Come Drink With Me on Netflix

Netflix has recently added lots of old Shaw Brothers films - hurrah!  Including this stunning wu xia masterpiece with the beautiful Cheng Pei Pei.  

May I also recommend a documentary on there - General Tso's Chicken. It's basically the story of the Chinese American diaspora told through food.  This dish is not familiar here in the UK, I'm not sure what the equivalent is.  One of our national dishes is chicken tikka massala, a subverted Indian dish that has been created to appeal to British palates.  It would be interesting to see a documentary made about that.

Talking of documentaries there's a good one on Chinatowns of the world on BBC iPlayer Radio now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0380gh0

The other KFC

After visiting a local Korean chicken restaurant I decided to have a go at making the finger licking' good chicken myself.  I found this fantastic blog:

http://www.koreanbapsang.com

There are many different types of fried chicken; garlic, plain, shredded spring onion style and so on.  I decided to try out this sweet sticky chilli chicken as I love to dip fried chicken into sweet chilli sauce anyway - these wings come ready-smothered in a delicious spicy sauce, yum!

http://www.koreanbapsang.com/2015/02/yangnyeom-chicken-korean-fried-chicken.html

The recipe did not fail me - possibly the best fried chicken I have ever tasted.   A bit of a palaver what with the double frying but good things come to those who deep fry twice as they say!

Recommended.  Finger smackin' marvellous!

Yangnyeom Chicken

Today's Show - The Lucky Cat Jukebox GOLD selection!

Ni hao. On today's show I'll be playing some tracks from the Lucky Cat GOLD selection .... Earlier this year I was asked to curate 30 tracks for the Duck and Rice jukebox. The Duck and Rice is a new Chinese gastro pub opening in Soho (previously The Endurance pub). This is an Alan Yau project (Hakkasan, Yautacha etc) and promises to be amazing! Downstairs will be for drinking and bar snacking and upstairs will be fine dining. I was so excited and honoured to be asked to be a part of this wonderful project. Hope to see you at the bar or by the jukebox in 2014! Ganbei! More news as I get it.... 

Tune in to 104.4FM or via the player at resonancefm.com at 3.30pm today (UK time).  Thanks for listening.

Track listing for today's show, which is sample of the jukebox tracks + 2 brilliant Japanese surf guitar numbers:

• Taiyo Yaro - The Bunnys
• Let's Go Shake - The Bunnys
• Why Should I Remember - Poon Sow Keng
• Couple and Pairs - Unknown Chinese Singer
• Bramble Bush - Rita and Sakura
• Theme from King of Chinatown - Hong Kong in the 60's
• Wrap You Up - Long Shen Dao
• I Love Boh Boh Cha Cha - The Stylers
• Season of Wind - Anita Mui Yim Fong (the Sour Beauty RIP, pictured above)
• Broke - The Marshmallow Kisses
• One Day You'll Know - Cha Cha and Ranking Joe
• Always Together - Stephen Cheng
• Sixteen Tons - Chang Loo
• 神经末梢 (Shen Jing Mo Shao) - AM444
• Seemingly and Old Friend Comes - Anita Mui Yim Fong (from the movie Rouge
• Where Have All the Flowers Gone? - Poon Sow Keng

Lucky Cat Supper Club

My husband and I are hosting a Lucky Cat Supper Club at the lovely Windy Corner Stores cafe in Whitstable, Kent.  There are only a few places left if you want to book! 

My husband is a talented chef and we designed the menu together.  I will be helping in the kitchen and then playing records and serving the delicious food for guests. We hope this will be the first of many Lucky Cat Supper Clubs!

Ganbei!

Lazy Prawn & Butternut Squash Curry

I couldn't be bothered to make a curry paste so I knocked up this lazy curry last night.  It was pretty good and I was impressed with the tamarind stock cubes which were a new find in my local Thai emporium.

Ingredients:

• 2 handfuls of king prawns
• Half a butternut squash, chopped into 1inch wedges/squares
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1.5 teaspoons of tumeric powder
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 dried chilli (I used facing heaven chilli)
• 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
• 1 tamarind stock cube dissolved in 400ml boiling water
• 1 can coconut milk
• Fish sauce to taste
• Black pepper to taste
• Top up with water if nec (i.e. sauce becoming too thick)
• Ground nut oil for frying
• Chopped spring onion for garnish

Method:

Heat the oil in a large wok, add the onions, turn down heat and let them soften.  Whilst softening sprinkle in turmeric powder and add chilli and cinnamon stick.  Then after some minutes stir in the shrimp paste and the garlic.  Careful, don't burn it!  Pour in coconut milk.  Keep the can so you can use it to top up with water later if needed.  Add in the tamarind stock.
Bring to the boil and add butternut squash.  Cook for 20 mins on a simmer.  Add fish sauce and some black pepper.
Chop a spring onion for the garnish while you are waiting.
Add prawns and cook for further 5mins (longer if raw).

Serve on rice or quinoa in a bowl and garnish with spring onion.  Extra chilli dip on side if you like.

Tibetan Dumplings

A while back I decided to try making Tibetan Momo dumplings from scratch!  I'd never made dumpling dough before and it turned out to be very difficult to work with.  The air was blue!  It was quite a hard and frustrating process as the consistency was tricky to get right - rolling out sticky dough and trying to clean the work top after was fun.  I swore I'd never make them again.   When it came to the eating though they really were quite marvellous and it was satisfying in the end. The taste was very authentic and the flavours were lovely.  I have to admit that I've since stocked up on frozen pre-made dumpling skins though!

This is the recipe I used:

http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/momos.html

After making 20 or so dumplings I got tired out and there was plenty of mixture left, which I friend up with rice the next day - yum.

I also made a cucumber salad on the side - the recipe was from the Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang book Exploring China (see the BBC TV series of the same name).  The coolness of the cucumber perfectly matched the fiery chilli and sesame oil dressing.

Beef Ma Pao Dofu

Beef Ma Pao Dofu

I love the dish Ma Pao Dofu (Pock Marked Old Mother's Tofu) but have never attempted to cook it myself.  I've read many recipes over the years, including Fuschia Dunlop's great version.  However I wanted to try something from one of the many recipe books on my shelf at home that was a little different and perhaps more Western-based (i.e. emphasis not on authenticity of ingredients but on the ease cooking and more readily available ingredients).  I was given the Exploring China cookbook for a Christmas gift 2 years ago and thought I'd see if there was a recipe in there.  The book is written by Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang and accompanied the fantastic BBC TV series of the same name.  The recipe featured is a beef version (the dish is normally made with pork) with an addition of soya beans and is devised by Ching-He Huang.  As per usual all the work is in the mis-en-place and the freshness of ingredients make the dish sing out.  I had to improvise a couple of things but I was pleased to find we had facing heaven chillies in our store cupboard that gave a lovely warming and citrus flavour heat to the dish.

Here is my amended version of Ching-He Huang's recipe:

2 tablespoons ground nut / veg oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed and finely chopped

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 facing heaven chilli (dried), de-seeded and cut into strips

2 small chillies, de-seeded and chopped finely

(recipe called for 1 medium fresh red chilli, de-seeded and chopped)

2 teaspoons of toasted Sichuan pepper corns, ground up in a pestle and mortar

2 tablespoons Shaxing rice wine (recipe says 1 but I like it boozy!)

2 teaspoons of chilli oil with shrimp paste in (recipe says chilli bean paste but I had run out)

300g minced beef (I used steak mince)

300g fresh tofu (pref. firm - recipe said 400g but I thought that was too much), cut into 1" cubes

3-4 handfuls of fresh soya bean sprouts (recipe says 75g frozen edamame beans but I didn't have any)

250ml hot beef stock (recipe says 200ml)

1 tablespoon light soya sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour mixed with 2 tablespoons of cold water

Sea salt and white pepper

2 smallish leeks cut into quarters then cut diagonally, discard tougher outer bits.  (Recipe says Sian Miao - Chinese leeks - or spring onions but the leeks were on offer at my local shop)

1. Prepare all the ingredients (see mis-en-place picture)

2. Heat wok over high heat and add oil, then garlic, ginger and fresh chilli and fry for a few seconds

Add ground Sichuan pepper corns and minced beef and mix well

3. Add the Shaoxing then chilli oil

4. Add tofu and 3/4 of the soya bean sprouts (hold some back to toss in at the end for a crunchy texture) 

5. Pour in the hot beef stock (I used a very authentic Bisto!).  Stir but be careful not to damage the tofu cubes, they are delicate little things.

6. Bring to the boil then mix in the leeks (use judgement, leave some out if needed, you don't want them to overpower). 

7. Season with the soya sauce (taste it to make sure you have enough in there)

8. Stir in the cornflour mixture to thicken and season with salt and white pepper

9. Garnish with the remaining soya bean sprouts and serve (I chose to serve with fresh noodles and choi sum greens).

I would recommend the recipe book Exploring China by Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang as it is easy to follow and has beautiful photography.  This is the third recipe I've tried from the book (the others being quite simply, but very tasty, salads).

Pork Curry & Quick Pickled Veg Dinner

Rustled this up for dinner tonight.
Thai style pork curry
Step 1 make the curry paste by chopping then crushing in pestle and mortar:

• 4 cloves of garlic
• half small onion (finely chopped, chop the other half into thin slices and set aside for later)
• tablespoon ground coriander
• teaspoon ground ginger
• 3 small chillies incl. seeds
• 2 anchovy fillets (normally I use shrimp paste but I'm worried I may have developed a shell fish allergy)
• dash of cinnamon
• dash of red chilli powder
• tablespoon fish sauce
• big dribble of veg oil

Step 2 slice up a nice bit of pork loin then sear it in a hot wok with oil and add a few dashes of soya sauce as cooking. Remove from wok.
Step 3 add curry paste to hot wok (no oil necessary as oil is in the paste. Turn flame to medium. Cook for a couple of mins then add a tin of coconut milk and then fill the empty tin with water and add that too. Bring to the boil.
Step 4 Rinse a decent amount of Thai sweet basil (it will shrink down in cooking). Roughly chop but set aside a few whole leaves for decoration.
Step 5 add the seared pork slices to the wok and the sweet basil. Bring to boil then set flame to simmering heat. Remember the little onion? Put the remainder of that sliced up into the curry too. Simmer for at least 20-30mins stirring occasionally.
Step 6 peel and finely slice some cucumber, carrots and mooli. Mix some rice wine vinegar, white sugar and water in a small bowl - taste to check balance. Then add the chopped veg and let it have a quick pickling whilst you wait for curry to cook.
Step 7 check curry has enough fish sauce. Serve with jasmine rice or quinoa with sesame oil, slice of lime and fresh sweet basil garnish. Have the pickles on the side.
Step 8 Chow down!

Got my Cooking mojo back

Recently I haven't felt too great about my cooking abilities, mainly after failures at successfully mastering the art of potato cookery (raw/burnt chips, lumpy mashed potato). I felt as though I'd lost my cooking mojo. Happily, this week I'm back on track. Taking a break from pesky potatoes I went back to East Asia to try some new recipes.

For the starter we had steamed tofu with crunchy peanut, spring onion, sesame oil, sugar and Tean's gourmet chilli oil topping.  My daughter tried the tofu sans chilli: "It tastes like nothing, it's ok, but I don't want it".
Main course:
Baby sweetcorn, bamboo shoot and fresh turmeric curry
Jasmine rice
Golden meat - Chinese stir fried pork dish
Steamed tung choi (water spinach)

China Trip 2011 - Food Diary (Beijing)

I posted about the Tofu Fa on Lamma island Hong Kong but what about the other delights I sampled on my trip? Well, it just so happens that I kept a food diary.
Warning the following posts may make induce serious munchies:

Beijing
Thursday 31st March
Snack from outlet in hutong area: Weird triangular shaped snack with wafer like wrapping filled with egg custard and sweetcorn. Sweet and gloopy with crispy shell. Nothing special, forgot to take a photo.


















Dinner @ Sijiminfu, Qianmen District

• 1/2 a Roast Duck
  
• Pancakes
  
• Accompaniments for duck were the usual plum sauce, cucumber & spring onion with the delightful additions of pickled vegetables, red pickled ginger, roasted mashed garlic paste and a side of fresh mint, pea shoots and young salad leaves. We were also given some white sugar to dip the crispy duck skin in.
  
• Cold dish of celery shoots with blanched almonds
  
• Garlic shoots with pork and shrimps
  
• Rice
  
• Finished off with a bowl of duck stock broth.

Mmmm garlicy, top notch stuff. A very big thank you to Anxi for taking care of me in Beijing and making sure I was extremely well fed!

Friday 1st April
Breakfast @ my hotel: Steamed pork dumplings, plain congee with slithery shreds of pickled cabbage, watermelon.
Snack: Roasted sweet potato from street vendor




Lunch @ amazing Beijing snack restaurant. You walked through a corridor with stalls either side where traditional snacks here being cooked. As you entered the main seating area there was a stage with a guy straight out of central casting (grey Mao suit, long white beard, bald head, twinkle in his eyes) telling stories. The atmosphere was rowdy and not many people were taking notice of him but he bellowed on with his animated performance.

• Cooked pear in syrup. Pleasant.
  
• Sweet soup of white snow mushroom with goji berries, red beans and lotus seeds. Too musty for my tastes.
  
• Red cubes of Chinese hawthorn apple jelly and yellow cubes of mung bean / pea? jelly cubes
  
• Fried flour ring (doughnut)
  
• Lian ta hou shou - long, friedBeijing pork dumplings with black vinegar for dipping. Crispy delicious.

Dinner @ Karaiya Spice Housein San li tun area, in 'the village' a big shopping mall which is part of a huge new (6 years old) development. Massive Apple Mac and Nike stores there.

• Cold noodles made from fern root jelly with marinated cucumber
  
• Sliced beef with chilli oil and spring onion
  
• Chilled tofu cubes with diced chilli peppers
  
• Mushroom stir fry served over hot wok like clay pot on table
  
• Sizzling beef
  
• Steamed perch
  
• Ginger chicken (also served on table)

A delicious meal of Hunan food - previously an uncharted area for me. Whilst in China I made the discovery that Szechuan food isn't the only regional cooking to infuse dishes with a range of chillies, spice and salty delicious flavours, Hunan and Yunnan dishes are also very tasty.
Big thanks to Steve Barker for taking us to Karaiya Spice House.

To Fu Fa on Lama Island Hong Kong

Refreshingly cool, delicate and delicious. Icy cold silken tofu with caramelised syrup.
To fu fa features in the Dim Sum Lunch Box on today's episode of Lucky Cat. Listen live at 3.30pm Resonance 104.4FM or www.resonancefm.com

Rabbit in a Spicy Bean Sauce

Jessie Levene made this spicy rabbit dish for the Dim Sum Lunch Box (Series 5 Ep9). Jessie lived in Chengdu, China for 3 years, where she developed a love of Sichuan cuisine. For mouthwatering photos and foodie travellers' tales check out her blog:Jessie and The Giant Plate.

This recipe is adapted from ‘Sichuan Cookery’ by Fuchsia Dunlop. Shaoxing wine, chilli bean sauce, black beans and Sichuan pepper can be purchased at most Chinese supermarkets.

About ½ a rabbit, with bones still intact
3 spring onions
1 small chunk of ginger (about half the size of your thumb), unpeeled
½ tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 tablespoon fermented soybeans (aka black beans)
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
1-2 tablespoons (1 sachet) chilli bean paste (doubanjiang)
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
¼ teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon chilli oil (optional)
1 teaspoon white sesame seeds
1 teaspoon ground Sichuan pepper


1. If your rabbit is a bit bloody, bring a pot of water to the boil and blanch the meat for about 30 seconds.
2. Bring a pot of fresh water to the boil, and add the Shaoxing wine, 1 of the spring onions cut in half and slightly crushed, along with the unpeeled piece of ginger, also slightly crushed.
3. Add the rabbit pieces and boil covered for about 15 minutes, or until the rabbit is cooked through. Remove the rabbit to a plate and set aside.
4. Now make the sauce. Rinse the black beans in a little hot water, drain and then mash to a rough paste with a fork. Finely chop the spring onions.
5. Heat the cooking oil in a small frying pan, and when hot add the chilli bean paste. Turn the heat to low-medium and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, then add the black bean paste and stir-fry for another 30 seconds.
6. Once the oil in the pan is a nice red colour, remove from the heat and pour the contents of the pan into a small bowl. Add the soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and chilli oil, and salt to taste.
7. Strip the cooled rabbit meat from the bone, cut into strips and place in a serving bowl. Pour over the spicy bean sauce and mix the meat and sauce well together.
8. Spinkle the meat with the ground Sichuan pepper, sesame seeds and finely chopped spring onions and serve.

Today's Lucky Cat - Sat Feb 19th 2011

Today I will be joined by Daney Hsu of Mr Hsu's Taiwanese Kitchen to discuss Taiwanese cuisine. Daney (pictured above - he works on the oyster stall in Borough market) will be bringing in some of the delicious products that he makes for on air sampling. All I know about Taiwanese cuisine is oyster omelettes and milk pearl ball tea so I'm intrigued to know more...

Today is also about free music and songs with talking in.
Expect Grace Chang, The Ink Spots and Taiwanese film soundtracks (and you will not be disappointed).

Lucky Cat Series 5 Episode 5 Today

On today's show I will be joined by Virginie Sélavy, Editor of Electric Sheep Film Magazine to review the new release from Japanese director Tetsuya Nakashima: Confessions. The film is based on an ward-winning murder mystery novel by female writer Minato Kinae and both the film and the novel have been hugely successful in Japan.

Confessions will be shown at selected cinemas in the UK from 18th Feburary 2011 (including London's ICA and Ritzy), for a full list of cinemas see: thirdwindowfilms.com/events



Peanut Butter Mochi are in the Dim Sum Lunch Box. Check out this recipe. Photo is from The Japanese Snack Food Review.

If you have any suggestions for the Dim Sum Lunch Box I'd love to hear from you: luckycatzoe at gmail.com

Tune in at 15:30 today via 104.4FM in London or www.resonancefm.com anywhere.

Lucky Cat Podcast Series 5 Ep 2 (22nd Jan 2011)

Here's last week's show, please see the playlist below.


Coming up this Saturday 29th Jan:
I will be joined in the studio by Adam Torel from Third Window Films. The Third Window Films brand was born in 2005 when its film-loving founders grew bored of the stream of worn-out shock horror vehicles from the Far East. Previous releases have included Memories of Matsuko (Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan), The President’s Last Bang (Sang-soo Im, Korea) and Twichfilm.net’s film of the year Love Exposure (Sion Sono, Japan). Adam Torel will be spinning some of tracks from his collection of 1960s Northern Soul and 80s J-pop as well as discussing Third Window’s releases and the upcoming East Winds Film Festival.

Singaporean Chinese New Year's Fish Platter

Here are the results of today's dim sum lunch box. It was crunchy, fresh, zingy, salty, sweet and deeeeeelicious! Listen in today (3.30pm Resonance 104.4M) for full details. Podcast available in the next few days.

Ghostly Mooli for Halloween

We're having a little Halloween soiree next weekend and I've been thinking about scary snacks to make. I had the idea to make some skull shaped mooli slices and pickle them. Turns out skulls are quite hard to do and I decided that these little Pac Man / space invader style ghosts looked a lot better. I peeled half a large mooli and cut it into slices about 2mm thick. I took a small sharp knife and cut little triangles out at the bottom of the circle. For the eyes I used a chop stick and pushed it through hard on both sides of the mooli. For the pickling juice I used rice wine, caster sugar and for a change I used some sushi seasoning (see picture) too, I topped it all up with water. I chopped up a lot of ginger quite finely, 2 cloves of garlic and 3 bird's eye chillies (most seeds removed). For a proper recipe for pickling veg see my earlier post.

Now for the char siew bloody pit with lotus root bones and the centre piece of the bride with white hair (vermicelli noodles)! Nice idea but that sounds a bit too much work; I will let you know what else I come up with.

Ripe Mango Som Tam

I have recently categorised all my 'Food' posts and I couldn't believe that I haven't posted a som tam recipe. A shocking emission as it is one of my favourite dishes. Traditionally this Thai salad is made with green papaya, I also like the green mango version but you can use other types of fruit too. This one was made with large fresh ripe mangoes (the type most commonly found in the UK).

My Mango Som Tam Recipe

Dry roast a handful of mixed nuts in a frying pan. Leave to cool.

Next make the dressing in a mortar and pestle:

• Crush two cloves of garlic
  
• Add a teaspoon of brown sugar or palm sugar and crush that in
  
• Add the juice of a small lime, you should be getting a nice paste now
  
• De-seed and chop up 2 fresh Thai chillies. More if you like it spicier.
  
• Keep pounding and add some fish sauce - about a tablespoon or less if you are not a salt freak like me.
  

OK that's the dressing done. Now get a nicely ripened mango and cut it into strips. Cut up a few baby tomatoes too and put in a salad bowl with the mango strips. Pour over the dressing. Then put your dry roasted nuts into the mortar and pestle and crush up a bit. Add them to the salad and mix in.
Usually I like to add dried shrimps too but I didn't have any so I served it with some Tean's Gourmet crispy prawn chilli (I seem to serve that with everything these days, addictive stuff).

Food Blogs

May I recommend some food blogs:

1) Fuck Yeah Condiments
Because your fridge MUST have at least one condiment shelf and your cupboard too. It's the only way to live.

2) Anna Chen Eats
And she eats good. Recipes and restaurant reviews; I'm looking forward to more posts on this new blog.

3)Rasa Malaysia
Malaysian food combines Chinese, Indian and Indonesian flavours. I think I'm in food heaven.

4)Chez Pim
The best Thai recipes I have found online. Pim is a foodie extraordinaire, step into her world, you'll leave hungry.

Drunken Chicken

For last week's Dim Sum Lunch Box I cooked a Shanghainese recipe - Drunken Chicken. I'd never made it before and was pleased with how well it turned out. The chicken was slightly gelatinous and was infused with a subtle sweet,salty and boozey flavour. A perfect dish for a summer picnic I'll definitely be making this one again. I got the recipe from the blog Rasa Malaysia. It was a guest blog by Amy from Nook and Pantry. I thoroughly recommend this one. If you can be patient leave it for 2 days in the fridge, the flavour is even better.