A Dish from the Chinese Minority Yao

I saw a report about a minority in China a while ago. The people of the Yao live in the South and Southwest of China, partly in Vietnam too.
A woman was cooking a tasty looking dish, I took paper and pen and made notes. Basically I think my recipe now is an homage to their culture. If it has any similarity, I can´t say. But I like to cook it and it reminds me of that report. It is great to freeze and to have some meals later in the weeks.

A Yao Dish

recipe:
750 g pork belly
1 bunch of spring onions in 3 cm sticks
3 parsley roots or carrots or else in 2 cm sticks
5 spice powder
3 cm fresh ginger in batons
orange pepper
1 whole garlic bulb chopped
1 handful of green chillis chopped
50 g dried plums halved
40 g dried and soaked mushrooms with the water
1 cup sake
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 cup of water
1 1/2 cups of broth
2 tbsp oil

                                                           Pork Belly

A day ahead:
The pork belly needs to loose it´s skin on top and the bones on the other end. Don´t throw that away, place it into 750 ml water, 2 bay leaves, 10 peppercorns, 1 clove of garlic and a bit of veggie and cook it for 1 hour, get everything through a sieve and save the broth.

start a Broth

Grind the spices for the 5 spice powder or take a shop bought one. Use some lemon or orange pepper too.
In a big freezer bag, add 1 tbsp of sesame oil, the cubed pork belly and the spices and leave that to marinate for 24 hrs.



Start the meat:
In a big pot in oil on high heat fry off the meat until it gets a good color, scoop it out in a bowl.
In the same pot put in the chopped veggies, except mushrooms and plums and let them get a bit soft, scoop out into the same bowl.

Use the water, broth and brown sugar to deglaze the pot, scrub off all the good stuff on the bottom.
Place meat and veggies in the pot, add sake, soy and mushroom water with the mushrooms, chuck in the plums and bring everything up to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 90 minutes. Give it a stir a couple of times. In the end there is barely any liquid left. It does not need salt and has a nice heat.

let it simmer for 90 minutes

Serve with sticky rice.

Duck legs Confit

I bought some duck fat in a glass in France short before Christmas. It was still sitting in then fridge. My Saturday morning grocery shopping turned up some duck legs- surprise!

Duck legs with fresh salad

Preparing the duck legs isn´t very hard to do. I wanted to use the fat, so I melted it in a pan and put the seasoned legs in the fat. Duck Confit sounds so posh, but it is a super simple way to cook duck.  You just need some time and everything else is done in the pan, keep the heat low and turn the legs a couple of times. That takes at least 90 minutes.
Just work on an other project during the time, the duck legs confit.

Melting duck fat

The fat could be used to fry some potatoes, they get very tasty that way. But I just wanted some greens and peppers to go with the meat, so I dressed a little salad to the side.

Sweet Rice with Applesauce and Spices

This is a childhood favorite I fall back to  when I need something sweet and comforting.

Sweet rice with applesauce

But I never use pudding rice, because that rice is getting to much cooked to my taste. I use Caneroli rice- a risotto rice from Italy. The rice kernels stay intact and that tastes a lot better to me.
A sweet rice always needs some fruit to go with, in summer I love to serve it with lots of fresh blueberries and lots of fresh stiff beaten double cream.  A Dream!

Since I had neither double cream left nor blueberries, I used store bought apple sauce- but a regional brand, which is very common here and very good. And Cinnamon goes great with either rice or apples, so I added that too.
I have some coffee seasoning from a famous German chef who is also a spice pope and sells a lot of mixtures (his name is Alfons Schuhbeck from Munich). His coffee seasoning is great for all kinds of sweet treats. Half a vanilla pod has gone into the milk too.

recipe:
150 g Canaroli rice
750 ml whole milk
2 tbsp butter
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
5 pieces of candied ginger
5 candied kumquats
1/2 vanilla pod- scraped out
1/2 tsp coffee seasoning
1/2 lime juiced
1 egg yolk
1 tsp cinnamon
150 g applesauce

In a big pot start with heating up the butter and wait until it gets noisette- or smells like nuts. Don´t let it burn! Add the milk and the salt and bring it up to a boil.
Wash the rice until the water runs clear and add it to the milk.Simmer, then add the candied fruits and the brown sugar and the spices. When the milk is nearly absorbed, take off the heat and press the juice in and stir the egg yolk through.
Serve with applesauce and cinnamon.

Ricotta Quenelles in Soup

It is National Homemade Soup Day in Great Britain.

I never heard of a day like this, but since I love soup I wanted to make some.
To go grocery shopping after work was not possible, so I checked my fridge and cupboards to make a  soup.

Ricotta Quenelles in Soup

I found leftover stock from the Carbonara Raviolo, leftover Ricotta from yesterdays pasta and half a package of fresh cress. I remembered a German chef who made this, but not for a soup but served it with tomato sauce. I had to check my little self written recipe book. I started to collect and add recipes to it 2012 and finished it 2015 in summer. Often it are baking recipes, because you need exact messurements for baking. And when I saw something special, I added it to the book.

recipe:
250 g Ricotta
25 g flour
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp fresh cress
1 tsp dried herbs
salt, pepper and paprika
2 tbsp butter
750 ml stock
1 spring onion

With 2 tablespoons make quenelles and put them in salted simmering water for 3 minutes. Drain.
In a pan heat up the butter until it turns brown - don´t let it burn! Put the quenelles in and give them a toss and put them into a soup bowl.
Heat up the stock, chop the spring onion and serve together.

Beurre noisette

Halfmoon pasta filled with North Sea Shrimps and Ricotta

I had some pasta dough left from yesterday. There where 2 solutions, either cut it up into tagliatelle or fill it with some North Sea Shrimps and ricotta and make a decent meal.

I choose a ring cutter, that was on the small side - I have to remember next time to take one that is one size larger. This pasta was a bit fiddely! And when I hate something it`s fiddely. I have no patience for it. That is the reason, why the portion was on the small side. But übertasty.

Pasta with North Sea Shrimps and Ricotta

When you cut out a pasta ring, pat a bit of water on top so it wont dry out. Take a quarter teaspoon of ricotta and a few little shrimps and a parsley leaf. Make a ring of egg white around the rim of the pasta and fiddle it together. Place on a plate with some semolina or flour and make more.

6 cm cutter is a bit fiddely

recipe:
60 g North Sea Shrimps
30 g Ricotta
1 tbsp parsley
1 egg white
2 tbsp of butter
1 pinch of dried thymed
a bit of cress
salt and pepper

Boil the pasta until it starts of float, let it float 2 more minutes. In a pan heat up some butter with thyme and place the pasta in. Add some North Sea Shrimps.

let them float 2 minutes

Carbonara Raviolo on creamy spinach

This is a SortedFood recipe again. Last week they made this Pasta dish and it looked so tasty.

Carbonara Raviolo on Spinach

Pasta dishes are very comforting meals and it is fun to get your hands dirty. That some of it gets on the floor or on yourself is the downside. Having flour, eggs, salt, olive oil and water on hand, it
doesn ´t take long to make a dough.

Easiest way to have a thin pasta sheet is using the pasta machine, that is usually sitting in the basement for long periods of time. So unpack it, clean it and start flouring the top so the dough is not sticking to it. Until all 9 positions are run through, don´t stop, you need a very thin sheet of pasta, because you layer in with an other one. Set the strips aside and cover them up, otherwise they will dry out. Place some semolina under it and in between the layers, so it is not sticking together.

Building a Raviolo

Next step is to chop up some rashes of bacon and a bit of spring onion and get them in a pan.

cover it up and get the air out

recipe for the pasta dough:
300 g pasta flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp water
1 pinch of nutmeg

recipe for the filling:
150 g pork sausage meat
100 g streaky bacon
2 spring onions
3 small slices of french strong cheese
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg as egg wash
salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme
1/2 a package of cress

Saute the bacon with the spring onions and rest it on some kitchen paper to get cool, get the sausage meat out of the casing and mix with some of the cress, seasoning and half of the bacon/onion mixture
Cut the dough into 15 cm rectangles and lay a ring of meat in the middle, fill some bacon in the hole, add a slice of cheese and top of with an egg yolk. Add a bit more bacon and some cress and take the 2 sheet of pasta and put it on top. press out the air! Use a round bowl or a ring to cut out the Raviolo. Take a fork and press it around the Raviolo. Store on some semolina to make sure, it wont stick.

In a huge pot in some veg or chicken stock cook the pasta for 4,5 minutes, not more or they will not sauce later because the egg yolk is firm.

Falafel and Hummus

SortedFood challenged the community to prepare one of their veggie dishes this week.

One of the recipes was the middle eastern dish of Falafel served with Hummus. Since a big can of chickpeas was sitting on the shelf of my storing cupboard for a longer while, it was time to make something out of it.
I split the contents of the can in two parts and used one for falafel and the other one for hummus.
Since I was on a trip through Jordan, I love their style of hummus. I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner during the whole stay. It tasted great and it was no difference to see where ever I had some.
I prepare it in the way everybody seams to prepare it there

The second batch of chickpeas went into the falafel. It is the first time I ever prepared some. I usually don´t like them, you get them here at every Döner kebap house for the people, who oppose to meat. But I tried them in several towns and mostly they tastes like deep fried sawdust.
I put some effort in making my own and I am happy about the result.

A good dip goes with everything, so a bit of Greek yogurt, Sriracha sauce, dried herbs and pepper make a fine one.

Falafel balls waiting for the fryer

Falafel recipe :
1 small can of chickpeas
1 lemon
1 handful of parsley
1 tbsp fresh mint
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 chili
salt and pepper
2 tbsp potato starch

Put everything in a blender and make a coarse paste. Form small balls and stick them in the fridge for 30 minutes. Heat oil for frying to 180 C and fry them for 3 minutes until golden.

Hummus

Hummus recipe:
1 small can of chickpeas
3 tbsp tahini paste
1 tsp lemon zest
1lime
1 tbsp parsley
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
smoked paprika
orange pepper
salt
sumac for garnish