Chinese Parsley Wood Ear Fungus soup

Went to East Ocean Teochew Restaurant on Saturday with 3 other friends for dinner. Since we were in a Teochew restaurant, most of the dishes we ordered were Teochew dishes such as fresh fish steamed Teochew style, braised goose in soya sauce and braised cabbage sprinkled with ham. In addition, each of us had a portion of double-boiled chinese parsley wood ear fungus soup that cost Sgd8.00/portion. The waitress said it is good to improve one's blood circulation. When the soup arrived, we saw that the ingredients were very simple and readily available in most supermarkets. So I decided to try and cook it for this evening's dinner. Bought the ingredients from NTUC supermarket except the fresh wood ear fungus a.k.a Jew Ear (Auricularia auricula-judae).

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 180gm fresh wood ear fungus (Sgd2.80).
  (You may also use dry wood ear fungus but needs soaking)
• 400gm lean pork (Sgd2.50)
• 50gm chinese parsley (Sgd0.65)
• 2 medium carrots (Sgd0.69)

Preparation:

• Wash pork, carrots, chinese parsley and wood ear fungus
• Cut pork and carrots into bite size chunks
• Snip off parsley root
• Bring water to a boil and add all ingredients into the pot
• Lower the fire and slow boil the soup until meat is cooked
  
• Add salt to taste

Total cost of making this soup at home = Sgd6.64. Total cost of drinking it at East Ocean = Sgd32.00. This is a very simple soup to make and it tastes the same as the one served by East Ocean. I would not recommend drinking it at a fancy restaurant that charges so much for such cheap ingredients.

As for the "blood circulation" effect, it has been shown that wood ear blocks blood clotting by reducing platelet stickiness.

Fresh Egg Pasta

I shared a little while ago about semolina and durum wheat pasta - which isn't often made at home. Fresh egg pasta on the other hand is more often made in home kitchens.
I tried my hand at this a few times - once without a pasta machine (or more correctly, a roller) and a few times with this gadget. I must say that obtaining evenly rolled and cut pasta is much easier with the right tool. The hand rolled ones were too thick and chewy but the pasta I made with the roller looked like the real thing!

Fresh egg pasta is made with all purpose flour rather than hard semolina flour and cooks in a flash (it's a fasta pasta than-a instanta noodles!)



Ingredients:

• 3 3/4 cup all purpose or soft wheat flour
• 4 eggs, room temperature

1. Mound the flour on a smooth work surface (wood, laminate, marble). Make a well in the centre. Break the eggs in a bowl, lightly beat to mix and pour into the centre of the flour. Gradually work the eggs in until a dough is formed. It should be fairly stiff.
2. Knead the dough, vigorously until smooth and even, about 10min. (it is pretty hard work, which may explain the ample arms of big Italian mamas).
3. Wrap with cling film and let rest for 30min (so that the gluten will relax and make rolling easier)
4. Dust the work top with the same soft flour and take a piece of dough about the size of an orange. Press it out with fingertips.
5. Set the pasta machine to its widest and roll the lump of pasta through. Go down the next setting and pass the dough through again. Now fold it into half and bring the setting back to the widest and repeat the process a few times till you get a nice oblong sheet. It should feel really silky smooth.

Now roll it out properly. Pass it through progessively narrower settings till you get to the desired thickness. For tagliatelle, fettucinni it should be about the thickness of a beer mat.
Once you have achieved the desired thickness, pass it through the cutters, collect it as it comes out, dust with flour and spread it out to dry.
Once thoroughly dry it can keep in the fridge for a week or two, or freezer for a month.

Cooking fresh pasta: bring to boil plenty of well salted water. Toss in the pasta and cook till al dente - it should take less than 5 minutes. Drain, toss into desired sauce or olive oil, salt and pepper.

The day we made fresh pasta, we had some left-over pan roasted duck breast in red wine sauce. So we heated the meat through and served it on top of the noodles.

Enjoy!

Dumplings deconstructed

Recently Duan Wu Jie or Dragon Boat Festival was celebrated in many places that have a significant ethnic chinese population. This festival is usually "associated with dragon boat races, making and eating rice dumplings and drinking realgar wine" according to Wikipedia.
Since I have no idea what realgar wine is and I do not take part in dragon boat races, I thought that the rice dumpling route best way to participate.

Rice dumplings can be wrapped with bamboo leaves (in Malaysia and Singapore) or lotus leaves (e.g. in Hong Kong dim sum restaurants). As I had decided to do this rather belatedly, I was not able to get hold of any leaves.

So when is a dumpling not a dumpling? When it is de-constructed... silly!

Following a culinary trend to de-construct many traditional dishes, I made my contribution to Duan Wu Jie thus:

Rice Dumpling - deconstructed

Ingredients: (enough for 3)

For the "filling"

• Belly pork, cut into 1cm thick slices x 4
  
• 5 spice powder
• white pepper
• sugar
• thick black soy sauce
• light soy sauce
• chilli powder (pinch)
• crushed garlic

For the "dumpling"

• dried chestnuts, soaked and cleaned
• dried shitake / assorted mushrooms, soaked
• water from soaking mushrooms & chestnuts, strained
• 1/2 stock cube (veg/chicken)
• white pepper
• 1 cup carnoli rice
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• knob of butter
• 1 Tsp olive oil
  

For "garnish"

• 1 salted egg, hard boiled - separate yolk, halve it and roughly chop the whites

Preparation:

• combine all ingredients with the pork belly and marinate for 30minutes
• pat dry and fry to seal the meat
• place in pot, add reserved soy sauce and enough water to cover
• braise at low heat till tender
• set aside, cut into 1cm x 1 cm strips

Make 1L of stock by simmering chestnuts, mushrooms, stock cube and reserved soaking water. Season to taste. Do not add to much salt as the salted egg garnish is quite salty. Remove chestnuts and mushrooms. Keep simmering.

In a heavy saucepan, melt butter in olive oil, sweat the onions, but do not brown. Add a splash of white wine or martini bianco if desired. Add the rice, stir till nicely coated. Add stock a ladle at a time, stirring often. Add more stock once the rice mixture looks dry. The stirring is an important part of risotto cooking as it releases the starch, making for a creamy risotto. Cook till rice grains are no longer opaque and cooked to "al dente". Stir in the chopped salted egg white, chestnuts and mushrooms. I prefer a slightly soupy or sloppy risotto.

To serve:

• Plate the risotto in a warmed soup dish
• Lay slices of pork on top
• Decorate with half a salted egg yolk
• Drizzle pork gravy over
• Serve immediately

Duan Wu Jie has several origins, one of which revolves around a poet named Qu Yuan in ancient China during the Warring States period. He opposed the state policy of forming an alliance with the powerful neighbouring state of Qin (from which came Qin Shi Huangdi, who became the First Emperor of all China). Dissent then, as is now, was not well tolerated and Qu Yuan was exiled. During this time he wrote much and was well beloved by the people. Eventually the state of Qu was conquered by Qin and in despair, the poet threw himself into the Milou River and drowned. The locals who were very saddened by this threw rice dumplings into the river so that the fish would not eat his body.