Slow Cooker Spiced Lamb Shanks

 

This recipe was updated on 21 July 2013. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

I usually don’t make this dish in the summer (even though it’s been a cool summer this year), as this is more of a Fall or Winter meal, but lamb shanks were on sale and they’re one of my favorite ingredients. I previously made this dish with red wine or port but decided instead to try a Chardonnay this time, and I was pleased with the results (you can just as easily use chicken stock). I also got the idea to add lemon to the dish from this recipe that was featured in the Wall Street Journal. However, what really makes this dish tasty are the spices – cumin, fennel, coriander, allspice, and pepper - which are toasted before being ground (and then adding turmeric). The spice mix would also work for pork (a future recipe).

The other piece of information came from America’s Test Kitchen. They use Minute Tapioca (made by Kraft) to thicken sauces in a slow cooker. They found that tapioca starch holds up well to the long cooking time in slow cooker, whereas other thickeners, such as corn starch, break down and don’t thicken. Minute Tapioca can be found in any grocery store, but it’s pretty expensive when you compare it to regular tapioca starch, which is available in Asian markets. They both thicken the liquid equally as well, so I use regular tapioca starch.

The Lamb Shanks can either be browned in a wok or Dutch oven, or in a barbeque (smoked with hickory and rosemary) before adding the shanks to the slow cooker. The lamb shanks can be browned the night before cooking.

Enjoy!

Stir Fried Beef with Long Beans (豆角炒牛肉, Dau6 Gok3 Caau2 Ngau4 Juk6)

 

This recipe was updated on 01 Jul 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Long Beans is a favorite vegetable of mine. It goes well with pork spareribs and for this recipe, beef. Long beans 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.

Enjoy!

Soy Sauce Chicken and Peach Pasta Salad

There was an article in the local newspaper’s food section on barbequed peaches. That gave me the idea to include peaches in a chicken salad that I was about to make using leftovers from the Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (Siu¹ Haau¹ Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹, 燒烤豉油雞) recipe. While I didn’t barbeque the peaches, they tasted great after briefly baking (after halving and pitting) in my toaster oven.

I used a balsamic yogurt dressing and it turned out to be an OK dressing, but it lacked the tang I expected. The next time I made this dressing, I used rice vinegar, instead of balsamic, and upped the amount of lemon/lime juice, and it tasted much better. The yogurt dressing is also healthier than a mayonnaise based dressing.

The first crop of cherry tomatoes from my garden was also available, along with some very small Sungold tomatoes (some no larger than ⅛ of an inch). I also included button mushrooms and some basil to complete the pasta salad. In addition to the pasta salad, I made Garlic Garlic Bread to complete the meal.

Enjoy!

Garlic Garlic Bread

If you like garlic, then this is the garlic bread for you. It’s really very simple; you crush cloves of garlic with olive oil on bread with garlic baked into it (like you get at Costco). Toast the bread, and it’s ready to eat. Have the bread with Soy Sauce Chicken and Peach Pasta salad (recipe can be found here), Seafood Pasta Salad (recipe can be found here), or Greek Yogurt Soy Sauce Chicken Pasta Salad (recipe can be found here).

Enjoy!

Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (燒烤豉油雞, Siu1 Haau1 Si6 Jau4 Gai1)

This recipe was updated on 16 Aug 2015. Some instructions and equipment were changed.

I used a basic soy sauce marinade for a grilled whole chicken. I cut the chicken in half before grilling and removed the backbone (which I grilled with the rest of the chicken) to decrease the cooking time over a whole chicken. You don’t have to use a whole chicken as the technique used in this recipe will work equally as well with chicken parts (drumsticks, thighs, breast…). Adding a smoking wood to the grill, such as oak, hickory, mesquite, pecan, further enhances the flavor. Both direct and indirect cooking on the grill is used for this recipe. I used the cool side of a covered grill for indirect heat to cook the chicken for 15 minutes, and then move the chicken, skin side down, to the hot side of a covered grill to crisp the skin for 3-5 minutes before flipping the chicken over and repeating the process. Depending upon your grill, your previous experience, and the amount of grill heat remaining, the direct heat cooking time may have to be increased or decreased.

You can look at the Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil (薑蔥油, Goeng¹ Cung¹ Jau⁴) recipe for instructions on cutting and arranging a chicken on a platter. You can adapt the cutting method to account for the chicken already being halved without a backbone.

Enjoy!

Grilled Cumin Lamb Shoulder Steak (燒烤孜然羊肩肉, Siu1 Haau1 Zi1 Jin4 Joeng4 Gin1 Juk6)

 

This recipe was updated on 17 Dec 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

The same marinade that was used for the Grilled Cumin Turkey Wings (孜然火雞翼, Zi¹ Jin⁴ Fo² Gai¹ Jik⁶) recipe also goes very well with lamb, in this case lamb shoulder steaks. You need to grill the lamb shoulder steaks using direct heat to cook them. The marinade uses cumin, star anise, and Sichuan peppercorn to give the lamb its spicy flavor.

Enjoy!

Grilled Cumin Turkey Wings (燒烤孜然火雞翼, Siu1 Haau1 Zi1 Jin4 Fo2 Gai1 Jik6)

This recipe was updated on 01 Nov 2015. The Chinese name, and some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

Turkey wings were on sale and I decided to get them instead of chicken for a change. Since turkey wings are larger than their chicken counterparts, the turkey wings parts are separated before grilling. You can choose to not grill the wing tips (and keep them for stock), or you can grill and eat them as I usually do. The marinade uses cumin, star anise, and Sichuan peppercorn to give the wings its spicy flavor.

Enjoy!