Meat

In All recipes, Dairy, Meat, Seafood, Snacks, Travel

MADRID, plus how to throw a tapas party

In the past few years, for more times than I’d like to admit, I have allowed myself to dance dangerously around a question that is as simple as it is complicated, as imaginable as it is hopeless, a secret irritation that haunts us all who have ever fell in love with a corner of this beautiful land they call Europe, but had to depart soon after. You know you ask yourself this, we all do.

Why. Why can’t I live here?

EVERY SIMPLE DELIGHTS FROM EVERY ASPECTS OF LIVING, RESTRAINED IN SMALL SERVINGS, BUT CONSTANT, AND IT DOESN’T STOP COMING

It’s a cliche, of course, for someone who doesn’t know or has travelled to Europe that much. But is that what romance requires, muchness? From the first time I landed a foot in Paris back in spring 2012, around the time when I just started this blog up till now, I have only been to a handful of European cities and each affair lasted no more than a week. And yet, the immense imagery of lost stories behind every architectures and cobble streets, the courage I seek to enjoy life with ease that they breath daily as a birthright, the endless sceneries roaming from hill to hills, the effortlessness, irritating almost, the fact that they can take their dogs everywhere (!!!)… All of it, everything, had left me in a stench of discontent at the boarding gates, the sense that I was going back to a place that was very much less so. I feel at my most content when I am traveling these places; I wholeheartedly recommend that you get out into the world for yourself and seek out these experiences too. Of course, the cost is always going to be an issue when visiting locations on your bucket list. This can be helped by a cash injection from a loan – check out Lending Expert for more information.

But having said that, it was a general infatuation for a region as a whole. Specifically, if you asked me, I could never quite pinpoint a city, or a country even, where I could actually see myself living in. As indisputably beautiful as Paris was and always will be, living there felt like being in a relationship with someone who would never love me more than I loved him. As authentically ancient and charming as Rome, the even more hard-wired slowness stirred a sense of restlessness in someone who wasn’t embracing retirement just yet. As much as the melancholic pessimism of Lisbon was alluring, it would probably deem unhealthy for me who’s equally negative, to marinate in large dosages. As for London, which I haven’t mentioned, the idea of moving from under one sky blanketed in smog, to another blanketed in overcast, was… just depressing to say the least. Then there was Nice, and Monaco… but who am I kidding?

That was, until Madrid.

I wanted to live here. But more importantly, I felt I could actually live here.

Even with the inevitable unfamiliarity with its pace of life and various language barriers here and there, everything felt natural, easy. It felt right. Madrid, I hope we could all agree, wasn’t the most beautiful European city, or the most prosperous. It wasn’t even the most convenient, given that few Asian airlines offered direct flights (but that’s gonna change this summer for Hong Kong). But there was something about it, the perfect mixture of ease and vibrancy, like it ran in its bloodstreams of knowing when to slow down and when to party, and it carried us, without even thinking, into the same infectious rhythm. An energetic morning, a late but overbearingly sumptuous lunch, a slow afternoon easing into the night, then a bubbling and munchy social scene to end it all perfectly.

Every simple delights from every aspects of life, restrained in small servings, but constant, and it doesn’t stop coming. That was what it felt like, as least for me, Madrid’s promises.

January 21, 2016

In All recipes, Meat, mobile slider, Seafood, Snacks

LISBON, PLUS SURF’N TURF PORK BELLY AND SHRIMP SAUSAGE SANDWICH

After what seemed as long as forever, but now, feels as short as a blink of an eye, five weeks of traveling in and out of 6 different countries, I am now, finally, back home.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to sum up a journey as long as this one in one post. It began in Hong Kong, then Taipei then back to Hong Kong, then it departed towards London, then Madrid, and Lisbon, then finally, passing by Germany, back to Hong Kong, then back to Beijing. It was a zig-zaging montage of cityscapes, sounds, smells, flavours, stimulations… but also disorientations, sense of aimless drifts, dubbed by a relentless seasonal flu somewhere at end. How do I tell such a story I have no clue. I suspect I would be inadequate but I shall try.

I shall try, starting with Lisbon.

Why Lisbon? I don’t know. I guess there are moments in life that didn’t feel particularly monumental at the times, but somehow, years and years later, they stay with you whenever you feel like looking back. Lisbon, in the best sense, felt as such. There are cities where we go to feel the future. New York, London, places that strut at the tip of our times, erecting glories built in glasses and steels, forward. Lisbon, as rare as it is precious, is not that kind of city. Lisbon, to me at least, comes into the scene as an ageing beauty. Her allures permeates in a lingering perfume of melancholy, on the surface of every faded tiles, behind every half-closed wooden windows, cut deep into every folds of her stone-paved labyrinth. She is old. She is complicated. There are a lot of bygone glories, loss and pain in her untold stories, some remembered only objects that cannot speak. I found myself striken by a sense of wounded dignity at her unguarded moments. In fact, sometimes her unpolished cheeks marked with spray paints and the crumbling of her once beautifully tiled facades, like a ripped silk dress, made me feel impolite to stare. But, I guess, that’s why Lisbon felt so unique. Holding her own, almost carefully, with a flustered sense of self-esteem… she sits quietly, a city by the sea.

A place like her leaves an impression. She made me wonder about the life she’s had. She made me want to dig deeper. She made me wanna do things that I’ve never done to any other places, beyond the politeness of walking through her streets and allies, beyond gorging the foods that she cooked. I wanted to get more intimate. Closer. I wanted to hear her sing. And if there’s one thing that I think you should do in Lisbon, however cheesy it may be, you should hear Lisbon sing.

And she sings Fado.

OF COURSE, WE HAD TO FINISH THE MEAL WITH A SANDWICH. WE JUST HAD TO. THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE.
BUT THIS TIME, WE WEREN’T SORRY THAT WE DID

First of all, it might help to mention that I am not a music person. I have almost zero song downloaded to my smartphone, and in the 7 years I’ve dwelled in New York, a trip to New Orleans, I have never stepped a foot inside a jazz bar. Curried goat, yes, but Bob Marley who?

So no, I don’t usually do this.

But to come to Lisbon without listening to a bit of fado, a music as burnt into the soul of this country as anything can hurt, is a regret that I wasn’t planning to walk away with. However, before I go on, I warn you, that a fado experience in Lisbon can prove to be borderline awkward if you have some kind of personal distance-issues. Chances are, as we were, you’d be seated on a stool tucked in between the elbows and knees of total strangers, so crowded it’d be difficult to reach down to your phones to take a selfie. Chances are you’d be forced to share foods, and drinks, too, oh hell, conversations even. If you got problems with any of those things as I almost do – oh fuck did I mention that they smoke indoors, too – chances are, it would be uncomfortable.

But again, chances are, you would regret it if you didn’t.

A young woman in her 20’s came into the tiny spot reserved for performers, professionals and amateurs alike. Carried only by a couple of guitarists sitting a feet away, she started singing… no, more like… pouring her heart out on the floor. There was so much passions, longings and losses that I felt through a song that I didn’t understand. Her body moved like a stringed puppet, cringed, shaken, pulled by the very own emotions in the melody that she sang. Her voice, at times almost inaudible, at times piercingly loud, communicated words without any translations. It felt… brave, almost, bleeding this much feelings to a wall of strangers staring within an arm’s length. Just when I thought I got a sense of what fado was, after her, came an old man in his 80’s. He was more talking then singing, waving and pointing his hands in every possible gestures, sometime as if in an argument, sometime as if in mourning. It was comical but not funny. It was crude but endearing. I can’t say I know fado, but if you ask me, the beauty of it is not in the perfection of vocal skills, but in the generosity of common strangers, singing their hearts to you on a sleeve.

We left the bar a bit in awe, with a couple of new German friends who were forced to share their chorizos with us. Walking home on her crooked slopes echoing her voice in heart-strung melodies, Lisbon felt more mysteriously beautiful than before I got to know her.

January 8, 2016

In All recipes, Dairy, Meat, Noodle/Pasta/Rice

SPICY CURED YOLK RICE BOWL

PRECIOUS, SALTY, SPICY LUMPS OF LAVA-LIKE LIQUID-GOLDS

December 7, 2015

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks

MACAO’S PORK CHOP PINEAPPLE BUN

IT CAN’T BE RIGHT. IT SHOUDN’T BE RIGHT.
BUT IT MIRACULOUSLY IS.

History had it, that whenever two polar opposite cultures are smashed together, often under reluctant or even violent circumstances, despite hardships and losses, something mutated but beautiful eventually comes out at the other end. That something, is usually food.

No doubt that America has its unspeakable history from the time of slavery, but what was left from its ugliness, was the unapologetic creole and cajun. Taiwan’s predominantly Fujian and kejia culture (derived from China’s southern coast) adjusted to 50 years of Japanese rule by nurturing an uniquely categorized cuisine all of its own, which, some say, may be the last-standing pride of this politically fading island. So on… what unfortunate events gave us the Vietnamese coffee, and so forth… what conflict left us the baba-nyonya? Food, among sadness and realities, always knows how to find its own humble delights. Food, is always optimistic.

And right now, standing in Hong Kong where such experiences were no stranger, I’m holding in my hand, a glorious testament of such history. A legacy from Portuguese’s colonial time in Macao, the pork chop pineapple bun.

Macao’s pork chop bun compared to Portuguese’s bifana, obviously, is another life. It uses bone-in pork chops instead of cutlets, reflecting Asian’s general preference for flavour over convenience. On top of which, it deploys soy sauce as part of the seasonings, and baking soda, a typical and effecient meat-tenderizing agent in Cantonese cooking. But perhaps the most controversial act of it all is that, in one version, it stuffs the shallow-fried pork chop, without a blinking of an eye, in between an iconic pastry of this particular region. The pineapple buns.

It can’t be right. It shouldn’t be right. But in between the crispy and salty edges of a well-seasoned and juicy bone-in pork chop, and the sweet and crumbly crust of a buttery pineapple bun, it miraculously is. To be honest, I don’t even know why I doubted it in the first place. Salty and sweet. A proven equation that works. Really, give it a chance. No matter how unseemly and conflicting the idea may sound, like the clashing of the cultures that nurtured it, pork chop pineapple bun is a tasty mutation that made the best of it all.

And don’t forget to serve it with Hong Kong-style English milk tea.

November 29, 2015

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks

THE WORLDLY PULLMAN-TORTILLA TACOS

IS IT,
LET’S EAT NOW AND KILL EACH OTHER LATER?

What has this world come to? Or, all along, this is how we always have been?

I know. This is a food blog, rainbows and marshmallows and summer noodle salads. Politics, world affairs… are not palatable, instead, I should be talking about pumpkin pies. But you see, this is the thing. Talking about foods, in a time like this. How can we, so at ease, not taste the irony between the bettering tolerance for flavours on our dining tables, and the boiling hostility on just about everything beyond? Food-wise, in the history of mankind, the world has never come so open-minded, so intimately close to sharing and tasting the very same beliefs that are being enjoyed from the other side of the map. We can all agree on the cold silkiness of a piece of raw fish on a small nub of tangy rice. The cool creaminess of hummus meandering around the sizzling spiced kebabs. The good funk of cheese melting into the chewiness of a hand-torn crusty baguette. A sip of wine. It registers the same. The contentment in common. The smile radiating from our torsos. Ah, yes, that wonder you’re tasting over there, I’m feeling it right here too, understanding, happy-ing, at the same time, over the same things. How is it that we could relate so much in happiness, and yet, empathise so little in suffering. Can we really talk about foods, without thinking about politics? Or is it, let’s eat now and kill each other later?

Really bad things happened in Paris. Here we all mourned, in shock, in disbelief, compassionate. Meanwhile, the exact same really bad things, just as bad, sometimes worse, happens not that far away almost every week on that side, perhaps your side, stacking up silently like morning pancakes. Beirut 3 days ago, Ankara last month, other cities of dwindling lights. But… that was just inks on newspapers, no hashtags in its grief. Has even my sympathy, where I decide to spare it, become part of the problems? Why is it only you and I, yours and mine, and nothing in between? We’re all micros teeming on a speck of dust in this universe, but somehow, we still manage to divide beyond our means, to sever what is better as one, to split the atoms. I don’t. Wanna. Exist like this.

November 16, 2015

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks

CRUSTY RADISH DUMPLINGS FOR MY DUMPLING

MY DUMPLING COMES WITH AN EXTRA DISK OF SALTY, CRACKLING, DRAMATIC BUT ALSO DELICATE PERSONALITY. IT MIGHT NOT BE FOR EVERYONE WHO LIKE SMOOTH RIDES, BUT IT’S MY DUMPLING AND I LIKE IT EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS.

I’ve always liked western funerals.

Or to be more specific, I’ve always liked the meal that takes place afterwards. The kind of… you’re-dead-let’s-eat attitude, the striving positivity in what I would like to call, “party-grieving”. Call this meal a “repast” or whatever, but as far as I’m concerned, when a large group of friends gathers and gets drunk plus smothered in casseroles, even if it was after an eternal farewell and no lady’s mascara was fully intact, hey, it’s a party. So yeah. I think it’s nice. I think it’s dignifying. When I have my funeral, I’m going to make everyone listen to Gaga’s “(now you really) can’t read my, can’t read my poker face”, and like it or not, eat sardine casseroles. So a few weeks ago, when the reality of what was going to happen started to settle in, I pressed the soft paws of my fur-son Dumpling against my wet face and said… hey, don’t you worry, mommy’s gonna throw you the best party ever.

Except that… ironically, Dumpling hated parties. If he had known about this mass “trespassing” taking place under his roof, he would’ve taken out his shotguns and barked everyone off of his lawn. Don’t take it personally. That was just Dumpling, my sociopathic dog who was really more of a human that hated dogs, and would love nothing more than to remove a harmless chunk of meat from your annoying ankles, no hard feelings. Chances are, if you knew him, you wouldn’t have liked him much. In fact, more than being anti-social, he was also a self-absorbed, snobbish, toy-despising and politically incorrect racist… Basically, an asshole.

October 8, 2015

In All recipes, Meat, mobile slider, Techniques, updated recipe

HOW TO EASILY SOUS-VIDE IN OVEN, WITH OR WITHOUT WATER

FOR THE PAST 35 YEARS OF SOLEMN HATRED FOR WHITE MEAT, OF CLAWING CHICKEN SAWDUSTS OUT OF MY THROAT, IT MEANS TO TELL ME THAT ALL ALONG, I COULD’VE BEEN EATING THIS SUCCULENCE?!!
IS THIS A JOKE?!!

Let’s face it, most of us never took the idea of “sous vide” seriously as a realistic potential in our home-kitchen, now did we? But with the knowledge of having the UK’s leading sous vide specialists in this very field, this idea may not seem as out there as some of us used to think.

This French-sounding… European-ish words (“sus-vahyd”?) that refer to vacuum-sealing our ingredients and submerging them under a warm bath for a long period of time, thus resulting in the extraordinarily supple texture in any cuts of meat, okaaay, all sounds as wonderful as having little house-elf who rap us a Kanye song and clean around the house. Nice, clap clap, but who are we kidding right? Hey, believe me, I with you. Or… at least, I was with you… until a few weeks ago I swear.

I mean, as someone who loves to cook to a degree of obsessive nature, I’m all about humping a technique that, legend has it, could transform a cardboard-like piece of chicken breasts into something so juicy and tender that it defies my anti-faith for chicken breasts. But to acquire such wizardry, well, I’ll need a wand of course, and it’s called a sous vide-machine. Thing is I would gladly “sus-vahyd” everything – hey I think it totally makes total sense – IF ONLY I was sitting on a machine that sucks all the air-molecules out of the bags, and another that keeps my tub of water at a constant temperature without asking too many questions. But guess what, I don’t have a sous vide-machine”s”, and I’m guessing you probably neither. I guess, we’re all just muggles! So in the end, the idea all goes back to resembling a fabulous Dobby who raps Kanye ? not a realistic potential. Or is it?

A few weeks ago, I was introduced to Chef Steps, a great blog that promotes “Modernist Cuisines for home-cooks”, and at the top of its honorable agenda, is the mission to teach everyone how to sous vide at home, without any machines that is. It gave me hope, it really did. I considered it as an invitation into Hogwars. So I immediately dove into the first experiment, which was to tightly wrap salmon in a zip-lock bag and cook it in a pot of 120 F/50 C water that they said could be maintained over the stove… Okay, I would elaborate the experience in meticulous details for you but it could pretty much be summed up in one word, well, impossible. On gas-stove, on induction-stove… whatever, not even the lowest possible setting/flame could keep a pot of water at 120F/50C without heating it up eventually, not to mention the obvious impracticality and side-effect of babysitting a pot of lukewarm water for 40 min, or worse, hours… Chefs, it’s not you, but it doesn’t work on my stoves.

But to their credit, the effort wasn’t spent in vain. The episode curiously reminded me of how, a long time ago, I used to babysit a pot of water in oblivion for my hot spring/onsen eggs, only until the moment when I found out that… wait, I HAVE A HOUSE-ELF!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to – ~~Dobby, no,~~ THE OVEN. Uh-humph, sorry, have you met? Yeah, it’s this really old piece of technology, dinosaur really, that was designed to, guess what, creating an environment at a… yes, constant temperature! OK, at this point, we’re not even gonna pretend that we’re “sous vide-ing” anything, which means “under vacuum” in French. We’re not vacuuming anything, but just keeping to the principle of cooking foods under low temperature for a prolonged period of time. And I don’t know if you know this about earth, but in most cases, the temperature of water will eventually level to the temperature of its surroundings. What it means is that a pot of 120F/50C water sitting inside an oven that is constantly at 120F/50C, will stay at… YES, 120F/50C!! Do you see where I’m going with this? Do you? With a little adjustment to the oven-setting to make up for the heat that goes into cooking our foods, my friends, this is your new kitchen-revelation.

Results… the salmon, was a bite of the softest and warm embracive epiphany you could ever put in your mouth. I would replace it with how I cooked salmon in this recipe and gladly eat it for the rest of my lives. Then the chicken breasts… what chicken breasts? It transformed the chicken breasts into something… not of this earth, okay. This is not chicken breasts, not even chicken, because planet earth does not breed this type of animal which has an unbelievable texture as if a chicken screwed a water-balloon and had a baby on Mars that spoke French. The texture, the suppleness and bounce, is for a lack of better words, infuriating. It means to tell me that for the past 35 years of solemn hatred for white meat, the chicken-sawdusts that I’ve been clawing out of my throat, all along, could’ve been this succulence?!! Is this a joke?!!

But to my own surprise, amidst the simultaneous anguish and enlightenment, the wizardry didn’t stop here. Remember my sauna eggs? A little experiment I conducted based on the theory that, with a little adjustments in temperature and cooking-time (difference in air and water heat-conductivity and such boring sciences, blah blah blah), the same water-bath results can be replicated by using dry-heat only as well. But does it work with things other than eggs? YES. The chicken breasts and salmon cooked inside a water-bath in the oven, VS the same ingredients being cooked simply wrapped up in parchment in dry heat at a different temperature/time, are essentially, undistinguishable.

You can “sous vide” in the oven, with or without water-bath.

So here, my friends, fuck being muggles, come to Hogwarts with me. With a simple thermometer and oven thermometer, let’s do magic. I will continue this experiment with more ingredients and do a Part II or perhaps even Part III, but for now, I think you’ll be too busy eating – can’t believe I’m saying this – chicken breasts. I guess it’s true, nothing is impossible.

September 30, 2015

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Meat, Sweets

PROSCIUTTO AND DATES SU-STYLE MOONCAKE

DECEIVINGLY EASY…
IT WILL SHATTER YOUR DOUBT-SYSTEM AS THE LAYERS CRACK LIKE THE WINGS OF BUTTERFLIES AND FALL ON YOUR JAW-DROPPED COUNTERTOP
– XOXO

OK, I don’t have much time today to elaborate much, in fact, not even enough time to say what I’m about to say but I gotta say it anyways because it’s just too damn important which is – PLEASE, don’t let the intimidating display of these lacy, delicate, flakey pastry filled with salty prosciutto and sweet dates and honey… fool you. They are deceivingly easy, forgiving even, and I got them down with smashing success right at the first try (I’ve had more tears shed on making pancakes, let me just tell you that). This waffer-thin layered dough actually DOES NOT require any chilling (even though I still gave them a 30-min nap in the fridge just because I was insecure), believe it or not, and it will shatter your doubt-system as the layers crack like the wings of butterflies and falls on your jaw-dropped countertop. And then the filling… oh fuck I don’t even have time to talk about this filling but I gotta say it anyways because it’s just too damn good! Part-crispy and part-fresh prosciuttos, mashed with finely minced dates and honey with a dash of black rum. It is the most fruitful reward you can expect out of the eternal conflict between salty and sweet. And then, these two things together… these two buttery, lacy, porky, salty, sweet things together! I don’t have time for this! Do you get me?! Just go do it and believe.

– XOXO.

I copied/pasted the instructions below to correspond with the photos so it’s easier to understand, but serious, you’ll probably have something great at the first try, then nail it at the second, tops. There’s also another su-style mooncake variation by Betty on Food52. Check it out.

Combine cake flour, water, unsalted butter and sugar in a large bowl, and mix it with your hands until it comes into a dough.

Transfer to a working surface and knead for a couple min until the dough is smooth and soft. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions, then set aside to rest.

Meanwhile, combine cake flour and unsalted butter in the same bowl for the oil-dough.

September 25, 2015

Meat

MADRID, plus how to throw a tapas party

EVERY SIMPLE DELIGHTS FROM EVERY ASPECTS OF LIVING, RESTRAINED IN SMALL SERVINGS, BUT CONSTANT, AND IT DOESN’T STOP COMING

LISBON, PLUS SURF’N TURF PORK BELLY AND SHRIMP SAUSAGE SANDWICH

OF COURSE, WE HAD TO FINISH THE MEAL WITH A SANDWICH. WE JUST HAD TO. THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE.

BUT THIS TIME, WE WEREN’T SORRY THAT WE DID

SPICY CURED YOLK RICE BOWL

PRECIOUS, SALTY, SPICY LUMPS OF LAVA-LIKE LIQUID-GOLDS

MACAO’S PORK CHOP PINEAPPLE BUN

IT CAN’T BE RIGHT. IT SHOUDN’T BE RIGHT.

BUT IT MIRACULOUSLY IS.

THE WORLDLY PULLMAN-TORTILLA TACOS

IS IT,

LET’S EAT NOW AND KILL EACH OTHER LATER?

CRUSTY RADISH DUMPLINGS FOR MY DUMPLING

MY DUMPLING COMES WITH AN EXTRA DISK OF SALTY, CRACKLING, DRAMATIC BUT ALSO DELICATE PERSONALITY. IT MIGHT NOT BE FOR EVERYONE WHO LIKE SMOOTH RIDES, BUT IT’S MY DUMPLING AND I LIKE IT EXACTLY THE WAY IT IS.

HOW TO EASILY SOUS-VIDE IN OVEN, WITH OR WITHOUT WATER

FOR THE PAST 35 YEARS OF SOLEMN HATRED FOR WHITE MEAT, OF CLAWING CHICKEN SAWDUSTS OUT OF MY THROAT, IT MEANS TO TELL ME THAT ALL ALONG, I COULD’VE BEEN EATING THIS SUCCULENCE?!!

IS THIS A JOKE?!!

PROSCIUTTO AND DATES SU-STYLE MOONCAKE

DECEIVINGLY EASY…

IT WILL SHATTER YOUR DOUBT-SYSTEM AS THE LAYERS CRACK LIKE THE WINGS OF BUTTERFLIES AND FALL ON YOUR JAW-DROPPED COUNTERTOP

– XOXO

I copied/pasted the instructions below to correspond with the photos so it’s easier to understand, but serious, you’ll probably have something great at the first try, then nail it at the second, tops. There’s also another su-style mooncake variation by Betty on Food52. Check it out.

SUBSCRIBE

ABOUT THE LADY, THE PUPS, AND BEYOND