Steamed mince pork with eggs

This recipe is adapted from Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: recipes from Hunan province. Dunlop is a British food writer who's made her name by collecting and translating recipes from China, particularly Sichuan province, acting as a kind of cultural ambassador.

She's also the author of a really entertaining, funny memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which follows her experiences as a exchange student in Chengdu, her impromptu enrolment in a local cooking school, and her subsequent adventures.

I saw her speaking once at the Sydney Food Festival in 2009, where she presented with and translated on behalf of husband-and-wife chefs Yu Bo and Dai Shuang of the unassumingly named but culinarily ambitious Yu's Family Kitchen in Chengdu, Sichuan. Some dishes in their demonstration:


16 dishes by Yu Bo and Dai Shuang, each illustrating a different flavour and technique.


Dai Shuang's hedgehogs. Tiny dough hedgies filled with red bean paste; their eyes are black sesame seeds. Each is hand made, with the 137 spikes of each hedgie individually snipped with a pair of embroidery scissors (and yes, she counted each spike in her demonstration!).


Yu Bo's playful 'calligraphy' set. The brush tips are pastry with a soft filling and the red wax is tomato paste. Dip the brush and eat!


And now to a much much humbler offering:



Steamed minced pork with eggs

4 medium or 10-12 small dried shittake mushrooms
A small piece of fresh ginger, unpeeled
300g minced pork
1 tsp sesame oil
200-250 ml or less of chicken stock
3 or 4 eggs
Salt and pepper
2 spring onions finely sliced

Soak the mushrooms in boiling water, leave for 30 minutes. Crush ginger with flat of a cleaver and place in a cup with a little cold water to cover.

Place the pork in a mixing bowl. Drain and finely chop the shittake (retaining mushroom water) and add to the pork. Add 3 tablespoons of the ginger soaking water, some of the ginger finely chopped, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Stir in the stock and mushroom water, a little at a time to allow meat to absorb, until you have a loose paste.

Pour the pork paste into a shallow bowl. Break the eggs over the pork (I did these whole, as suggested by Dunlop, but on consideration I would suggest beating them first). Place the bowl in a steamer and steam over high heat for 15 minutes until pork is cooked through.

Serve with scattering of spring onions.

Adapted from "Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: recipes from Hunan province" by Fuschia Dunlop

Earl Grey Chiffon Cake and Smoked Salmon Frittata

Having previously made Orange Chiffon Cake and Pandan Chiffon Cake, I turned my sights to Earl Grey Chiffon Cake, as inspired by the chiffon cakes at Azuma Patisserie.

Azuma's chiffon cakes are perfection - soooooo high and light and perfectly formed! My attempt was a little misshapen, not nearly as tall, and stuck to the sides of the tin. /o\ Nevermind. Everyone ate up their slices. The Serendipity icecream on the side probably helped though!

This is a slightly different recipe to the one I used previously, and it resulted in a much higher cake.


Earl Grey Chiffon Cake

3 tbsp high quality loose leaf Earl Gray tea. Tea bags will not work since the tea leaves have to be large and not ground up.

Dry ingredients:
256g self-raising flour
285g granulated/caster sugar (on 2nd attempt I reduced this to 180g and it was fine)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt

Wet ingredients:
5 large egg yolks
1 cup freshly brewed and cooled earl gray tea (on 2nd attempt I added 2 cups and it was better!)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

Egg whites:
8 large egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
57g granulated sugar

At least 2 hours before making the batter, brew the tea using 3 Tbsp tea leaves and 1.5-2 cups boiling water.

Let the tea sit for at least 15 minutes (up to 2 hours for darker color) before straining out the leaves. Reserve the tea and the leaves separately.

Separate 8 eggs (you need 5 yolks and 8 whites).

Preheat the oven to 165C (325 F).

Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) into a large bowl.

In another bowl, beat the wet ingredients (yolks, tea, oil, vanilla) until smooth.

Gently stir the wet ingredients into dry ingredients along with 3 tablespoons of of very well drained tea leaves. Stir until the flour streaks disappear and most of the flour lumps are gone.

Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar on low speed; a beater or stand mixer is best. When frothy, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat to stiff peaks.

Gently fold egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, a third or quarter at a time.

Pour into an angel cake tin or tube tin, and bake for about 60 minutes.

Cool upside-down for 90 minutes. If the cake's come up over the edge of the tin, prop the tin on the neck of a wine bottle or similar so the cake isn't crushed.

When cool, remove from the tin, still upside-down, and serve.

From Beyond Salmon.


Mine wasn't too pretty, as I said - oh well! Here's some massacred remains. You can see some unevenness in the colouring, which means I should probably have folded it a little more carefully:



Usually I'm quite good at separating eggs but this time I was rubbish at it. I must've cracked three yolks in the course of making the chiffon cake! To use up all the leftover eggs, I decided to make a frittata for dinner. The original recipe doesn't include potatoes so feel free to omit them.


Smoked Salmon, Caper and Dill Frittata

5-6 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
200g potatoes, sliced thinly (I used desiree potatoes)
100g red onion, sliced thinly
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
2 tbsp drained baby capers, rinsed
200g sliced smoked salmon


Pre-heat oven to 175 C. Oil a 20cm square cake tin, casserole dish or similar, and line with baking paper.

Pan-fry potatoes in olive oil until just cooked; drain on kitchen paper.

Whisk eggs, cream and rind in medium bowl.

Combine onion, dill and capers in small bowl.

Spread a third of the onion mixture in the pan, top with half the salmon, then half the potatoes. Pour half of the egg mixture on top.

Then layer again with a third of the onions, the remaining salmon and potatoes, then the remaining onions. Pour the remaining egg mixture on top.

Bake uncovered for 30-50 minutes (mine took about 50 minutes, perhaps the moisture in the pototoes?) or until frittata is set. Stand five minutes before cutting.

Frittata can be served hot or cold. I served this for dinner hot, with a side of green salad, and saved the rest for later.

Adapted from Women's Weekly: The New Classics

Egg Nets

I first encountered egg nets at upmarket Thai restaurant Longrain in Sydney - it's their signature dish and very impressive, with huge but delicate dinner-plate sized nets encasing sweet, tangy, spicy salad. My interest was piqued again when Longrain chef Martin Boetz recreated the dish for Masterchef Australia (MY FAVE SHOW NO LIE). I've wanted to try them ever since.

This is not the Longrain version - rather, I've gone for a simpler version from beloved but soon to end ABC show The Cook & The Chef, itself adapted from chef David Thompson's recipe. (Thompson is the chef behind Sailors Thai, mentioned in this photo post.) It was still not easy!

An aside: I am so very glad my mother taught me how to shell and devein prawns in my youth. I haven't had to use the skill much - prawns are so much more fun to eat than cook - but you never really forget. Scrunch, crunch, gloop, crack. It's not for the squeamish... then again, not much about omnivorous cooking is.




Ingredients

3 eggs

Paste:
3 coriander roots
4 garlic cloves
10 white peppercorns (I used black ones)
Pinch of salt

Filling:
Oil to fry
50g pork mince
100g green prawn meat, chopped
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoon palm sugar (I just subbed the usual sugar)

Garnish:
1 tablespoon lemon grass whites, finely sliced
1 1/2 red shallots, sliced (what are red shallots? I used green!)
1 tablespoon red chilli, julienned
Handful coriander leaves


Method

Whisk the eggs to combine, but do not over beat. Strain eggs through a fine strainer. Chill overnight (or even just an hour or two, as I did).

Prepare paste by pounding the coriander roots, salt, garlic and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle. Set aside.

Bring eggs to room temperature.

Lightly oil a flat frypan and heat to a medium heat.

Dip fork* in the egg mix and wave across the wok/flat frypan so that the egg drizzles in the oil. Move your fork backwards and forwards and from side to side to form a net. Do not move too quickly otherwise the strands will be too fine and will break. Circle the perimeter to form a border. Remove and drain on paper. Repeat until egg mix is finished.



Heat oil in a pan and fry off the paste you prepared earlier, until fragrant and golden.

Add pork, stir and add prawns.

Season with fish sauce and palm sugar and bring it all together.
Set aside and when cool add lemongrass, shallots, chilli and coriander.

Lay out an egg net, spread some mix on the lower third of the net and roll up.


* The original recipe suggests using your hand. This, I discovered, is IMPOSSIBLE. The first ones turned out horrible! The fork-netted ones were much much better.



From The Cook & The Chef, ABC TV Australia