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Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

by | Sep 8, 2010

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

smoked duck noodle soup

In Taiwan, Taiwanese people will use smoked duck’s bone to make a special stock for noodle soup and duck meat for this smoked duck noodle soup. I always remember when I went to restaurants to have Peking duck (Beijing roast duck) with my family and my mother always asked for the bone to take home after dinner. She will use this duck bone to make stock and make rice soup in the morning for us as breakfast. The fragrance and the taste of that rice soup is so amazing. You can feel every inch of your body is awake after the first sip of the rice soup. Ah, such a wonderful memory. Now my mother is not in the UK so I have had to learn to cook this for my husband and I. I decided to cook this smoked duck noodle for us in our day off for our brunch but ever since I cooked it Chris has been pining for more.

I believe a good noodle soup or rice soup can enrich and bless your body even your mind. So here is my recipe for a delicious smoked duck noodle soup

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: https://chrisradleyphotography.com

 

smoked duck noodle soup
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Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 duck legs
  • 2 portions noodles

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 ltr water
  • 2 spring onions
  • 3 slices ginger
  • 5 cm cinnamon stick
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 piece dried tangerine peel
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar

Marinade for duck legs

  • 1 tbsp Sichuan pepper
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

Ingredients for smoking duck legs

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 2 bags teabags or tea leaf
  • 2 star anise

Instructions

  1. Marinade duck legs with the marinade seasonings for 1 hour.
  2. Heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in a sauce pan. Stir-fry the spring onion, ginger, all the spices.
  3. Pour the water, soy sauce, brown sugar into procedure 2 and boil it.
  4. Put duck legs into procedure 3 after it boiled and bring it to boil again. After boil turn the gas power to the lowest gas power and simmer for 45 minutes. Keep the sauce for stock later.
  5. Line the inside of a large roasting pan with foil and spread with ingredients for smoke the duck. Place a rack (cooling racks work well) inside the roasting pan. Place the duck legs on top of the rack (skin side down) and cover with tin foil to trap the smoke. Put the roasting pan on centre of the burner and heat up the roasting pan with moderate heat and after 2~3 minutes you will notice smoke coming out. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Brush some sesame oil on top of the duck legs after smoking.
  6. De-bone 2 duck legs and use the bones along with the sauce from Step 4 to make the stock. Put everything in to a small sized stock pot and simmer for 1 hour.
  7. Cook the noodle and place it in a bowl, pour some stock from procedure 6 and place the duck legs and duck meat on top with some spring onion and coriander as garnish.

 

Dragon Phoenix Leg

by | Jul 27, 2010

Dragon Phoenix Leg

dragon phoenix leg

My mother asked me yesterday “What are you going to cook for your blog this time?” I answered her “Dragon Phoenix Leg”. She immediately told me with a surprised voice “Ohh….That’s a great snack that I ate from childhood.

Dragon phoenix leg is a very important and unforgettable night market food for a lot of Taiwanese people.  It originates from those small fishing village around north coast of Taiwan. A long time ago, Taiwan was a very poor country but while one chicken only has two legs most families had more than two children, it’s never enough for children to eat. So, parents used a little bit of fish and pork with some vegetable to make this dragon phoenix leg snack for children. This dish looks a bit like a drumstick and so we entitled it Dragon Phoenix Leg.

The other story about dragon phoenix leg is back in the old times when Taiwanese parents tried to make their children eat carrot and cabbage they would entice them with chicken by making this dish.

No matter what’s the real story for this dragon phoenix leg. We can find out this dish is full of the love from parents who make or created this dish.

I changed the recipe a little so there’s no cabbage as Chris absolutely loathes cabbage so I used spring green in the filling. Spring green is also a kind of cabbage but tastes lest cabbage than normal cabbage of course.

These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

pig's caul

 

dragon phoenix leg
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Dragon Phoenix Leg

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 50 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 10 dragon phoenix legs

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 220 g cod fillet or any kind of white meat fish
  • 25 g potato starch or corn flour
  • 70 g ice water
  • 1 tsp ginger chop finely
  • 60 g spring onion chop finely
  • 150 g pork belly mince it
  • 150 g pork loin mince it
  • 1/2 tsp garlic chop finely
  • 100 g carrots grate
  • 60 g spring greens shred finely
  • 1/2 onion chop finely
  • Some flour
  • Some pig's caul

Seasonings

  • 1.5 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1/4 tsp white pepper powder
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder

Seasonings for Vegetables

  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

Instructions

  1. Cut the cod fillet into small dices and use a food processor to process the fish until you can’t see any lumps in the fish.
  2. Add ice water, caster sugar and potato starch to a small bowl and mix them evenly with no lump. Mix it with fish from step 1.
  3. Wash your hands first and start to throw the fish mixture into a bowl around 20-30 times until the fish mixture gains some viscidity.
  4. Marinade vegetable with seasonings for vegetable for 30 minutes. After, use your hand to squeeze the water out of vegetable.
  5. Mix all the ingredients and seasonings together evenly.
  6. Use pig’s caul to wrap the mixture and place on a stick. Make the shape look like a drum stick.
  7. Coat the dragon phoenix leg with flour. Heat up 3 cups of oil with full gas power to deep fry it. Once you put 2 or 3 dragon phoenix legs into the oil turn off the gas immediately. Turn the gas back on to lowest temperature after 1 minute. (This ensures the inside of this dish is cooked but the outside remains a pretty colour.) Keep deep frying it at the lowest gas power for 3~5 minutes until it is cooked from inside to out.

 

Taiwanese fried chicken and sweet potato chips

by | Jul 5, 2010

Taiwanese fried chicken and sweet potato chips

taiwanese fried chicken and sweet potato chips

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to update my blog for over a week due to a few things. First of all I’ve been working on a cook book, about favourite authentic recipes from my home country of Taiwan but also favourites that I have eaten in China and favourites as cooked by my grandparents who originate from China.

The other reason I haven’t updated my blog is I suffered a really bad burn on my arm at work which was fine for around a week, but several days ago I was opening scallop shells at work and got water from the shells in my burn. This resulted in my arm turning red and blowing up quite dramatically. I had to go to hospital and I was instructed to do absolutely nothing for 24 hours.

Most people think if you cut yourself or burn yourself you must let the wound breath and don’t cover it. Even my local pharmacist told me this but the doctor/nurse immediately dismissed this. 24 hours after taking penicillin tablets and wearing a gel patch with a dressing the swelling has come down.

dumpling pastry

The other thing that I want to reply to is Jenny who asked me a couple day ago about which dumpling pastry I used for my dumplings. Here is the photo of the pastry I used but I have to say I’m not entirely happy with this pastry. It’s a little bit thin so you must be carefully when you cook your dumplings. But otherwise it tastes better than other brands I’ve found in the UK. I hope my blog today help you a bit.

I think Taiwanese deep fried chicken (Sien shu gi) and sweet potato chips to Taiwanese people is just like “fish and chips” in UK to British people.

Taiwanese people love this deep fried chicken and sweet potato chips but this snack isn’t only confined to the night markets, it’s a snack that can be eaten anywhere, just like fish and chips in the UK. The chicken is crispy and crunchy with a strong fragrance.

Some businessmen will add some chopped garlic with the chicken to give it different flavour but here is my favourite recipe for this particular dish. I hope you will like it.

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

 

Taiwanese fried chicken and sweet potato chips
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Taiwanese fried chicken and sweet potato chips

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 3 whole chicken breasts
  • 1 spring onion chopped finely
  • 2 thin slices ginger chopped finely
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp five spice powder
  • 1 cup sweet potato starch

Instructions

  1. Cut the chicken breasts into 2.5 cm cubes.
  2. Marinade the chicken with all of the seasonings, ginger and spring onion but not the sweet potato powder for 1 hour.
  3. Peel the sweet potato and cut into 8 cm long strips. Add a couple tablespoons of sweet potato powder into a big bowl with a little bit of water and mix evenly. Add the sweet potato chips into the bowl and coated with the mixture.
  4. Heat up 3 cups of oil to 180c then fry the chicken until the chicken turns to a golden colour and add some basil to fry it with chicken when the chicken has nearly cooked. (Please be careful in this step. Because the basil can make the oil splash really badly.)  Fry the chips in the same way as well.

 

Salad Boat Sandwich

by | May 31, 2010

Salad Boat Sandwich

salad boat sandwich

Salad boat sandwich is one of my favourite snacks in Taiwanese cuisine. It’s also known as “MiaoKou Sandwich” for which MiaoKou is the name of a night market in Keelung, Taiwan. This night market sell a lot of tasty food and it’s always full of tourists. This salad boat sandwich is one of the most famous street food in this night market.

The best part of this sandwich is the bread. The bread is crispy on the outside and soft in the inside. It has a little bit milk flavour and a little bit sweetness but not too strong with fresh cucumber, tomato, stewed eggs and ham plus Taiwanese sweet mayonnaise. Ohh…just one bite of this amazing sandwich can make my day full of sunshine.

Of course if you don’t like cucumber, tomato, ham and then you can change any kind of filling you like. I like my Salad boat with sweet corn tuna mayonnaise or rocket lettuce with roast chicken which is really depends on personal flavour but here I’m only introduce you the most original method that we use in Taiwan and I hope you will enjoy my recipe and have fun to make this sandwich.

Just to give you an idea of what people thought of this sandwich here they said it’s almost like eating a savoury doughnut. The dough is just like that used in a doughnut but the bread is entirely savoury and not sweet, making this sandwich extremely unique.

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

salad boat sandwich procedures

 

salad boat sandwich
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Salad Boat Sandwich

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 14 bread rolls

Ingredients

Ingredients for Salad Boat Sandwich

  • 350 g bread flour
  • 60 g plain flour
  • 45 g caster sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 15 g milk powder
  • 14 g yeast
  • 180 g water
  • 45 g unsalted butter
  • 1 egg
  • Some Taiwanese style sweet mayonnaise
  • Some thin slices cucumber
  • Few slices ham
  • Some stewed eggs

Ingredients for Taiwanese Style Sweet Mayonnaise

  • 2 whole eggs
  • 10 g salt
  • 90 g caster sugar
  • 60 g potato starch
  • 20 g rice vinegar
  • A little bit of oil

Instructions

Procedures for Salad Boat Sandwich

  1. Add flour, sugar salt, milk powder, egg into a mixing bowl and melt the yeast in the water and add them into the mixing bowl too.
  2. Knead the step 1 for 5 to 10 minutes when it’s turn to a smooth ball and then add the butter to mix evenly.
  3. Cover the dough with cling film and wet tea towel and leave it to arise for 1 hour - 90 minutes.
  4. We separate the dough into a small balls weigh 50g for one after the dough arise to twice bigger than the original size.
  5. Put a rolling pin in the middle of the small ball and flatten it towards the sides.
  6. Use fingers to roll the flattened dough into an olive shape. Wet the dough in the cold water and then coat the dough with breadcrumb then leave it on the side for another 30~40 minutes to allow it to rise again.
  7. Heat up the oil in a wok and deep-fry the bread roll for 3~5 minutes at a lower heat. Throw a small piece of bread into the oil if the temperature is right and the bread will flow on the oil with a lot of bubble immediately. I will cook three bread rolls at once in case the oil temperature drops too quickly.
  8. Use a pair of scissor to cut the bread roll and put a little bit of mayonnaise first then add cucumber, tomato, ham and stewed eggs in it.

Procedures for Taiwanese Sweet Mayonnaise

  1. Add salt, sugar, potato starch and vinegar into a small saucepan and cook it at the lowest gas power. Keep stirring it while cooking and once the mixture begins to turn into a sticky paste turn off the heat.
  2. Whisk the step 1 mixture into the eggs, a little bit at once. (You will see the eggs with the mixture will start turning to a creamy colour). After this, just use the oil to change the thickness to whatever you desire. (This is the reason why I didn’t put down the amount of the oil in my recipe.)

 

Tiger Bite Pig Recipe

by | Apr 13, 2010

Tiger Bite Pig Recipe

tiger bite pig

For some reason, Taiwanese people really like name their food in a different and funky way.  For example, “Coffin Bread” and also  “Tiger bite Pig”, which is also known as “Koah-pau” in Taiwanese.

Why is it called tiger bite pig? Because the bread looks like a tiger chewing a piece of big and juicy pork in it’s mouth, that’s why we call it Tiger bite Pig. Another dish named after the look.

Nowadays, Taiwanese business man created different filling and flavour for this dish. For example, they use deep fried chicken fillet, cod fish fillet or beef to replace the stewed pork belly. So, this dish is just like a “Taiwanese version of hamburger”.

This dish has another lucky meaning of it. Because the shape looks like a “wallet” so it’s also mean “rich” or “a lot of money” in Taiwan. So, let’s make it at home and eat a lot of tiger bite pig for praying for a lucky financial year! (I need eat a lot of tiger bite pig this year and need probably three times a day, lol).

 

tiger bite pig
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Tiger Bite Pig

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 6 buns

Ingredients

Ingredients for Stewed Pork

  • 450 g pork belly with skin
  • 2 spring onions
  • 2 thin slices ginger

Seasonings for Stewed Pork

  • 1 tbsp maltose
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar you can also use 80g crystal sugar, I just use the ingredients I got at home and I think crystal sugar is available in most of Chinese supermarket
  • 400 g soy sauce
  • 100 g rice wine
  • 1 star anise
  • 2 slices liqourice optional
  • 5 cm cinnamon stick you can use a Chinese spice bag to replace all the spice in this dish if you can find it in Chinese supermarket
  • Stock for covering the pork

Ingredients for Steamed Bread

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 250 g bread flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 7 g dried yeast

Instructions

Procedures for Stewed Pork

  1. Use a frying pan to heat up 1 tablespoon oil and turn the gas power to lowest and fry the pork belly. Don’t use too much oil or too high heat because I don’t want you to burn yourself.
  2. Fry the pork until it’s turn slightly golden colour and place it on a plate then brush a little bit of soy sauce on every side of it to colour it with soy sauce. Leave it until it’s cool down and we cut it into 1.5 cm thick and 5 cm wide slice.
    tiger bite pig pork belly
  3. Place every thing into a small stock pot and use full gas power to boil it first, then turn the gas power to the lowest to simmer it until the pork is nice and soft.

Procedures for Steamed Bread

  1. Mix yeast with the water and melt the yeast.
  2. Mix step 1 with flour and knead it until it’s turn to a smooth dough.
    how to make tiger bite pig
  3. Find a warm spot for the dough and cover it by a cling film or clean and wet tea towel then leave it for 30~40 minutes. I live in Edinburgh and the weather here is really cold so I leave it for 30~40 minutes.
  4. After the dough arise. We separate it into 70g each and knead it into round shape then we use a rolling pin to flatten it into a long oval-shaped.  After we brush oil on the flatten dough and fold it to half and use rolling pin gently press down the central to make the shape settle.
    tiger bite pig procedure
  5. Steam it in a steamer with medium to full gas power for 8~10 minutes until you touch the bread and it’s has resilience, not too soft like the dough before. Then it’s done!

Recipe Notes

* After you’re done steaming the bread and stewing the pork you can start to make your tiger bite pig. Traditionally, we put peanut powder and coriander with stewed pork. But you also can put anything you like it.