food dept fact: Left over lychees in the syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for 1 week or can be frozen for up to 3 months. Lychees add a delicious sweetness to contrast the chilli in curries, so add them into your dish just before serving.
Roasted peanuts with shichimi spices and roasted nori
Our recipe for these nuts was inspired by David's recent visit to Hartsyard restaurant in Newtown. The peanuts he ate had delicious morsels of crispy duck skin. But to make things easier for you at home we have made a few changes and we are sure you’ll love them just as much as he did. Shichimi (seven flavour chilli pepper) is a blend of 7 Japanese flavours and is often served along side soups and rice dishes. We have used a ready made spice mix available at good Asian grocers that specialise in Japanese groceries. We bought this one at Tokyo Mart in Northbrige, NSW. It is a combination of ground chilli, Sichuan pepper, roasted mandarin or orange peel, black and white sesame seeds, ginger, roasted nori and hemp (or poppy) seeds.
Medium
Makes 500g
• ¼cup duck fat
• 500g raw peanuts, in the shell
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon shichimi spice mix
• 1 tablespoon salt flakes
• 1 sheet roasted nori, crumbled
1. Preheat the oven to 180
˚C (360
˚F).
2. Place duck fat in a small sauce pan over a low heat until melted and hot.
3. Place the peanuts in a large bowl and toss through the duck fat, spread the nuts onto a large roasting pan and roast for 20–25 minutes.
4. Remove from the oven and toss through the olive oil, sprinkle over the shichimi spice mix, salt and nori, toss well.
5. Cool and store in an airtight container for up 1 month.
food dept fact: Duck fat can be bought in a good deli or butcher and any leftovers can be used to make very tasty roast potatoes.
http://hartsyard.com.au/
Chilli jam
This chilli jam makes an excellent base to tom yum soup, great in stir fries, blend it with coconut milk and cook chicken or seafood, add to salad dressings. Sally loves a spoonful on top of laksa to add an extra kick.
Makes approximately 2½ cups
• 50g tamarind pulp
• ½ cup boiling water
• 1½ cups vegetable oil
• 2 large Spanish onions, finely chopped
• 1 cup (approximately 18 cloves) garlic cloves, process in a processor until finely chopped
• ¼ cup dried shrimp, pound in a mortar and pestle
• 1 cup dried red chillies (de-seed them if you would like a milder jam)
• 1 cup shaved palm sugar
• ½ cup fish sauce
1. Roughly chop the tamarind and place in a medium bowl, pour over the boiling water and allow to stand for 10 minutes or until the water has cooled enough for you to put your hands in. Knead the tamarind to remove the pulp from the seeds and fibres. Strain well, discard the seeds and fibre and set aside the pulp.
2. Heat the oil in a wok or large saucepan over a medium heat and fry the onion in 2 batches, until golden brown, using a slotted spoon lift the onions from the oil and set aside.
3. In the same oil, fry the garlic until golden in colour and ensure it is translucent and cooked through. Strain from the oil and set aside with the onion.
4. Again in the same oil fry the shrimp for around 1 minute and strain, set aside with the other fried ingredients.
5. Finally in the oil fry the chillies for approximately 15 second or until they are a dark red colour, strain and add to the other fried ingredients. Be careful not to over cook the chillies or they will become bitter.
6. Place all of the fried ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and process to form a paste.
7. Drain any remaining oil from the wok and reserve. Return the paste to the wok with the tamarind liquid, palm sugar and fish sauce. Ensure the palm sugar has dissolved and simmer for 1–2 minutes.
8. Place into sterilized jars and cover with a layer of the cooking oil, store for up to 6 months in the refrigerator.
Sweet chilli ginger sauce
Sally created this recipe out of necessity whilst living overseas in Massachusetts during the late 90’s. Sweet chilli sauce was not on any supermarket shelf so this sweet chilli ginger sauce recipe was born. The ginger gives it a different twist.
Medium
Makes approximately 2½ cups
• 200g large red chillies, whole, stalks trimmed
• 2–3 red birds eye chillies, whole, stalks trimmed (add as few or as many of these as you like depending on how hot you would like your sauce)
• 5 cm piece ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
1. Combine the 2 different types of chillies, ginger and garlic in the bowl of a small food processor and process until finely chopped.
2. Combine the sugar and vinegar in a saucepan over a low heat and stir without boiling until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the chilli, garlic and ginger paste to the sugar syrup and simmer for 25-30 minutes until thickened. Add the fish sauce and simmer for a further 1-2 minutes. Pour into sterilized bottles and when cool store in the refrigerator for up 6 months.
food dept fact: See our Preserved lemon recipe in our Slow Post for “how to sterilize jars and bottles”. Serve as a delicious dipping sauce for your favourite yum cha or
Vietnamese rolls. You can also drizzle it over chargrilled chicken or prawns, then sprinkle
with coriander leaves and squeeze over fresh lime juice – YUM.
Chilli and black bean blue swimmer crabs
Serve
this finger licking crab with some rice or warm roti to soak up the
delicious sauce. This recipe uses our very own delicious Chilli jam but
if time doesn’t allow use a good quality one from an Asian grocer. Remember to have a crab picker on hand to crack open the crab and remove every last morsel of crabmeat.
Medium
Serves 4
• 750g ripe tomatoes
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 8 purple shallots, finely sliced
• 4 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 5cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
• 3 small red chillies, sliced
• 1 tablespoon salted black beans, rinsed
• 4 uncooked, blue swimmer crabs
• 2 tablespoons
Chilli jam
• 2 tablespoons shaved palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• ½ cup good quality fish or crab stock
• 4 shallots, thinly sliced on the diagonal, to garnish
• 1 cup coriander sprigs, to garnish
1. Preheat
the oven to 200
˚C (400
˚F). Place the tomatoes on an oven tray and prick
the skins. Roast for 20 minutes until the skins blister. Remove from the
oven and when cool enough to handle, peel the skins and roughly chop,
set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a wok over a high heat and
sauté the shallots, garlic, ginger, chillies and black beans until
shallots are transparent. Remove from the heat and set aside the wok.
3. To
prepare the crabs, rinse them under cold water. Turn the crabs upside
down and lift the flap, pulling away from the crab body to remove the
outer shell. Cut the crab in half and remove the gills, cut into
quarters and rinse the crab under cold water and pat dry with paper
towel. Clean and rinse the removed crab shell and cook with the crab
pieces for decoration.
4. Return the wok to a high heat and
add the crab pieces to the wok with the shallots, garlic, ginger and
black beans, toss well. Cover the wok and cook for 5–7 minutes, tossing
occasionally, until the crab shells have begun to turn bright orange.
5. Add
the tomatoes,
Chilli jam, palm sugar, fish sauce, tomato paste and
fish stock. Bring to a simmer and cook the crab for another 5–10 minutes
or until the crab is cooked through. If you would like the sauce
thicker, remove the crab pieces from the wok, cover with foil and keep
warm, simmer the sauce until it has thickened then return the crab to
the wok, toss through the sauce.
6. Sprinkle with shallots and coriander. Serve immediately with rice or warmed roti.
food dept fact: We
have used blue swimmer crabs in this recipe as they are less daunting
for some to handle, rather than a live mud crab. But if you are feeling
game, mud crab is just as sensational as the blue swimmer. Talk to your
fish monger about storing the mud crab until you are ready to use it,
then pop the mud crab into the freezer for 30 minutes to put it to
‘sleep’. Plunge the crab into a large pot of boiling water and simmer
for approximately 5 minutes, until the shell has completely changed
colour. Clean and prepare the same as the blue swimmer but you will need
to give those big claws a crack with a meat mallet before you add them
to the sauce, continue to cook as you would the blue swimmers. You could
also use large prawns in their shells, lobster tails, scampi, Balmain
bugs or a combination of them all. Salted black beans are available in
an Asian grocer.
Vietnamese chilli beef and noodle soup
Mmmm, let the aroma of this warming soup fill up your kitchen at dinnertime. Traditionally the base for Vietnamese Pho is home made stock – so we decided to opt
for a simpler version by using store bought quality beef stock instead of
making our own stock. This spicy soup has all the Asian
flavours you desire and is also a meal in itself.
Mild
Serves 4
• 1 onion, halved, skin on
• 4 cloves garlic, skin on
• 5cm piece ginger, unpeeled
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 4 cloves
• ½ cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise
• 1 dried red chilli
• 1 black cardamom pod (optional)
• 2 litres quality beef stock
• 500g tail piece, beef, eye fillet
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 20g rock sugar or 1 tablespoon sugar
• 375g dried rice noodles
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 2 birds eye chillies, seeded and julienned
• 1 cup coriander sprigs
• 1 cup Vietnamese mint sprigs
• 2 limes cut into wedges
• Asian chilli sauce (sriracha) and hoisin sauce, to serve (optional)
1. Place the
onion, garlic and ginger in a dry frying pan over a medium heat and
cook for 7–10 minutes on each side until charred. Peel the onion garlic
and ginger to remove the charred skin, roughly
chop and place into a stockpot.
2. Place the
spices into the same dry pan and toss for 2–3 minutes to roast the
spices. Gently crush the spices in the pan with a pestle while cooking
to release the flavours, add to the stockpot.
3. Cover the charred ingredients and spices with the beef stock and simmer for 10-15 minutes to infuse the stock.
4. Place
beef fillet into the freezer and allow to partially freeze for 20
minutes, once firm, slice very finely across the grain of the fillet and
lay onto a tray until ready to use.
5. Strain the stock and return to the pot, bring to the boil. Season with the fish sauce and sugar.
6. Prepare the rice noodles as per the instruction on the packet. Drain well.
7. Place
half of the beef evenly between 4 deep soup bowls and top with noodles.
Divide the remaining beef slices between the bowls on top of the
noodles.
8. Ladle over the boiling broth and serve alongside a platter of bean sprouts, chillies, herbs, lime wedges and sauces.
food dept fact: We have used black cardamom seeds to
infuse the stock with a delicious smoky flavour. They are very different
to green cardamom and if you can’t get them at your Asian grocer just
leave them out,
don’t
substitute the green ones.
Pan-fried pork and chilli dumplings with chilli infused red vinegar
These make great party nibbles. Serve them on a
platter with the dipping sauce or serve them individually on ceramic
Chinese soupspoons, drizzle each with a little sauce.
Mild
Makes approximately 48
• 500g pork mince
• ½ cup chopped garlic chives
• 2 tablespoons soy
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons finely julienned ginger
• 1 tablespoon Chilli jam
• 2 small red chillies, seeded and finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon corn flour
• 2 packets round dumpling wrappers
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• ¾ cup water
• ¼ cup Chinese red vinegar
• 1 large red chilli, finely sliced on the diagonal
• • black sesame seeds, to garnish
1. In a
large mixing bowl combine the pork mince, garlic chives, soy, sesame
oil, ginger, chilli jam, chopped chilli, and cornflour. Mix well.
2. To make
the dumplings place a dumpling wrapper in the palm of one hand and brush
around the entire edge lightly with water.
3. Place a
teaspoonful of the pork mixture onto the centre of each wrapper and fold
the wrapper in half to enclose the pork. Pleat and seal the top layer
of the wrapper 3 times towards the centre on
each side of the dumpling. Pleating only the top layer of the wrapper
will cause the dumpling to get that crescent shape. Press the sides
together firmly and place on a lined tray. Lightly cover to prevent the
wrappers from drying out and refrigerate until
ready to cook. These can be assembled several hours before they are
needed.
4. Heat a
large non-stick frying pan with a tight fitting lid, over a medium heat.
Add the oil and arrange all of the dumplings over the base of the pan.
fry for 1-2 minutes or until the wrappers are
golden on the base only.
5. Pour over
¾ cup of water or just enough to come 1/3 of the way up the side of the
dumpling. Cover tightly with the lid and cook for 6-8 minutes.
6. Remove the lid and cook for another 1–2 minutes to evaporate any remaining water.
7. Combine
the Chinese vinegar with the sliced chilli and serve alongside the
dumplings. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds and serve immediately.
food dept fact: The raw dumplings can be frozen for
up to 1 month. Cook the frozen dumplings while still frozen and allow an
extra 5 minutes with the lid on to ensure they dumplings are cooked
through.
