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.

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.

Chinese Steamed Flower Buns with Spring Onion (Hua Juan Bao)

Whilst you don't get much baked bread in China steamed buns are everywhere.  The southern Chinese may live off rice but up north wheat is their staple and that can just as much come from these buns as it could noodles.  They're a home cooked side dish or a bought on the street breakfast or snack.

Early in the morning in Chinese towns two foot wide steamers sit stacked ten tall and for Mandarin challenged travellers like ourselves it was always potluck as to what our pointing would bring.  Sometimes the first bite would reveal juicy pork, fragrant with ginger or garlic, and other less lucky mornings our efforts would bring nothing but bread dough, a plain white roll lacking even the variation the crust would provide back home. 

Whilst a meat filling was the holy grail I was also more than happy with these twisted delights.  With these flower buns (hua juan bao) not only do the spring onions provide a lovely sweet flavour but the oiling and shaping leaves a tangle of layers that you can peel apart and savour.

Chinese Steamed Flower Buns with Spring Onion (Hua Juan Bao)

Makes 6

200gr typo 00 flour or Chinese bun flour

100gr water

15gr white sugar

3/4 ts yeast

1/2 ts salt

Flavourless oil (sunflower/peanut/?) for brushing dough

The greens from 2 or 3 spring onions, finely chopped

Method

As this dough is going to be steamed, so adding moisture, you need to start with a pretty dry and stiff dough, none of the high water content doughs I've come to know and love in my baking.

To make simply mix all the dry ingredients then add the water and mix into a stiff dough.  Cover and leave for a few minutes then embark on the kneading.  It's not a lot of fun when the dough is this stiff but 5 minutes should leave you something reasonably smooth.  Place in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave till doubled in size, somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour I imagine.

Now comes the fun part. You need to roll the dough out to something about 20cmx25cm. Once this is done brush with oil and sprinkle with the spring onion. Now roll into a Swiss roll shape (parallel to the short edge) and cut into 6. Take one and give it a squeeze in you hand, so it's longer and thinner, then fold in half, twisting as you go and bring the two spiral ends around so they are facing towards you.  Place on the work top and push a chopstick down into it, once along the fold you've just made and then at 90 degrees to it.  Cut some squares of greaseproof paper, about 5cmx5cm, and place a flower bun on each.  Stick in a steamer (I did 3 per steamer), cover and leave to rise for another 30-45 minutes.

If that's not clear then hopefully these pictures will help.

Once they have risen a bit (don't worry if they haven't doubled they will rise a lot during steaming) steam for 15 - 20 minutes.

For maximum enjoyment eat whilst still warm.

Eating in Cambodia's Rice Basket

There's nothing like a bit of genocide to work up an appetite (or it could just be that we'd not eaten for about 8 hours) so after visiting the killing cave just south of Battambang we went for a wander in search of something to nibble on while we waited for 5pm and the arrival of the bats.  Even though it's a mini tourist destination the area was fantastically rural, surrounded by palm tree studded rice paddies (Battambang is known as the rice basket of Cambodia) and the roads only managing potholed mud status.  In such surroundings I wasn't expecting much but we ended up with three delicacies, two I'd seen before but not got around to eating and one entirely new one. 


The first we sampled was fermented pork.  I'm not sure how they ferment it but however they do it leaves you with a pink paste, wrapped in banana leaf, that doesn't need to be fridged.  We'd had it before in Vietnam where it's a common snack with beer, we'd never had it with these accompaniments though.  Here the modus operandi was to take a crisp white cabbage leaf then add some herbs (holy basil amongst others), some cold rice vermicelli and a piece of the pork, this is then rolled up and dipped in fish sauce and chili.  It's a heavy hitter in both taste and texture.  Crisp lettuce gives way to soft vermicelli and the slightly rubbery pork.  The strong raw cabbage taste competes with the herbs and sour pork, not to mention fish sauce and chili.  It's by no means delicate but it works really well.


The second was barbecued eggs.  I'd seen these all over Thailand and Cambodia and had assumed they hardboiled eggs and then skewered them, giving some barbecue time to add smokiness.  They turned out to be far more complex.  The eggs have a small hole in them and are then shaken out and the egg beaten with salt, sugar, black pepper and MSG (we had a chat with our guide about them) before being poured back into the shell and steamed till set.  These are then threaded onto skewers and given the aforementioned barbecuing.  What you're left with is a slightly smokey egg custards that you scoop out and dip into chili.

The final part of the trilogy was a new one to us and even as we saw it sat there we weren't sure what we were getting.  It was something battered - obviously, but what was in the batter?  Much to our surprise the batter contained slices of baguette, the batter itself being spiced in nature.  The meal was completed with sweet, sticky chili sauce.  It was as good as fried things in batter dipped in chili sauce usually are.

Hunger sated we returned to our mopeds and guides just in time to get a beer in before the bats arrived, not that we needed to hurry because after 20 minutes the bats were still leaving as thick and fast as they had done at the start and we'd told they'd carry on for another 40 minutes at the same rate.

The Street Food of Cambodia - Barbecued Frog

Name: Barbecued Frog

Time of Day: Late afternoon through evening

Location: All over Cambodia, these were in Battambang

Cost: 2000 riel (about 35p)

The Rest: Frogs are popular all over Asia and none more so though in Cambodia, where much to my delight they skin them (I'm still haunted by a Chinese dish that was just lumps of frog - body, hands and all - still covered with the amphibian skin).  The markets of Cambodia are full of freshly killed and skinned frogs whose bodies seem completely oblivious to those two facts and carry on hopping around in a pointless bid for freedom.  On the streets you see them deep fried in an orange batter, which never appealed too much, and in this form, splayed and stuffed.  I'd saw these last time I was in Cambodia but failed to eat them and wasn't going to make that mistake again. 

If I had to guess what the stuffing was I'd have said it would be minced pork but the first bite revealed I was mistaken as it was of an entirely plant based nature, consisting of crushed peanuts and lots of lemongrass.  The frog itself was juicy and slightly sweet from the red coating and wonderfully smokey.  I'm not sure if I was starving when I ate it but I found the whole thing utterly moreish and scraped every bone till it was clean.

A highly recommended snack.