Papa's fried rice

I seem to think about food almost all the time. What a surprise, right? But now, I don't just mean thinking of cooking and eating, but also about the evolutionary history of food. For example: How have certain dishes changed in their status over the years? Take bacon, so simple it all its fatty goodness that I imagine beside eggs on an American breakfast platter. Today, there's Bacon Mania! Yes, so much bacon a pig could get sick of its delicius self. There's deep fried bacon, bacon wrapped chicken, bacon wrapped turkey stuffed with a chicken... yeah, I'm not kidding. These crazies aside, some amateur foodies are incorporating bacon into just about any dish they can imagine, from traditional dishes like pasta and salads to audacious attempts like cupcakes and chocolate.

Dishes like bouillabaisse, a traditional Provencal fish stew, were poor man's food, conjured up by fishermen who threw local Mediterranean fish too bony to sell into a huge pot. Today, any Marseillais will tell to prepare your wallet for the shock, at 70 to 150 Euros for 2 persons.
In a way, the ordinary fried rice has a similary story. It used to be leftover rice stir fried with whatever ingredients you had on hand to avoid throwing food out!

This recipe for fried rice is my dad's. It's the first dish I have ever learnt to cook when I was, 13 I think? Time flies. There are sure to be lots of different variations out there, but this one is my dad's which I have adapted for French living. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

450 g Thai rice (weight in uncooked rice), cooked the day before
8 dried mushrooms, soaked and sliced
150 g frozen green peas
3 carrots, diced
100g corn kernels
250g ham, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
sunflower oil
oyster sauce
light soya sauce

Optional:
Lap cheong (Chinese sausage), Dried shrimp, Mixed vegetables (instead of peas, carrots, corn separately), Char siew (the ham is an angmoh substitute)


Preparation tips:
The rice should be cooked the day before and left to dry out at room temperature or in the fridge. The dryness makes the rice less clumpy and thus frying easier. The mushrooms have to be soaked in hot water at least 30 minutes before cooking.


Preparation:
1/ Heat oil in a wok and stir fry the diced ham for 2 minutes. Remove and save in a bowl.

2/ Heat oil. Squeeze the water out of the mushrooms and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add 2 tbsp oyster sauce and stir fry for another 5 minutes. Remove and save in bowl.

3/ Heat oil and fry 1 clove of garlic. Stir fry diced carrots for 5 minutes. Add the frozen peas and 2 tbsp oyster sauce then stir fry another 5 minutes. Add the corn kernels. Remove and save in bowl.

4/ Heat oil and fry 1 clove of garlic. Add rice a third at a time, mixing well to separate the grains. If necessary, trickle some more oil over the rice.

5/ Trickle 1 tbsp soy sauce onto the rice and mix well.

6/ Add the ham, mushrooms, carrots, peas and corn to the rice and mix well. Add more soy sauce to taste. Stir fry the rice for 5 minutes, taking care not to burn it entirely, but if a crust of burnt rice forms at the bottom of the wok, it's quite normal.

Pork ribs in black bean garlic sauce

Today, I salute one of the best kitchen helpers of the modern glutton: Bottled sauces. Asian sauces are delectable, but oh so time-consuming to make from scratch. All I need now is the strength to get the eff-ing top of the eff-ing bottle.

I'd also like to introduce my little darling in the kitchen: My thermal cooker.


It is comprised of a vacuum flask exterior with a removable stainless steel pot. The pot and its contents are heated to cooking temperatures then sealed in the flask, leaving the food to cook on its own without additional electricity! It's a great way to save time and reduce power bills without having to compromise on delicious dishes. It's perfect for the working crowd: In this dish for example, I simply spent 10 minutes preparing the initial cooking phase, promptly popped it into the vacuum flask where it stood all day while I was out and came home to a mouth-watering meal.For some reason, it's called a norwegian cooker in French. Go figure. It was a gift from my mother, which goes to show that mum always knows best.

Ingredients:

500g pork ribs, cut
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp black bean garlic sauce
2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
1-2 chillis, sliced
2 stalks spring onion
1 tbsp sunflower oil
20cl water


Preparation tip:
Be careful when slicing the chillis. The slightest drop of chilli juice, even by brushing lightly against the chopping board, can become a weapon of localized destruction. If you forget even for a second and bring your fingers to your eyes, they're gonna burn baby burn. It HURTS. To avoid all this, always hold the chilli by its stem, make a lengthwise incision and shake to remove the seeds. Slice the chilli while holding onto the stem.


Preparation:

1/ Heat oil in a wok. Once hot, fry the minced garlic, making sure not to burn it.

2/ Brown the pork ribs on all sides.

3/ Add the black bean garlic sauce and the sliced chillis. Stir fry for 1 minute over high heat.

4/ Deglaze with chinese cooking wine and stir fry for another 1 minute.

5/ Add water and bring to a boil. Transfer to a stewing pot.

6/ Lower heat, cover and leave to simmer for at least 1 hour. The longer it stews, the more likely the tender meat will fall off the bone!

7/ Just before serving, garnish with spring onion (green part only), cut into 3-cm pieces.

Wanton dumplings

If you had to choose one dish, that you would then have to eat everyday for the rest of your life, what would it be? Wanton Mee. No fight. Chilli crab, Char Kway Teow, too distinctive a taste, too easy to get sick of. If I ever have to live in space, give me my dehydrated cubes of dumpling goodness!

For the past 2 months, I have been consumed with a huge obsession with dumplings. And I am ashamed to admit that I have been highly promiscuous in my dumpling love... Wanton, Gyoza, Xiao Long Bao all have equal rights to be eaten! I don't know why I bother sometimes, it takes ages to prepare but only a few minutes to devour!

Ingredients:

15-20 wanton wrappers
100g minced pork
75 g prawns
1 spring onion, chopped
1/2 tsp ginger, grated
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp chinese cooking wine
2 water chestnut, chopped
1 tsp cornflour

Preparation:

1/ Peel, devein and chop the prawns but not too fine
.
2/ Mix all the ingredients except the wrappers in a bowl.
3/ Spoon about a teaspoon full of stuffing onto a wrapper and wet the edges with water.

4/ With both hands, gather all the wet edges to the centre. Pinch together to seal the dumpling.


5/ Bring 1L water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the dumplings one by one, making sure not to overcrowd the pan.

6/ Cook for 5 minutes, they should float at the surface. Serve hot, on its own or with soup and noodles.

Tip for storage: On a tray covered with plastic wrap, place wrapped Wantons spaced apart so that they do not touch. Leave overnight in freezer and transfer into freezer bags the next day. Frozen Wantons can be stored for 2 months in the freezer.

There's always a packet of dumplings lurking in my freezer to tide me through those dreary days where you just can't bring yourself to cook and you already ate instant noodles for lunch. That describes my weekend perfectly!