Friday we decided to hang out at home to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics from Beijing. Evan, Amanda and Jason joined us and Melissa made some Chinese food for the occasion.
Who doesn't love scallion pancakes? Having never made them before, Melissa decided to give it a stab and they came out really well. She couldn't find any scallions at the supermarket, so she used leeks instead, and none of us even noticed the difference until she mentioned it. The tortilla-like flattened dough was pan-fried to a crispy, flaky golden brown with a little chewy bit left in the center: perfect with the ginger dipping sauce.
After that intro we had a super-tasty beef (tenderloin) stir fry with chinese broccoli. The meat was so good that all it needed was a little soy sauce and pepper and a quick splash around the fry-pan.
Dessert, as it so often is for us, was an afterthought. Nonetheless, Melissa pulled off a pineapple and mango crumble with toasted coconut and a yogurt topping. As long as we keep a bit of frozen fruit around, she can work wonders in very short order. Her recipes are found below...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recipes and Notes
Pork patties on eggplant with diced beets and leeks5 beets
2 inches of leek
5 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
salt
4 slices of eggplant (~1 cm thick)
salt
olive oil
1 pork tenderloin steak
3 cloves of garlic
½ tsp of coriander seeds
½ tsp of fennel seeds
¼ tsp of nutmeg
¼ tsp of celery seeds
½ tsp of salt
½ tsp of pepper corns
2 feathery fennel leaves
a few sprigs of parsley
Yogurt and fennel leaves for garnish
Dice beets into small pieces. Heat olive oil in a pan, and when hot toss diced beets to cook and brown. Quarter lengthwise and slice leeks crosswise. Finely dice garlic and add leeks and garlic to pan with beets. Cook together until around half of the leek slices and garlic have turned golden brown. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and continue frying until most of the liquid has evapourated while constantly tossing ingredients.
Salt eggplant slices and coat with olive oil. Grill/broil in oven until each side is golden brown
Combine all herbs and spices small foodprocessor and grind. Cube pork steak and add to food processor to make ground meat/mince with spice/herb mix. Form pork into patties and steam for ~10 minutes in bamboo steamer. Alternatively pan fry in olive oil.
To serve, put 2 eggplant slices on a plate and top with a pork pattie. Top this with the diced beet and leek mixture. Follow with a dollop of plain unsweetened yogurt and garnish with a feathery fennel leaf.
Olympic Chinese Dinner
When I embarked off to the supermarket I had visions of dumplings, steamed pork buns, and other Chinese goodies on my mind. The best place to find these things is at Super88, but there isn’t one within walking distance and I didn’t have much time to prepare. Alas, while the Prudential Shaws is pretty well stocked supermarket they didn’t have any frozen dumplings ready to steam. In fact they didn’t really have any sort of dim sum type stuff which I found kind of surprising. Not a problem, I can make my own stuffing, just point me in the direction of dumpling wrappers…. Hmm no wrappers either. I’ve thought about making my own in the past, but from what I’ve read online they need a special flour and are fairly tricky to get right. So I was starting to think this whole Chinese thing might have to be dropped, when scallion pancakes came to mind. They’re not something I’d encountered in NZ, but here they’re pretty popular from Chinese Takeaways. They’re not like a flour, egg and milk type pancake though, more like a thin bread dough. A phone call to Matt for a general idea about how they’re made and I was set. Scallions are spring onions (or green onions) so off to the produce section to pick some up. Can you believe it, Shaws is out of them too! But all is not lost. Leeks are very similar in taste once cooked and I already had some of those from the Farmers Market. All I needed was some canola oil as I suspected olive oil might be a little overpowering in this dish.
The recipe I went by is at this URL
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ming-tsai/scallion-pancakes-with-ginger-dipping-sauce-recipe/index.html
However I made a couple of changes. Firstly the scallions obviously: The leeks were finely chopped and I fried them in a little oil first till they were a little browned to give them a head start in the cooking process.
Second, the recipe implies that you coat the pancake with ½ cup of oil. I tried slathering it on quite thickly but I still couldn’t get more than around ¼ cup onto the dough. And then when I rolled the dough and twisted it I got a goopy mess and couldn’t get the dough to stick together to make an intact pancake. I had to add more flour into it to rescue the dough. I think a light brushing of oil would be fine here, but the recipe could do with some clarification in this regard. I wouldn’t skip oiling the dough altogether though as the thin layers of oil are important to keep the pancake flaky. I suspect you’re meant to brush the oil on lightly and use the left over oil for the frying process. Nevertheless they turned out beautifully. The dipping sauce was also great. I replaced the scallions here with some chopped garlic chives from the garden and the vinegar I used was rice wine vinegar.
Beef Stir Fry
This was an extremely simple recipe. It went down well, but it was not really my skill in cooking it. It was more to do with the eye fillet/tenderloin beef I used in the dish. We buy a whole eye fillet each time we go to BJs (our local wholesale store) so I makes it much more cost effective that buying small amounts at the supermarket, ie ~$9 per pound rather than $30 per pound at the supermarket. So unless you too buy your meat in bulk I suggest using something like sirloin or rump for this dish.
1 lb of eye fillet beef
1 onion
400g of mushrooms
1 lb of Kai Lan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-lan)
¼ cup light soy sauce
1 tsp of sambal olek
1/8 cup of rice wine vinegar
1 cup of jasmine rice
1 ½ cups of water
Cook rice as per instructions on packet. Briefly simmer rice in water for 20 minutes and cover for ten minutes before serving.
In steamer cook kai lan (or other type of green vegetable such as bok choy, or any kind of cale). ~6 minutes until wilted
Slice beef thinly. In bowl marinate with soy sauce, sambal olek (or any other type of chilli paste) and vinegar for around 30 minutes. Slice onions into half rings and mushrooms. In hot pan with a little oil fry mushroom and onions until onions are a little browned. While pan is hot drain beef reserving marinade and add beef strips to pan to flash fry. The more tender the cut the more rare the meat can be cooked. For the eye fillet I flash fried it until there was no red on the surface of the meat. While the pan is still hot toss in the marinade so it steams up and starts bubbling (~30secs). Remove from heat and mix in steamed vegetables.
Serve meat and vegetable mix on rice.
Pineapple Mango Crumble
For the filling
3 cups of frozen cubed pineapple and mango
½ cup of coconut
½ bicardi rum
1cm of mined fresh ginger root
2 tbsp of sugar
For the topping,
50 g butter
100g of whole almonds
3 tbsp of sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice
¼ cup of coconut
~1/4 cup of flour (just enough to make the topping crumbly)
In a casserole dish mix all filling ingredients and toss. There’s no need to defrost the pineapple or mango. In a food processor whir up butter, almonds, sugar and lemon juice to make a paste. Rub in coconut and flour to make a crumble to top the filling in the casserole dish. Cook in a 180oC oven for 30-45 minutes. To tell when its done I go by smell, the toasty almonds and pineapple aromas will intensify as the cooking process nears an end. The top will also go a nice golden colour. I served the crumble in bowls with a little dollop of FAGE 0% greek-style strained yogurt on top and a little sprig of mint or fennel. Matt can’t believe the yogurt doesn’t have fat in it. Actually neither can I, but that’s what it says on the label… I prefer it to cream because of the tang it has.
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