XO Sauce

It feels, perhaps, a little cruel posting about XO sauce when dried scallops are so difficult to get in the UK. But just in case you know of someone heading to Hong Kong soon, or if you manage to find some sold online, then this is the recipe for you.

XO sauce doesn't actually contain any cognac, which 'XO' is so commonly associated with. XO here is used to denote luxury and high quality, an exclusiveness gained from using very expensive ingredients. The sauce is made up of dried scallops and dried shrimp, along with garlic, shallots and chilli. The whole lot is then carefully simmered in a lot of oil to dehydrate and intensify the ingredients, thus creating a sauce that is sweet, spicy and intensely savoury all at once. It's addictive; I stir it into rice, drizzle it on steamed vegetables, blob it atop eggs, noodles, congee. I've mixed it with a little mayonnaise to smear on a fish finger sandwich. It's very versatile.

XO Sauce

Makes 1 litre

300gr dried scallops, rehydrated overnight in cold water
80gr dried small shrimp, rehydrated overnight in cold water
12 garlic cloves, minced evenly
150gr shallots, minced evenly
80gr cooking chorizo, or Chinese dried ham, cut into tiny cubes
8 birds eye chillis, minced
50gr dried chilli flakes
60ml decent light soy sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
700ml vegetable oil

Drain the shrimps and scallops, and using your hands work the scallops so that they're in fine and even threads. Pound the shrimp in a pestle and mortar, or use a food processor, to process them into a fine dust.

In a large wok or saucepan, add 50ml of the oil on a medium heat, then add the garlic, shallots, chilli flakes and sugar. Stir to combine, and then add the rest of the ingredients and the rest of the oil. Cook on a medium heat until everything starts to sizzle and fizz, then turn it down to a low heat and leave to very gently simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. It should deepen in colour, and intensify in flavour. If after 2 hours this hasn't happened, turn the heat up ever so slightly for the last hour, taking care it doesn't burn.

Once cooled, pack into sterilised jars, leaving a good layer of oil over the top of the contents.

Smoked Pork with Black Beans & Roasted Salsa

When I first saw the hickory smoked wings over on Food Stories I knew I had to get in on that action. Straight onto Ebay and a box of hickory chips, suitable for stovetop rather than barbecues, went straight into my virtual basket and I sped through checkout. My reasoning was that I couldn't be arsed with lighting a barbecue each time I wanted a smoke so this option seemed easiest.

Except it's not really. As I type this, my hair, clothes, carpets and furniture all honk like a bonfire. My housemate will wonder if I took part in some ritualistic effigy-burning when she gets home. Not that I do that a lot, mind.

The results, though, are pretty special. In choosing my cut of pork, I went for a shoulder cut. My initial thoughts were to do belly to then make pulled pork but rather the shredded softness that brings, I rather fancied something with more bite, something to get your teeth working. The pork was marinaded over night in a chilli paste, then slowly roasted and finished off with a smoking. Each slice had a hint of chilli, smokiness flavouring the fat; I forgot momentarily about my just-washed, now stinky hair.

To accompany the pork, rather addictive black beans and a roasted tomato salsa, adapted from Thomasina Miers' 'Mexican Food Made Simple'. I'm not finding it easy to find very ripe tomatoes, so blistering them deepens their flavour.

Roasted Tomato Salsa

7 tomatoes, as ripe as you can find them
3 large red chillis
3 cloves of garlic, skin on
2 spring onions
Juice of half a lime
A pinch of sugar
A large pinch of salt and pepper
Small handful of coriander

In a dry non-stick pan, add the tomatoes first. Dry-roast for a few minutes, then add the chillis in. You're aiming for blackened skins so keep turning them. Add the spring onions and garlic. It'll take about 15 minutes for this. Leave to cool. Once cooled, peel the garlic and pound in a pestle and mortar with salt. Take the tomatoes and squeeze them gently over the sink so that the seeds all fall out, as you don't want it too watery. If you have a thing about skin then remove it; I rather like it so I leave it in. Chop roughly and pound in the pestle and mortar. Repeat with chillis. Slice the spring onions finely. Combine in a bowl with the lime juice, the sugar and stir the coriander in.

Smoked Pork

Serves 2

500gr shoulder of pork
A mixture of dried chillis; I used mulato, habenero and cascabel (bought here)
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
200mls orange juice
A handful of hickory or oak wood chips

Soak the chillis in boiling water until softened. Remove the seeds and blitz with the onion, sugar, garlic and salt. Rub on the flesh of the pork and marinade overnight. Bring up to room temperature and place in a baking tray with the orange juice. Cover loosely with foil and roast on 140 degrees C for 2 hours and remove. Simmer down the juices and add to the black beans while they're cooking (recipe here). Serve with a toasted tortilla, or some rice.

I wouldn't recommend you smoking in your kitchen, but if you have better ventilation or you don't mind stinking of smoke, then line your pot with foil, add a handful of wood chips and drizzle with a bit of water. Put your pork in a heatproof bowl and place it within (I used a metal steamer) and heat gently for 30 - 35 minutes. Everything will be covered in an orange-ish goo so wash it immediately, and it's likely your pot will be slightly discoloured. Or, you know, use your barbecue. OUTSIDE.

Kimchi Summer Rolls

With summer comes an almost weekly procession of barbecues. I was never a bringer of sausages and burgers to a party; last week these fat, squat summer rolls, a hybrid of the Vietnamese and Korean cuisines, made an appearance instead.

Given my propensity for rolling cigarettes, you'd think I'd make a neater bundle. The first always turns out a shocker; the rest, vaguely passable.

For the filling, bouncy prawns and ponytail kimchi were used. This particular type of kimchi is made from the ponytail radish - so called, I suspect, because of its burst of green leaf. Called 'chonggak kimchi', it's peppery. Sliced into batons, it added a good amount of spicy, tangy crunch. Both ponytail radish kimchi and summer roll wrappers should be available at your local Asian supermarket.

Kimchi Summer Rolls

Enough for 6 people

1 packet of summer roll wrapper (I use these)
1 small head of Little Gem lettuce, shredded
A handful of glass noodles, cooked
1 carrot, julienned
10 prawns, cooked and sliced lengthways in half
2 kimchi ponytail radishes, julienned
A small handful of coriander, chopped finely
Greens of 3 stalks of spring onion, shredded
A few stalks of mint, leaves picked
Half a lime

Mix the carrots, glass noodles, radishes, spring onions and lettuce in a bowl. Sprinkle with the juice of half a lime. Meanwhile, add some hand-hot water to a shallow dish. Lay out a clean tea towel. Place the roll wrapper in the water for 10 - 20 seconds, until it becomes soft, then lay on the tea towel. To make things pretty, add a mint leaf to the centre of the circle, then a prawn, sliced in half, below. Add a small bundle of veg etc. under that - roll like this. Or however you see fit.

Sauce:

4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp water
1 tsp sugar
Juice of 1 lime
1 red chilli (hot)
1 clove of garlic

Mince the garlic and chop the chilli. Combine vigorously with the above to serve as a dipping sauce with the summer rolls.

Sichuan Chilli Oil

This was made more out of mistake than anything else; I absently put far more Sichuan peppercorns than I should have done, but what resulted was a seriously lip tingling spicy oil, perfect for dipping your Chinese new year (or otherwise) dumplings into.

Speaking of which, I followed in Josh's lead and did away with making my own dumpling wrappers and using shop bought instead. While they worked well with boiled dumplings, they didn't fare so well with the war tip (potsticker) variety. The bottoms, supposedly crisp while the rest of the dumpling is steamed, were fine but the steamed parts were hard and chewy. It was also nigh on impossible to fold pleats into them, so they became crescent dumplings.

However, in boiling the dumplings it was a different story. They wrinkled up a bit like won tons, but the dough held their contents well and when mixed in with a little chilli oil, soy and black vinegar they were positively delicious.


Sichuan Chilli Oil

Makes a jar

1 heaped tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
200ml peanut oil
4 tbsp chilli flakes
4 dried chillis

Soak the peppercorns in cold water and then drain. Heat the peanut oil in a small saucepan until shimmering, then CAREFULLY add the peppercorns. They will spit a lot - wear long sleeves. Turn down to low and add all the chillis.

Cook gently for 15 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to cool. Leave overnight, then at this point you can either strain it for clear oil, or keep the bits in for a bit of sediment. It should be good and spicy by now.

Mix with soy sauce, matchsticks of ginger and Chinese black vinegar for a good dumpling dippy sauce.

Chipotle & Tamarind Ketchup

Chipotle chillis are smoke-dried jalapenos, used in a lot of Mexican cooking. I haven't had much experience of Mexican cooking myself but I do know that I am utterly addicted to these shrivelly brown little numbers.

They are pretty fiesty; I chucked in a whole chipotle into this recipe and the results set alight to the mouth; ideal for me, really. What you get is a gorgeously sticky, sweet, tangy and fiery sauce to dip your whatevers into. Sweetcorn fritters were my dipper of choice this time, but I imagine some totopos (that's nachos, innit?) would make a good vehicle too. When I ran out of fritter I just used a spoon.

You can buy chipotles in Bethnal Green, at Casa Mexico. You can also shop there online.


Chipotle & Tamarind Ketchup

1 chipotle chilli
1 decent tin of plum tomatoes
Half a white onion
1" of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
1 tsp tamarin pulp
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

In a small saucepan, simmer the chipotle chilli in water for about 20 minutes, until soft. Either remove the seeds or leave in whole. Mince finely with the onion, garlic, ginger and thyme (I used a mini chopper) and then add a little oil to make a paste. Fry this on a low heat in a saucepan for a good 10 - 15 minutes until deep brown and fragrant.

Drain the juices from the tin of the plum tomatoes (save it for your bloody mary...) and then pulverise the tomato. Add to the chilli mix, season, add the tamarind and the sugar and simmer on the lowest heat for a good 40 - 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will initially make plopping fart noises, decorating your hob with specks of red until the liquid separates a bit.

After this, work the sauce through a fine mesh - unless you like it slightly chunky, in which case don't.

A Sort-Of Béarnaise Sauce

I've had a steak craving for quite some time. Normally I'd satisfy this craving with a trip to Hawksmoor but I recently bought a ticket to Nicaragua to see a friend and have since been on a budgetary lock down. But no matter; off I trotted to the butcher to get my hands on a juicy rib-eye. Charred on a super-hot griddle, the only accompaniment I could think of making was Béarnaise. Or should it be anchovy butter? I couldn't decide, so I combined the two. Anchovies might seem a weird option, but they go incredibly well with beef. It's a rich sauce, scented and lightened with tarragon and lemon.

Triple-cooked chips, made with this recipe (which, by the way, were amazing - I can't believe I haven't made them before), completed the holy trinity of a heart attack on a plate and stank my flat out for hours.

Béarnaise Sauce with Anchovy

Makes enough for two greedy girls

4 anchovy fillets
2 egg yolks
120gr unsalted butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 heaped tbsp tarragon
1.5 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp vermouth
2 shallots

In a small pan, heat the butter, add the anchovies chopped finely and cook until foaming. Take off the heat and skim the white impurities that are at the surface to clarify it. Chop the shallots and the tarragon finely. In a small saucepan add the shallots and 1tbsp of the tarragon. Add the vinegar, vermouth and 2 tbsp of water and simmer until the liquid has reduced to half. Season liberally.

Whisk the egg yolks and add to the shallot mixture. Heat slowly, whisking as you go until the sauce has thickened and emulsified. Don't allow to boil. Take off the heat and whisk the butter into it, whisking all the while and incorporating the butter before you add any more. Push the sauce through a sieve, then add the rest of the tarragon and the lemon juice. Keep warm with a foil lid in a very low oven until serving.

Sweet Chilli Jam

This year, given that we have a sizeable baclony, I decided to try and grow my own vegetables. I bought a mains-heated propagator, planted some seeds, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. A few months later after getting my hands dirty in transporting seedlings into pots, long finger-sized cayenne chillis started appearing. Little round green cherry tomatoes popped up and ripened to a golden yellow. Most recently, bulbous aubergines have popped out of the purple flowers, making me squeal with excitement. Sadly the courgette plant withered and died a slow death. Nevertheless, I was a pleased plant mother.


As I have about 7 or 8 chilli plants, I have had an abundant crop. They haven't all turned red at once and I worried if they would at all. Slowly but surely, they did. A batch of them have been drying on the windowsill as their withered bodies would make great curry pastes but I didn't want to put these, that I picked this morning, in the fridge or freezer to use as and when; I felt they should take a more centre stage. I had a recipe for sweet chilli sauce saved up, which I thought would be the perfect way to use these, especially as it keeps for a good 2 or 3 months. I also threw in some fresh green peppercorns I had in a lovely hamper my friends put together for me as a birthday present which made it look really pretty.

Sweet Chilli Jam

10 or 11 cayenne chillis (use milder ones if you don't want it too spicy)
2 cloves of garlic
2" piece of ginger
200gr jam sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fish sauce
220ml cider vinegar
110ml water
1 1/2 tbsp arrowroot powder, slackened with water
A few fresh green peppercorns (optional)

Chop and deseed the chillies (I did half deseeded, half not as I like it hot). Finely mince the garlic and the ginger. Throw this minus the arrowroot in a food processor and blitz to a paste. This also works in a mortar and pestle (I don't have a food processor). Add the whole lot to a saucepan and simmer for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the slackened arrowroot to thicken the mixture. Sterilize an airtight jar and add the jam to the jar. Leave to cool completely, then put the lid on.

I've just had a taste of the jam and it is super hot, tangy and sweet at the same time. Just how I like it. If you have less of a palate for spicy foods, use less hot chillis or reduce the number of chillis you use or it might make you cry. This would go really well with spring rolls, squid, to dip wedges in... all sorts really.

Making Mayonnaise

For some reason, it never occured to me to make my own mayonnaise. My family never did; we always had a jar of it in the fridge and I suppose it's not the quickest of activities one can undertake, especially when you don't have any fancy electronic gadgets.

I really hate waste, so when I was faced with two egg yolks after making the orange almond biscuits, my thoughts immediately turned to making mayonnaise. I even had some leftover roasted turkey to eat and as luck would have it - some tarragon in the fridge. It was like a match made in heaven. So, I set about making the mayonnaise. The trick is to whisk fast and whisk hard, expecially at the beginning while tentatively dripping the oil in.

At first, not a lot happened as I painstakingly dribbled the oil in. I had to keep repeating "patience, patience" over to myself, because I simply don't have any and did wonder what would happen if I just chucked a load of the oil in. But I'm glad I didn't, as curdling would have been inevitable.

And so, before my very eyes, mayonnaise was made. It really makes a difference too - it's a pale cream colour and tastes beautifully rich and of the perfect consistency. None of this jelly-like wobble you get from manufactured mayonnaises and their stabilisers, oh no. This is rich, luxuriant, and seriously bad for you. I dived in with gusto.

Mayonnaise

To fill one pesto jar

2 egg yolks

1 clove garlic

250mls groundnut or rapeseed oil

1 tsp white wine vinegar

1 level tsp salt

Freshly milled pepper

Crush the garlic and mince finely. Add to a large bowl with the egg yolks, salt and pepper. Whisk lightly, then add a drop of the oil and carry on whisking. Whisk constantly whilst dripping the oil until you have a thick smooth paste - then add the white wine vinegar, whisk vigorously and then dribble the oil into a steady stream while whisking furiously until all the oil is gone. Sterilise your jar and the mayo should keep in the fridge or up to a week.

To make tarragon mayonnaise, I simply chopped up a tablespoon of tarragon and chives to 2 tablespoons of mayo.

The mayo is quite garlicky, so if you want something a bit more like shop-bought mayo then leave out the garlic, or add a little less.