"Lotus Eat"

Yesterday I tried my hand at steaming Chicken and rice wrapped up in Lotus leaves.

I got the recipe from my Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.


The first thing to do is soak the dried lotus leaves in hot water for about 5 minutes.

The chicken was cut into large slices and then marinated with some thinly sliced pork belly in Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce, freshly chopped ginger and scallions.

Some long grain and glutinous rices were toasted in a dry wok with some star anise until they were brittle and yellow. The smell was amazing!

The meat and rice were mixed together with a little water, divided up among the lotus leaves and wrapped into neat parcels.

The parcels were steamed for 30-40 minutes. When they were done they were served with a stir-fry of baby shanghai bok-choy, lotus root, enoki mushrooms and scallions.

The aroma when you unwrap the parcels is wonderful, it really gets your salivary glands going!
I will definitely make this again, but I will use smaller pieces of chicken (like they did in the restaurant) and will add some shrimp too.

There is also a different lotus leaf recipe for me to try in my Land of Plenty cookbook.

Desert was some custard buns; delicious steamed buns that have some sweet custard in their middles. YUMMY!

I flossed today

I'm super excited to have found pork floss at the Cleveland Asia Market today.

It is dried pork meat that has then been shredded into floss like texture. It has a lovely rich flavour.

I used some for lunch with my congee. I also had it with some roasted unsalted peanuts and kimchee.

It was delicious!

Tonight I'm going to try making sticky rice and chicken steamed in lotus leaves. It's one of Joshua's favourite foods from the Chinese restaurant we frequented in Omaha and I now have a recipe from one of my cookbooks.

I LOVE Chinese food...

.... and I'm not talking about 'American Chinese' food (General Tso's, Sweet n sour chicken, beef lo mein). I'm talking about the authentic Chinese food, that Chinese people eat in China.

The Chinese food I have been cooking is from Chinese cook books full of recipes straight from China and full of ingredients that I can only find at the Chinese market. AND IT HAS ALL BEEN DELICIOUS. I'm sure to a native of China it probably doesn't taste quite authentic, but I feel confident that it's pretty close!

I am currently on vacation in Las Vegas. I drove here from Cleveland, which is a 33 hour drive away and obviously haven't been doing any cooking during this time. And my tummy has been suffering!!!!

So yesterday I was super excited to find that the Bellagio has a restaurant called Noodles that serves some good authentic Chinese food (as well as some of the expected American Chinese dishes and other dishes from Japan and Korea). I had congee for lunch yesterday, congee again for lunch today (with edamame and kim-chee) and a wonton soup tonight for  dinner, which had shrimp dumplings that were to die for. And my tummy is already feeling a lot better.

Yummy congee:

Here is a photo of tonights soup:

I LOVE CHINESE FOOD!!!

Pita patter

Yesterday I decided to try making my own pita breads.

They turned out ok, but a bit thicker than I would have liked.

3 cups of flour were mixed with 1 1/2tsp salt, 2tbsp olive oil, a packet of dry fast action yeast and 1 1/2 cups of water.

After sitting for 90 minutes the dough was split into 8ths and allowed to rise for another 20 minutes. These balls were then rolled out (too thickly!) and baked at 420F for 10 minutes, flipping over after 5.

Good taste, but too thick.

I served the bread with an olive, tomato, mozzarella, avocado and basil salad.

 We also had some homemade lamb and chicken kebabs hot off the outside grill. I had marinated the lamb and chicken in cumin, paprika and Cavender's greek seasoning.

Put it together and whaddya got? Bibbity bobbity yummy pita pockets boo.

Writing a Wee Bit Regarding Red Wine...

... try saying THAT quickly 10 times after a few glasses!!

Ok, so I'm writing this blog entry in hopes that a reader will be able to help :)

I am a fan of red wine. In the past I have particulary enjoyed big mouthy reds, the ones that punch you in the face with their tannins and yell "TASTE MY DEPTH" at you.

But recently they've become too much. Especially some of the new world wines, they are too fruity, almost candy-like.

Last June while we were in Vegas we stopped at a place in The Venetian to have some wine with meats and cheeses. I had a glass of a 2008 Mongrana. At first I was not at all impressed; it had very little tannins and the mouth feel of warm water.

BLEURGH! was my initial response...... until...... it really allowed the cured meats and smelly cheeses to shine!

Ever since that night I've been looking for something similar (can't find Mongrana in stores for the life of me). Malbecs just don't cut it anymore. They remind me of a cupcake with too much frosting in a glass!

I've tried Beaujolais: that was great on the tannins, but had an acidity that hung around afterwards.

Tonight I headed to Whole Foods and asked the lady working in the wine section for some suggestions. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about and she gave me some samples to try. She was spot on with the tannins, but the acidity was still too much.

Anyway, after about 10 minutes with her I decided on a Pinot Noir from Oregon. I told her that I had been told somewhere else to stay away from New World wines (not because they are bad, but because they're not what I'm looking for in a wine). She was able to tell me that due to the climate in Oregon it won't have the same candy-ness. I didn't sample this wine, so who knows how it'll taste.

So here is the bottle (and 2 super cute dogs):

Time to open the bottle....

Yay!!! It's delicious! Smooth, round, not too sweet, very little acidity!!!! :D

But please readers, if you have any suggestions of other wines I should try (with the characteristics I'm looking for) please let me know!

And here is a photo of the best wine ever. It also helps that I had great company too, Matt and I had some wonderful conversation that evening :)

I'm super excited that I get to go to Las Vegas again for my birthday :D I bet they won't still have the Mongrana, but I'll enjoy going back to that restaurant anyway :)

Noodley Noo

Matt often calls me Noodley Noo :)

Earlier today I made my  congee. At the same time I figured I'd make a start on dinner too.

For dinner I made Changde Rice Noodles with Red-Braised Beef.

The beef had to cook for 4 hours, so that's why I started it around lunchtime.

Stewing beef was put in a saucepan of water and then brought to boiling point. I had to skim off the scum as it came to the surface. As soon as the water started boiling I removed the beef and set it aside.
In a large pan I heated some peanut oil and then fried some dried chili peppers, star anise and ginger in some chili bean paste. Yummy smells indeed!

I then threw the beef back in and covered it all with water that had boiled with the meat. I then left it on a low burner for about 4.5 hours.

When I was ready to eat I quickly blanched some baby bok choy, heated some rice noodles and chicken stock.

Beef + noodles + stock + a sprinkling of green onion = one delicious dinner! The meat was sooooo tender, it melted in the mouth. Matt would have loved it!

The picture doesn't really do it any justice. But the flavour of beef was splendid, it had absorbed the flavours from the sauce it was cooked in and had a nice kick to it. I think next time I will try and thicken the sauce up a bit just before serving. Today I didn't really serve any of the sauce as it was too watery, I just took the meat.

Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow :) I'll probably have the beef with the congee!

Congee For The Soul

I have a dodgy tummy at the moment.

However, I saw it as a good chance to try my hand at making congee, the chinese equivalent of Chicken Noodle Soup. It's supposed to have restorative properties and can be eaten plain, or highly seasoned and with a variety of meats.
I chose to make a plain version and add some freshly boiled egg.

It's super easy to make although it does take a while, so not as easy as cracking open can of campbells.

1 cup of rice was cooked in 2 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water. Start cooking on a high heat until the water starts boiling, then turn it down to low. Apparently the longer it cooks the better, it allows the rice to break down more. Mine cooked for about 2 hours.

You can make it as thick or as runny as you like. If it's getting too dry for you, just add some boiling water.

Here is a shot of my final product.

It was delicious! It's a good job I like it, that one cup of rice made about 8 cups of congee.... I had best go search the internet to see if congee freezes well!