This recipe combines two. The first is Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's wonderful recipe for Soy Sauce Chicken (See Yau Gai), on pages 58-59 of The Chinese Chicken Cookbook, which is the basis for our lo soi ("old water" or mother sauce). The second consists of the section on "master sauce" on page 739 in Gloria Bey Miller's classic Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook, which contains this very recipe in a bare bones style.
You will need a heavy braising pot that the leg of lamb will fit comfortably into.
1. Bring about 6 cups of your lo soi to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Sear a leg of lamb on al sides in hot oil.
3. Add the leg of lamb to the lo soi and bring to a low simmer. The lo soi should come far up the sides of the leg of lamb, but not over the top of it.
4. Cover and simmer until the lamb is very, very tender. The total time will depend on how big the leg of lamb is, but 2-3 hours should be about average. Turn the leg of lamb in the sauce at least once an hour.
5. Serve hot, warm or cold, with steamed rice and put a little (hot) sauce on both the lamb and the rice (but keep most of the sauce to use again).
6. After the meal, strain the sauce and freeze.
-- Note: I strongly suspect that you can braise the seared lamb leg and lo soi in a 180C/300F oven to good effect. I think it would take longer to cook, but I don't know how long.
Making Lo Soi
First you need to have made lo soi. This simmering sauce gets better and better the longer you keep it and use it.
Soy Sauce Chicken (makes a great dinner and your original lo soi base)
Very slightly modified from: The Chinese Chicken Cookbook (Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)
6 cups chicken stock
3 cinnamon sticks
4 whole star anise
1 slice ginger, 2 inches long, lightly smashed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup mushroom soy sauce
1 cup dry sherry (or Shao-Hsing wine)
1 whole chicken (about 1.5 to 2 k.)
1. Put chicken stock, cinnamon, star anise, ginger and sugar in a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the mushroom soy and return to a boil. Lower the heat and allow the sauce to simmer for 20 minutes. Return the heat to high, add the sherry or wine and return to a boil.
2. Carefully put the chicken, breast side up, into the sauce and return to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Turn the chicken over, bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for another 20 minutes.
4. Turn off the heat and allow the chicken to rest in the liquid, covered, for an hour.
5. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board, cut in pieces, and serve with steamed rice and a little sauce.
-- In her Chinese Kitchen, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo has another recipe for lo soi which has 3/4 teaspoon of Sichuan peppecorns, 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds, a whole nutmeg, 8 pieces of licorice root, 4 pieces of galangal all wrapped in a cheesecloth packet as additional spicing. I haven't tried this one yet, but it comes from Chef Lui Sum Hon of Hong Kong, whose lo soi is over fifty years old, so it ought to be very good.
Keeping and Caring For Lo Soi:
1. After each use, strain the sauce into freezing containers and freeze.
2. When you are going to use it again, thaw the sauce in the containers and then skim the solid and congealed fat from the top of each container of sauce.
3. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer briefly before using it again.
4. From time to time add mushroom soy and sherry or wine (1/4 cup of each at a minimum) to top it up and refresh the taste - and, at longer intervals, ginger and spices.
5. Re-using, however, is what makes this sauce so good and finally makes it your own. You can cook chicken, duck, pork and beef as well as leg of lamb in the sauce. The flavour deepens and mellows with each use.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Eggplant Parmesan
Serves 6-8
This is a variation of the recipe published in Patricia Wells' Trattoria, which is somewhat like an eggplant lasagna or moussaka. I am pretty much reproducing a slightly rewritten version of her recipe and indicating in the step-by-step part what I did that was different.
Tomato Sauce
1/4 c olive oil
1 small onion, red or yellow
2 cloves of garlic
salt
1 k (2 lb) ripe tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped (see 1. below)
1. Well the first thing I did was to use tinned tomatoes. I used 4 x 400gr tins and I squeezed the tomatoes when I added them (see 2. below). I suppose I might have pureed cut up ripe tomatoes in the food processor and forced them through a food mill if we had had a lot of ripe tomatoes around. The trouble is that in the winter you don't, and in the summer it seems a pity not just to be eating those ripe tomatoes raw. Anyhow, the kind of tinned tomatoes I use are packed in a pretty thick tomato puree. I think this made the whole dish less liquid and that this was a good idea.
2. Heat oil, onion, garlic and salt over medium heat untl the onion is soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, squashing them in your fist. Stir to blend. Simmer uncovered until the sauce begins to thicken or whenever it seems right. Set aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 400.
The Rest of the Ingredients
1 k/2 lb eggplant, sliced thin lengthways (no peeling, no salting)
2 l/qt peanut oil for deep frying (Oh no, not on your life. See 1. below)
Salt
500 gr/1 lb mozzarella, thinly sliced (Bulph! See 1. below)
125 gr/1 c parmesan, grated
125 ml/1/2 c basil leaves, snipped (Oops! See 1. below)
1. Oh no, not on your life. Brown the eggplant slices in a skillet in olive oil (and/or tasteless oil). You want to get them brown and cooked through until each piece is pretty mushy. This can be done in the oven (at 425) with each slice brushed with oil on both sides if you like. Anyhow, in my version you can't say how much oil will be used except that it will be lot less than 2 quarts.
Bulph! That really seems like too much mozzarella. I used half that amount: 250 gr/1/2 lb.
Oops! Even though the basil was sitting there on the kitchen counter I forgot it. And you know what? The dish was great without it. This could have been because I had some very, very nice eggplant (small ones with purple and white striped skin), but it also could be that the basil is not really necessary.
2. Don't forget about preheating the oven.
3. Put the browned and cooked eggplant slices on a plate. Put the mozzarella slices on a plate. Get a scoop for the tomato sauce. Grate the parmesan (and snip the basil if you are using it) and reserve it too.
4. Get a rectangular dish about 23x33 cm/9x13 inches. I used a glass one (as one would for lasagna or moussaka). Put some sauce, not a lot, on the bottom. Place one-third of the fried eggplant slices side by side over the sauce. Put a thin (?) layer of sauce on the eggplant. Cover with slices of mozzarella, using about half of the cheese. Continue with another layer of eggplant, a layer of sauce and about half of the parmesan. Last layer is remaining eggplant, sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. Fresh basil on top.
5. I did not use all the tomato sauce I had made. Instead I used my judgment about how much would be right and saved some tomato sauce to freeze for Diane (about a cup).
6. Bake until cheese is melted and everything bubbles, about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and serve warm or room temp, but not cold. There is a lot of liquid, at least in Well's original version, but somewhat less as I made it. I read somewhere else that letting stuff like this stand for ten or so minutes was a good idea, so I did.
Some Additional Notes
1. Wells has a box in her book about not salting or peeling eggplant. She thinks that salting is for taking away "the bitter taste", in which case she is right: it doesn't work.
2. Wells says not to refrigerate the final dish because refrigeration changes the textures in it. I think she is probably right about that too.
3. We had this with a simple salad with a blue cheese dressing, and we all agreed that for some reason or another the flavour combination was perfect.
This is a variation of the recipe published in Patricia Wells' Trattoria, which is somewhat like an eggplant lasagna or moussaka. I am pretty much reproducing a slightly rewritten version of her recipe and indicating in the step-by-step part what I did that was different.
Tomato Sauce
1/4 c olive oil
1 small onion, red or yellow
2 cloves of garlic
salt
1 k (2 lb) ripe tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped (see 1. below)
1. Well the first thing I did was to use tinned tomatoes. I used 4 x 400gr tins and I squeezed the tomatoes when I added them (see 2. below). I suppose I might have pureed cut up ripe tomatoes in the food processor and forced them through a food mill if we had had a lot of ripe tomatoes around. The trouble is that in the winter you don't, and in the summer it seems a pity not just to be eating those ripe tomatoes raw. Anyhow, the kind of tinned tomatoes I use are packed in a pretty thick tomato puree. I think this made the whole dish less liquid and that this was a good idea.
2. Heat oil, onion, garlic and salt over medium heat untl the onion is soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, squashing them in your fist. Stir to blend. Simmer uncovered until the sauce begins to thicken or whenever it seems right. Set aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 400.
The Rest of the Ingredients
1 k/2 lb eggplant, sliced thin lengthways (no peeling, no salting)
2 l/qt peanut oil for deep frying (Oh no, not on your life. See 1. below)
Salt
500 gr/1 lb mozzarella, thinly sliced (Bulph! See 1. below)
125 gr/1 c parmesan, grated
125 ml/1/2 c basil leaves, snipped (Oops! See 1. below)
1. Oh no, not on your life. Brown the eggplant slices in a skillet in olive oil (and/or tasteless oil). You want to get them brown and cooked through until each piece is pretty mushy. This can be done in the oven (at 425) with each slice brushed with oil on both sides if you like. Anyhow, in my version you can't say how much oil will be used except that it will be lot less than 2 quarts.
Bulph! That really seems like too much mozzarella. I used half that amount: 250 gr/1/2 lb.
Oops! Even though the basil was sitting there on the kitchen counter I forgot it. And you know what? The dish was great without it. This could have been because I had some very, very nice eggplant (small ones with purple and white striped skin), but it also could be that the basil is not really necessary.
2. Don't forget about preheating the oven.
3. Put the browned and cooked eggplant slices on a plate. Put the mozzarella slices on a plate. Get a scoop for the tomato sauce. Grate the parmesan (and snip the basil if you are using it) and reserve it too.
4. Get a rectangular dish about 23x33 cm/9x13 inches. I used a glass one (as one would for lasagna or moussaka). Put some sauce, not a lot, on the bottom. Place one-third of the fried eggplant slices side by side over the sauce. Put a thin (?) layer of sauce on the eggplant. Cover with slices of mozzarella, using about half of the cheese. Continue with another layer of eggplant, a layer of sauce and about half of the parmesan. Last layer is remaining eggplant, sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. Fresh basil on top.
5. I did not use all the tomato sauce I had made. Instead I used my judgment about how much would be right and saved some tomato sauce to freeze for Diane (about a cup).
6. Bake until cheese is melted and everything bubbles, about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and serve warm or room temp, but not cold. There is a lot of liquid, at least in Well's original version, but somewhat less as I made it. I read somewhere else that letting stuff like this stand for ten or so minutes was a good idea, so I did.
Some Additional Notes
1. Wells has a box in her book about not salting or peeling eggplant. She thinks that salting is for taking away "the bitter taste", in which case she is right: it doesn't work.
2. Wells says not to refrigerate the final dish because refrigeration changes the textures in it. I think she is probably right about that too.
3. We had this with a simple salad with a blue cheese dressing, and we all agreed that for some reason or another the flavour combination was perfect.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Meatballs
1 egg
1 cup bread crumbs
2 tbs parsely, chopped
2 tbs fresh oregano, chopped (2 tsp dried)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp sea salt (yeah, right)
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 lb lean ground turkey
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
Preheat oven to 400 F.
In a large bowl nux egg and breadcrumbs. Add herbs and seasonings and mix well. Add turkey and onion and mix well. Shape into small meatballs and place on an greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.
Makes at least 24, but depends on what size you make them.
1 cup bread crumbs
2 tbs parsely, chopped
2 tbs fresh oregano, chopped (2 tsp dried)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp sea salt (yeah, right)
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 lb lean ground turkey
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
Preheat oven to 400 F.
In a large bowl nux egg and breadcrumbs. Add herbs and seasonings and mix well. Add turkey and onion and mix well. Shape into small meatballs and place on an greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.
Makes at least 24, but depends on what size you make them.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)