Slow Cooker Chinese Oxtail Stew (燜牛尾, Man1 Ngau4 Mei5)

This recipe was updated on 12 Sep 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This is a great dish for a Fall or Winter meal. One of my favorite ingredients, oxtails, were on sale and it’s hard to resist buying a favorite ingredient on sale. Oxtails are mainly bone, but are full of gelatin and together with tapioca starch, serves to thicken the sauce. The oxtails can either be browned in a wok or Dutch oven the night before.

Star anise and cassia bark are the main spices used in this dish. Cassia bark has a cinnamon-like flavor, but does taste slightly different than “normal” cinnamon, and is sold as dried cinnamon sticks at Asian markets. You can substitute regular cinnamon for cassia bark if you cannot find it. All the soak-out cooker ingredients (except for the ginger and garlic) can be found in the preserved/dried section of your local Asian market.

Tapioca starch is used to thicken the liquid and holds up well in a slow cooker. I originally got this information from America’s Test Kitchen and they use Minute Tapioca made by Kraft. I’ve used both the Minute Tapioca and plain tapioca starch to thicken liquids in a slow cooker, and both work equally as well. You can find Minute Tapioca in any grocery store and tapioca starch at your local Asian supermarket. The tapioca starch is much more inexpensive than the Minute Tapioca. Corn starch and other thickeners will break down and not thicken during the long cooking times in a slow cooker.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Cookie Crust

I don’t bake very often, but I was asked to bring a dessert to a Thanksgiving gathering. I like pumpkin pie, and since it was Thanksgiving, a pumpkin cheesecake sounded really good. I got inspiration from the Cranberry Orange Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust recipe at the For Two, Please website and the Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe by Ethan Howard, pastry chef at Cavallo Point, Sausalito that was published in the local newspaper. Well, the cheesecake turned out to be a hit!

The chocolate cookie crust uses chocolate cookies with a crème filling (the most famous brand in the USA being Oreo – but this is not an Oreo cookie recipe!). After separating the cookies from the crème filling, the filling is usually discarded (or eaten!). So I had the wild idea to use the filling in the crust to help bind the crushed cookie pieces together. Well, I tried it and it worked. Since the filling already has sugar in it, I didn’t add any sugar to the cookie crumbs. I did have to add some oil (or melted butter) since there wasn’t enough of the filling to bind all the crumbs together.

You need to make the cheesecake and the filling the night before you want to eat it, so plan ahead!

Enjoy!

Stir Fried Beef with Winter Melon (冬瓜炒牛肉, Dung1 Gwaa1 Caau2 Ngau4 Juk6)

 

This recipe was updated on 21 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Chinese winter melon is not a melon but a gourd with what looks like a white powder covering the outer surface. It’s usually available, eaten, and stored over the Fall and Winter months. It is typically used in soups, the classic being a soup with winter melon and dried oysters either with or without the winter melon’s outer skin. For this dish, the winter melon is stir fried with beef after the outer skin is removed and the flesh diced into large cubes. The trick is to quickly stir fry the winter melon so that it doesn’t become mushy.

Enjoy!

Beef Dough Sliced Chow Mein (牛肉炒刀削麵, Ngau4 Juk6 Caau2 Dou1 Soek3 Min6)

This recipe was changed on 21 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed. There is another variation of this recipe: Beef and Bell Pepper Dough Sliced Noodles (青椒牛肉刀削麵, Ceng¹ Ziu¹ Ngau⁴ Juk⁶ Dou¹ Soek³ Min⁶).

Here’s another recipe, using beef, for making chow mein with dough sliced noodles. Unlike the dish at the local Chinese Muslim restaurant, this version uses spicy black bean chili sauce. Dough sliced noodles are aptly named since the noodles are sliced from a block of dough. Another name for these noodles is “knife-cut noodles”. The noodles have a chewy doughy texture, unlike normal chow mein noodles. I always wondered how to get or make these noodles. Now I don’t have to go to a restaurant to get this dish since I found the dough sliced noodles in the freezer section at my local Asian market. The package contains 5 packs of noodles each weighing 200 grams (for a total of 1 kilogram). While the package says that you don’t have to thaw the noodles before cooking, I defrost my noodles overnight before use. Once I forgot to defrost the noodles, and I put the noodles in boiling water briefly to defrost them. The noodles definitely get defrosted, but the texture is not as chewy after being boiled. If you can’t find dough sliced noodles, you can substitute another flat noodle.

 

Enjoy!

Spicy Pork and Salted Fish with Long Beans (鹹魚豆角炒豬肉, Haam4 Jyu4 Dau6 Gok3 Caau2 Zyu1 Juk6)

This recipe was update on 24 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This is a variation on a spicy pork with long beans dish using salted fish. The salted fish adds pungency to the dish, so you only need one small piece. Long beans are a favorite vegetable of mine and differ from regular green beans in the most obvious way; they are really long in length. If you can’t find long beans at your favorite market, you can easily substitute regular green beans. A good amount of sauce is prepared with this dish, so the dish goes really well over steamed rice.

Enjoy!

Curry Tomato Beef Tripe (咖哩番茄牛柏葉, Gaa3 Lei1 Faan1 Ke4 Ngau4 Paak3 Jip6)

 

This recipe was updated on 25 Sep 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

For those of you unfamiliar with beef tripe, it’s cow stomach. Since a cow has multiple stomachs, there are various kinds of beef tripe, this one being the honeycomb. The tripe needs some preparation time, so you’ll need a minimum of 2 hours for prep. Baking soda serves to tenderize and clean the tripe – just be sure to wash it out before cooking. The tripe is boiled for 15-20 minutes and then cooled before cutting into strips. Since the tripe shrinks after being boiled, you don’t want to cut the strips beforehand. I made that mistake once and ended up with miniscule pieces of tripe. A tomato curry is one way to make a tripe dish. My other favorite is Black Bean Sauce Beef Tripe (豆豉牛柏葉, Dau⁶ Si⁶ Ngau⁴ Paak³ Jip⁶).

Enjoy!

Rock Cod with Salted Olives (Haam4 Gaam3 Laam5 Sek6 Baan1, 鹹橄欖石斑)

Any firm fleshed fish will work for this dish, and you can either buy fillets or fillet the fish yourself. In this case a rock cod (sek⁶ baan¹, 石斑) tail was available at the Asian market. Instead of using salted black beans (dau⁶ si⁶, 豆豉), I used salted olives (haam⁴ gaam³ laam⁵, 鹹橄欖), which gives the dish a different flavor. You need to chop and soak the salted olives before using them (but don’t soak for too long or you’ll lose the salted olive flavor).

Enjoy!