Authentic Tang Yuan Soup recipe

by Liv | May 25, 2010

Authentic Tang Yuan Soup recipe

The other day I read about Ching He Huang’s recipe for this Tang Yuan soup on the good food channel and she mentioned this dish is specifically for Chinese new year which is not right.

Chinese and Taiwanese people eat Tang Yuan during the Yuan Xiao Festival (Lantern festival) and also Winter solstice. This is a very old tradition in both China and Taiwan.

The pronunciation of Tang Yuan also has a meaning of family reunion so when we eat Tang Yuan we are thinking about our friends and family who work or live far away.

My family didn’t have money for me to learn piano or painting, drawing when I was a child so I remember I always pulled a chair into the kitchen and stand on the chair where I would watch my grandfather cook.

I used to help him cook rice and wash vegetables when I was young but although he passed away some 10 years ago I still think about him all the time, especially when I’m cooking.

I think cooking for me is not just a job or daily routine for me. It’s also my childhood memory. I hope I can share more recipes and show that Chinese and Taiwanese culture and food is not the typical stereotype. Sadly a lot of people thinking all Eastern people eat dogs, cats and anything that moves. These people are of course narrow minded idiots.

I always remember one of the head chef I worked for before shook a goose gut in front of my face and asked me: “Do you Chinese all eat this kind of stuff??” However I already told him a million times that I’m not Chinese. But I think to a lot of people if you’re “Yellow” you must be Chinese.

So today I share with you my version of Tang Yuan recipe with you and I hope you will like it. I hope one day if you see a yellow person like me you can be a bit more welcome to them. They might be a nice person and a good friend in your life. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Tang Yuan

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Servings 5 portions

Ingredients

Ingredients for Tang Yuan pastry

400 g glutinous rice flour
1 tbsp potato starch
200 g water
20 g oil

Ingredients for Tang Yuan filling

250 g pork mince try to use pork belly or fatty pork as it will improve the texture and taste
30 g fried shallots
1 spring onion chop finely
1 thin slice ginger chop finely

Seasonings for Tang Yuan filling

2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
Couple pinches white pepper

Instructions

Tang Yuan pastry procedures

Mix everything together and knead it until it’s smooth.
Take 15% of the mixture and separate them into 2 or 3 small balls and flatten them by hand. Boil some water in a small saucepan and cook those flatten mixture until it flow on the water.
Mix the cooked mixture with the other raw mixture together evenly and separate the mixture into 25g each small balls.

Procedures for Tang Yuan

Mix all the ingredients and seasonings for filling together evenly and leave it on aside for 20 minutes.
Separate the filling into small balls and freeze them until they are hard. (It’s easier to make Tang Yuan if the filling is hard.)
Use the pastry to cover the filling and make it look like a round shape.
Boil some water to cook the Tang Yuan and when they float on the water they are cooked.
Use another soup pot to cook stock and when it’s boiling add some chopped celery and dried shallots into the stock and season the stock with a bit of salt and sesame oil.
Place the Tang Yuan into the soup and cook them for 1 more minute. You can also put some vegetables into the soup such as Bok Choy or any green vegetable.

Dongpo Pork Recipe

by Liv | May 22, 2010

Dongpo Pork Recipe

I haven’t cooked this dish, called Dongpo, pork for a really long time. Dongpo pork is one of the first dishes I ever cooked for Chris and to this day it’s one of his favourites. I remember just after we married I cooked this dish a lot and really spoiled him.

But sadly we ate this dish too many times (literally every few days for a few weeks) and we got a bit tired of it, so it’s really nice for both of us to come back to it and eat it again. Every bite of this meat is so amazingly tasty and if cooked right the pork will literally melt in your mouth.

Dongpo is the name of a great and famous writer in Chinese history. Su Dongpo was a great writer, poet, artist, calligrapher, pharmacologist and statesman of the Song Dynasty. He loved not just writing but also food.

There are many different versions of stories for this pork dish but I will only introduce the version of the story I like in my blog today. This pork dish was created when Su Dongpo worked and lived in Huang Zhou. One day he decide to make stewed pork and one of his old friend suddenly visited him during cooking. He challenged Su Dongpo to a game of Chinese chess and Su Dongpo had totally forgotten he had a pork stew on the stove. He found out he had this stewed pork cooking on his stove until the end of the game and the amazing fragrant smell from his kitchen reminded him of it. He tasted the pork with his friends and shockingly found out how wonderful taste of this dish is. This is how Dongpo’s pork been created. It’s a wonderful accident.

Here is my recipe for this Dongpo’s Pork and I hope you will enjoy this dish with your family and friends.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Dongpo Pork

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

500 g pork belly cut into 5cm squares
2 thin slices ginger
2 spring onions cut into 3cm lengthways
4 cloves garlic remove the skin
1 star anise
5 cm cinnamon stick
1 slice dried liquorice
1 slice dried tangerine skin

Seasonings

3 tbsp crystal sugar available in Chinese supermarkets but you can use brown sugar
2 cups Shaoxing rice wine
1 cup light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce

Instructions

Use the string to tie the pork up like a parcel and blanch the pork in the boiling water with another couple thin slices of ginger. After just rinsing under cold water and leave it on aside.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in the wok and sauté the spring onion, ginger, garlic first and add all the spice into the wok and keep sauté it until the fragrant smell comes out.
Place the step 2 into a small stock pot and re-heat the wok from step 2 again with a little bit of oil.
Add crystal sugar into the wok and stir it until the crystal sugar caramelized and add soy sauce and a bit of water to boil it.
Place pork into the stock pot from step 2 and make sure the pork is on top of the spring onion, ginger and garlic.
Add the sauce from step 4 into that stock pot and make sure the sauce have to cover over the pork and add Shaoxing rice wine.
Cook the pork in strongest gas power and after it boiling turn the gas power to the lowest and simmer it for a couple hours and it’s ready to serve.

Glutinous Rice Shumai

by Liv | May 17, 2010

Glutinous Rice Shumai

I’ve caught the flu recently that’s the reason I haven’t replied to all of your comments recently, really sorry about that but I hope you can understand a person like me who has to work 48 hours in 3 days with flu basically doesn’t have any extra energy to do other thing else.

I know a lot of people love Dim Sum so I decide to make this Glutinous Rice Shumai. It has a different filling compared to normal yellow pastry shumai that people usually order in a Cantonese restaurant.

I have completely forgotten the first time when I tried to make this shumai but the flavour of it is very unique. When Chris tried it for the first time he wasn’t too sure about the taste but after trying one, he tried another and then before you know it they were all gone.

Shumai is a dish that grows on you. It’s really cheap to make, very tasty and very filling. A perfect snack.

I searched for the history of this dish and shumai was created in Yuan Dynasty. For those who aren’t sure, the ruler of the Yuan Dynasty was from Mongol, of which the most famous ruler was Genghis Khan. I always thought Shumai was created by Cantonese or Chinese people but amazingly I found out it was actually created by the Mongolian people. This is another benefit for writing a blog. I have learnt another lesson from history by researching the ingredients for my blog.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Glutinous Rice Shumai

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour

Servings 3 people

Ingredients

Ingredients for Shumai pastry

1.5 cups bread flour
1 cup plain flour
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cold water

Ingredients for Shumai

1.5 cups glutinous rice
2 dried shiitake mushroms soak in hot water for 10-15 minutes to soften then chop finely
1 tbsp dried shrimps also soak in hot water for 10-15 minutes then chop finely
150 g pork belly remove the skin an cut into 2.5cm dices. We will use this pork belly to make a stewed pork for shumai filling

Seasonings for Shumai filling

1 tbsp soy sauce
Couple pinches black pepper

Seasonings and ingredients for stewed pork for Shumai

2 spring onions
1 thin slice ginger
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 pinch cinnamon
1/2 star anise
1 clove garlic
Some water to cover the pork

Instructions

Procedures for Shumai pastry

Mix flour together and pour the boiling water in the flour, mix with a pair of chopsticks and add 1/3 cup of cold water.
Use your hands to knead the dough until it’s smooth and cover by wet kitchen napkin of tea towel. Leave it on aside for 20 minutes and separate to small portions (depends on what kind of size you like).
Use a rolling pin to flatten the small dough from step 2 and use your finger tips to make the pastry have some wrinkle bits (looks a bit like flower petals).

Procedures for stewed pork for shumai

Heat a wok with 1 table spoon of oil. Stir fry the ginger, spring onion and garlic first for 30 seconds. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar into wok and wait for it melt. Add the pork into the wok and stir fry it until the pork get a little bit colour.
Add all the seasonings and spices into the wok and stir fry it for another 2 minutes. Place everything into a small soup pot or small sauce pan with lit and cover the pork by water.
Use full gas power to boiling the pork first then turn to lowest power to simmer the pork until it is soft.
After the pork cooked, place it into a bowl or plate and cool it down. After it cool down, chop it and use for shumai filling.

Procedures for Shumai fillings

Cook glutinous rice by rice cooker. 1 ½ cup rice : 1 ½ water. Because it’s glutinous rice so I will put another 2 tablespoons water to cook it.
Mix Shitake mushroom, dried shrimps, chopped pork, soy soy sauce, black pepper with hot glutinous rice together and make sure it mix evenly.
Take one pastry we made earlier and put 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle.
Use your hand to close the “waist” part and the shumai should look like a “vase” shape. Put a little bit more filling on top of it.
Use bamboo steamer to steam for 10~15 minutes and ready to serve.

Beijing Roast Duck

by Liv | May 9, 2010

Beijing Roast Duck

Due to the recession Chris and I had a really tough year in 2009. Chris was out of work for around nine months and I had three months off work sick following working part time for several months, so things were difficult.

Finally we both now have full time jobs and we’re earning fairly good money between us. So, I decided to cook one of our absolute favourite things, Beijing roast duck.

Duck has always been one of my favourite foods, especially Beijing roast duck. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Shanghai called “Duck King” before and they service this amazing Beijing roast duck. The roast duck there is incredibly juicy and tasty but not too rich.

I searched for many recipes for this roast duck and I changed it a little to make it easier to cook at home for both myself and you.

One of the most difficult parts of Beijing roast duck is the preperation of it. In China they block air between the skin and duck to make the skin really crispy. But there are no restaurants in the UK that do this and it’s certainly impossible for us to do this without a considerable investment.

This might sound a little crazy but I was thinking about buying a pump to help roast this duck.

A lot of the recipes I read however did say that for those who are unable to blow air between the skin and meat you can pour boiling

As I read a lot of recipes and they said people who don’t have the right tool to blow the air into duck can pour the boiling hot water onto the skin to make it crispy.

After making this dish I think the skin was pretty crispy but definitely not as crispy as the duck skin in China. However, my roast duck is still really tasty and both Chris and I love it. I hope you will enjoy my roast duck recipe and have fun cooking it.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

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Beijing Roast Duck

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

1 duck
1 orange only use the juice

Seasonings

1 leaf tangerine peel
1 clove garlic
2 slices dried liquourice
1 star anise
2 tbsp maltose
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine

Ingredients for Beijing Duck Wraps

1 cup bread flour
1 cup plain flour
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cold water

Instructions

Procedures

Wash the duck and use kitchen napkin to dry the duck and stuff a wine bottle into duck and make it can stand up.
Pour the boiling water on the duck for a few times and leave it on aside.
Use a small sauce pan to cook sugar (the way I prepare this duck preparation is a bit like prepare caramel for cream caramel) and when you cook the sugar use a wooden spoon to gently stir it to help the sugar melt quickly and then add maltose and all the spice into the sauce pan when the sugar turn into a nice caramel colour and start to add a little bit of orange juice, rice wine and vinegar each time (please stand a safe distance as the sugar will splash when you pour the liquid onto it and can be incredibly hot) Make sure the mixture of sugar looks a bit runny but still dense.
Brush the sugar mixture we made in steps 3 on to duck and make sure you brush every inch of the duck skin. Leave it to dry for 1 hour and we brush again. Do this procedure for 3~4 times at least.
Preheat your oven to 240℃ and roast the duck for 20~25 minutes. Make sure you keep an eye on your duck in case it burns. Turn the oven temperature down to 160℃ and roast for another 20~30 minutes (I put a rolling pin into the duck and hang the duck in the oven).
Serve with some Beijing duck wraps (Dan Bings), hoisin sauce, cucumber or any kind of salad leafs you like. I used a bit of watercress as I like the taste of watercress. We also serve the roast duck with spring onion as well but we only use the white part of spring onion. I personally don’t like my duck wrap with spring onion in it because I can’t stand the taste of raw spring onion.

Procedures for Beijing Duck Wraps

Place all the flour into a big mixing bowl and pour 1 cup of boiling water in the flour and use a pair of chopsticks or a spatula to mix them evenly.
Add 1/3 cup of cold water into step 1 and knead the dough by your hands until the dough is smooth.
Leave the step 1 for 15~20 minutes and cover by a wet kitchen napkins.
Use a knife to separate the dough we made into small balls (Depends on what kind of size of pancake you like) and use a rolling pin to roll it to thin and flat.
Heat a non-sticky frying pan with lower heat without oil to bake the pancake until the surface get bubbles and turn it over to bake again. This procedure will take 20~30 seconds for each side.

Recipe Notes

We call the Beijing Duck Wraps Dan Bings in Chinese. They're like a cross between a pancake and a crepe but for simplicity I've just called them Beijing Duck Wraps for this recipe

Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

by Liv | May 2, 2010

Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

Stewed Egg is a very common dish in Taiwan and we call it “Lu Dan”. I loved to order a stewed egg with my lunchbox when I live in Taiwan or I will order stewed egg with my mince rice or mince noodle. Stewed egg is just simply the best friend with a lunchbox.

I always remember the first time my husband tried this stewed egg at home his face looked like he had been struck by lightning. After the first time he tried this stewed egg he fell in love with it. He always asks me to cook this stewed egg if he knows I’m going to cook stewed pork or chicken.

This stewed egg needs to cook in soy sauce and spices for a while and soak in the sauce for few hours to make sure eggs has all the fragrances from the sauce. So, you can imagine this egg has a lot of flavour in it.

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Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 4 hours

Total Time 4 hours

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

6 eggs
1 thin slice ginger
1 spring onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 chili

Seasonings

1.5 tbsp sugar
1 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups water
1 star anise
3 cm cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp Sichuan pepper use a Chinese spice bag if you have one

Instructions

Use a little bit of oil to sauté ginger, spring onion, garlic and chilli.
Place all the seasonings into a sauce pan and boil it by full strength gas power.
After sauce boiling we turn the gas power to the lowest and simmer for 2 hours.
Take out the eggs from fridge and leave it aside for while to make sure it’s reach room temperature.
Cook the eggs from cold water and keep moving them when you cooking. (This way can make sure the egg yolk will stay in the middle.)
After the water is boiling we turn the gas power to medium and cook for another 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes we take the eggs out of the hot water and soak it in cold water. Peel the eggs when they have cooled down.
Place the eggs into the sauce we made and cook them for 40 minutes.
After 40 minutes just soak them in the sauce for a couple hours. You will see the eggs turning a light brown colour and it’s ready to eat. My grandma always cook the egg a day before and soak them over night.