General Tso's chicken

Flicking through the pile of Delicious magazines that I've been meaning to go through, I was drawn to Cantonese style dishes. Spicy, Chinese flavours and of course fried goodness.

With the forecast of lashing rain for the entire weekend, I couldn't think of a better way to enjoy the indoors with an American Chinese dish of General Tso's chicken.

I found this recipe rather therapeutic to make. I think it was focussing on grating the garlic and ginger and having all the ingredients in the pantry is always handy. The marinade was relatively easy to make and timing it to make an hour before lunch was perfect.

The batter mix was light and perfect for coating the chicken before frying. General Tso sauce was easy to make and makes extra for another dish. I made up a cabbage slaw instead of serving with rice.

Using 8 chicken thigh fillets makes a lot perhaps too much for 4 people as we had a fair bit left over. The crispness of the chicken does disappear but I found refreshing the chicken in the oven worked well.

I loved this dish, it was so good that we had to this again for dinner.

Recipe by Patrick Friesen, Eric Koh and Christopher Hogarth from Queen Chow, Queen Victoria Hotel Enmore.

Serves 6

Ingredients

Chicken marinade
250mL Chinese rice wine
1 tbs caster sugar
2cm piece ginger, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
2 tsp chicken stock powder
1 tsp freshly ground white pepper
8 chicken thigh fillets, cut into 6 pieces each

Batter mix
1 tbs sunflower oil, plus extra to deep fry
2/3 cup (100g) plain flour
2/3 cup (100g) cornflour
1 cup (250mL) water

To serve
Steamed jasmine rice to serve

My cabbage slaw
1/4 white cabbage thinly sliced
1/2 cup of mint leaves
1/2 red capsicum thinly sliced
handful of pickled red onion or fresh red onion

General Tso's sauce
1/2 cup (125mL) chicken stock
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbs peanut oil
1 garlic clove, finely grated
2cm piece ginger, finely grated
2 spring onions, white part finely chopped, green part cut into 2cm batons
12 died long red chillies
1/4 cup (60mL) dark soy sauce
2 tbs Chinese rice wine (shaohsing)
2 tbs Chinese black rice vinegar
2 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp kombu tsuyu (kombu extract - optional)

Method

To make the marinade
1. Combine the rice wine, sugar, ginger, garlic, stock powder, pepper and 1 tsp salt in a bowl.

2. Add the chicken, cover and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight to marinate.

To make General Tso's sauce
3. Whisk stock and cornflour in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Heat peanut oil in a wok over high heat.

5. Add garlic, ginger, white spring onion and chillies and cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes until fragrant and softened.

6. Add soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, kombu extract and cornflour mixture and stir to combine.

7. Bring to boil then remove from heat and set aside.

To make batter
8. Place sunflower oil, flours and 1 tsp salt in a bowl.

9. Slowly whisk in 1 cup (250mL) water until smooth.

To make chicken
10. Half fill a large pan with sunflower oil and heat to 180 degrees Celcius.

11. Remove chicken from marinade and drain in a colander.

12. Coat chicken in batter allowing excess to drip off.

13. In batches, deep fry chicken for 5 minutes until crisp, golden and cooked.

14. Drain on paper towel.

15. Add fried chicken to General Tso's sauce and toss to coat.

16. Repeat with remaining chicken.

17. Deep fry dark green onion for 2 minutes or until crispy.

18 Top chicken with crispy spring onion and serve with steamed rice or cabbage slaw.

Fiery chicken, dakgalbi

This dish, dakgalbi, has always been something I wanted to make but my recent memories of this dish is a sweet potato, cabbage stew that my mother makes. This chicken dish is marinated then cooked with plenty of vegetables and was once a favourite of mine.

It was time to face my fears and see if it was a good dish to keep in my cooking repertoire. Traditionally the dish is made with sweet potato but I replaced this with white radish as it soaks up the delicious sauce. As I didn't have any cabbage in the fridge, I opted with moon buk, a dwarfed variety of buk choy instead. I can happily say that this is one fiery dish that tastes even better the next day. With the cold winter upon us, this dish will hit the spot.

Ingredients

1kg of chicken wings
1 carrot thinly sliced
1 onion thinly sliced
100g long white radish thinly sliced
2 leaves of cabbage* roughly chopped

Marinade
200mL water
3 tbs Korean chilli paste (gochujung)
2 tbs of rice malt syrup
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs crushed garlic
2 tbs cooking wine
1 tbs grated ginger
1 tbs curry powder (optional)**
2 tsp Korean chilli powder
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seed
pinch black pepper

Method 

1. Place all the marinade ingredients together.

2. Place chicken into the marinade mix for 1 hour.

3. Thinly slice carrots, onions, radish and cabbage

4. Place the marinated chicken mix into a heavy cast iron pot and bring to boil. Bring to simmer for an hour.

5. With a half hour to go on the cooking, throw in the cut up vegetables.

6. Serve with steamed greens and rice.


Handy hints
*Bunch of moon buk roughly chopped
**I've used a mild korma curry mix or you can make up a curry mix using
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground black pepper

Easiest kimchi recipe ever

I have a rather distinct childhood memory in regards to watching my mother make rather large batches of kimchi. My mother's method began with soaking at least 3-4 cabbages in salt water for 3 days. Next was to wash the cabbage thoroughly with cold water. My involvement required me to pick up and drain the biggest silver tub full of stinky salt water down the sink and then wash it down with the hose. Then getting rubber gloves and mixing in the smelly garlic and chilli powder into the cabbage and ensuring that it was well covered in the pickling marinade.

Perhaps somewhat scarred from this experience and watching my mother pour ad hoc measurements of chilli powder, salt, garlic and chunks of ginger, I rebelled from ever making it and opted to buy kimchi ready made at the Asian supermarket, much to the annoyance of my mother.

It's only since I've had a family of my own and not being entirely happy with the rather sweet kimchi from the supermarket, my interest in making kimchi piqued once again. 

I have experimented with the amounts and timing and the results are a tasty kimchi. I even have the approval of my father who is rather severe critic of Korean food. I found it goes really well with pulled pork rolls instead of coleslaw and Rueben sandwiches instead of sauerkraut. This will make a fresh tasting batch of kimchi which is ready to eat the next day.

My sister is already a fan of this recipe and so it seems that we may have overcome our childhood experiences of making tonnes of kimchi. But I prefer this method as its quick, easy and can be completed in a few hours.

Makes nearly 3 glass containers full

Ingredients

 

1 whole cabbage

70g cooking salt

Kimchi Marinade

1 onion peeled

20g sugar

50g rice syrup (or use sugar syrup*)

1 thumb sized knob of ginger

120g garlic**

20g fish sauce

1 tablespoon of salt

80g -100g Korean chilli powder (use the coarse grained chilli flakes)

40g garlic chives (not completely necessary but I like it)

Method

1. Cut the cabbage in half, cut the halves again to get quarters and then cut out the core and into 4cm lengths.

2. Place 2 handfuls of cabbage into a large container and sprinkle salt as you go, keep going until you have placed all the cabbage into the container. (Depending on how big the cabbage is, it sometimes fits perfectly into the container and other times it is overflowing but after a couple of hours, the cabbage gets floppy and wilts due to the salt then fits into the container afterwards.)

3. Leave the cabbage to soak in salt for 2-3hrs. (I have once left it for 6hrs as I was too lazy to finish it off but it ended up being fine.)

4. Wash thoroughly with water and leave to drain in colander. 

5. Wash the garlic chives and cut into 1cm lengths.

6. To prepare the marinade, blitz the onion, ginger, garlic with sugar, sugar syrup, fish sauce in a food processor until it resembles a paste.

7. Combine marinade with cabbage, add Korean chilli powder, 1 tablespoon of salt and garlic chives then mix through until a nice red mixture. I tend to look for an overall red colour of kimchi to determine if it has enough chilli powder. (This is when using disposable gloves whilst mixing comes in handy)

8. Place kimchi into airtight containers (I recommend glass jars with clasp lids).

9. Keep in the fridge as it will keep for a 3 months, pending on how you fermented you like your kimchi.

  

Handy Hints

*Sugar syrup is easy to make, I use a 1:1 ratio of sugar and water.

Example you just add 50g sugar and 50mL water into a saucepan onto medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved and bubbles and you have sugar syrup. Or if you want to omit sugar syrup just add an extra 20g of sugar.

**I’ve experimented with amounts of garlic from 60g (too little garlic) and 200g (too garlicky) and I found that 120g is a good balance.

Recommend glass jars as I’ve seen how kimchi can stain plastic containers and the smell remains even with a good scrubbing.

Use the rather old fermented kimchi for pajeon (Korean kimchi pancake).

I use a 6L decor plastc container for one cabbage. 

Noodles with prawns and edamame beans and spicy lemon dressing

Refreshingly clean and filling is what I had in mind with this dish. I do love udon especially with a hot broth topped with tempura. But I thought I would pair it back for tonight's meal. Pepe and I were in agreement, perfect quick dinner with a bit of kick.

Ingredients

270g udon noodle packet

6 green prawns or frozen

1 cup of frozen edamame beans

1 tbs sesame seeds lightly roasted 

4 spring onions, thinly sliced

Spicy lemon dressing

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tbs rice wine vinegar

60mL soy sauce

1 garlic clove crushed

1 tsp chilli flakes

150mL olive oil 

Method

1. Bring a saucepan of water to boil.

2. Add noodles and cook for 3 minutes

3. Throw in the edamame beans at 2 mins to go with cooking

4. Drain and rinse under cold water til cool

5. Add oil to the fry pan on high heat

6. Add prawns to cook one side for 2mins and turn over for another 2 mins

7. For the dressing combine all the ingredients and whisk together then season to taste

8. Place noodles and beans on a plate, drizzle with dressing and toss to coat.
9. Top with sesame seeds and spring onion to serve. 

 

Goat and potato vindaloo

Vindaloo. My first few experiences have been extreme with my chilli tolerance tested to the limits. A curry so fierce that I felt as though my eyeballs were about to blow out. My lips would blister from the slightest taste of the sauce which meant smearing them as quickly with yoghurt to cool them down. However as much as I love chilli, I have had to tone it down as I just can't handle it as well as I used to.

The word 'vindaloo' melds the Portuguese word for wine, vinho - and alhos for garlic. Both ingredients figure prominent in original Portuguese recipes and modern Indian adaptations of the dish. The meat originally prepared by this method was pork. Back in the day, the Portuguese would preserve pork in large barrels of vinegar and garlic to stop them spoiling on long sea voyages. The Goan influence is event with the addition of potent fiery chillies and various spices such as ginger, coriander and cumin.

This goat and potato curry is great to make as a big batch as you know with curries, they just get better each day. This is an adaptation of Yotam Ottolenghi's "Two potato vindaloo" as I added goat into the mix.

You'll need at least 2 hours for the goat to cook in the oven and the smells will let you know that dinner is ready.

Ingredients

Spice mix
8 cardarmon pods
1 tbs cumin seeds
1 tbs coriander seeds
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sweet paprika




2 tbs olive oil
12 shallots (300g in total) chopped
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds

2 tbs finely chopped ginger
1 fresh red chilli
3 ripe tomatoes peeled and roughly chopped
50mL cider vinegar
400mL water
1tbsp caster sugar

1/2 cup of plain flour
1kg baby goat meat cut into 3cm dice with bone

400g peeled waxy potatoes cut into 2.5cm dice(I used kresta potatoes and kept the skin on)
1 red capsicum cut into 2 cm dice
salt

To serve
mint or coriander leaves

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Start with the spice mix. Dry roast cardamom pods and cumin, coriander seeds in a small frying pan until they begin to pop. (You'll hear it, don't you worry)

3. Transfer roasted spiced to mortar and pestle and add the cloves

4. Work to a fine powder before removing and discarding cardamom pods once the seeds are released.

5. Add turmeric, paprika and cinnamon and set aside.

6. Heat oil in a large heavy based pot with lid.

7. Add shallots with mustard and fenugreek seeds and sauté on med-low heat for 8 minutes or until shallots brown.


8. Stir in the spice mix, ginger, chilli and cook for a further 3 minutes.

9. Next add the tomatoes, vinegar, water, sugar and salt.

10. Bring to boil and leave to simmer, covered for 10 minutes.

11. Whilst sauce is simmering, coat the goat in flour (best to put this in a plastic bag and shake it all about).

12. Add olive oil to a fry pan and place on high heat (this will allow the meat to sear quickly as it hits the pan).

13. Cook all the pieces of meat until nicely browned as this intensifies the flavour.

14. Add the potatoes, red capsicum and goat into the large heavy based pot.

15. Make sure all the vegetables are just immersed in the sauce, add more water if needed.

16. Cover with the lid and place into the oven, continue cooking for 2 hours or until meat is tender.

17. Serve hot with plain rice and garnished with mint or coriander leaves.

Handy Hints

You can replace the rice with cous cous.
Freeze the leftovers to enjoy for midweek meal.

Really hot spicy jerk chicken

Having dined at The Butler, Potts Point recently, I tried their jerk tofu but it just didn’t quite have the spice hit I needed. I remember making this jerk chicken dish and loving it so much that I knew that I had to keep this in my repertoire.

Cranking the oven up, the skin on the chicken crisps up and is encrusted with the spiced chilli marinade which is countered by the vinegar, lime, rum and spiced marinade making the meat so tender. It's so good.

If you love spice then this dish is for you, as its hot. Pepe, my other half has a couple of bites before the sweat beads make an appearance. This dish packs a punch but the sweet, creamy coconut rice that is served up with it is a match made in heaven. Or a dollop of yoghurt may curtail the heat and be a soothing salve for the mouth.

Check out my review of The Butler.

Ingredients

5 chicken thigh with skin and bone

Dry Spice mix

2 teaspoons ground allspice

2 teaspoons dried thyme

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Ingredients to throw into the food processor

5 cloves garlic

100g ginger, peeled and cut into chunks

1 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup rum

Juice from 2 limes

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

5 fresh red chillies, whole (I like it hot hence I use a lot of chillies)

1 onion cut in half

Coconut rice

2 cups of jasmine rice

400mL coconut milk

2 large pinches of salt

 

Method

1.       Preheat oven to 200 degree Celcius

2.       Place all the dry spice mix into a bowl

3.       Put all the other ingredients in the processor and blitz

4.       Place the dry spice mix into the processor and mix until it looks a dark earthy paste

5.       Pour and spread the marinade mix over the chicken and leave in the fridge for minimum 2 hours or covered overnight.

6.       Place the chicken and all the marinade into a shallow roasting pan and roast for 40minutes. You should get a chicken that’s cooked through and tender with a thick fiery crust.

7.       Place the rice into a rice cooker with the coconut milk and add 2 large pinches of salt. Check the rice is cooked through once the liquid is all absorbed. If not, give the rice another 5-10 minutes if it’s needed.

8.       Serve up by piling up the dinner plate with coconut rice with the hot crusted chicken on top.

 

Handy tips

*Jerk marinade can be made a day ahead. The chicken can also be marinated up to 24 hours in advance. I like using chicken thighs but feel free to use chicken breast.
*Mix up the leftover coconut rice and shred the chicken with a fresh salad of cucumber, tomato and parsley dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.