the ultimate in stuffed loaves

I don't know why we don't make one of these more often. I guess if there was always one in the fridge, and they can easily last a few days, it would be the perfect go to snack at any time of the day. That said, this really is picknicking taken to another level, if it ever gets to leave the house that is. There are no rules, no ingredients off limits, and certainly no restrictions on combinations. If it works for you say in a salad, or in a regular sandwich, it will work being stuffed and allowed to settle overnight before tucking in.

The stuffed picnic loaf to take down all picnic loaves

Serves about 4

1 decent round sourdough loaf

About 50g pesto

4 soft boiled eggs, quartered

8 good slices prosciutto

16 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes

1 large handful of fresh basil leaves

200g mozzarella, sliced

2 large roast peppers, peeled

2 courgettes, sliced and grilled

1 aubergine, sliced and grilled

Lots of olive oil, salt and pepper

Slice the top off the loaf and reserve as the lid of the stuffed loaf. Hollow out the bottom without breaking the crust. Keep the centre for breadcrumbs.

Thoroughly coat the inside edges and bottom of the lid with pesto, and season liberally.

Add a layer of prosciutto, then a layer of sun-dried tomatoes. Top with basil leaves, then a layer of your mozzarella. The next layer should be the peppers followed by courgette and aubergine. Finish with the eggs and a bit more basil before topping off with a last layer of prosciutto.

You should have doused each layer with a glug of olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper as you've built it, pressing well as you go. Finish with a bit more of the same before closing with the lid.

Wrap tightly in aluminium foil and place in the fridge with a chopping board on top weighted down with anything hefty to hand. Because we’re using sourdough, this could easily take an eight pack of beer at least, a softer bread vehicle and you’ll need to downgrade to a couple of tins of soup for example.

Leave in the fridge to chill and press for at least a few hours, overnight will yield much better results.

Don’t try to cut in advance, bring the whole beast to your end destination, unwrap, slice, serve and accept admiring nods from the masses.

the club burger at the lotus cafe

In the sleepy village of Lin Tong Mei Tsuen, there's a buzzing place called the Lotus Cafe. It's properly packed, delicious and outstanding, and there's no more point wasting time in coming up with more superlatives to add to that statement. I had a club burger, everyone else had a bit of everything from BLT pittas through fatty pork belly over rice to deep fried French toast with peanut butter and syrup. After a decent hike in the clouds above Yuen Long, believe me, it was properly outstanding.

In other news, a decent way with a pork burger to do at home if you fancy it.

Pork burgers

Serves 4

200 g minced pork

1 tblsp grain mustard

1 tblsp clear honey

1 tblsp sage, chopped

1 tblsp flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 egg yolk

2 tblsp breadcrumbs

Grated zest of a lemon

2 shallots, finely chopped

Olive oil

To serve

Bun or bread - anything works

Sliced red onions

Gherkins

Shaved Parmesan

Olive oil

Rocket leaves

Watercress sprigs

In a mixing bowl, mix together the pork, mustard, honey, sage, parsley, yolk, breadcrumbs, lemon zest and shallots.

Shape the pork mixture into 4 even-sized burgers.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add in the burgers and fry until golden brown on both sides and cooked through.

Serve the fried burgers between freshly griddled bread or toasted buns. Top the burgers with red onion, gherkins, Parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil, rocket and watercress.

Sauces and relishes at this stage are totally over to you. I'd throw on a fried egg and a bit of bacon myself, but that's just me.

a trip to the bbq man

A trip up to see the nice man who does great bbq pork and birds up the street is always a great treat, even though something you do more than once a week technically should fall outside the treat category. He's been doing his art forever, and the consistency alone of what is churned out has to be totally respected. Just a handful of fatty slices of char siu atop steamed rice and a

smattering of green onions and minced ginger is a polystyrene takeaway container and throwaway chopsticks of legends. I'll never tire of this.

Barbecuing at home (without any outdoor space I have to add) has its small but not impossible challenges and a set of why bothers when our friend does his so well. But when all that is said, he doesn't have ribs in his collection. This is easy slow long cooking simplicity. Smokey it may slightly fail on to a degree, but taste and texture wise, hard to beat without getting all too fancy.

Great barbecue ribs

Enough for 4

2 racks of small pork loin ribs - 5 or 6 ribs per person

1½ tsp smoked paprika
a good splash of soy sauce
a good splash of Worcestershire sauce
20g tomato ketchup
30g dark brown sugar
20g HP sauce
20g strong mustard

Place the racks curved-side down, and using a small knife to peel the edge of the translucent membrane away from the smaller end of the rack until you can get a grip of it. Pull this towards you, so the membrane comes away from the bones.

Mix together the marinade ingredients and rub about half into the ribs well. Put in a shallow dish, cover and leave for at least a couple of hours, turning once or twice during this time to make sure the entire rack is coated.

Heat the oven to 140°C. Cover the dish tightly with foil and cook for about 2½ hours until tender, basting once or twice during this time, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes. The racks ought to be close to falling apart by now but still remaining intact.

If possible, heat a barbecue or a griddle pan until hot, drizzle the ribs with the rest of the marinade and cook until blackened and charred. Serve immediately.

If it is not possible to barbecue over a fierce flame, crank up the oven to 200°C and conduct this last bit without any cover on the ribs until a crust appears.

hong kong bumps into moscow

In a city I'd never made it to before a couple of weeks ago, Moscow; there are some utterly brilliant people, the most amazing sights and some of the most wonderful magical ingredients still to be properly discovered outside the region. Among the fantastically shaped bottles, jars and sachets which I'm now lucky to have at home, is a great big bottle of tkemali. 

Tkemali is the name of the wild sour plum which gives the sauce its name, and I'm to believe is Georgian in origin. It's a ketchup like condiment, and has everything going on from pungently tangy to tart, sweet and sour, but above all else, its insanely addictive now I've opened my bottle.

Fried rice pops up at home an awful lot, and every time it comes out just that little bit differently, I guess the nature of what's at home and kicking about in the fridge will always dictate as such. This time of the year it has to be glutinous rice though, makes the whole thing more sticky and warming, perfect as winter begins to take shape (21°c and blue skies here today)

fried rice, bbq pork, tkemali

For the glutinous fried rice

Serves 4

500g glutinous rice, soaked overnight

50g dried shrimps, soaked and cleaned

50g shredded dried cuttlefish, cleaned

3 Chinese dried sausages, sliced

8 large mushrooms cut into cubes

1 bunch of spring onions, chopped

4 tblsp garlic oil

2 egg omelette, shredded

25g fried peanuts

Seasoning

1tbsp dark soya sauce

1tbsp oyster sauce

2tsp salt

Clean and drain the soaked glutinous rice and steam for about 35-45 minutes. Sprinkle water into the steamed rice every 15 mins and continue steaming. Fluff up the rice after 25 minutes and continue sprinkling water till the rice is soft. You can pinch some rice and try if it's soft enough, if not, just continue to steam.

Remove from steamer and set aside. In a wok, pour in the garlic oil, then put in the dried shrimps and dried cuttlefish and fry them till aromatic, add the mushrooms, Chinese sausages and sauté for several minutes on a medium heat.

Now add in the steamed glutinous rice and seasonings and keep frying till everything is well mixed with the seasonings.

Taste and add more salt if necessary. Toss in the chopped spring onions, shredded omelette and fried peanuts to finish.

Serve with the barbecued pork, and a heavy handed hit of tkemali and your work for the night is now complete.

shaukeiwan market and some fu yung

 

Living a stone's throw from Bowrington Road market, I'm quite spoiled really when it comes to my local food shopping. Jam-packed with the full collection fish, meat, bbq, fruit and vegetables; there's little need to venture any further for what's best on offer in my neighbourhood.

 

Though I can find pretty much anything you’re looking for here, with the main attraction being the seafood, I do love a trip east to Shaukeiwan for a different look and feel.

 

Not quite on the way home in the evening (Bowrington Road is the place to pick up a cheeky late evening char siu fan) but easily worth the trek if nothing else but to top up the fruit bowl and vegetable drawer.

 

Absolutely essential for a dose of the real Hong Kong; Skip the supermarket and hit up the wet market. You'll save a ton of money on food while getting the best quality meat and produce the city has to offer.

 

Fu yung with market vegetables

 

Serves 2

 

As I understand it, Fu Yung means 'pretty face' in Chinese; it is a sort of scrambled egg omelette. You can also add cooked meats or prawns or toasted nuts to this dish, but don't be greedy and add too much or there won't be enough egg to bind with the other ingredients.

 

2 tsp olive oil

1 spring onion, finely sliced

50g carrots, cut into 2.5 cm strips

125g fresh beansprouts

50g Chinese flowering chives, cut into 2.5cm lengths

pinch of coarse sea salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

4 eggs, lightly beaten

 

Heat the oil in a nonstick pan over a high heat, until piping hot, swirling the oil around the pan. Add the spring onion and carrots and stir-fry for a few seconds.

 

Toss in the beansprouts, Chinese chives, salt and pepper and stir. Pour in the eggs and scramble them with the vegetables over a medium to high heat.

 

As the eggs start to set, fold the fu yung over in the middle, move it back into the centre of the pan and continue cooking over a medium to high heat for two minutes. Serve immediately.

 

hiking in the shadows of awesomeness

If you know Hong Kong, you'll highly likely to know of the MacLehose Trail in the New Terretories. If you know the MacLehose, you're for sure going to know that stages 4 and 5 on a hot day can break you like a cheap toothpick if you're not ready and prepared.

Starting at Kei Ling Ha to Tai Lo Shan and ending up on Tai Po Road after give or take 23k of some tough climbs and unforgiving descents, days out like these are what makes living in the metropolis that HK is something to utterly respect and appreciate. 

In the same way, whether you know of a fairly straightforward looking Cha Chaan Teng at the top of Nathan Road that's pretty famous for their egg tarts, but also do killer fried noodles and Ho Fun after a six and a half hour trek through the toughest hills is there for you to discover if not. Well done you if you know where I'm talking about, quite brilliant isn't it?

No pain, no gain is what they say, but I guess I'm one of the lucky ones where the hike is what it's all about on the weekend. A fast and hostile plate of noodles with an iced lemon tea served with all the grace and style you need not to distract from what is actually a really very good offering. The challenge, the escape, the wonderment of how you can be at the foot of an incredible little mountain already stretched up and ready to attack just 45 minutes after getting on the train at the bottom of another impressive climb, The Bank of China building in Central.

The opposite end of the day, we jumped in a taxi at the end of Stage 5 on the Tai Po Road with a couple of grazing monkeys giving us the look of 'you're doing all this climbing stuff wrong getting all sweaty and the like' and literally 10 minutes later back in the hustle of Kowloon and settling into that noodle reward.

Simply because a great bowl of noodles can be had here for a small fistful of dollars, what's the point of cooking at home I hear myself ask. Let's just say that there's always a time and a place.

Fried Nathan Road noodles

Serves 2

About 100g dried egg noodles

100g bean shoots

Half a handful of chopped chives

A splash of oil, pinch of salt

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

For the sauce

1 tsp each light soy, dark soy, oyster sauces

Pinch of salt, same of sugar and 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Cook and loosen the dried noodles in a pot of boiling water until just cooked and when done, immediately drain noodles in a colander and run them under cold water. Drain and dry off any excess water

Wash the bean sprouts and mix together the ingredients for the sauce, set aside.

Heat half tablespoon of oil in wok over a medium heat, toss in the bean sprouts. Quickly turn and stir, and add the noodles and the chives. Season with the salt  and then remove to a small bowl.

Add one more tablespoon of oil to the wok and turn the heat up high, toss in noodles. Stir them constantly to minimize their lumping together or sticking. Swirl in sauce, and stir well with noodles. Then, return bean sprouts and chives, turn over a few more times and remove. Serve up, sprinkle sesame seeds on top and any other chilli sauce you might want to add for an extra oomph.