Homemade char siu, Hainan chicken and green tea cake

Did you know that giant paperclips make great meat hooks?

I didn't either, but it truly does work. And no, I don't normally make my own char siu but when it's your turn to host the travelling dinner party gang (with high standards set so far) there's an element of self-imposed pressure to feed them well.

I spent days planning the menu - any excuse is a good one if it justifies reading cookbooks at bedtime, although it becomes a little dangerous if you're already feeling peckish! There were lists and shopping treks and prep work and then a big day of cooking, much of it almost ready so I was only in the kitchen briefly when the guests arrived.

The menu? We started with san choy bau, a help yourself arrangement of crisp lettuce cups and a huge bowl of stir-fried pork mince and diced waterchestnut seasoned with ginger, soy and rice wine. Instead of bean sprouts or fancy deep-fried vermicelli, I took the easy option and sprinkled in crushed Chang's fried noodles. So bad but oh so good.



A brief stint in the kitchen to cook the veggie and then it was on with the mains. I'd cooked the Hainan chicken in the early afternoon, allowing it to cool then having it ready chopped on the plate for serving. The chicken was incrediblymoist and succulent, sweet with the flavours of the ginger and eschallot broth in which it had slowly simmered.

The homemade char siu was probably the biggest hit. Although tempted to use a jar of marinade or sachet of flavouring, it felt much more rewarding to make the marinade from scratch. The result was worth it. The pork was so much tastier, more like roast pork that had been glazed, rather than the super tender and sweet pork from the shops that also seem to have lost their pork flavour by comparison. You could also really taste the red fermented tofu, the brandy and the hoisin sauce that made up the marinade.

A bit of seafood always makes a dinner feel special, so a mound of seared scallops was paired with crunchy stalks of bright green Chinese broccoli (gai lan). The veggie component was complemented by a dish of Chinese shiitake mushrooms stir-fried with baby bok choy leaves.

There was no hiding the dessert. As the drinks were loaded into the fridge, everybody noticed the giant cake stand dominating the top shelf. The dinner dishes were cleared with lightning speed and when I tried to protest that guests should be guests, M leaned in and said "the faster we clear the dishes the faster we can have dessert!"

Dessert was a simple green tea cake sandwiched with green tea cream and red bean paste, my new favourite combination that seems to have no shortage of fans.

Some of the recipes follow below, and whilst the char siu may seem like a lot of work (and your oven may get a little messy) I strongly recommend you try it at least once. It really is worth it.



Homemade char siu Chinese roast pork

Marinade
1 tablespoon of rock (lump) sugar
1 tablespoon of groundbean (soybean) sauce
1 tablespoon hoi sin sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon red fermented tofu
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

750g pork neck
2 tablespoons of maltose or honey

Cut the pork neck into thick 20cm-long strips (the pork won't shrink much so cut to strips about the same size as you'd find in a Chinese barbecue shop). If your oven is small, you should check that the pork strips have enough room to hang.

Combine the marinade ingredients in a large freezer bag, then add the pork strips and knot the bag tightly. Mix the marinade through the bag and leave in the fridge overnight (or about 6-10 hours).

Preheat the oven to 220C (425F). Move one rack to the highest shelf and the other rack to the lowest. Place a baking dish on the bottom rack and fill with boiling water to a depth of about 2-5cm (or about an inch).

Thread the top of the pork strips on meat hooks or paper clips bent into an S-shape. Hang the pork from the top rack and cook for 10-15 minutes. Baste again with the marinade and then reduce the heat to 180C (350F) and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes whilst you mix the maltose or honey with a teaspoon of boiling water.

Transfer the pork to a flat tray lined with baking paper and brush liberally with the maltose. Place under a hot grill until caramelised, then turn over and brush the other side with maltose. Grill until caramelised. Mine spent about 15-20 minutes under the griller in total.



Hainan chicken

1 x 1.2kg chicken
8 slices fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
2 eschallots, peeled and quartered
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 green onion stalks (scallions) chopped into 10cm lengths
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Ginger dipping sauce
2 green onions (scallions) sliced finely
1 tablespoon ginger, sliced finely and then julienned
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons canola or sunflower oil


Bring a large pot of water to the boil, ensuring the pot is deep enough to submerge the entire chicken. The lid should also be tightly fitting.

Blitz four slices of ginger, the garlic and 1 eschallot in a food processor. Alternatively chop finely. Place mixture into the cavity of the chicken and pour in the rice wine and soy sauce. Rub the mixture around the cavity of the chicken.

When the water has boiled, remove the pot from the heat and place the chicken into the water, neck first. Add the remaining ginger slices, eschallots and green onion and put on the lid. Leave the chicken to stand for thirty minutes, then lift the chicken out of the water and let the water run out of the cavity before plunging it back in.

Return the pot to the heat and bring the water up to just below boiling (before large bubbles start to break on the surface). Remove the pot from the heat and allow the chicken to sit for another thirty minutes. The chicken should be cooked by now but you're unsure, use a meat thermometer or carefully insert a skewer into the thickest part of the chicken to check.

Transfer chicken to a large bowl and allow to cool before carving. Serve with the ginger dipping sauce.

Ginger dipping sauce: Combine the green onion, ginger and salt in a small metal bowl. Heat the oil in a saucepan or wok until smoking then pour over the green onion mixture. This will effectively fry the ginger and green onion. Be careful of spitting oil. Stir well and allow to cool.



Green tea and red bean cake

This one's really easy. I used Billy's recipe for a Victoria sandwich cake but you could use any sponge cake recipe you like (or source a ready-made one for extra ease). This recipe is very moist- with 25% butter it's denser and richer than most sponge cakes, but holds its freshness a lot better allowing you to make the cake the night before your dinner party!

3 eggs, weighed
self-raising flour (same weight as your three eggs)
caster sugar (same weight as your three eggs)
softened butter (same weight as your three eggs)
2 teaspoons matcha powder

375ml fresh cream
2 teaspoons matcha powder
250g red bean paste (preferably in a plastic packet)
80g toasted flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cream the butter and sugar using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add one egg, 1/3 of the flour and the 2 teaspoons of matcha powder and mix until incorporated. Add the second egg and half of your remaining flour and mix until incorporated. Add the last egg and the remaining flour and mix until incorporated.

Divide mixture evently between two 20cm sandwich tins and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until the edges of the cake start to pull away from the sides of the pan. As soon they are removed from the oven, transfer to cooling racks lined with baking paper.

Beat the matcha powder with the cream until you reach the soft peak stage. Spread a third of the cream on the top of one sponge cake. Snip a small corner off your red bean paste packet and pipe the red bean into spirals on the cake. If you are using tinned red bean paste you may have to thin the paste with a light vegetable oil and transfer to a piping bag. The red bean spirals should be reasonably even (either thin spirals all the way around or fatter spirals with gaps in-between) but don't have to be too neat.

Place the other sponge cake on top then slather the top and sides with the rest of the green tea cream. Press the flaked almonds around the edges of the cake.

Decorate the top of the cake with halved strawberries or white chocolate. I made squiggled hatches of white chocolate and matcha chocolate (melted white chocolate mixed with matcha powder).

Serve to the collective oohs and ahhs of easily impressed guests.

Bill Granger's ricotta hotcakes

Half a tub of leftover ricotta in the fridge provides a perfect excuse to whip up a batch of Bill Granger's famous ricotta hotcakes. Light, soft and incredibly fluffy, it really does make a difference when you beat the egg whites separately and fold them into the batter oh-so-very gently.

Surprise pockets of ricotta are the best part about these hotcakes. If you fold them in at the very last minute there's a much better chance of preserving generous clumps of ricotta.

Bill serves these with banana and honeycomb butter but I find a few slices of banana and a dousing of maple syrup more than suffices.



Bill Granger's ricotta hotcakes

170ml (about 3/4 cup) milk
4 eggs, separated
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
250g ricotta
50g butter
banana
maple syrup

Mix together the milk and egg yolks in a large mixing bowl until combined. Sift in the plain flour, baking powder and salt and stir through gently until almost incorporated. Add the ricotta and stir gently.

In a separate clean and dry stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gently fold half the egg white mixture into the batter using a metal spoon or wooden spatula. Fold in the remaining egg whites.

Melt a small dab of butter in a non-stick frying pan and cook small batches of hotcakes over a low to medium heat, ladling about two tablespoons of batter per hotcake. Flip when golden underneath and cook the other side.

Serve hotcakes with slices of banana and a generous drizzle of maple syrup.

The batter (if there's any left!) does keep in the fridge for 24 hours if covered with clingfilm.

Lindt Chocolat Café, Darling Harbour

Chocolat cerise $11.50
Lindt's own black forest cake, crafted using kirsch-infused cherries,
rich dark chocolate cake and vanilla cream,
encased with a dark chocolate glaze

The best thing about the new influx of chocolat cafes is that finally, finally, Sydneysiders have late-night options to satiate their sweet tooths.

The regular nighttime crowds at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Darling Harbour's Cockle Bay prove there are plenty of sweet tooths out there. It's a toss-up as to which is the harder thing to do: decide on what to have for dessert, or actually find a table!


Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa and Praline Mandina ice cream $3.50 each

Luckily for Divegirl and I, we finally manage to achieve both, scoring a booth on the wall near the espresso machine. It's a long wait in the queue but soon dessert it ours. We share a slice of the Chocolat Cerise, a dense chocolate sponge layered with whipped cream, bursting with kirsch cherries and adorned with fat corkscrew curls of crisp dark chocolate.

The queue at the ice cream servery is such chaos that the pre-packed tubs of ice cream in the fridge are too easy an option to resist. I'd expected the Lindt Excellent 70% ice cream to be quite bitter with cocoa flavour, but it's balanced with plenty of cream and sugar for a rich and satisfying chocolate hit. By comparison, the hazelnut-flavoured Praline Mandina seems a little on the sweet side and I regret not choosing the Black Forest or Sable Cookie and Cream.

Now I have to investigate the wave of new Guylian Chocolate Cafes. Purely for research purposes, of course.

Lindt Chocolat Café at Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour
124-125 Cockle Bay Wharf
(next to the brolga fountain)
Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9267 8064

Open Monday to Wednesday, 10am - 7pm
Thursday 10am - 10pm
Friday and Saturday 10am - 11.30pm
Sunday 10am - 8pm

10% surcharge on Sundays

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Lindt Cafe, Martin Place
Lindt chocolate sale 2006
98 Lindt balls and me

The Australian Heritage Hotel, The Rocks, Sydney

Beer and pizza. What better way to spend a weekend.

A catch-up with an interstate visitor means showcasing the best that Sydney has to offer. For a lazy lunch with a good selection of local beers, we headed to the historic Australian Heritage Hotel at The Rocks.

The Mexican was put onto Little Creatures Pale Ale. I was on a newly available beer on tap, Sydney Rocks Brewery’s Red Ale.


Moroccan lamb pizza $19.50 large
with lemon, garlic, eggplant, goats cheese,
roasted vegetables and cous cous

It didn't take me long to convince the Mexican to order a large pizza each. It was only five dollars more than the small size, I reasoned, and it was worth it to get essentially double the surface area of topping.

He chooses the Moroccan lamb pizza, a Mediterrean combination of lamb slices, roasted pumpkin, tendrils of rocket, spoonfuls of couscous and creamy blobs of goats cheese.


Roast duck pizza $21.50 large
with mushroom, Spanish onion, Asian greens,
shallots, sesame seeds and plum sauce

I can't resist old faithful, the roast duck pizza. It doesn't fail to please. Piled generously with succulent morsels of Chinese roast duck, there's plenty of tasty duck skin to go around, the richness of the duck tempered with a hoisin plum sauce, curls of green onion and freckles of toasted sesame seeds.

Three schooners later we've all but finished our pizzas and caught up on four years of news. We leave the quaint and cosy Parlour Room with reluctance. If only those walls could talk.

The Australian Heritage Hotel
100 Cumberland St, The Rocks, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9247 2229

Open Monday to Saturday, 10.30am-midnight
Sunday 10.30am-10pm

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Pizza--Australian Heritage Hotel, The Rocks
Pizza--Big John's Pizza Restaurant, Sans Souci
Pizza--La Disfida, Haberfield
Pizza--Macchiato, Sydney
Pizza--Napoli in Bocca, Haberfield
Pizza--Slice of Crown Darlinghurst
Pizza--Wedgetail Pizza, Newtown