Pork kakuni with scallop congee

So I have the itch to blog again… and what better time than now, when it’s time to hash out those lovely winter recipes that have been sitting around the kitchen for months on end? The last time I made buta no kakuni was last Christmas; impatience and a loose hand with the soy sauce led to a sad and salty affair with rough meat. This time, I was going to bring out the big guns. Cue this excellent recipe I came across from Chubby Hubby’s blog, which in turn comes from Masaharu Morimoto’s ‘The New Art of Japanese Cooking’. When I first came across it, it looked impossibly complicated – with a very long cooking time and lots of waiting about, I was turned off of the idea. But I decided the effort would be worth it, and took the plunge.

I didn’t take any photos during the process because (a) who said I was cooking this for purpose of blogging about it? (b) I wasn’t sure how successful it’d be. Well, here I am now, blogging about a very successful dish… and it has inspired me to blog more again!

I did, as I’m prone to do, make a few alterations. One was using ordinary white short grain rice in the initial braising process instead of brown – I just couldn’t be bothered to buy a pack of brown rice (weirdly expensive in Japan Centre) and I couldn’t find any information on what the effect would be, except that it ‘tenderises’ the meat – not sure what the difference is between brown and white rice, though. For the first part, I’m guessing the rice keeps the pork tender by ‘insulating’ it as it braises, protecting it from too much direct heat? Brown rice probably doesn’t break down as much as white in that time, therefore ‘protecting’ the pork for longer? Err, Heston, give us a hand…?

The initial braising process is 8 hours, but I cheated. I did it only for 4 – my pork belly was already sliced into strips when I bought them, so I figured it needed less time. I started at 8pm after work and couldn’t leave the oven on all night, either! Then it was left to rest, as Chubby Hubby did, in the oven overnight. The next night, the pork was removed from the thick rice mixture and, instead of wastefully discarding the rice as suggested, I bunged it into my rice cooker, added some chicken stock and the soaked dried scallops and made the congee that way! The rice, afterall, had soaked up so much flavour from the pork during that initial cooking process so it would have been silly to throw all that away.

The resulting congee was so silky, and so full of porcine goodness and lovely dried scallop flavours. With some chopped spring onions and a sprinkle of sesame seeds, it was enough!

So then the pork went on to be braised again for several hours with a mixture of soy sauce, sake, sugar and water, along with bamboo shoots and chunky pieces of daikon (my own additions, because I love the way they soak up the flavours of anything it is braised with). Result! The pork was already falling apart after the first cooking process and by the second it was meltingly tender. Gorgeous.

See that piece just falling off? ;)

I’d recommend anyone to give this recipe a shot. It may sound daunting at first, but you really do just leave it to do its own thing most of the time. Set it aside for a weekend when you’re home, shying away from the cold.

The full recipe can be found on Chubby Hubby’s blog. Remember not to throw the rice away! ;) Times like these you really can tell I’m of an Asian (or ‘Oriental’ as they say here) persuasion…

REEEEEWIND…
Oh, and I’m intending to do a few more posts that I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Yes, I am talking about Colombia! And I have also recently discovered an unfinished draft of a second Vienna post hidden in my dashboard. Oops. So, yeah. Stay tuned.

patterson’s

For a friend’s birthday dinner, we decided to go to Patterson’s in Mayfair. Well, maybe ‘decided’ is a bit of a wrong term, considering I myself wouldn’t have chosen the place unless I’d come into lots and lots of money. But, as it turns out, my fellow diners were being equally thrifty and had decided on the venue not only because two of the group previously had excellent meals there, but that both Time Out and Toptable were doing ‘50% off your bill’ deals. Phew! I’ve gotta confess that I always feel really out of place in fine dining restaurants, but overall the experience was rather mellow and the meal was enjoyable.

Our little amuse bouche came in the form of asparagus soup served in a tiny espresso cup, with a tiny ball of arancini skewered and balanced on the cup with a toothpick. Cute, and I wish I’d taken a photo of it!

Deciding between all the options for starters was difficult – I was also tempted by the Roast lobster and langoustine salad with a pea, broad bean and roasted garlic dressing and the Squab breast on potato and apple parmentier, with foie gras parfait and madeira jelly. In the end, I opted for the Slow roast belly pork with red cabbage, cauliflower purée with a seared scallop and thyme jus. Because who can resist soft, tender pork belly? And scallops?

The beautiful presentation was impressive. I was slightly disappointed with the pork belly – the meat was dry and not tender at all, and almost a bit chewy. The red cabbage on top was interesting; the combination with the pork belly reminded me of a favourite dish of mine, pork belly with preserved vegetables! The salty, slightly tangy cabbage with the pork was really reminiscent of the dish. The scallop was perfectly seasoned and cooked.

My main was Pink confit saddle of lamb with cauliflower wheat, dauphinoise potato and provençal vegetables. I’d been deciding between the beef course (which two other people ordered, and came rare and gorgeous and juuuuicy-looking), the lamb and the Barbary duck (but went against it considering I don’t really like glazed carrots or fennel). This course was slightly disappointing, with the lamb not being as tender as I’d expected it to be. The cauliflower wheat was surprisingly good, and a little bit like couscous (which I love and cannot wait to eat more of come spring/summer!).

I can’t even explain how much I look forward to puddings at every meal. This time, I decided to have dessert, even though I had full knowledge that my friend A had bought a massive double chocolate cake from Patisserie Valerie to finish off the meal. Somehow, everyone else couldn’t resist either and also ordered desserts. Most went for the Valrhona chocolate fondant with iced double cream, but I had to go for the french toast brioche (maybe memories of 202’s french toast?) with the berries and peach thyme sorbet. It was delicious, and oh so light, though I think the french toast could have been a bit crisper – it was more like a pancake than french toast in that sense. I couldn’t really discern much thyme in the sorbet, but ’twas nice nonetheless. Unfortunately, I was too late in swiping a taste of the chocolate fondant from my neighbours because (1) I was too enthralled with my own dessert, and (2) they gobbled it up in no time. Birthday girl C’s plate came with a chocolate ‘Happy Birthday’ message written across the plate, which was very sweet of them.

Overall the bill came to £37 per head, which is more than I’ve ever spent on a meal of my own accord, but then it did include a very expensive bottle of 2003 Châteauneuf-du-Pape (£46!?! … which was wasted on my amateur palate, methinks). It would have come to far more without the 50% discount. Horrifying. I know, I’m a pennypincher!

Patterson’s
4 Mill Street, Mayfair
London W1S 2AX
020 7499 1308

chinese new year eats

The ‘Tray of Togetherness’ (全盒) – one of the many sources of my non-stop snacking

Today is already the 6th day of the Year of the Rat, so there’s obviously been lots and lots of eating going on. I haven’t been able to celebrate CNY with my family for three years because of uni, but thankfully I had the time to come back this time! So many things I’ve forgotten about – all the noise, the jubilous new year songs (which become rather irritating after the first day), red red everywhere, and of course, the sheer amount of food that is consumed. I have something of a bottomless stomach, but lately the eating has caught up to me. I am stuffed to the brim, every single day. Click under the cut for more about the fooooood.

i choo choo choose tuna

There are only two things in life that can get me up early in the morning, and that is food, or obligation. The people who know me well probably think that rising in the early morn to the crow of a cockerel is far beyond my capability, but on at least one occasion, I proved them wrong. One of the highlights of my trip to Tokyo in the winter of 2006 was the trip to Tsukiji market, which meant getting up at 4am (though, in reality, having slept at 2:30am we ended up dragging our unhappy, unconscious bodies out of our snug, warm hotel beds at 5:00). It wasn’t all bad though. There’s something very satisfying about getting up at such an ungodly hour in pursuit of food… it gives you bragging rights and a smug look on your face as you recount the story to your friends (or, they could just look at you with a raised eyebrow and think you’re mad).

We missed the tuna auction, but rest assured we had loads of fun dodging death at every corner (slippery surfaces and people shouting at you to get out of the way as their fast-moving karts loom towards you), photographing all the strange and wonderful seafood, and watching young apprentices being taught how to handle a sashimi knife. It was also the first time I actually realised how massive a whole tuna was. At the end of it all, we congratulated ourselves (especially me) for making the effort and sacrificing a few zees to come to this amazing place. Because seriously, who needs sleep when you get to have this for breakfast?

It doesn’t look like the greatest piece of tuna in the world, but I remember how pleased we were as we chowed down on our bounty, as a kindly obaa-san watched us with a bemused look on her face. This is what travelling is all about – screw sleep!

So if you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m a bit of a tuna enthusiast. A bad time to be one, considering the over-fishing of bluefin tuna, but in the end my gut won out – I had to visit Doraya, a Japanese restaurant specialising in just that (er, tuna, not my gut). It sounded like a dream come true. Also, it was recommended not only by my own mother (queen of good recommendations), but my (Japanese) boyfriend who usually snubs most Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong. So after a happy reunion with friends, we trooped over to the restaurant just a bit before 7pm.

We went to the branch in Causeway Bay (there’s also one in Tsim Sha Tsui), which is a seriously modest restaurant on Lockhart Road where not many people really go. Doraya, thus, is pretty much a hidden gem. It looks like any other Japanese joint you get around this town, but there are no flashy signs or clean-cut modern menus. It looks ordinary. Inside, there isn’t a lot of space either, it probably seats around 30 people at the most, with a tiny kitchen in the back. Their menu is a tattered, laminated affair, a few pages listing various incarnations of tuna dishes – there’s fatty tuna, seared tuna, tuna steak, minced toro and a smattering of other dishes (I think I remember seeing swordfish and mackerel). Prices for the dinner sets range from around $78HKD to around $200 for the most expensive one – It’s been a week since that dinner and I don’t have a menu, so my memory is a bit hazy.

I ordered the ‘double tuna’ set, which comes with luscious pieces of otoro as well as akami maguro. All sets come with a small dish of simmered vegetables, egg rolls, pickles and a bowl of miso soup.

The tuna was simply gorgeous. The otoro was, as expected, meltingly tender but without an overpowering fishiness or oiliness – perfection. The akami was the best I’d had for a long time – also melt-in-your-mouth, though obviously not to the extent that the otoro was! Both were rich with what I can only stupidly describe as ‘tuna-y’ – and unlike much of the tuna sold in Hong Kong (especially buffets, gah!), it didn’t taste bloody and metallic. It was fresh and just wonderful. Period. You’d think I could stop there, but no – there was quite a lot of rice and I was worried about being sick of eating all of it. But, get this: it was bloody amazing. Turns out Doraya uses top-quality koshihikari rice, from Niigata Prefecture, thought to be the best rice in Japan. It’s delicious simply eaten on it’s own, and has a tender, but slightly al dente texture and a subtle sweet flavour. I could have easily polished off a plain bowl of that rice. The whole set cost me $128HKD (£8.40!), which is tuppence considering the amount of tuna I got in there, along with the added bonus of the Niigata rice.

So, I wish I had something bad to say so this doesn’t sound like a gushing advertisement for Doraya. If only I could say that the service was rubbish, and that the waitresses wanted us out as soon as possible so they could cram more hungry hordes into the small restaurant and make a fatter profit. But no. Even after they’d cleared away our plates, they noticed our cups were half-empty and offered us some more tea – a small gesture, but an enormous one considering (as we later found out) the queue that was beginning to form outside of the restaurant. We were thankful that we weren’t pressurised to leave the place as soon as possible, and appropriately paid for our bill after we’d finished our tea.

It’s awfully rare to be completely happy with a restaurant here – sometimes it’s like an unbalanced see-saw; good food, bad service, or vice versa. At Doraya, everything was faultless. And the kicker? They open until 2am. Now you know where to get your midnight otoro fixes.

Doraya (定食のどらや)
G/F, 451 Lockhart Rd, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: 2834 8851

Basement, Grand Right Centre, 10 Cameron Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Tel: 2366 8072

and so this is christmas

This year we actually have a real pine tree for Christmas! In Hong Kong, it’s just not practical to have a live tree for the holiday (plus, I haven’t seen many people selling them anyway), so this year is extra special in terms of foliage!

I’ve always felt that Christmas Eve was more special than Christmas Day itself, which is why I decided to have our big Christmas dinner yesterday rather than today. It was quite simple (and I guess it had to be, I’m actually fighting a cold right now and spent much of the day slumped under my duvet, half-watching Jamie Oliver and taking down last-minute roasting tips) – roast chicken with roast potatoes and cabbage.

I soaked the chicken in a brine made with water, salt, brown sugar, bay leaves, garlic, rosemary and thyme overnight (thanks to Amy at Blue Lotus for the link to the recipe!) to impart as much flavour into the chicken as possible. I’d only bought a simple, cheapo free-range chicken from Sainsbury’s afterall, though I would have preferred to go down to the farmers’ markets and get a good, organic bird. If only I wasn’t so ill over the weekend!

The chicken was dried off, stuffed with garlic, onions and herbs, brushed with softened garlic butter (from The Garlic Farm… delicious stuff!), seasoned with Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and the breasts (under the skin) stuffed with more butter and two large fresh sage leaves. We didn’t have carrots, but had plenty of potatoes and onions, as well as shallots! The brining really did a great job – the meat was so juicy and tender, and had such a lovely, herbbbbbidacious (hee hee) flavour, which was fortunate because we had a bit of a disaster with the gravy. We’d obviously bought the wrong wine (as we both know zilch about wine) and the resulting gravy was actually sour. Yuck. But luckily, thanks to the flavourful brine, the chicken was delicious as it was!

Dinner was followed by some toasted panetonne (cut into rounds) topped with some old-fashioned cookie dough ice cream – thanks for the idea of toasting the cake, Su-Lin!

Hope you all had/are having a lovely Christmas dinner!