Pasta!

Over the last two days we have turned our backs to Chinese cuisine and enjoyed the taste, texture and flavors (and calories) of European food, namely pasta. The best part of the dinner: a glass of French red wine (!). We visited Beijing’s expat supermarket, called Jenny Lou, that sells a lot of European delights, and went crazy, buying different pastas, cheeses, salami, Earl Gray tea, Cote’d'Ivore chocolate, coffee, dark rye bread and a bunch of other things…I could have bought the whole shop if only it would not have been that expensive! One of the Finnish girls in our language class had a birthday, so we decided to make her day and got her a bottle of Finlandia as well.

About the pasta – we did not use any specific recipe, just tried to improvise a dish from the ingredients that we had at hand. Nevertheless, both dishes came out wonderful (or maybe it was just that we hadn’t had pasta like forever).

The first dish, bacon-mushroom penne, was made by J. A plateful of simple, creamy goodness that was. And easy! Next time would maybe add some asparagus for texture and colour…or frozen peas? Could also use turkey bacon for less fatty option, but I don’t think I’ll find it here in China…And to be honest, I don’t think turkey bacon would give as much flavor as the smoked pork bacon did.

• ca 200 g penne pasta
• 100 g smoked bacon, cut into stripes
• 100 ml cream (up to you how heavy you use)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-2 gloves of garlic, crushed (depending on how into garlics you are)
• 4-5 button mushrooms, sliced
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• butter

# Heat butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (a wok-pan would do as well), add bacon and fry until browned and crispy. Remove from pan and pat dry with household paper.

# Remove excess fat from the pan (not all of it), add garlic and onion to the pan, stirring and scrapping the brown pieces from the pan. Fry until golden, add mushroom to the pan and fry for an additional couple of minutes. Tip: if too dry, try adding some water, to not to burn the onions/mushrooms.

# Pour cream to the pan, season with salt and pepper and heat through, to thicken the sauce. Finally add the bacon to the sauce.

# In the mean time boil penne pasta until al dente, drain, pour over with some olive oil and stir. Add to the sauce, give everything a good toss and serve immediately.

The second pasta dish was my own creation, nothing special, but also very tasty. Hearty, flavorfur, yet not an overpowering tomato base – a perfect match with the wine we got.

• ca 200 g spaghetti
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• 100 g smoked bacon, cut into stripes
• 3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 gloves of garlic, crushed
• some dried (or fresh) basil
• half a cube of pork bullion
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• butter
• some red wine (optional)

# Start the same way as the previous dish: heat butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (a wok-pan would do as well), add bacon and fry until browned and crispy. Remove from pan and pat dry with household paper.

# Remove excess fat from the pan (not all of it), add garlic and onion to the pan, stirring and scrapping the brown pieces from the pan. Fry until golden, add mushroom to the pan and fry for an additional couple of minutes.

# Add diced tomatoes to the pan, season with salt, pepper, basil and the crumbled bullion cube. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring meanwhile (and crushing the tomatoes at the same time). Tip: If I had a blender here, I would have even pureed the whole lot, to get a nice thick pasta sauce.

# Finally add the bacon and some wine, heat through and serve over spaghetti. Oh, and of course you’ll need to cook the spaghetti in the mean time, don’t forget that!

Trying out Chinese cuisine

The first proper Chinese dish I tried to make here in Beijing was this sweet chilly pork stir fry (not very authentic to go and look for recipes from European sites, but as they say, old habits never die).

Not bad, considering it was my first try of deep-frying meat coated in batter. I’ll be making it again, but would add some salt the next time: although the chilly gives the dish a pretty spicy kick, I do think that the overall taste would only benefit from a tiny bit of salt.

Also, I got the feeling that there should have been more sauce (or at least a separate sauce accompanying the dish). What I would try next time is to deep-fry the meat a bit longer (so that the batter will not become ’soaked’ when transferred into a sauce) and double the sauce ingredients, also adding some water and corn-flour. Will let you know what comes out of it.

• 500ml vegetable oil, for deep frying
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 free-range egg, lightly whisked
• 250g pork tenderloin, cut into bite-sized slices
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 1 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp honey
• a pinch of salt (recommended)
• Rice or noodles to serve

# Heat the vegetable oil in a deep saucepan, until very hot (if a breadcrumb sizzles in it, it is the right temperature).

# Make a batter by whisking the sesame oil, cornstarch and egg together (also add salt if you wish). Dip the pork in the batter to coat, then place into the hot oil to deep fry for about four minutes or until crisp and cooked through.

# Remove and drain on kitchen towels.

# Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a wok. Add the pepper, onions and chilli flakes and stir-fry for three minutes. Then add the soy sauce, honey and pork, and cook for one minute to warm through.

# Serve with some rice or noodles.I also prepared a vegetable dish from cauliflower and broccoli, stir-frying them in a hot wok-pan with some vegetable oil, and adding some water, corn starch, oyster sauce and sesame oil to taste.

The next day I tried another dish from Chinese kitchen, that of sticky lemon chicken. I really loved the look of this dish and I did enjoy its lemony flavor, but J thought it to be the worst dish ever, with way ‘too much lemon juice’.

Now, the lemons here in China must be with stronger taste or something, because on the BBC Goodfood web-site where the recipe is taken, most of the commentators complain about the ‘lack of lemony flavor’ and say that ‘next time I’ll add lots of more lemon juice’ or ‘I added extra lemon juice for some more zing’ etc…So I don’t know…Maybe J is just not into lemons. I remember him not enjoying the broccoli pasta with peppermint that had a lemony hint to it.

But I really liked it, I think it had a nice clean taste, it was healthy and it looked delicious. What more do you want from a supper??

Zucchini boats

There are probably thousand different ways on how to do filled zucchinis or courgettes – with cheese, mushrooms, meat, etc. I had a zucchini, a bit of Gorgonzola and some corn, so those recipes weren’t good enough for me. Luckily I did find something with those ingredients in one of the Estonian sites. Pretty interesting and definitely something for people who like blue cheese. Serves two.

1 zucchini (about 20 cm long)

some lemon pepper

0.5 tbsp butter

1 small onion, chopped

125 g frozen or canned corn

1 garlic glove, crushed

0.5 tsp pepper

150 g blue cheese

3 tbsp chopped parsley

 

# Place zucchini into boiling water for about 3-5 minutes. Drain. Peel, if you think it is necessary – I didn’t because the zucchini was young enough for me. Cut in half.

# Using a small spoon, scoop out the zucchini flesh and cut into cubes. Sprinkle lemon pepper into the zucchini shells.

# Heat butter in a saucepan. Add onion, corn, garlic and zucchini cubes. Simmer until softened (but don’t burn!). Season with pepper.

# Transfer crumbled blue cheese into the saucepan, also add the parsley. Stir thoroughly and simmer until the cheese has melted.

# Flip the filling over the zucchini shells. Bake at 200 degrees C until the filling is set (for about 15 min).

Serve without any side dish or with some meat. The best side dish would probably be a steak or some grilled sausages. I only had pork cubes at hand, so I prepared a sauce. As the blue cheese gives pretty strong flavour to the zucchini boats, I tried to make a milder sauce. For that, I fried the pork cubes with chopped onion until not pink anymore. Seasoned with salt and pepper and poured over with some light cream. Added some mustard as well.

I would call it a success. In terms of taste anyway.

Ground meat patties

Years back Estonians used to call those meat patties “meat cakes” and served them only during holidays and special occasions because meat was something you couldn’t eat every day (people were poor and saved meat for special occasions). Today this simple dish is very common. So I decided to try it. Never done them before, but my mum prepared them often (still does), so I tried to remember, how did she prepare them. Finally I got some instructions from an  Estonian Cuisine cookbook.

500 g mixed ground meat (mix of ground pork and ground beef)

1 onion, minced

1 tsp salt

0.75 tsp pepper

1 egg

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

0.5 tsp chili powder

oil or butter

 

# Mince onion and mix with minced meat.

# Add slightly beaten egg, salt, pepper, chili powder and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well to combine.

# Take palm sized portions of the mixture and shape them into flat, round or oblong patties.

# Cook in hot oil on frying pan until brown on both sides.

# Place patties in roasting pan lined with waxed paper. Bake at 175 degrees C for 10-15 minutes.

As a result, you’ll get nice meat patties, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. And hand-made!

You should serve them with boiled vegetables or warm salad (such as warm potato salad) and some sauce (I used bechamell). Leftovers can be stored in the fridge (covered) for a few days. They’ll reheat well, but you can also eat them cold with a slice of bread.

Cheese-rösti

Rösti is a Swiss potato dish, originally a common breakfast eaten by farmers. Many Swiss people consider rösti their national dish as well. Today it is more commonly served to accompany other dishes, rather than for breakfast. Although the basic rösti consists of nothing but potato, a number of additional ingredients are sometimes added. I tried it for lunch, with some cheese and bacon. It was a good way to use up the boiled potatoes from the day before.

5-6 boiled potatoes, chilled

150 g smoked ham or bacon

1 tsp salt

pepper

2 garlic gloves

100 g grated cheese

 

# Shred the potato on a large-holed grater and season with salt, pepper and crushed garlic.

# Fry chopped bacon or ham for a few minutes and pour grated potatoes on the frying pan. 

# Mix and fry on low for a minute, then add most of the cheese, mix and form into cake. Let cook for about five minutes.

# When crust forms, turn carefully (using a plate). Serve with the remaining grated cheese and some cherry tomatoes.

Nice and simple dish, either for lunch or dinner cause in the morning it would be a bit too heavy for me. The next time I would add some chopped bell pepper and onions to spice it up a bit. I guess it makes a good side dish as well.