everyday experiments with food
You’re supposed to sing “making sushi” to the tune “making whoopee”!
I’ve been getting into Japanese cooking a LOT, so you can expect a few posts on this. I ordered a couple of rice moulds and this is the first time I’ve used this one. It doubles as a little lunchbox.
Some of these are stuff with smoked salmon, and some with avocado. I’ve put some store-bought furikake seasoning on top.
It was easier than I thought!
Last night I made a slight variation on this recipe from Taste. The sauce was good, and more importantly the duck cooking method worked really well.
The duck marylands were cooked in a pan, skin side down, on low heat for 15 mins, then skin side up for 5 mins.
Then they were covered in marinade (see below) and cooked, covered, in the oven at 180C for 45 mins.
Then the duck was taken out of the pan and put in a clean tray and cooked at 220C for 10 mins. While the skin did not crisp up, the duck itself was soft.
The recipe is for 4 marylands. I cooked two but made a full quantity of the marinade.
The marinade consists of the following:
3 garlic cloves, sliced
3 cm root ginger, julienned
2 star anise
1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup red wine
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
Actually the sauce could do with a hit of chilli.
Saute the garlic and ginger in a pan, then add the other ingredients. Bring to the boil then simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the marinade to the duck in the cooking pan, but don’t fully submerge the skin. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of five spice powder onto the duck skin (or 1 tsp if 4 pieces of duck).
When the duck is in the over an 220C, strain the marinade, skim off the fat, and reduce on the stove for 10 mins. Add some of the sauce to the dish before serving.
The recipe included potato, but I substituted fennel, carrot and broccolini. Julienned spring onion and chilli on top.
The other day I had a rushed introduction to making KFC – Korean Fried Chicken wings. Thanks to COVID lockdown, a lunch meeting moved from Gami Chicken to Zoom. I was challenged to make my own fried chicken so I did.
Korean fried chicken is a serious thing, apparently. I’ve never eaten it or made it! There are a million recipes online.
The chicken part of the recipe came from Donna Hay here. I chose it because it was a single fry and seemed relatively simple. It was pretty good, but not enough coating stayed on the chicken. And next time I want to try double-fried.
The sauce recipe came from the Great British Chefs website here. Such a great source for recipes. You’ll see that the chicken coating involves more work so I’ll try that next time.
The sauce was brilliant. You need to keep a tub of Korean gochujang chilli sauce in your fridge. It took me ages to find some, but now finding some is quite easy, as long as you know that it is a paste in a tub. Where the recipe says “ketchup” I used BBQ sauce not tomato sauce. Sesame seeds added on top.
I’ve since discovered that we have a good local Korean restaurant, and they deliver! So this week I’m going to have real KFC for the first time!
I have a goal of becoming a bun gun. That’s right, a dumpling king. It’s going to take years of practice so I might as well get started. Neil Perry’s Spice Temple is my guide. It has a great array of different kinds of dumplings with recipes for dough and filling. The other night I made these northern-style buns.
The filling is made from pork belly braised in a kind of master stock and then shredded and mixed with reduced cooking sauced, thickened with potato starch. The recipe said to simmer for 20 mins but mine took closer to 90 mins to become soft.
But this post is all about the bun itself. The recipe requires Hong Kong flour. I had no idea what this was, and after some research, found out that it is low in protein, lower even that 00 flour, but that would be a good substitute. However in the baking section of your supermarket, you will hopefully find this Lighthouse brand flour for Cake, Sponge and Steamed Bun! Yes! I’m sure that there is actual Hong Kong flour is Asian supermarkets, but this will do for now. You’ll note that it is self-raising flour.
Making the buns
The recipe is as follows and supposedly makes enough for 30 buns. I made half the quantity as there are only two of us.
500g or 3 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp dried yeast
300ml warm water
Sift flour and sugar into a bowl.
Dissolve yeast in water. Stir into the flour and mix together. Knead on the bench for 10 minutes (or put it into the bread machine as I did.)
Wrap in cling film and rest for 10 minutes.
Punch down the dough and knead for another five minutes.
The recipe says to divide into golf-sized balls. I made 16 that were smaller than golf balls. How big is a golf ball these days anyway?
Roll out each ball to 10cm diameter. The recipe said to fill with 2 tablespoons of filling, but my amount was more like 2 heaped teaspoons.
I’ve not had lessons in how to make these things. I should look on Youtube. Anyway I pull up the edges and then try to crimp/fold around the diameter and then at the end twist the top together. They’re not perfect but they’re OK. Leave them for 5 minutes to rise a bit….