Comfort food

One of the joys of living in Beijing is the ability to be able to eat, at any given meal, food from all four corners of the country. Spicy Sichuan hot pot, sweet Shanghai fish dishes, dim sum from Guangdong and Hong Kong, cumin encrusted lamb kebabs and flat bread from the deserts of Xinjiang or rich, bubbling pork dishes in glutenous sweet sour red sauce from Hunan. They are all, in their own way, delicious. but sometimes, it all just gets a bit much. Sometimes, plates piled high with scarlet red chillis and thick rich sauces are the last thing you want. Sometimes simple, unpretentious, comfort food is what is called for. Back in the UK comfort food would probably be either huge wedges of granary bread, cheddar cheese and branston pickle or a steaming hot bowl of pasta, green pesto and more cheese....god, just thinking about that is making me hungry.

Of course in these oooooh so international days in Beijing, those foods can all be gathered with a little bit of effort, but Chinese comfort food is pretty damn good too. To clarify, what i call 'comfort food' is in fact, the basic elements of the diet of the vast bulk of the country. People who eat little meat and rely on fresh grains - be it wheat in the north or rice in the south - and plenty of fresh, locally grown vegetables, light on the seasoning usually and simply prepared. Its not sophisticated food, its certainly any awards, its not going to be replicated and appear on the menus of swanky restaurants in London and LA, but damn, it sure is comforting.

A few of my favourites include...

Steamed pork and cabbage dumplings

sliced tomatos with sugar sprinkled on top. odd, but good, try it!

Fried pork, onion, rice cake and green pepper, real simple peasant food

A simple, delicious peasant feast, comfort food, Chinese stylee

Oh dear

It seems I have not posted anything for...well, for two months. There has been a number of reasons for this. Its been too hot to do anyhing much more than sit by my a/c and pant, work has been busy and the Chinese government have made logging onto anything other than state sanctioned news sites very difficult and to be honest, the novelty of writing a blog that nobody reads has worn off somewhat. BUT, its October now, the weather has cooled, my energy levels have returned to normal levels, and its time to get back in the game. Over the next couple of weeks i will be posting a few catch up posts, some photos and generally trying to get back into the habit of one or two posts a week. watch this space. i know, i know, its almost too exciting.

No 2: Yunnan

Beijing, mid August and the weather is, to say the least, unpleasant. Most
days a yellow tinged haze hangs over the city and occasionally, as today, a
strong sun beats down over the capital causing even the Chinese, who in my
experience rarely sweat, to amble slowly under parasols, a dark streak
running down the back of their shirts the only sign that they too find the
heat a little oppressive. It’s a month for large wedges of icy pink watermelon,
cold slippery garlicky noodle and tofu dishes, t-shirts rolled up over flabby
bellies, and long evenings spent on the streets, playing Chinese chess,
dominoes or gossiping with neighbours parked on low wooden stools with cold bottles of local Yanjing beer, pumpkin seeds and spicy, cumin encrusted lamb kebabs.

If you are me, and lets face it most people wish they were, it’s also the month of bi-hourly showers and insane air conditioning bills.

However, the province challenge waits for no man, and this week it was the
turn of Yunnan. Following the last posting on Ningxia, I ran a survey and
100% of those surveyed loved the idea of ‘top ten facts about’ said province
(thanks Cissy!) so here we go, my top ten facts about China’s Yunnan
Province:

1) Yunnan is located in the far south-western corner of China, bordering
Laos, Burma and Vietnam

2) Just under 45 million people call Yunnan home

3) Ethnic minorities in Yunnan account for about 34% of its total
population. Major ethnic groups include Yi, Bai, Hani, Zhuang, Dai and Miao

4) Yunnan has abundant natural resources and the mainstays of its economy
are agriculture, tobacco, mining, hydro-electric power, and tourism

5) Yunnan is a very mountainous province. The average altitude being 1,980 m

6) Both the Yangtze and the Mekong, two of Asia’s largest rivers flow
through the province, but the Yangtze is known as ‘the river of golden
sands’ there…far more poetic than the Yangtze’s ‘long river’

7) Yunnan has three UNESCO world heritage sites, the old town of Lijiang,
the ‘three parallel rivers’ area and the ‘South China Karst’ area

8) At 394,000 sq kms, the province is significantly bigger than both Germany and Japan

9) Yunnan is host to 15,000 species of plants, including 60% of the
plants used in traditional Chinese medicine

10) 7 million people live in the province’s capital, Kunming which because
of its high altitude and balmy climate is known throughout China as the
‘city of eternal spring’. Lovely.

So, on a particularly hot and steamy evening in mid August four of us went
down to the Dali Courtyard restaurant nestled inconspicuously down a dusty
alleyway in the bell tower area of Beijing.

The Dali Courtyard is a well known restaurant in the city and deservedly so.
Tables spill out of wood floored rooms all around a central courtyard
dominated by a large pomegranate tree and a fish pond.

After a few glasses of icy water and a gin and tonic, our body temperatures
has dropped back down to normal human levels and we ordered some
Yunnanese delicacies. I say ordered, but it seems that at the Dali Courtyard this is not how things are done, instead for a flat fee of 120 Yuan (around 10 pounds) a selection
of starters, meats, fish and desserts are delivered to your table over the
course of a delicious hour. It really is money well spent.

Considering Yunnan’s location, nestled on the northern borders of Vietnam
and Burma it should come as no surprise that there is a disctinctly south
eastern asian feel to much Yunnan cuisine. Lemongrass makes a regular
appearance as do mushrooms and Yunnanese food is particularly famous for
the fact that flowers are used extensively to both flavour and decorate food.

To start we ate a plate of chewy, surprisingly meaty fried mushrooms, mini
vegetable spring rolls, cooling tofu ribbons and some, despite my
apprehension, totally delicious slabs of Yunnan cheese sprinkled with
pepper.*


Between the four of us these dishes were devoured in 19 seconds.

Next came a plate of incredibly tender beef fried with lemongrass, ginger,
garlic, Sichuan numbing pepper and possibly mint. Whatever the flavour combo
was that was going on, it was AMAZING and totally justified a cow’s death.


To accompany this we ate some simply stir fried garlicy spinach and a plate
piled high with huge juicy prawns and crispy fried bay leaves.



A plate of chicken which followed was, although very nice, not dissimilar to
chicken I have eaten in a million and one Chinese restaurants and doesn’t
really deserve special attention. Harsh, but fair.

Thoroughly stuffed and sitting slumped in our chairs, deeply satisfied
smiles spread across our slightly sweaty faces we still managed to polish
off a plate of steaming hot sweet potato doughnuts which appeared out of the
darkness on our table and then we were totally, fully, wholeheartedly done.



* I am generally scared of non-European cheese.

A few random thoughts

1) I am searching for a good coffee shop in Beijing. In this post Olympics, super modern, hi tech, international city where is seems these days every third person is tapping away on an iphone or loitering at traffic lights in an Audi, I can’t believe that there is not a wealth of awesome little coffee shops hidden away amongst the Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Chinese places*. I don’t ask for much, just good prices, comfy seats, good hot coffee, maybe a muffin or two to choose from, no best of Kenny G CDs on loop and no whipped cream….where art thou? I know they are out there, I must find them!

2) I now have settled into my new apartment and need to start cooking! I really have no excuse. A job that, for now at least, provides me with plenty of free time, a reasonable sized kitchen and plenty of friends nearby that can serve as my gastronomic guinea pigs. What I don’t have is a) any food or b) any cooking utensils….so that is one of my tasks for the next week or two, to equip my kitchen with a variety of pots and pans, woks and griddles, rice and noodles, oils and sauces…then the cooking can begin.

3) Reading other food blogs, or indeed any blogs at all, I have realized that a blog is pretty dull without some photos to break up the text. You can never have too many in my mind..…now, in China it is a challenge to even read a blog, let alone write one. The main hosting site www.blogger.com is blocked by the powers that be and you have to go through a variety of proxy servers to access the site. Even then, half the functions are hidden or seem to shut down the page if you try to access them, but I am persevering. Soon I hope to find a way to upload pictures and will then start peppering my postings with photographs galore.

4) I am hungry…..boring, but true, in fact that is true most of the time. Always, always hungry.

*Chinese coffee shops in my experience are deeply upsetting places. Menus 20 pages thick, a wide selection of ‘Italian coffee’ and ‘Brazilian latte’ concoctions but all served in knickerblocker glory sundae glasses, complete with orange food colouring and straws.

No 1: Ningxia

Last week I had the inaugural meal of my ‘eat the food of all China’s provinces challenge’. I was joined by my friend Cissy, a fellow food blogger (check her out at www.grazingbullock.blogspot.com) and her boyfriend Andy who I think found the idea of this challenge faintly ridiculous, but humoured us and came along nonetheless.

We started with a humdinger, Ningxia.

Before I crack on talking about the food, here are my top ten facts…and not at all courtesy of Wikipedia… about the great province of Ningxia:

1) It is a classified ‘autonomous region’ like Tibet, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, which means, in theory at least, it retains a degree of independence from decrees passed down from Beijing
2) Both the Yellow River; China’s second river after the Yangtze as well as parts of the Great Wall pass through the province
3) It is 1,200 from the nearest sea
4) Its capital, Yinchuan, is home to the International Car and Motorcycle Tourism Festival…whatever that may be
5) Wolfberries, which are eaten extensively in western China and made into all sorts of teas and Chinese medicines are mainly produced in the province
6) Ningxia is mainly desert, meaning the population is relatively low at 5.8 million
7) At 66,000 sq kms, it is slightly bigger than Sri Lanka, oh yes indeed
8) An earthquake in Ningxia in 1920 killed an estimated 200,000
9) It is 34% Hui nationality (Chinese Muslim) making it one of China’s most Muslim areas.
10) In 2006, satellite images indicated that a 700 by 200-meter fenced area within Ningxia is a near-exact 1:500 scale terrain model reproduction of a 450 by 350-kilometer area of Aksai Chin bordering India,
complete with mountains, valleys, lakes and hills…but nobody knows why. Strange.

So, now we all feel thoroughly educated, to the food!

When I told my Chinese colleagues I was going out for Ningxia food, there was a lot of sad eyes, shaking heads and one or two ‘whatever for?’ type comments. It seems the traditional food of the province is not held in particularly high esteem by the sophisticates of this nation’s capital, but I was not put off and we subwayed our way down the Andingmen station near the Beijing drum tower and, complete with a Google map found our way to the Ningxia Mansion, a typical Chinese, white tiled building plonked in the middle of a hutong alleyway and muslimed up with a faintly ridiculous mosque style roof.

Once inside, we were shown to the dining room and despite my concerns that we had not made reservations found ourselves in a large banqueting hall, only two or three tables of which were being used. From the chandeliers hung the remains of party poppers, obviously there has been some kind of party – record wolfberry production rave maybe? Or perhaps it was a celebration to commemorate the 2 month mark before the 2009 International Car and Motorcycle Tourism Festival? Who knows.

Our waitress, who seemed ever so slightly scared of us – I don’t think she had ever had the delight of serving three slightly sweaty foreigners a cross section of Ningxia specialties - helped us order some and then all of a sudden our table started filling up….

At this point, apologies are in order. Silly me, I didn’t write down the names in English or Chinese for any of the dishes so am going to have to rely on my dazzling writing skills to get across what we ate.

First came a large plate of what can only be described as tasteless dough sticks, rather cleverly twisted into a jumble of ‘U’ shapes but which would have benefited from some salt, or at the very least a sprinkling of MSG. Still, we managed to nibble on them till the rest of the food arrived, trying to decide whether the after taste was of petrol or merely cooking oil.

To accompany this…ummm…delight we ate a small plate of cold salty chicken, which was a lot more tasty than it sounds. Succulent chunks of chicken in a salty, spicy light sauce, most of it still on the bone.



Some stir fried bitter mountain vegetables cooked in a simple 'qing chao' style and a large plate of very tender mutton chops which appeared to have been boiled were also consumed with an incredibly garlicky dipping sauce



, but my favourite dish of all, and one which I am definitely looking forward to eating again was a plate of fired mutton, garlic and heaps of cumin which we were instructed to heap into tiny boiled mantou bread parcels before devouring.



Upon leaving the restaurant, reeking of mutton and cumin, I think we all agreed that although the food was better than expected, it wasn’t mind blowing. I did enjoy it, but then again I enjoy most food…perhaps we ordered wrong? Perhaps the restaurant was not all that great, but put it this way, a trip to sample the delights of Ningxia cuisine is not going to become a weekly occurrence in my social diary.



Still, live and learn…on to the next challenge. Watch this space!

An ode to the aubergine

When I was a kid, there were pretty much only three things I wouldn’t eat – mushrooms, courgettes and aubergines. Anyone who knows me at that time knows that I was certainly not a picky eater, or a restrained eater for that matter*, but those were three things I refused to touch. I don’t know if it is because of a deeply buried but highly disturbing incident at a courgette-mushroom-aubergine farm or because of the sloppy-wet-slimy texture they all share, but I preferred to stick to my trusty frozen bird’s eye peas when vitamins were called for.

Thankfully, I am over that and love a side of fried mushrooms with my English breakfast and a big bowl of moussaka, thick with bubbling cheese, but courgettes, no, still not a fan, never will be.

Aubergines, or eggplants to the non-British, feature prominently on Chinese menus across the country, and even the most humble of roadside shacks will happily stir fry you a side of them on request, with garlic sauce or stuffed with fried pork, but very few things get my taste buds excited like a plate of hot, spicy 鱼香茄子, which literally translates as ‘fish fragrant aubergine’.

A newly arrived visitor to China might be slightly put off by the thought of a bowl of steaming aubergines, reeking of trout, but there is nothing even remotely fishy about this dish, the ‘fish fragrant’ merely refers to the selection of spices and sauces which are traditionally used in Sichuan Province to flavour fish, but are used here instead to cook the aubergines and give them a garlicky, salty, sweet, sour and spicy flavour (yes, all at once. It is possible)

One important thing to bear in mind is that aubergines, be they Asian or European suck up flavour (and fat) like a Dyson sucks up pennies, but one way to avoid the aubergines becoming a slick, oily mess is to first dry fry them over a high heat for a couple of minutes, which will help seal them off and help them to keep some shape when the sauces are added.

To get it right, it’s pretty much essential that you use Asian aubergines which are longer and thinner than the European counterparts and have a much denser, less spongy texture. The only other essentials are plenty of fresh garlic, chilli of some kind (fresh, paste, dried and flaked, or all three if you feel in the mood for a kick in the teeth) ginger, sugar and soy sauce. I, and many others, like the addition of some minced pork and a bit of chicken stock which when bubbled with the spices for a couple of minutes gives a nice thick sauce to pour over rice.

It is not an easy dish to get wrong and coupled with a steaming bowl of white rice and a cold Qingdao beer, it’s a lovely simple and healthy(ish) dinner.

Classic Sichuan Fish Fragrant Aubergines （四川鱼香茄子）

1 1/2 pounds Asian aubergines
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons chili bean paste
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark rice vinegar
1 tablespoon yellow rice wine
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
A cup of minced pork
2 teaspoons Sichuan peppercorns, or 1 teaspoon ground Sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
Spring onions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Slice each aubergine in half lengthwise, then slice each length into quarters.

In a small bowl, mix together chicken stock, chili bean paste, soy sauce, rice vinegar, rice wine, and sugar. Set aside.

At this stage, dry fry the aubergines over a high heat for a couple of minutes, taking care that they don’t burn, set aside.

In a wok, heat oil until just smoking. Add eggplants and stir-fry until outsides become golden brown and insides begin to soften, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns and pork and stir-fry until fragrant for about 30 seconds/ 1 minute. Pour in stock-sauce mixture and mix well. Allow sauce to simmer for 2 minutes and eggplant to absorb sauce. Stir in cornstarch mixture to thicken sauce. Remove from heat, plate, and garnish with spring onions.


*The period of 1992-1999 was one of pure gluttony. Wispas and jam sandwiches, fondant fancies and hobnobs. All passed my lips frequently. Very frequently.

Roger Moore / Rou Jia Mo

The other week I went to visit my friend who lives in a beautiful converted traditional courtyard in the centre of Beijing. The building is located only a couple of hundred metres away from one of the city’s biggest and flashiest department stores and steps away from Jianguomen, the wide central avenue that splits Beijing into north and south – much like the Thames I guess, but less wet.

Her neighbourhood is one of those which has become rarer by the day in Beijing. Narrow streets, barely wide enough for a car to travel down, alleys leading to what could just as likely be a tasty little noodle shack or a boutique café, old men sitting on low stools, vests hoisted up to cool their bellies in the hot Beijing sun, smoking and playing cards or majiang and, most interestingly for me, dozens of tiny food stalls dotted around, serving a wide selection of insanely cheap and equally delicious snacks and meals.

肉夹馍 (rou jia mo) is a food traditionally associated with Shaanxi province in central China but is something I had never tried before either there or anywhere else. It is often described as the closest thing to a traditional Chinese burger, or even a sandwich, but that would be a dis-service to this mouthwateringly delicious snack. Its SO good.

As with most foods in China, there are dozens of regional variations. In Hangzhou in China’s Zhejiang province it is common to mix the filling with big handfuls of lettuce, in Xian the meat is spicier, in other areas the meat is not tainted with the addition of vegetables, but two features of the ‘burger’ are always the same – big chunks of fatty pork, stewed for hours in a broth of water and spices and a round, floury bing cut two thirds of the way through and stuffed with the meat and juices until it is spilling out every which way.

The Beijing versions I ate benefited from the addition of chili sauce, chopped red chili and fresh coriander. All the ingredients stuffed into the bread and handed over in exchange for 3 Kuai (25 pence), a bargain in any language.

It is impossible to eat this without the pork juices running down your chin and a good quarter of the succulent filling falling on the floor, but it doesn’t matter, its all part of the fun.

This recipe below comes courtesy of some dude on the internet should anyone want to make this for themselves, but I wouldn’t bother personaly, just get yourself down to any traditional area of any Chinese city and ask around...

肉夹馍

Bing – you can use any type really, Chinese round bing, Indian naan, Pita bread, hell you could even use ciabatta, why not.
Fatty pork, ideally belly pork
Spices (star anise, cinnamon bark)
Dark soy sauce
Sugar and salt
Chinese cooking wine of Japanese mirin
Sesame oil
Fresh red chilli
Lettuce
Any other vegetables you fancy, tomato, peppers etc.

Cut the pork into small pieces & put into a pot. Add ground star anise, one piece of cinnamon bark, some dark soya sauce, a few drops of sesame oil, 1-2 crushed whole garlic cloves & some Chinese cooking wine or Japanese mirin.

Mix well and add enough water to just cover the meat.

Bring to a boil and then cover the pot & simmer for about 25 minutes. If there is still too much water, you can reduce down the gravy until thick by further boiling. The meat should be very tender by now.

Just slice the bread almost into 2 to form pockets and stuff pieces of meat inside with a bit of gravy and assorted vegetables. Enjoy!