roast pork musing.

so being on a bit of a meat freeze I havent really had much opportunity to continue to experiment with roast pork. Though i have been carefully collating information about it, which i will share here 

http://www.applepiepatispate.com/main-course/crackling-pork-belly/

http://www.atablefortwo.com.au/2010/01/04/crispy-roast-pork-belly-siew-yuk-%E7%83%A7%E8%82%89/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/15/how-to-make-perfect-crackling

Unfortunately i didn't get lots of time to prep but I did try three extra tips which are noted in teh above articles. I think my attempt this time closely resembles no. 4

1. vinegar + heavy salting like old, try to air then used fridge to try and do something similar

2. Scalded, applied five spice, resalted with much bigger salt cystals, reaired. The salt crystals is an extension of the ATFT technique, but i went even bigger, so the pieces could be knocked off afterwards. Too much salt is a bad thing.

3. Apply heat and eat. 

It was again, very good, but this could be just due to the fact that it was super fresh. I think the salt helped really recoup the fact the skin wasn't dry enough, it also evened out the blistering a lot more. Ultimately, I still would like to try to brine first, then air the skin till its super dry and then use the salt technique to try and get that smaller blistering. It seems the application of five spice latter doesn't affect the flavour of the meat negatively so that will save some hassle later. 

2 2 1 1

So my endeavours in the land of pizza have been changing over time, for faster and more efficiency dough making. Not that i don't like kneading, cos actually i do but there is something about whipping up pizza dough in a couple of minutes which is very appealing. So I've reached a nice recipe which will be my goto for quick pizza fixes.

2 2 1 1

2 cups of flour

2 tablespoons of salt

1 cup of warm water

1 tablespoon of sugar.

1. combine flour and salt

2. combine water sugar and of course yeast which i didnt include but no yeast no pizza

3. Let yeast activate then pour slowly into flour and combine slowly.

4. Keep doing this until dough reaches a thick and sticky consistency, too runny add more flour, looks dry and not coming together add more water. add some olive oil as well if you like =)

5. Sit on countertop for 16-24hrs.

6. Resize into individual 4 dough balls and coat in olive oil and stick in freezer. Leave one which you gently fold once or twice and let sit for 30 minutes.

7. Use to make awesome pizza!

used this for base (http://goo.gl/aPak)

骨香兔 (gǔ xiāng tù)

It was a hit!! i've never had my food mistaken for bought food which was quite a compliment i must say. Another one was "this rabbit tastes like kfc". All went as planned and I think i hit all the little things that make a dish a "dish".

So the reason this is on my list of top 5 chinese dishes is because of the wonderful differences in textures between fried boney parts and sucking remnants of flesh of it to the smooth sauteed chicken. Also the sautee should be subtle and only offer just enough flavour to compliment the somewhat blander fried chicken. Anyways, you should go try it, if you're reading?

Things to improve on would be to go easy on the meat, when flash frying, really just flash fry and dont leave it in there for too long and also work on the fried parts to be crisper. Things that really worked was the ginger, the rice wine and surely the brine.

So I'll break it into the three parts, the prep, the fry and the saute.

The Brine

Some recipes have asked for the brine to brought to a boil and the cooled before adding the meat. No time for that nonsense. I used three primary ingredients water, salt and vinegar (3L, 1/3 cup, 1/3 cup). On top of that i fried off some garlic bay leafs, coriander seeds and szechuan peppers to add to the brine. Some recipes call for frying off onions and so on, it seems to be such a waste. The meat was added and placed in the fridge for the day.

What was interesting after the time in the fridge it was actaully changing colour as the vinegar was starting to cook the meat. Perhaps vinegar should be left out. what is to note that rabbit a sometimes tough meat if overcooked but the brining surely imparted flavour and gave me a larger margin for error

The Fry

Very simply pat dry the meat after the brine. I didn't want to use egg but i ended up going that way, for some reason it gives me a crisper fry. The batter was almost equal parts corn flour, flour, salt and chilli powder and some baking powder (something i read said this made it crispy). Simple combine and fry, no tricks here, apparently tastes like kfc =)

The saute

This turns out to be the most finicky part.

1. Bring water to boil and add salt
2. Flash fry the rabbit flesh pieces (these were also preseasoned). Save oil for the frying mentioned above.
3. Meanwhile, add broccolli flowers and snow peas to the water
4. Fry off diced garlic and thin squares of ginger (big enough that people who dont like it can pick it out and thin enough that if you unknowingly bit into it it wouldnt fill ure mouth with that overpowering ginger flavour.. this worked a treat)
5. Add onions and soften.
6. Strain off the broccolli and snowpeas set aside
7. Add capsicum and baby corn and when they are softened add the brocolli and snowpeas.
8. Add splashes of rice wine to help soften everything up, add the meat as well
9. Prepare the sauce which comprised of oyster and soy sauce. Careful on the oyster because it can get very overpowering. Add pepper and corn flour and stir.
10. Once the rice wine has somewhat reduced, add the sauce and stir till it thickens.

So to plate combine fried parts with the saute toss lightly and plate. Gosh it was one of the most finicky dishes i've done in a while with three pots going, blanching, frying, straining and stirfrying. In the morning i had it for breakfast with half an avocado and that was quite a win as well.

interesting interesting. perhaps this is a blog revival.

Crispy Rabbit with sauteed Chicken and Veggies

so i haven't made this yet but its all going to be a bit rushed tomorrow so I thought i should write it down first so i know exactly what ingredients i need, and why not here in this dusty blog. *blows off dust* *coughs*

So first, brine the rabbit and chicken thighs, in salt... and cinnamon? maybe jsut salt since i have no cinnamon, ah HA a workable brine recipe found. 

"In a mixing bowl, stir together cold water, vinegar, salt and peppercorns. Place rabbit loins in liquid and allow to stand 1 hour."  bay leafs and thyme sounds good. Another recipe seems to say bring it up to the boil but i have no time for that, I'm sure if i roast/fry up whatever it is first before putting it in the water it'll be fine. Since also i dont have much brine time I'll probably put more salt in it 

So i'll need at least salt, bay leafs, garlic, vinegar for the brine.

Next step i suppose will be putting the cuts into the brine. Try and fillet big meat pieces off the rabbit carcass but leave enough meat on the bones for delectable frying.

So broccolli, snowpeas, cabbage, carrots, capsicum, baby corn and onions with the rabbit and chicken meat, in a light soy and oyster sauce stirfry, with plenty of garlic and ginger (maybe). 

delectable rabbit bones will involve a batter which of flour cornflour salt and baking powder blend. cayenne pepper would be good if i can find any. Just a dry coating and into the oil, so I need canola oil.

hopefully I can get all that done in 40 minutes? *fingers crossed*

so things needed

canola oil, vinegar, salt, bay leafs, garlic, capsicum, snowpeas chicken thigh, rabbit meat, cayenne pepper. 

thanks for listening and.. yeah it sounds kinda crazy. 

Salmon Ceviche

Inspired by Gordon Ramsay and a conversation about cooking with lemon juice, apparently it is called denaturing.

So it can be done. Following Gordon Ramsay's recipe i added a lime juice and instead of coriander i used dill which was awesome. It pretty much to taste so the proportions are not important =) Gordon's tip for slicing salmon by freezing it for 10 minutes really worked as well.

I think I could have stuck to the 10 minute time for soaking, but it was more 30-40 minutes but still the texture was chewy and soft at the same time. It was very interesting to see the salmon change colour as if it was actually cooking probably would have changed less if i kept to the time limit. mmmmm. i wonder.

Fast, yummy and interesting! a new winner.

So i used it to make a salad (a major weakness for me).
Rocket, little tiny tomatoes, crushed macadamia nuts, peach, nectarine, parmeasan cheese and the lemon dill salmon. Good times.

my first congee. looks right? =)

with much more flavoursome condiments. YUM.

Cu Cai Carot Chua (Pickled Carrot Strips Recipe)

This is the 2nd time I've done this after making it very successfully to accompany chinese roast pork. Not having pork rolls much these days I miss the vinegarised carrots so I decided to see if i could make them myself. So drawing from the following sites I kinda made my own combination which seems to work for me.

http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=45679
http://www.vietnamese-recipes.com/vietnamese-recipes/salad/pickled-carrot-strips.php
http://southeastasianfood.about.com/od/starterss4/r/carradishpickle.htm

Ingredients
2 giant carrots
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of vinegar (apple cider vinegar or something)
4 spoons of sugar
3 spoons of salt
3 cloves of garlic (very finely diced)
2-3 chillis (very finely diced)

This is all combined in a bowl. Combine all the ingredients before dicing / slicing the carrots as they change colour when exposed, so you can bypass this if its the last step.

I really want to add turnips and shallots/onions into the mix for the next batch, but otherwise very happy with this, will try to always keep a bowl of it marinating in the fridge.