Bone Soup (湯, Tong1)

 

Soup stock is always made from bones, so the name of this dish is just my way of naming a most basic dish with a cute name. My sister and I were joking about growing up with a freezer half filled with bones to make soup stock. While there’s some truth to that, I don’t remember my parents ever having to buy bones in the market to make soup. As dishes were prepared, rather than being discarded, the bones were saved in the freezer. So unless you specifically want to make a particular soup (e.g. pork soup), you just use the collection of bones from the freezer to make soup.

I have the same habit of saving my bones in the freezer and then using them to make soup. So this recipe doesn’t produce the clear broth that is characteristic of a single species stock (e.g. using just chicken bones to make a clear stock), but is a rich collection of proteins leached from a variety of bones that are boiled together with some ginger and garlic. Now I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it’s an apt description of making soup stock.

When making the soup stock, scum and oil from the bones will float to the top of the liquid. You can be obsessive and remove scum and oil as it rises while the pot comes to a boil, but I’ve found that you can wait until the soup stock boils in a covered pot and then remove the scum and oil. As a result of removing the scum and oil, the level of the liquid will go down in the pot. I just add some boiling water to restore the level of the liquid in the pot, so make sure that you have some boiled water available in a water kettle. As the soup stock cooks, the level of the liquid might also go down, so this method can also be used to restore the level of liquid in the pot. Not a lot of boiling water in total gets added, so taste of the soup stock is not affected.

I don’t add any salt when making the soup stock. Salt can be added, if necessary, when cooking the ultimate dish in which the bone soup will serve as the stock. Some salt comes from the preserved mustard stalk, actually half a stalk, which I use to make the bone soup. The addition of the preserved mustard is my way of introducing a slight sweetness to the stock and no one will ever know that the ingredient was ever used. I guess it’s my secret for making tasty soup (well, not anymore). I used to use a whole stalk when making soup stock (there are two stalks per package), but the center of the stalk never got cooked through. Cutting a stalk lengthwise and using half a stalk, the mustard green gets cooked thoroughly and the taste of the soup stock is the same.

Enjoy!

Sourdough Cranberry Linguica Oyster Stuffing

 

For the first recipe of 2015, I am posting a recipe that I’ve been making every year for my family’s Christmas dinners and has now has become a standard dish. Like the Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No⁶ Mai⁵ Faan⁶) recipe, the dish’s preparation starts a few days before cooking and some ingredients are stir fried before assembling the dish to add flavor.

I’ve been making this variant of the original Sourdough-Cranberry Stuffing Recipe at Epicurious.com for many family Christmas dinners. The most notable additions are linguica and dried oysters. Given the aversion of one of my family members to celery, that ingredient is left out of this recipe, but definitely should be included if you make this dish (use the same quantity as the carrots and onions – 1 cup/125 ml.). I was always intrigued by the use of cranberries in this dressing, which is probably why I keep making it year after year.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to get my linguica from the Goulart Sausage Company. They are a small family owned business and I’ve been buying from them for many years (they make other products besides linguica). You know that their products have to be good when you see hardwood, used to smoke their products, stacked at the front of the business and smelling their smoker at work. I keep telling them that I need to visit them more often! Hopefully you can find such a gem of a meat producer, but if you can’t, store bought linguica or Italian sausage are good substitutes in this dish.

Oysters in stuffing is nothing new, but the oysters used are usually fresh. In this case, I’ve added dried oysters, an Asian ingredient, to a traditional American dressing. The dried oysters are of course rehydrated and are much smaller than their fresh counterparts. The oysters are a fairly recent addition to this recipe. I’ve made this stuffing without oysters for many years, so feel free to omit them since I think you’ll still like the results.

The thing about stuffing that I like are that the quantities of ingredients can vary and the resulting dish still tastes good. The recipe is very forgiving if you use too much of one ingredient or not enough of another. Some years I’ve used more linguica because I bought more than I thought I needed. Sometimes the onion I used is just a little too big, so I use it all. I’ve used other root vegetables, like turnips and parsnips, and in the end the dish was still tasty. So what I’m saying, is that you should feel free to experiment with the ingredients and quantities, and after all, you’re only experimenting on your family. 8-)

Enjoy!

Grilled Apple-Oak Smoked Lemongrass Rosemary Garlic Turkey

This will probably be the last post for 2014. So with the last recipe of 2014, I wish you and your family a Happy New Year for 2015, and will see you next year with more recipes.

So the final 2014 recipe is for grill smoking a whole turkey with apple and oak wood that I made for my family’s Christmas dinner. You were probably expecting a photo of the whole cooked turkey in this post (it was impressive looking!), but since I was pressed for time cooking Christmas dinner, I wasn’t able to take any photos and the photo above is for the leftovers.

The turkey is made with a spice paste that is placed in the space between the skin and meat of the breast, thigh, drumstick, and back. The space is created by separating the skin from the meat using your hand or the end of a long cooking spoon. Even though the skin is separated from the turkey meat, it is still attached to the turkey, forming pockets for a spice paste. If using your hand to create the pockets, you have to be prepared to place your hand (and part of your arm) into the turkey. I use this method because I’m able to feel the interface between the skin and meat, and use my fingers to separate the skin from the meat without breaking the skin.

When I first thought about making the paste using a food processor, I wanted to use a fresh rosemary, garlic, kosher salt, and olive oil mixture. It’s a classic combination and I happen to have rosemary growing in my backyard. Lemons and lemon juice are typical additions, but I decided to give the paste an Asian twist by using lemongrass. Only the white portions of the lemongrass are used in the paste, and the inedible green portions, together with the rosemary stalks, are stuffed into the turkey cavity.

Inevitably, some of the spice paste gets on the outer skin when you’re putting the paste into the turkey. Don’t worry, since this adds to the flavor of the skin. The turkey skin is coated with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper, and baking soda. The idea and use of baking soda came from America’s Test Kitchen. The baking soda not only helps with browning, but also with crisping the skin. I used double the amount of ingredients called for in the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, keeping the 1:1:1 ratio of kosher salt, pepper, and baking soda.

Root vegetables can be cut up, coated with olive oil, and placed in the bottom of the roasting pan if desired. Pan roasted vegetables is a nice addition to the meal and doesn’t really add to the cooking time. The pan roasted vegetables also add some flavor to any gravy that is made from the drippings. I also put the turkey neck and organs on top of the vegetables in the pan to be cooked, but you can also omit these items and use them for stock or directly in the gravy.

A gas grill with a thermometer is necessary for grill smoking a whole turkey. Maintaining a constant temperature of 350⁰F (175⁰C) and previous experience with your gas grill will determine the total cooking time for the turkey. I have found that 12 minutes per pound (450 g.) produces the right results (again, previous experience determines total cooking time). So for a 14 lb. (6.4 kg.) turkey, a total of 3 hours is needed to cook the turkey.

The size of your gas grill also matters since that will determine how many burners can be kept on for indirect cooking, which influences the ability to maintain a constant temperature. My gas grill is large enough to keep both end burners on during cooking, so I’m able to center the roasting pan with the turkey between two lit burners. For smaller gas grills, only one end can usually be kept lit for indirect cooking once the roasting pan with the turkey is placed on the grate, which might necessitate an increased cooking time. Regardless, the roasting pan should be rotated 180⁰ half way through the cooking time to even out any hot spots in your gas grill.

The turkey should rest for 30 minutes or more before carving, so don’t carve the turkey immediately after coming out of the grill since all the juices will not remain in the turkey meat and will just drain onto the cutting board. I consider a turkey just a large chicken, so you can follow the instructions for cutting a chicken in the Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil (薑蔥油, Goeng¹ Cung¹ Jau⁴) recipe to carve the turkey. Unlike the chicken, where all the meat will fit onto one plate, separate the turkey dark meat from the white and use two plates. In the end, the turkey was very tasty and my family was duly impressed with the flavor.

Enjoy!

Bean Sauce Chicken with Green Beans and Salted Radish (豆瓣青豆角雞, Dau6 Faan6 Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Gai1)

 

This is a basic bean sauce chicken and green bean stir fry with an added ingredient: salted radish. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to decipher the Chinese characters for this ingredient, so there’s no entry (as of now) in the English-Cantonese Ingredient Names page. The degree of saltiness varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, so the amount to use in the dish depends upon the brand you buy and your preference for saltiness in a dish. In general, I’ve found that those manufactured in Thailand are much saltier than those made in China. You’ll have to experiment with the amount to determine the right quantity to use. The salted radish not only provides flavor to the dish, but also texture since it’s crunchy. Use too little and you’ll probably not notice the salted radish in the dish. Use too much and the dish will be too salty.

Enjoy!

Grilled Cumin and Sichuan Peppercorn Lamb Leg Steaks (燒烤孜然花椒羊肉, Siu1 Haau1 Zi1 Jin4 Faa1 Ziu1 Joeng4 Juk6)

Lamb leg steaks are sometimes available at my local market. I can always find either bone-in and boneless whole lamb legs, but unless I want to grill a whole leg (recipes: Grilled Butterflied Lamb Leg and Grilled Mesquite-Smoked Garlic Rosemary Lamb), lamb leg steaks can be more convenient to cook. The spice paste used to season the lamb is not hot, but spicy and flavorful. You can apply the spice paste one hour before grilling, but the lamb will taste better if left to marinate overnight in the refrigerator. If you want more heat, just add and grind dried red chili peppers to the mixture.

Enjoy!

Basil Shallot Sauce Chicken and Chinese Sausage Chow Mein (紫蘇紅蔥醬臘腸雞炒麵, Zi2 Sou1 Hung4 Cung1 Laap6 Coeng4 Gai1 Caau2 Min6)

I made this noodle dish for a Thanksgiving lunch that I was invited to. Since I wasn’t able to respond until the night before, I had to think about which dish I could make the next morning, since the dish couldn’t take too long to make and I had to use ingredients that were on hand. Fortunately I had some chicken marinating in the refrigerator, but it wasn’t enough to be the only meat ingredient in the dish. So I decided to add some Cantonese pork sausage, which adds a nice flavor to any dish. All the other ingredients needed for a noodle dish were in my pantry or in the refrigerator. The shallot sauce was a nice flavorful addition to my normal noodle dish finishing sauce.

 

The recipe has been scaled down to produce a more normal sized dish since I made a large amount of noodles for the lunch. Finally, since I was pressed for time, I didn’t get a chance to take pictures after I cooked the dish. It was only after I came back home from the lunch that I got a chance to take pictures of the cold leftovers (of which, there wasn’t much).

 

Enjoy!

Fermented Bean Curd Green Bean Chicken (腐乳青豆角雞, Fu6 Jyu5 Ceng1 Dau6 Gok3 Gai1)

 

Fermented bean curd is one of those ingredients that goes well with chicken. I used the non-spicy version of fermented bean curd, but added red chili peppers to make the dish more visually appealing (the amount to use is a personal preference). I used regular green beans, rather than long beans, since I had them on hand. The rest of the ingredients are readily available at your local Asian market.

Enjoy!