Braised Duck Wings In Master Stock 滷水鴨翼

My obsession with wings continues (at this rate I'm going to rename my blog: 'Eat Wings Love Wings'). First, a post on chicken wings, and now one on duck wings, specifically, braised duck wings in master stock (lou sui aap yik 滷水鴨翼).

I love this dish, as the master stock (lou sui 滷水), made with soy, star anise, cinnamon, citrus peel and heaps of other stuff, is absorbed by the duck wings as they slowly braise. Making master stock is best left to the professionals, which is my way of saying that this isn't a recipe post (come on now, you didn't really expect two recipe posts in a row?).

Dishes cooked with master stock are collectively known as lou mei 滷味, and this technique originated in the Chiu Chow (Teochew) area in Guangdong province. However, lou mei spread to other parts of southern China, which is why it can often be found in Cantonese restaurants around the world.

The most famous lou mei dish is braised goose in master stock, but for some frustrating reason Chinese goose dishes aren't available in blighty. As such, Cantonese restaurants in the UK tend to sell lou mei as a mixture, but I just order the braised duck wings because I'm a bad Chinese (please don't judge me, but entrails and gizzards aren't my thing).

The duck wings in the photo are from one of my favourite Chinatown haunts, Hung's, but you can find them in many Cantonese restaurants, usually the ones that sell Cantonese BBQ (siu mei 燒味). So the next time you find yourself in Chinatown, order a bag of duck wings to take home with you. You won’t regret it.

Xinjiang-style Chilli & Cumin Chicken Wings

Like many people, I dream about recreating dishes from my travels. The thing is, though, these dreams stay largely in my head. Why? Well to draw a sporting analogy, cooking is very much like diving or gymnastics. By that I mean both 'difficulty' and 'execution' come into play when judging how well a particular dish turns out. And as I am far from being adept in the kitchen, I'm limited to dishes that aren't that 'difficult'. So sorry guys, my attempt at knocking up xiao long bao will just have to wait another day.

Instead, here's a simple recipe inspired (not for the first time) by a Beijing restaurant: Xinjiang-style chilli & cumin chicken wings. I tried these out at a joint called Xiao Wang's, and while I have no idea if it's an authentic dish as rustled up by the Uyghur people from Xinjiang in China's Wild West, who really cares? After all, these chicken wings, liberally laced with chilli and cumin, are proper fiery, super-tasty and highly addictive. And the best thing of all is that even kitchen-numpties, like me, can score high 'execution' marks!

Xinjiang-style Chilli & Cumin Chicken Wings
The ingredients and instructions are just a guide, and you should feel free to experiment and play around with the ingredients in proportions that work for you.

Ingredients
12 chicken wings (around 1kg)

For the marinade
Minced garlic
Shot glass of sesame oil
Juice of one lemon

For the spice mix
Dried chilli flakes
Coarse sea salt
Toasted cumin seeds

For the garnish
Lemon wedges
Iceberg Lettuce

Method
1) Mix the juice of a lemon with a shot glass of sesame oil in a bowl.

2) Mince a couple of cloves of garlic and add to the marinade.

3) Place chicken wings in a large freezer bag and add the marinade.

4) Give the bag a bit of a grope to ensure the marinade covers all the wings.

5) Tie the bag and leave for a few hours (twitter consensus says 3 hours is plenty).

6) Pre-heat oven to 200C.

7) Line an oven tray with foil and place a wire rack over it.

8) Arrange chicken wings on rack and place tray in oven for 40-45 mins.

9) Toast cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for 5 mins or so.

10) Add the toasted cumin seeds along with dried chilli flakes and coarse sea salt to a mortar & pestle and give them a good old grind.

11) Remove chicken wings from oven and test a larger one to check that it's cooked through.

12) Add some of the chilli cumin salt mix to a mixing bowl.

13) Add a couple of the wings to the bowl and toss in the mix until covered to your satisfaction.

14) Repeat steps 12) and 13) until all the wings are covered in the spice mix.

15) Serve chicken wings on top of some lettuce with some lemon wedges on the side.

Top Tips
1) Toast the cumin seeds on the lowest heat and give them an occasional toss to prevent burning.

2) Make plenty of spice mix – you don't want to be left short with a few wings to go! Any spice mix you don't use can be saved and used in other dishes e.g. spare ribs and lamb chops.

The Golden Noodle Awards 2011-12

Eat Noodles Love Noodles is three today, and there's no better way to celebrate than with The Golden Noodle Awards. The awards are a bit slimmed down this year, but to keep things interesting I've introduced a couple of new awards.

The Golden Noodle
Winner: Phở sốt vang by Phở Thinh, Hanoi
In common with last year's contenders, all of my favourite noodle dishes over the past year are from overseas, specifically China and Vietnam. And it's from the latter that the winner hails. Quite simply, the phở sốt vang from Phở Thinh in Hanoi is one of the best bowls of noodles I've ever eaten. The combination of anise-scented broth, slippery smooth broad rice noodles and stewed beef in wine with a side of fried dough sticks was simply amazing.

phở sốt vang @ Phở Thinh

But as much as I enjoyed the noodles in Vietnam, the silver and bronze medals go to Chinese dishes I sampled in Beijing. Din Tai Fung, better known for their xiao long bao, takes the silver for a rather special steamed chicken noodle soup. While taking bronze is a massive dish of belt noodles in spicy garlic sauce (originating from Shaanxi province) from Qin Tang Fu.

The Golden Dim Sum
Winner: Wasabi prawn dumplings by Phoenix Palace
This Golden Dim Sum is awarded to my favourite dim sum dish in London. There are many contenders for this accolade, but the award goes to an old favourite with a twist: wasabi prawn dumplings. These slightly plumper har gau (prawn dumplings) with a nasal passage-clearing wasabi hit are a must-order at Phoenix Palace. They're so good that I don't mind the £4.20 price-tag that their presence on the specials menu demands.

Wasabi prawn dumplings @ Phoenix Palace

Coming in a close second is Princess Garden's golden cuttlefish cheung fun. This triple textural delight consisting of springy cuttlefish paste, crispy tofu skin, and slippery smooth rice noodle is the best cheung fun dish in London. In bronze medal position is the capital's finest sweet dim sum dish: chrysanthemum custard buns by Pearl Liang – remember to order these deep-fried, not steamed.

The London Gold Award
Winner: Eat St
This award celebrates what I love best about London's food scene. However, it isn't the number of Michelin stars that I want to shout out about, it's the grassroots as represented by Eat St. To the uninitiated, this collective of street food traders most famous for its stalls on King's Boulevard (round the back of King's Cross station). My favourite vendors include The Rib Man, Banhmi11 and Eat My Pies. I visit Eat St most lunchtimes and it has improved my quality of life no end, which is why they win the inaugural London Gold award.

Rib Man @ Eat St

I'd also like to give a quick mention (and joint-silver medals) to Maltby St Market and Brixton Market/Village where the likes of Bea's Diner, Kaosarn and Mama Lan ply their trade. Sadly, there are some contrary voices deeming the various stalls and traders to be too hipster/middle class/gentrified. While we're all entitled to our opinions, I find much of the criticism to be lazy, shrill and self-loathing, and I think all of these places are a welcome addition to the capital's food scene.

Anyway, that's all folks! It's time for my blog to take its summer break - see you all in September!

Lies, Damn Lies and Fish Sauce

Although I was born in the northwest of England, my culinary upbringing was strictly Chinese. I didn't really have much choice. In common with many immigrants, my folks fought off homesickness through rustling up the dishes they grew up with. The food they cooked was typical of their hometown of Canton (now known as Guangzhou) as well as Hong Kong, where they lived before coming to the UK.

In particular, Sunday lunch was always a very special meal. My mum would get up at an ungodly hour to put a slow-cooked soup, made with pork bones and mysterious dried herbs, on the boil. My dad was in charge of the roast. Not beef or lamb, but a slab of pork belly or maybe a whole duck roasted in the traditional Cantonese way. Sometimes, there would be a steamed fish, other times, some stir-fried seafood. And then there were vegetables, which my mum would ALWAYS make me eat. I didn't properly appreciate it when I was younger, but I am forever grateful to my parents for instilling in me a deep love of my native cuisine.

So you can imagine my shock and horror when I discovered my folks have never ever used fish sauce when cooking. This revelation got me thinking what other liberties they were taking in the kitchen? After all, according to no less an authority than Gok Wan, fish sauce is a Chinese store cupboard staple. And it must be true because this rather special TV chef would liberally slap shedloads of crappy Squid Brand fish sauce into most of the dishes he rustled up on his comedy cookery show, Gok Cooks Chinese.

I am, of course, taking the piss. Don't get me wrong, I like fish sauce. Without it, Thai and Vietnamese food wouldn't be the same. However, when it comes to Chinese food, fish sauce isn't really that common. In fact, it is traditionally only used and manufactured in a small corner of southeast China by the local Chiu Chow (Teochew) and Hokkien communities. Even then I'm not so sure how common it is as a Chinese condiment, as the shelves of the shops I visited in London's Chinatown were full of fish sauce from Thailand or Vietnam with nary a bottle of Chinese-branded fish sauce to be seen.

So why is Gok Wan perpetuating the lie that fish sauce is essential for Chinese cooking? My theory is that fish sauce is being used as a shortcut to gain that elusive xian (鮮) or umami taste. The alternatives would be either to do it the old fashioned way, or to use the much-maligned MSG. (I don't really want to go into the MSG debate right now, but scientific evidence debunks the mass of hypocritical borderline-racist bullshit written about this subject.)

Just to be clear, I'm not saying fish sauce shouldn't be used in Chinese food outside of those traditional Chiu Chow/Hokkien dishes in which it already features. What I resent is that, along with a load of other misconceptions, fish sauce is portrayed as a traditional Chinese staple on Gok Cooks Chinese. It would have been more honest if Gok said that he was using fish sauce to give the recipe a twist, or as a bit of cheat. But no, he gave birth to a lie. It's one I want to stamp out.

THAT Black Truffle Xiao Long Bao @ Din Tai Fung

Come on now, you didn't think I'd go all the way to a city with a branch of Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 and not pay a visit? And so it was I ended up in one of the four Beijing outlets of this superior dumpling chain. Dining solo, I went for a small steamer of pork & crab xiao long bao 蟹粉小笼包 (5 pcs) and I tried pork & black truffle xiao long bao 黑松露小笼包 (5 pcs) for the first time.

To be honest, my first reaction was that the soup-filled dumplings had shrunk compared to previous visits to Din Tai Fung. That said, I might have been conditioned by having spent a week in Beijing where the portions are far from delicate.

Naturally, the dumplings were of the highest quality. In particular, the black truffle ones were in a league of their own, as the steaming process seemed to accentuate the flavour of the truffle. Simply, if you ever get the chance to try the pork & black truffle xiao long bao then you must take it with both hands.

But it's not just the dumplings that mark out Din Tai Fung. Rather like the annoying classmate at school who was academically smart and excelled at sport and anything else that took his or her fancy, Din Tai Fung has many strings to its bow. Take for example, its steamed chicken noodle soup (元盅鸡面), which ranks up there as one of the finest noodle dishes I've ever tasted – a perfect marriage of superior chicken soup to springy noodles.

To round off my meal, I went for some steamed sesame buns (芝麻大包), and these were also bloody excellent. Fluffy white buns with a melting black sesame filling; this was the perfect end to another exceptional meal at Din Tai Fung.

In addition to the excellent food, I would like to single out the service at this restaurant, as it ranks up there as some of the best I've ever experienced in China or for that matter anywhere. By that I mean the servers had a preternatural sense as to when I needed assistance as opposed to the phoney, pre-programmed 'is everything alright, sir?' school of service. Looking back, if anything, the service was too good, as it stretched me to my limits in Mandarin!

The only slight downside was the location. I'm not really a fan of the Asian practice of locating restaurants in shopping malls, but if you are sat looking in, not out, then you can just about imagine you're not eating in the basement of a department store. Having said that, there are worse examples of shopping mall restaurants than this particular one.

And as is customary on my blog, this is the point in my review of Din Tai Fung to implore you to sign the petition to bring this superior chain to London. Do it, now!

Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 @ Grand Pacific Mall 君太百货
Address 地址: 北京 西单北大街133号1楼/B1(君太百货)
Tel 电话:+86-10-6615-9028

I'd also like to give a quick mention to another xiao long bao specialist by the name of 一品小籠 (there's no English name but its name in pinyin is Yi Pin Xiao Long). The vibe at this eatery is more casual than Din Tai Fung, and while the dumplings aren't quite as good, they're a lot cheaper.

As well as xiao long bao, the menu consists of dim sum-sized dishes such as steamed egg. There are branches of 一品小籠 across Beijing, and they are ideal for a quick pit stop although I should warn you that the menu order sheet is written solely in Chinese.