extended family. I generally do not mind bone in meat and will sometimes chew through some, but I must admit that this way of serving means that you get bits of bone in every bite and it is quite fiddly to eat around the bone and sometimes too hard to chew through it. I think Dentists here would have lots of cases of cracked teeth/fillings and worn down surfaces, with all the bone chewing that goes on! 

The other thing I found tedious about these hundred year old recipes was that they expected you to follow them to the letter e.g the duck had to be washed with hot water exactly 3 times, the back had to be painted with a sugar syrup exactly 6 times and so on. Okay - so there maybe some method to the madness, to give that exact reddish brown effect on the skin but I must say I find all the rules at school stiffling! I cannot wait to get back to my kitchen in England, break all the rules and create healthier versions of all the dishes. I am taking on board all the meat love and all the new techniques and leaving behind tradition and the deep fat frying! Hands up! - Who wants to come round for dinner?







Pizza : Say "NO" to soggy bottoms

Capriciosa at Scopa , Wellington, NZ

I am a massive Pizza snob. I can't stand those thick bread based, processed meat feast horrors, with pineapple toppings and crusts injected with artery hardening processed cheese! No thank you! However, it is my guilty secret shame that given an Italian thin crusted number with just a few delicious toppings, I will fall head over heels and eat the whole thing before you have had a chance to order.. You know how Miss Piggy said 'never eat anything bigger than your head?" Well it does not apply to a proper wood fired thin base pizza!

It really is NOT diet food and I only allow myself to have one maybe once a month depending on whether I have somewhere good to try. I have eaten Pizza's around the world and I have my top 5 places:

1. La Marina, Trois Ilets, Martinique: I had the thinnest crispy based pizza with an unusual sprinkle of parsley, garlic and olive oil crushed together over my pizza and it was heavenly! This was during my honey moon and will be forever remembered as the best pizza I ever had... Sigh!

2. Scopa, Cuba St, Wellington, New Zealand: [Picture above and below] One of the best pizza joints I have been to, with a group of friends - thin crust, good quality Italian gourmet ingredients!

Salami and red peppers

3. Al Parco, Parliament Hill, Highgate: This tiny family run Italian place is always packed and has the best thin crust options. I used to frequent this place before I got married and it was my favourite hangover cure on a Sunday - ahhh memories...they used to have these pickled mushroom they used along side artichoke hearts - they were delicious!

4. The Duck, Battersea Rise, Clapham Junction: This pub has a wood fired oven and the chefs make individual pizza's to order about the size of your head - maybe a little bit bigger] for next to nothing - great deals are on offer [like Pizza and a glass of red/beer for under a tenner] especially when the Rugby is on the big screen. Needless to say thin crispy crusts prevail!

5. .. Well Number 5 spot on my top 5 is still open ..It was going to be D.O.C. in Melbourne but my last visit there was ruined by yet another soggy bottomed pizza.. Then I was advised that Franco Manco in Brixton, London was the best  [I have yet to make it down there on a Saturday before midday to queue up for the pleasure] and the other spot was Sting Rays in the East End of London ... but to be honest I am still looking...

In HK I was told 208 Deucento Otto was the best pizza in town - so I went to check it out:

We went in the evening when it was full of beautiful people and the bar was pumping. We were given seats outside which is okay as you get some air con blasting out and there are fans but it is not great being near the constant flow of traffic and fumes! The pizza menu is short and sweet and it boasts that all their pizzas come with buffalo mozarella. I must say the toppings were fantastic quality ingredients and divine BUT both pizzas we shared had SOGGY BOTTOMS! I hate that! It feels like eating wet paper with glue - what a disappointment! So my verdict for 208 is Pizza: 3/5 Service 4/5 Total: 7/10

Proscuitto e Funghi

Diavolo

left over soggy base - ate all the gorgeous toppings!

The next week I was walking down past 208 further down Hollywood road and I spied some impossibly thin women sharing [shock! horror!] an impossibly thin based pizza at Classifieds. This is a stylish ex-pat hang out well known for cheese, cheese and wine tasting classes and fabulous brunch/lunch. So I decide to give them a go and I was pleasantly surprised that they had the all important thin crispy base! No soggy bottoms here! However the toppings were not really Italian [leant more towards the French/English] and they used Mozarella made of Cow's milk not Buffalo - but maybe that's why their bases were still crunchy? Who knows! All I know is that Classified won hands down... Pizza 4/5 service 4/5 Total: 8/10

Spice Lover's Heaven

Classifieds is a great place to hang out for brekkie on the weekends and they bake really fresh yummy seeded breads on site that you can buy and take home.

Eggs Benedict

Poached egg on chorizo and beans

They have a extensive [expensive] wine list and an even longer cheese list!

NZ Pinot Noir and a Spanish Manchego - You can't beat that!

 If you know of somewhere I could go to have the best thin crust Italian pizza please let me know! I would very much like to have my top 5 list completed! It can only be somewhere I can give a 10/10!

Macanese cuisine : Macau and Portuguese Fusion Food

There is a tiny area called Macau in the Pearl River Delta of the South China sea. This bit of the world was colonised by the Portuguese Spice traders in 1557 long before the British came along in the 17th century to HK. They were allowed to stay as long as they did not bring in weapons or women and they did a roaring trade in exotic spices with the Chinese. The Portuguese continued their traditional cooking in China but their Asian wives were the ones who injected the old school dishes with spices, coconut milk, etc and formed the first fusion food! So was born Macanese cuisine and as you can imagine I was very curious about it. We decided to take a ferry over to check it out but agreed that we would go to the sleepy village of Taipa where we could experience the Mediterranean China instead of Macau itself which is now known for housing some of the biggest casinos in the world and luxury hotels, malls and restaurants - not my scene I'm afraid!

What we failed to realise is that, even though they are now one nation, China still considers HK a separate entity. We needed passports. We had to queue through passport control and fill out irritating little forms on each side explaining our visit and giving details of residence and so on and so forth. Sigh! 1 hour of freezing cold air con ferry travel followed by 1 hour of queuing in passport control then another 15min in a taxi from the port into the village really got on my nerves! Needless to say we were starved by the time we finally got there so we made a bee-line for a recommended restaurant to sample some of this Macanese cuisine!

My guide book said that this was a Macau Institution since 1903 and had some of the classic dishes like Curried crab, Roasted Pigeon, Baked Coconut Chicken and all sorts of seafood. It sounded as though a lot of the plain Portuguese dishes had been jazzed up with North African spices like saffron, cinnamon and tumeric. So on to the review... well we ordered some Clams Portuguese style and Grilled sardines to start with, followed by a mixed grill and African Chicken.

The clams and sardines were simply prepared but fresh and really tasty. Unfortunately the restaurant decide to bring our mains before we had time to finish the seafood entrees which was very odd and so we got side tracked. Luckily the African chicken I ordered was amazing! The sauce was rich with tomatoes, spices, garlic and saffron. But strangely it was served up with pineapple chunks as well as some boiled potatoes! I did not bother taking a photo of the mixed grill when it arrived because it looked AWEFUL! It was served with cold french fries and a square piece of processed ham draped over some overdone grilled lamb with no seasoning what so ever! It was okay but nothing to write home about.

I was annoyed that we were served everything together but even more irritated with the waiters who kept pacing single file next to our table watching our every move, offering to change a plate every few minutes for a fresh one and generally making us feel like we were in prison being patrolled by guards. I actually asked them to stop circling our table so that we could have a private conversation! Intrusive is not the word - I felt violated! It ruined my lunch experience. I could not wait to get out of there!

Verdict: Food : 3/5 service: 2/5 Total 5/10 = NEVER AGAIN.

Wine list was rubbish. Food was average to poor. Service was intrusive and oppressive.

We then decided to have a wonder about this village to shake off the trauma of lunch. It was truely a lovely little place with cute little street lamps and flowers, piazzas with terraces and wooden shutters over windows in balconies.. very old narrow cobbled streets and tavernas! Really picturesque until you spotted the giant Venetian sky scraper resort gilded and gaudy in gold, looming over the village..YUCK.

Taipa in Macau certainly has a very different feel to HK and its sky scrapers. I was glad we got to experience a new place. Was it worth the 4 hours travel and rubbish lunch experience? Maybe not. As for Macanese cuisine my verdict is [big shoulder shrug] ..."meh".. I won't be going out of my way again to find it but will give it another go if I ever come across it .. You can take it or leave it - It's not really that exciting!

Restaurant Reviews: Thai Cuisine and Indian Cuisine in HK

Since I am eating out quite a lot at the moment I have decided to do some restaurant reviews. I was told by some ex-pats that most other cuisines are pretty damn good here in HK. So this week I decided to try some other options. The criteria I am using for my verdicts is a score out of 5 for the food and a score out of 5 for the service. I shall also reserve the right to deduct points for nasty loos, poor ambience or for water issues [NB. In HK tap water is available but it is actually advisable not to have this. Most people boil water at home before drinking. So it is best to go for bottled options when you are out. In some places they serve hot water/green tea. However sometimes green tea is not great as it contains caffeine and tends to keep me up at night..] The final verdict is really about being happy at the end of the whole experience of dining out!

Restaurant No. 1: THAI BASIL {Modern Thai}

Location: In a posh air conditioned mall called Pacific 1 in HK

First impressions were good in that we were seated immediately and it was already quite busy [soon after we sat down a queue began to form at the door!]. The decor was lovely and understated but stylish. The menu was exciting with lots of firm favourites on offer. We decided to go for 4 dishes to share starting with a Green Papaya salad with seared tuna.

This was really good and there was a nice background chilli heat through the sweet and sour dressing but no sign of any actual chillies. The tuna was fresh, the beans and papaya were crunchy but it was missing peanuts. Then we had sauteed morning glory [Thai greens] with dried shrimps and garlic which took me straight back to Thailand - very authentic! Then we had Green Chicken Curry with Thai Aubergines, Okra and Potatoes which unfortunately had overcooked chicken and undercooked potatoes - not great. Finally Whole Fish baked in Banana leaves with a lemongrass paste and sweet chilli and lime dressing which was my best dish as it was fresh, very spicy and delicious. Full marks for that one!

Fresh Vibrant tasty dish

This curry was tasty but let down by under done raw potatoes

This was amazing with lots of lemongrass in the paste covering the fish with a sweet chilli lime dressing



Verdict: 4/5 for the food, 3/5 for service

The service was okay but they brought us one dish at a time! They forgot to give us any spoons to serve the food with and they forgot our drinks order! The staff were all a bit flustered with the lunch time rush and there were too many different people taking our orders and enquiries and not communicating with each other. So total count 7/10 : Would I go back ? No - it was okay but not spectacular

Restaurant No. 2: GURU {Indian Cuisine}

Location: Elgin Street, Soho, HK

I'm very fussy about going out for an Indian. I can cook curries with my eyes closed when I am at home and I am very critical of restaurant standards. On this occasion I was craving a curry and as I have no means to make this in our tiny studio apartment I decided to go online and find somewhere close by. I must say I was more than pleasantly surprised, in fact I was blown away!

I was impressed with the non-garish interior and the fact that other brown people were dining there with families [which is always a good sign].

The table was dressed with stylish cutlery and the service was prompt, attentive but non-intrusive. The ladies was functional but clean and well stocked [I hear the mens loos were aweful - oh well!]. It steadily got busier as the night wore on but we were never neglected.

So onto the food... First we got complimentary poppadoms sprinkled with onions and chillies served with a spicy mint dip which was very good. Then we had a mixed Tandoori grill with chicken, fish, lamb and shish kebabs. This was fantastic and every morsel was tender and juicy although we we had to fight over the single king prawn! 

Sizzling mound of mized Tandoori Grill

Then we had Lamb Rack Kashmiri which was incredible. The masala was divine - spicy, thick and more-ish but not too chilli hot. There was bags of flavour in the meat which was very tender [marinaded in green papaya to tenderise them I believe] - I wanted more!

The final side dish was sauteed fresh spinach and this was really tasty. It was so good that it prompted me to offer the chef a drink and to ask for the recipe!

Verdict: 5/5 for food, 4.5/5 for service

Great food - everything was delicious. I would definitely go back to try other things on the menu. We were offered tap/bottled water. They have a reasonably priced wine list. The service was polite and attentive without being too intrusive or impatient. We were not hurried and I enjoyed the whole experience. I've deducted 1/2 a point for the mens loo and the fact I still haven't got that recipe for spinach yet! Nit picking really.. It was a really good restaurant experience for once! Delightful! So total : 9.5/10

UMAMI = Delicious [MSG]

DIM SUM DUMPLINGS = OODLES OF UMAMI

During my Cantonese Cooking lessons I was surprised to see my teacher repeatedly use what she called Chicken powder in pretty much every dish. When I enquired as to what this was made of, she showed me a tub of ‘Knorr’ Chicken Bouillon or powdered stock. I was pleasantly surprised as I too from time to time use stock in the form of stock cubes e.g. OXO. However what was shocking was that she went onto explain that it contained MSG – monosodium glutamate.

I was aware that MSG had a reputation for causing all sorts of complaints from headaches, rashes, irritability, heart palpitations, Irritable bowel syndromes, asthma, muscle tightness and nausea. I have certainly experienced nausea after a heavy glutinous cheap Chinese take away and vowed never again! I was not aware that people still cooked with it. My teacher explained that even if restaurants claim that they do not add MSG to their food or they claim to serve food with no MSG at all, they inadvertently do so as MSG is found in many other products. This could be through the chefs  working there being uneducated, illiterate or just unaware of the fact of what MSG actually is i.e. a flavour enhancer with many guises.

So I looked into it and lo and behold MSG is a neurotoxin which is known by many other names e.g. E621 – a flavour enhancer or just as Glutamate. This got me thinking about labeling and how difficult it is for people to work out what the hell they put in our food. Everything processed seems to have flavour enhancers. If you are seriously allergic to MSG then you are really in big trouble.

E621 = MSG

That also got me thinking about allergies vs. food intolerances and what people perceive they suffer. An allergy is an immune response. The body perceives something [an allergen] to be harmful and creates antibodies to fight it. When the body is presented with this allergen huge amounts of antibodies are released to protect the body. These chemicals produce a cascade of events and effects on the body most commonly a rash [like hives], swelling of the tongue/lips, tingling in the mouth, difficulty breathing and constriction of the airways. If the reaction is severe it is called an anaphylactic shock and can be fatal unless that person gets a rapid injection of Adrenalin to reverse the effects e.g. People who have peanut allergies, seafood/shellfish allergies who need to carry around an EPI pen which is their shot of adrenalin in case they have the allergic reaction.

By the way, people in the East don’t seem to have heard of or have any concern for peanut allergies. We were given bags of peanuts to enjoy on Cathay Pacific on our flight to HK! In Europe and USA they have pretty much banned it in case a tiny molecule of peanut should enter the air conditioning system and then kill a child! Here peanuts are omnipresent in sauces and oils. Shrimp paste is prominent in most curries and don’t be fooled into thinking that telling the restaurant that you are allergic to shellfish will prompt them into changing the oil they used to fry shellfish in just before they began to prepare your dish!

This satay [peanut] paste contained shrimp paste too! Double trouble for some!

With a food intolerance the severity varies from person to person as does the type of reactions that ensue when the offending item is consumed. It can be due to lacking enzymes to process that particular food e.g. Lactose Intolerance where you have no lactase enzyme to process any dairy, milk or cheese. It can be due to an absorption problem e.g. People with Coeliac disease which is an autoimmune condition that destroys the guts lining. They cannot tolerate gluten in particular and can become very ill if they eat even a small amount. [Note: Soya Sauce contains gluten - there are gluten free versions called Tamari you can get in speciality shops]. An intolerance can lead to nutritional problems, malabsorption and gastric disturbances like severe diarrheoa and vomiting.

People who suffer severely from these kinds of afflictions are usually careful to check labels but the rest of us who may be in between and have only a few symptoms may not even realize what we have been using.

Labelling these days can be very confusing. I thought ‘lite’ versions of sauces were better versions as you associate ‘lite’ with lighter/healthier but that is not true. ‘Lite’ Soy sauce or ‘thin’ soy sauce is saltier than the dark variety. Salt generally is near impossible to decipher from product to product. We are not supposed to have more than 5-6g of salt per day. What does that quantify? Do you know how much that looks like? That is supposed to be a teaspoon. Most products list sodium rather than salt [sodium chloride] – how much sodium is in salt?? It is a mine field and it is no wonder we cannot be bothered to work it out.  

Sugar is another issue. I assumed all ‘Diet’ drinks contained no sugar compared to their original versions! Next time you get a diet version of a sugary drink – check the label. You may be surprised and shocked at the amount of sugar it contains – just under another guise. Sugar is known by many names e.g. sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup and so on and on. Ever checked or compared cereal labels to see how much sugar it has per 100g? It took me half an hour to trawl through my local supermarket cereal aisle to find the cereal with the least amount of sugar and salt [it was Natural Bircher Muesli by the way]. All the supposedly healthy cereals had huge amounts of sugary dried fruits and salt added to the whole grains. It would be better to put together your own breakfast cereal at home with rolled oats, nuts and natural fruits and no added salt!

As for the MSG – well apparently we like the ‘Umami’ factor that glutamate generally gives food. This 5^th taste can be naturally found in foods such as Tomatoes, Parmesan Cheese, Cured Hams, Anchovies, Japanese Dashi Stock, Mushrooms and Anchovies. Apparently the levels of glutamate increase as the food ripens. They say that the man-made MSG has never been clinically proven to be harmful even though we know people can get transient effects. They now create MSG through bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates rather than using wheat gluten which is something however you have a right to choose whether you eat this substance or not, so check the label! I reckon the only way to really know what is in your food is to make it at home with natural ingredients.

I have no doubt that the Dim Sum I had yesterday [ after which I spent an hour lying down feeling nauseous] had tonnes of MSG. We found an incredibly cheap local place which was delicious but dubious… still I’d do it again for the Umami!

Shrimp Dumplings with roe and parsley = Total Umami

Chicken feet - mostly skin, fat, cartilage and bones = Fiddly

Soft meatball - UUUUUmmmmamiii

Spare ribs with garlic = Definitely Um-mami!

Deep fried veg spring rolls - Total Umami