Cooking The Books

Bak Kwa/Rou Gan - The Other Chinese Barbecued Pork

I've not been blogging too much recently, trying to save my posts for recipes that are really worthy of publishing.  I finally found one in this wonderful dish and then, literally as it was in the fridge marinating, fellow blogger and recent acquaintance From Chopstix to Steaknives goes and blogs the exact same recipe.  It seems I'm not the only one with obscure little Malaysian cookbooks to pilfer recipes from and post on the web.

After cooking and eating and the girlfriend describing it as 'the best thing you've cooked since I've known you' (which spans 8 years) I have to go through with the post though.  Also the cookbook calls for the meat to be dried in the sun till at 70% weight before being barbecued and as both us bloggers are currently London based, and January London based at that, we've had to figure out our own ways to cook it, which differ.  It's up to you to see which one you prefer.

I first encountered this pork in Singapore where the street vendors quickly cook the thin sheets over charcoal.  The sugar caramelises, combining with the smoke and fat into a most enticing aroma that lingers in the air.  The same pork is all over Kuala Lumpur too, where a yellow and red fronted chain sells it both fresh and in packs, even down to little individually wrapped bite-size pieces. I discovered very quickly that this sweet, salty and chewy pork is very much like crack in its addictiveness, big bags disappeared as if there was a whole in the bottom.  Searching the floor it was clear the only place it had fallen was down my throat though. 

For some reason I'd never thought about making it until last week when I looked through said cookbook and the recipe sat before me.  Whilst I couldn't dry it in the sun I thought a low oven may help and so cracked on.  I'm glad I did as it somehow hardly suffers from the lack of cooking over charcoal, first bite and I was instantly back in KL, even down to the lovely cool air-conditioning - although that may well just have been London in January.

Bak Kwa - Chinese Barbecued Pork - Recipe

Makes 8 pieces, so you probably want to double or triple the recipe

300gr pork mince

90gr caster sugar

1/2 TB fish sauce

Scant 1/2 TB oyster sauce

Pinch of bicarb of soda

1/2 ts light soy

1 TB rice wine

Method

Mix all the ingredients and leave in the fridge overnight.

Cut a sheet of greaseproof paper to fit in a standard (35cm-ish wide) baking tray then place the pork on top, patting out well with your hands.  Lay a sheet of clingfilm on top then roll the pork out with a rolling pin until it is maybe 5mm thick, at which point it should pretty much cover the paper.

Slide the paper onto the baking tray and dry the pork in an 80C fan-oven for 45 minutes.

Remove, cut the pork into 8 and then place on the rack of a grill pan, so air can circulate around it for the final cooking.

Turn the oven up to 200C and cook the pork for 10 - 12 minutes, turning once, until is reddish-brown and starting to char around the edges.

Leave to cool for a few minutes then demolish in its entirety in 5 minutes flat.

Korean Fried Chicken

I adore fried chicken, whether it's nuggets of chicken 65, a leg or two chopped up on a mee goreng in Malaysia or even a KFC (sorry chickens). I think the crisp coating is the perfect way to pep up what can be an underwhelming meat. With fried chicken the light flavour of the bird works perfectly, adding the texture that all meat eaters love whilst allowing whatever is on the outside to shine, and let's admit it - the coating is the high point.

With this in mind when I heard of the double-frying method of Korean Fried Chicken - the first rendering fat from the skin, the second crisping up - that left the skin delicate and thin and with crunch that didn't go, I had to find a recipe and give it a try.  Add to this a fiery sauce, packed with flavour from the fermentation of the chilli, and it stayed on the to-do list for far less time than most dishes.  I read a few American websites, where it seems to be a popular dish, and played with them until I got this, whether it's traditional I don't know but it is damn tasty.

There's one slightly awkward to get ingredient in this and that is the aforementioned Korean fermented chili sauce, or gochujang, and unfortunately it's the main ingredient in the sauce.  It was easy enough to find in London though (in the Korean section upstairs in Gerrard Street's New Loon Moon), or you can buy it online and according to this you can even make it.  It really is worth trying to get some as the flavour is quite distinctive, although if you're more fussed about trying the crunch than the sauce I guess you could try using sriracha instead but the taste won't be the same. Alternatively just cook the wings using this method and dip them in whatever sauce you fancy.

Korean Fried Chicken

1kg - 1.25kg of chicken wings

Plain flour to dust

Batter

1/2 cup plain flour

1 TB cornflour

1 cup water

1/2 ts salt

Sauce

1.5 to 2 TB gochujang

1 TB light soy sauce

1 ts sesame oil

2 ts rice vinegar

1 ts sugar

1 clove of garlic

Method

For the sauce grind the garlic to a paste with the back of a knife, a pinch of salt helps here.  Mix this with all the other sauce ingredients and you're done.

Next off you need to prepare the wings. I may make myself look like a bit of an idiot here but I always wondered where fried chicken shops got those tiny little drumsticks from, I thought the chickens they came from must have been tiddly to walk around on such stumpy legs.  It was only whilst preparing these that I realised they were part of the wing and suddenly the talk of Korean fried chicken aficionados ordering upper- or lower-wing made perfect sense.  If like me you've never prepared a chicken wing this photo may help, and it clears up the stumpy leg confusion too.

Once the wings are split you can chuck the tips, or save them for stock, then take the upper and lower wings and dust with flour, shaking well in a sieve to leave only the finest dusting.

Mix the batter ingredients into a thin batter then coat the wings in it, again shaking to remove excess - it's all about a delicate coating here.  Once this is done fry in 150C oil for 8 minutes.

Remove into a sieve and - you guessed it - shake vigorously to remove any lose bits, Korean chicken doesn't have the spare batter that southern fried chicken does.

Turn the heat up and let the oil reach 180C then fry the wings for another 3-4 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.

Remove the wings and drain well on kitchen paper then place into big bowl with the sauce, tossing until the wings are thinly coated all over.

Eat.

Rou Jia Mo - The Chinese Hamburger

Whilst this reminds me more of kebab than a hamburger it was billed by that name when our paths first crossed and so it's stuck with me.  I was in Xi'an at the time and, after dutifully learning the Chinese symbols for the dish and spying them on a window, the gf and I had popped into a tiny little restaurant to have some liang pi, a famous cold speciality of the region consisting of wide flat noodles with shredded cucumber, all dressed in a spicy and sharp vinegar, chilli and sesame paste dressing.  Whilst tucking into a lovely rendition of it I noticed that the purely Chinese writing of the place was punctuated by a single handwritten A4 page stuck on the wall, which proclaimed 'Chinese Hamburger 3.5RMB'.  Not wanting to miss out on such a thing with the point of a finger I took the 35p gamble and was presented with this most delectable dish.

The bread was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, more similar to a pitta bread than anything else I've had which, given Xi'an's large muslim population, makes perfect sense.  Inside though Islam's influence was definitely lost as it was stuffed with pork belly, stewed till meltingly tender then smashed up into the sauce, which was fragrant with the usual Chinese suspects of cinnamon and star anise.  It was absolutely gorgeous and I vowed to blog it as soon as I got back.  I may have failed miserably on the timing but I got there eventually.

Rou Jia Mo - The Chinese Hamburger

Makes 4

The Bread - Or Mo

200gr plain flour

120gr water

1 TB baking powder

1/2 ts salt

The Meat Filling

325gr pork belly, no skin.  The streaky rashers from supermarkets are ideal.

1 TB light soy

1 TB dark soy

1/2 ts sugar (I like the light brown stuff)

3" cassia bark/Chinese cinnamon

1 piece of dried tangerine peel, about half a tangerine's worth

1 star anise

Extras

Coriander

Chilli oil

Method

Mix the salt and baking powder into the flour then add the water to make a soft dough.  Knead for a couple of minutes to bring together then place in a bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rest for an hour or so.

Cut the pork into 1cm sticks through the layers (so 1cm x 1cm x thickness of the belly) and place in a saucepan with all the other filling ingredients.  Cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for an hour and a quarter until tender. Whilst cooking add water so it doesn't boil dry but you want the sauce to reduce a lot so don't add too much.

Cut the rested dough into quarters and shape each into a disc 7-8cm diameter and a little under a centimetre thick, do this on a floured work surface as it will be a little sticky.  Heat a large frying pan over a low to medium heat and then cook the bread (without oil) for 2.5 to 3 minutes a side, until golden in places and cooked through.

To Serve

Remove the pork and chop or crush into the sauce.

Split the bread, brush one side with chilli oil, top with a quarter of the pork and a good amount of coriander and tuck in.  It's pretty easy to knock down a couple of these per person.