Chinese Style Ox Cheek Stew

Cheek is a wonderful cut of meat from any animal.  Just think about the amount of exercise your cheeks get on a daily basis.  All of that chewing and talking means that our cheeks hardly have a break all day.  It's the same with animals*.  Cod cheeks are wonderful, pork cheeks are succulent but the daddy of them all are ox cheeks.

Even when cows aren't eating they're still chewing the cud.  The amount of work that those cheeks go through is mind boggling and all of that work means the meat is full of flavour, but also full of tough fibres and sinew that require slow cooking to break them down. The last time we had ox cheek we went for a traditional beef and ale stew but tonight I fancied something a bit different, so I raided the fridge for inspiration.

The usual suspects were there but tucked at the bottom of the salad crisper was a piece of ginger.  That was when I decided to try a Chinese inspired stew.  Onions, garlic, red chilli and the ginger softened in vegetable oil, formed the base of the stew.  The browned ox cheek was added along with light and dark soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sweetened vinegar sauce, five spice, szechuan peppercorns and some stock.  The stew was then left to simmer on a low heat for three hours.

The finished stew was superb.  The liquid had reduced down into a sticky sauce, thickened by the natural collagen from the cheeks.  The sweetness from the vinegar sauce balanced the saltiness of the soy, and the heat from the chili, szechuan peppercorns and ginger grew with every bite, without ever becoming overpowering.

The thing with cheeks is you only get two of them on any animal.  To my mind this should make them an expensive rarity, but as with most of the slow cook cuts they're relatively cheap.  We found our ox cheeks at Oakwood Farmers Market and we'll be looking for them again.

*Apart from the talking of course.

Turkey and Pak Choi in Hoi Sin Sauce

Yesterday I told a tale of my dislike of following recipes.  I know that this means I will never make a good baker or pastry chef, but I can live with that*.  Being free of the Olympic Food Challenge means that I can cook by feel and taste again without having to continually scroll up and down websites with a dripping wooden spoon in my hand.

The end of the OFC also means that I can shop for food the way I love to shop for food.  I am always armed with a list when I go shopping but it is often vague giving me carte blanche to pick and choose what looks best or is on offer.  The catalyst for tonight's meal comes from the "reduced to clear" category of impulse buys.

 I really like pak choi, we have grown it in the past but we tend not to buy it as it is usually airfreighted into Blighty and we try to watch our food miles.  Having saved a pack of choi from the supermarket vegetable graveyard I raided the freezer and found some turkey steaks that were quickly thawed and sliced and a stir-fry was born.

*not having a sweet tooth has some advantages.

Stir fried Pork with Egg Fried Rice

Having roasted a pork joint yesterday and not eating it, due to a large lunch, we are tucking into pork again tonight.  We're keeping with the oriental theme from yesterday too.  To keep yesterday's meal light we had a Japanese pork and miso soup.  Tonight we're having a Chinese inspired pork stir fry.

We are lucky in Leeds to have a couple of decent Chinese supermarkets.  We use them both for basics like soy sauce and noodles but we often go off piste and buy something just because it looks interesting.  This is a method of shopping that can go either way.  We have faced the horror of mystery Chinese sausage and almost lost our taste buds to a Thai curry paste that was so hot it made our tongues sweat.

At the other end of the scale, we have discovered the best black bean sauce known to humanity and we came across the sweet vinegar sauce that we used for tonight's meal.  A couple of tablespoons of the sauce were added to fried pork and vegetables to make a sweet/sour glaze.  I served this on a mountain of the best egg fried rice that I have ever cooked.  If I wasn't so full I could happily have eaten the whole thing again.

Friday Night Take-away - Crispy Aromatic Duck

Z pointed out, quite rightly, that we had fallen off the Friday Night Take-away wagon.  It's not that we had grown tired of the tradition, simply that we had failed to think about it when planning our meals for the past few weeks.  To get things back on track I decided to roll my sleeves up and try something new, crispy aromatic duck.

There was no way that I was going to sacrifice a whole duck to this cause, there are only two of us after all, so I bought a couple of legs and started looking for a recipe.  What I found was incredible and, to be honest, labour intensive and time consuming.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and do what I normally do, make it up as I go along.

Using Ken Hom's spice rub; five spice, szechuan pepper, black pepper salt and cumin, the legs were marinated all day and that is where we went our separate ways.  I'm sure Ken is nothing but authentic, but steaming the duck legs for three hours then letting them cool completely before deep-frying them was just a little much for me.  I also found a recipe which instructed poaching the duck for hours in vegetable stock but that too seemed a bit faffy.  For simplicity's sake I decided to roast the seasoned duck legs until the meat was falling from the bones and take it from there.

The shredded duck meat was served with hoi sin sauce, spring onion, cucumber and of course Chinese pancakes.  We also had some pork and Chinese cabbage dim sum and some fried rice to soak up the Tsing Tao. 

Beer, a home made take away and an England win in the Euro's.  Do Fridays get any better than this?

Hoi Sin Pork with Chard

Since I have been covering the evening shift at work, we have tried to plan our weeks meals well in advance.  The theory is that Z won't have to get in from work, deal with R and then try to come up with a delicious meal for the two of us, cook it and then have to deal with a grumpy, tired me, when I finally get home.  The theory is sound but there are always gaps.

The main gap today was the lack of noodles in the house.  We needed noodles because we had had rice last night and we don't like to repeat carbs.  So, this morning I headed into Leeds and purchased a bag of my favourite noodles from a little shop on Kirkgate Market.  There is no branding on the bag so I can't tell you what to look out for, other than unmarked bags of yolk yellow noodles.  They keep their texture so much better than any noodles I have bought from any other shop.

For the evening meal, Z sliced and marinated a pork loin steak in hoi sin sauce.  She then sliced an onion, some chard and a few mushrooms.  The whole lot took no time to cook.  The chard cooks the same as pak choi but is sweeter and less mustardy so is added right at the end of cooking.  While I was shopping, I also bought cheese for tomorrow night.  I can't attend Homage2Fromage tomorrow night so I'll be eating along at home.  I'd tell you what I'd bought, but I've been sworn to secrecy.

Beef and Vegetables in Black Bean Sauce

Having cooked two joints of beef over the weekend, we are now faced with a bit of a cold meat mountain to deal with.  This won't cause us too much of a problem as it's safe to say that we can deal with leftovers better than fresh ingredients.  Tonight's meal is one that has featured on this blog before.  That is because it's tasty and fast to prepare.

The ingredients, beef, green beans and white cabbage were all sliced while some rice was happily cooking away.  Five minutes before the rice was ready to eat, the meat and vegetables were stir-fried together with a good table spoon of my favourite chilli and black bean sauce.  I know cooking sauces are a cheat but this one is so good it would be on my desert island list.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Another late night at the office has meant that Z is at the stove again.  I honestly think that she's enjoying all of this cooking.  I tend to dominate in the kitchen.  It's not that I am any better at cooking than she is, or that I have any particular mastery of cooking techniques.  It's just I find that after a day at work cooking a meal helps me to unwind so I crack on with the kitchen chores while Z busies herself around the house.

By the time I got home from work this evening, Z had prepared a cracking stir fry of chicken and vegetables.  Chicken, peppers, carrot, red onion, garlic and pickled ginger were all fried together.  Soy and garlic oyster sauce were then added before the whole lot was served with noodles.  Z also managed to make four pints of chicken stock to put in the freezer, such was her excitement at being let loose in the kitchen.  Perhaps, I should back away from the stove more often?

Hoisin Chicken with Mange Tout

You may have read yesterday, that over the weekend I saved a mass of mange tout from the vegetable graveyard at my local supermarket.  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the produce, I can only assume that it had passed its sell by date.  I don't normally buy mange tout, not because I don't like it but because it always seems to be airfreighted into the UK from Peru or Kenya.   Mange tout grows very well in Britain.  I know this to be true as I've grown it myself.  I would rather eat local seasonal produce but I don't like seeing good food go to waste.  Either way, I have found myself with a glut of veg.

We needed to start eating our way through the mange tout mountain so I decided upon a stir fry.  But I knew that if I added it to a pan with other ingredients I wouldn't even make a dent in our over supply.  So I kept the mange tout out of the frying pan and cooked it separately as a side dish.

The chicken was stir fried with red onion and a pepper before hoisin sauce was added and stirred through.  The mange tout was blanched and then reheated with oyster and garlic sauce.  We served both alongside some pain boiled rice.  We still have a lot of mange tout!

Prawns in Black Bean Sauce

We have spent today running around Leeds in a futile hunt for a fridge freezer.  I had no idea that these white obelisks, that lurk in the corner of the kitchen, came in so many sizes.  I also took for granted that 11 years ago we bought an odd sized appliance that we now cannot replace.  It seems that nobody makes a fridge the size we need to fill the gaping void in our kitchen, the hunt continues.

The gaping void means our chilled fresh food capacity is severely reduced.  We have enough space in a cool bag for milk, cheese, butter and a little salad but other than that our storage is either frozen or ambient*.  I found and started to defrost some prawns before we went on the white goods hunt.

As we drove home, fridgeless, I had a terrifying realisation.  We were completely out of black bean sauce**.  We also had with us a baby who was well due a nap and who was stubbornly refusing to go to sleep, so I combined the two problems and set off, with the buggy, into Leeds.  It was about an hours walk there and back but R had his nap and I got my sauce.

So many shop bought cooking sauces are disappointing.  But the jars from Taste on Vicar Lane are great.  The Black Bean and Chilli is so firey that it is a contender for the hottest meal we cook.  Before we even started preparing the main course we tucked into a plate full of pork dumplings with some soy and rice wine vinegar dipping sauce

We then chopped a green pepper, a bunch of spring onions and checked the prawns for any gritty veins.  These few ingredients were fried together along with one spoon of the black bean sauce*** and a good glug of oyster sauce. 


*at least there are no VAT issues to contend with
**there are worse things in the world but I really, really wanted black bean sauce.
***it really is that hot.

Friday Night Take-away - King Prawns in Black Bean Sauce

This week saw the start of the Chinese Year of the Dragon and as Z is a dragon*, I though it only fair that she could choose tonight's menu.  As luck would have it she has chosen a Chinese dish for our Friday night take-away.

A simple stir fry of prawns and baby vegetables in black bean sauce with noodles.  Good food doesn't get much quicker.  Unfortunately the food miles on the veg stick in the throat.  I'd prefer to eat locally and seasonally whenever possible.  In a toss up between organic veg from Peru and its equivalent non-organically grown plant from around the corner I'll have the local one thanks.

The reason that we have baby corn and sugar snap peas in the house at all, boils down to yet another food preference.  I hate the idea of good food going to waste, especially if it has travelled from the other side of the world.  So when we saw the packet, reduced for a quick sale, we bought it.

Looking back at this week's meals we have eaten a lot of different vegetables, a fair proportion of which have been in season and at their best right now.  As with all things foody, balance is the key, so I won't be racked with guilt over my stir fry veg for too long.


*now I'm for it.

Friday Night Take-away - Crispy Duck

I'm often found at the reduced section in supermarkets.  But, and this a life lesson for us all, it's only a bargain if you were going to be buying the thing anyway.  A coat in the sales with 50% off its original £100 price tag is still £50.  That's just maths.  If you were looking for a coat, brilliant, well done.  If you were after shoes you have just lost £50 from your Jimmy Choo budget.

Now, to completeley contradict myself, if it has a yellow sticker on it, I'm likely to stick it in my trolley.  I can justify this by now having two freezers (the allotment necessitated the second one).  I'd rather preserve good food and eat it when I'm ready for it, than allow it to be binned just because an arbitrary date on a label has passed.  The real secret to this is not to then forget what is in your freezer (this happens all too often with chest freezers).

Whilst looking for inspiration for yesterday's meal, I found two duck legs tucked at the back of the freezer.  Yes they had the ubiquitous yellow sticker of reduction on the packet.  I would eat duck more often if it was cheap as chips but then again I don't eat chips that often.

Realising that it's Friday night there was only one direction to take the quack in, Chinese.  As with yesterday's chicken, duck legs roast better than frying.  A quick tidy and rub down with salt and five spice and they were ready for a good two hour appointment with the oven.  Stir fried tatsoi from the front garden and jasmine rice (from the cupboard) completed the meal.

Friday Night Take-away Chicken with Cashew Nuts

Chinese has always been my family's go-to take-away.  Mainly because you couldn't drag my Dad into an Indian restaurant.  He didn't even like the smell of them never mind the flavours.  His dislike of curry was so great that when he had to visit India on a business trip he took packets of Hobnobs* so that he wouldn't starve.

Having returned from the trip Dad was a changed man and curry was on the menu, but we still had Chinese, why fix what isn't broken?

The family favourite was chicken with cashew nuts.  No matter what else was being ordered it would be included.  Mum is staying with us over New Year, so I decided to try and cook it for Tonight's Menu.  The feedback was that it tasted like it came out of a foil container, in a good way.

Stock is added to velveted chicken stir fried with onions, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and carrots.  Bean sprouts are then added along with soy sauce.  The dish is finished with spring onions and the all-important toasted cashews.  Serve with egg fried rice.

*other biscuits are available