kylie kwong's cripsy skin duck (for cny)

For the end of the Chinese New Year festivities, I wanted to go fancy and ridiculous, so I veganised Crispy Skin Duck with Blood Plum Sauce from Kylie Kwong's heart and soul book. It was so good. SO GOOD.

I especially wanted to go duck because CNY isn't the same without duck. When I went home for the first night of CNY this year, my fam and all the meat-eating family friends got to eat duck, and I don't want to miss out on that luck! (In CNY symbolism, duck means fidelity, but also duck in Australia is expensive so sometimes it's wealth via showing off)

I made a bunch of modifications, mostly because a) the shape of vegan cake, and b) I couldn't find blood plums anywhere that day. But I will definitely be making this again and again and again. I want to try it with a bit less liquid and turned into duck pancakes, and I want to eat it on its own, just like this again.

Also at this party: Cindy and Michael made lo bak go and peanut cookies.

ingredients

a vegan duck (i used a 800g one from the cruelty free shop)
1 tablespoon sichuan peppercorns
2 tablespoons salt
a bunch of plain flour
veggie oil

the sauce!
1 cup water
1 cup white sugar
250g ripe blood plums (I used oranges - kylie says the order is blood plums, blood oranges, oranges)
2/3 cup fish sauce (I use Vincent's vegan fish sauce) (I would use less of this next time - too liquidy)
6 whole star anise
2 cinnamon quills
juice of 2 squished limes

what to do

Grind together sichuan peppers and salt until it becomes a 麻辣 salt. Rub the salt into the duck, and leave to marinade in it for a few hours.

Bring water and sugar to the boil, reduce to simmer for five minutes. After it's reduced a little, add plums/oranges (quartered if plums, eighths if oranges), fish sauce, and spices and simmer for a few more minutes. Kylie says just to simmer for one minute but I wanted to reduce it a little more. Stir through the lime juice and take the whole thing off the heat.

Slice your duckie into fingers, and toss in flour. Heat vegetable oil in wok until a clean chopstick pressed to the bottom starts to bubble. (This is a family trick to tell if the oil is hot enough) Deep fry a few pieces at a time until they're crispy and looking good, then drain a little. Arrange prettily and spoon the sauce over it. Don't through it over in an ugly mess because you're in a hurry, as I was.

EAT IT.

an attempt at risotto

I haven't been able to find arborio rice here in China. I don't have my beautiful heavy-bottomed, perfect-for-risotto pot. Although I am perfectly happy to spend a long time cooking just for myself, I wasn't sure I could bring myself to spend an hour on my own stirring risotto in the hot, poorly lit kitchen. But my old uni friend S was passing through Beijing, and brought me a Chinese red wine that she promised was really good, and I thought maybe I could give it a go.

It turns out, despite all bottles of wine being sealed with corks in China (cork-corks, not plastic corks), cork screws are difficult to find. So I poked this one out with a chopsticks, into the wine, and decanted the remainder into a glass bottle I had lying around.

At the local supermarket I managed to find a short-grain rice, and though I'm not sure what it is it's definitely not arborio. I forked out quite a lot for some olive oil, and decided to make a mushroom and tomato risotto.



The risotto turned out softer than it should have, almost congee-like. I love mixing mushrooms, so I went for a couple of button mushrooms (delicious and familiar but fairly expensive here), and enoki mushrooms. I also caramelised half a red onion, and added a tomato in my usual risotto-y way, before heaping in the red wine and the stock.

It was a nice moment of familiarity, and I'm glad I had the wine to do it, and it was expensive compared to the other stuff I cook but not too pricy. But the congee-like consistency made it a little bit weird.

broccoli in my pasta

I feel all out of the habit of writing recipes. It's not that I'm not cooking, it's that what I can do in my kitchen is limited by the equipment and ingredients. Some equipment I'm used to I can buy, but I don't want to purchase only to leave it behind at the end of my twelve months; some equipment I just cannot find. Such as last night's disaster where I couldn't get this bottle of red open. In the end I used a chopstick and pushed it into the bottle, but frustrating was the knowledge that the person who gifted me with this bottle of red had also brought a corkscrew for me, and forgotten to give it to me.


Anyway, PASTA. It's a comfort food for me here in China. As I'm blogged before, it's hard for me to order because very few places in Beijing do a good pasta and they almost always, even if I ask for it without, come with cheese. But I cheat here in Beijing like I never would at home. I've posted a previous cheatery pasta, but this one I cook probably a bit more often. And it's a bit cheaper and easier to get the ingredients.

You know how to make pasta, you don't really need a recipe, but in case you're interested (it's kind of like cataloging what I can get in China):

coloured broccoli pasta

slice three button mushrooms, and fry in a little olive oil. add half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved, and saute until they start to soften. add some tomato pasta sauce, a little chilli flakes, and one or two cloves of garlic, and simmer on reduced heat for five minutes. in the meantime, cook 250 grams of coloured pasta, and when it's almost done, add one small head of broccoli that has been pulled apart. drain and mix it in with the pasta sauce and two or three or four tablespoons of nutritional yeast. the broccoli should be crisp and everything else should be squishy.

did I mention that in China, cherry tomatoes are considered a fruit, and found in the fruit section?

revolutionary tofu

At my workplace we have some very traditional food coming out of the kitchen, traditional in the sense of since the Cultural Revolution. A lot of the dishes we eat at work became common during the CR because they're fast, simple and nutritious, making use of the ingredients to hand and the conditions available. I plan to make a whole blog post about the food that gets dished up in the work cafeteria, which has been integral to introducing me to a whole lot of Northern Chinese food that I'm just completely unfamiliar with (being familially from a Southern province; and worse, being more immediately South-East Asian).

I've become a bit obsessed with this tofu dish, which made an appearance on my first trip to the cafeteria. I eagerly look forward to each reappearance, and finally I gave it a go recently. It's so simple it doesn't need a recipe, though I found a reference to it in The Cultural Revolution Cookbook, a cookbook I would seriously consider buying except it's still got a whole lot of meat in it.



sesame tofu with spring onion
recipe helped by the cultural revolution cookbook

This makes a great side dish or salad to a flavoursome meal. I've been eating it in winter but look forward to serving it as a summer salad. I know it sounds plain and boring (and the picture doesn't help) but the sesame oil does something magical to the tofu that makes it very moreish. You may want to adjust the amount of sesame oil you use depending on your tastes, and you could also sprinkle some sesame seeds on the top.

ingredients
1 x 300g block of firm tofu
1 or 2 stems of spring onion
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt

method: In the microwave, heat the tofu whole (and drained and rinsed) until it's pleasantly warm to the touch; should need no longer than a minute. Alternatively, soak the tofu in hot water for a minute or two. In the meantime, slice the spring onion small and on an angle, along the bias. Use the green and the white parts! Combine the sesame oil, spring onions and salt. Dice the tofu into chunks about half an inch across, and mix the oil through a little roughly - the tofu can break apart somewhat. Serve warm.

grilled vegetable pasta

One thing I don't get a whole lot of in Beijing is pasta - vegan pasta is difficult to come by in restaurants (though Veggie Table has a couple on the menu that I'd like to sample), and it can be hard to purchase dried pasta. A lot of the really big supermarkets stock a little, though, if they have a 'foreign' section, and of course there are my semi-regular visits to April Gourmet (a Western supermarket near my Chinese school).

Craving pasta, I recently put together this from things mostly picked up at April Gourmet: spirals, a tin of tomatoes, and a small takeaway container of grilled vegetables. It's pricy for a home-cooked meal (about 17Y for the pack of pasta, 15Y for the tomatoes, and 22Y for the veggies), but it was exactly what I wanted. Sometimes a little pasta when you're far away from home is what you really want.




grilled vegetable pasta

Super simple! Set enough pasta for two people on to boil. Slice half a spanish onion, and fry in a little olive oil. When it's softened, add some dried oregano and a little dried chilli, a minced garlic clove, and quickly follow it up with a tin of tomatoes, and leave to simmer for five minutes. Then add all your grilled vegetables, heat through, stir through some nutritional yeast, mix it through with the pasta and serve it all up.

It was worth it to cart that packet of nutritional yeast flakes all the way from Melbourne.

japchae

Being a big fan of sweet potato, not only did I order (and love) the japchae at Saveurs de Coree, but when I saw sweet potato noodles in the shops a few days later I immediately purchased a packet. And I have no regrets. Sweet potato noodles take a little longer than wheat noodles to cook, and I went really light on the sauces because I didn't want to overwhelm the awesomeness of any sweet potato that might make its way through.

This recipe is not strictly japchae. I should have added some mushrooms or something, and I didn't add a sweetner. But it was so good, and I am looking forward to trying this again soon.



japchae
serves two people

ingredients
200g dried sweet potato noodles
1 clove garlic, minced
1 carrot, julienned
a little bit of broccoli
little bit of chinese cabbage (just the leaves, cut tiny to wilt fast)
a dash of light soy sauce (or gf tamari)
a small amount of sesame oil (about a teaspoon or so)
some sesame seeds

method
Boil the noodles until they are delightfully soft, about five minutes or just over. Drain and cut (or cut in the wok, just know they come long and you have to cut them).

In a hot wok, add some cooking oil then throw in the garlic and the carrots. Fry about for a minute or two, then add some water and the broccoli and wombok, and put the lid on to steam. After the broccoli has gone beautiful and bright green, lower the heat and add the noodles, soy/tamari, and the sesame oil. Toss to combine, let them all cook together for a minute, and plate. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Delicious, fast, made from sweet potatoes. No regrets.

the first curry

My kitchen here is pretty limited, so I was a bit nervous about trying curry for the first time. I should not have worried, though: I don't think I've ever had a curry disaster, for I am a Curry Master. I made this one up as I went along, and had to use curry powder because I haven't been able to find turmeric, and red onions because I didn't have any shallots, and it still all came out okay.

I served this on noodles, because I don't have any rice.



pumpkin curry

ingredients
quarter of a red onion, diced tiny
inch of ginger, minced or shredded
little bit of garlic, minced
1 large tomato, diced large
300g pumpkin, diced larger still
some curry powder
some chilli flakes
some cumin
little bit of extra water

method
in a little oil, fry the onion until it starts to colour, then add the garlic and the ginger. after a minute or two, add the curry powder, chilli flakes and cumin, and fry until they become fragrant, then toss in the tomato and the pumpkin. allow the tomato to soften, and ensure it's mixed a bit with the pumpkin, then add in some water, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and cover, leaving to simmer for about half an hour. check on it every now and then, adding a little bit more water if it's soaked it all up. keep simmering and adding water until the pumpkin is nice and soft.

serve on rice or noodles or roti.

(i would pay a lot of money for roti right now)

stir-fried noodles + marinated tofu

An old standard, stir-frying some noodles with some vegetables and tofu. I've been eating a lot of this, and mostly cooking it Malaysian mee goreng style, because I get home quite late of an evening from work and it's so easy and fast to prepare, just whatever I have in the fridge. I made a special trip to the supermarket though, for five spice and firm tofu, and pan fried this (as I'm spending a year with no oven, alas). A combination of five spice, mushroom dark soy sauce, smidge of light soy and some fresh garlic, spooned over some thickly sliced tofu, which I left to marinate as I skyped to E for an hour.

Then I dirtied a lot of dishes: pot for the noodles; fry pan for the tofu; wok to bring it all together. You know the drill. I haven't marinated tofu since I left Australia and it was so good. I'm definitely going to try to do that more often.

eggy tomato / 炒鸡蛋西红柿

It never even occurred to me to veganise this very common Chinese dish until my housemate V started attempting to cook it just the way her mum does. Fried egg and tomatoes is common and cheap and fast, and is comprised almost entirely of tomato and eggs, but I decided it was possible and after a couple of attempts I have it all sorted. Since then I've made it several times. It's not exciting but it's easy and it contains some good things, and it's quick comfort food when I'm home late from work.

Don't talk to me about the photo below, I'm so used to the exceptional photographic conditions in my kitchen in Brunswick that I think I'm going to have to make some modifications to get my food photography anywhere up to where I need it to be for the eleven more months that I'm here.



vegan eggy tomato
comfort food

chop two large ripe tomatoes into thin wedges. in a fry pan, heat a large dollop of oil, throw in a tiny bit of minced garlic and then throw in the tomatoes. add a dash of water, and leave to fry for four or five minutes, until the tomatoes are seriously starting to wilt (but not fall apart). mash in 300g of silken tofu, and mix in a dash or three of light soy (or gf tamari for gf) and a tablespoon of nutritional yeast. leave it to simmer on high heat for two or three minutes. garnish with a little pepper or fresh spring onions if that takes your fancy. Makes a nice second or third dish in a meal, or you can eat it on its own with a spoon.