Category Archives: Chinese

Mud Crab with Ginger & Shallot Sauce

Posted on by Standard 8

mud crab

Ingredients:

1.5 kilo mud crab

400 g egg noodes

A knob of ginger (cut into shards)

6 cloves of garlic (crushed and roughly chopped)

5 stems of shallots (cut lengthways)

salt

white pepper (2 teaspoons)

brown sugar (2 teaspoons)

1 cup chicken stock

Chinese rice wine

1 cup corn flour mixed with warm water

soy sauce

peanut oil

How to prepare the crab:

The easiest way is to ask your fish monger to slice the crab into quarters for you, which is what I do. This totally beats having to do this yourself.  Also ask them to crack the claws. This ensures that the heat seeps through the claws and even cooking time. You will need to cut the the legs (little legs of four) on each side in half. This will ensure everything cooks consistently.

Remove the deadman’s fingers/gills and digestive tract. Or you can leave the mustards, if you prefer.

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Chinese New Year Feast, the Year of the Snake 2013

Posted on by Standard 10

mud crab

Chinese NYE is always spent with family/friends gorging on copious amounts of food to ring in the new year. Kind of what I like to think of as a Chinese version of Christmas! You have your traditional items served at dinner to symbolise good luck, good health and prosperity. On the night, you must have chicken and fish, to symbolise prosperity and long uncut noodles as a symbol of longevity/long life.

With a small gathering of four, I thought I would do a quick post of what I served up last night.

soy chicken

Firstly, we tucked into some soy chicken. Chicken should be served whole to symbolise family wholeness and completeness. I bought this soy chicken from Emperor’s Garden BBQ and I think it is one of the best Chinese BBQ places you can find.

The chicken is deliciously salty and sweet. The flesh is tender and moistened with a touch of sweet soy that seeps to the bottom which I tend to reuse for basting.

mud crab

I managed to prepare 3 kilos of mud crab with a lot of blood sweat and tears. I served it up with egg noodles and a ginger and shallot sauce.This was my first time serving it up and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised on the results, that I just have to share the recipe! I just loved how the noodles slurp up the sauce!

fish

Lastly, I steamed a whole snapper with ginger and shallot sauce which is a very popular and traditional way of serving fish. Eating fish symbolises abundance and excess for the year (年年有餘, niánnián yǒu yú) and again must be served whole from head to tail to signify a good start and finish for the year ahead.

I wonder, if you could feast on anything for CNYE what would you feast on? Perhaps Peking duck or sucking pig? Or if you celebrate CNYE. How did you celebrate and what did you eat? :)

Welcome to the Year of the Snake 2013, Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Emperor's Garden BBQ on Urbanspoon


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Street Market Asian Tapas, Kirribilli

Posted on by Standard 7

Relatively new to lower north shore area, this has fast become one of my personal favourites and probably one of the area’s best kept secrets.

It houses a hot pot of all your asian favourites… but served tapas. I’m talking Jap, Malay, Filo and Chinese food all served in the one convenient location.

SpaAsian tapas? How glorious! And if you come between Mon-Wed, you can even get their $10 tapas.

Sounds too good to be true but the owner (Alan) has made great strides to maintain the integrity of the combination of all these flavours. Housing a Filipino chef, a Malaysian chef, Alan has personally taken care of the rest by recreating Chinese home made favourites and studying Japanese cookery.

spice crusted tofu

We begin with the spice crusted tofu and it is a wonderful play on your humble agedashi tofu. In fact, I think it is much better.

The tofu is squared off into bite sized pieces providing more surface area for a nice and crisp exterior. The edges of the tofu are super crusty and equally find themselves with a healthy dosage of soy.

Sprinkled on the top are the bonito flakes which to my surprise, are literally dancing along my tofu in beautiful symmetry.

chicken san choi bao

The san choi bao is pretty mind blowing. Delivering generously on flavour and texture. It rightfully upholds all the flavours and is quite incredible. This is one dish that should not to be missed.

roast pork belly pancake 1

roast pork belly pancake 2

The roast pork belly pancake plays on a Chinese favourite. Instead of peking duck, here we have roast pork belly, all pre-prepared with all the trimmings and it is absolutely incredible.

The pork is slippery, silky and packed full of flavour. It doesn’t have the crunch factor of the skin but the flavour wholeheartedly offsets the need for texture. But then again, crackling is not something I would ever say no to!

pork and prawn wontons

I am told by the owner that the pork and prawn wontons were just hand made and they usually are.
Alan, grew up with his grandma making these family favourite for him as a child and lucky for us, he too has decided to pass on this family gem.

The translucent skin is neatly tucked around to expose the fleshy prawns and meaty pork filling. These dumplings are really quite remarkable that there really are no words.

street market sign

decor 2

decor 1

chicken satay

I have to admit, the chicken satay lacked the wow factor of some of the other dishes. There was no mistaken the charcoals flavour but it somehow lacked the intensity of flavour that I was looking for in the marinade and sauce. It just left me comparing, if not longing for my favourite – Mamak.

char kway teow

Dishing up chunks of stir fry chicken, prawns, veges, bean shoots and roasted peanuts, the char kway teow was a tasty little number.

fish in crazy water

The crazy water is a broth of tomato, hot basil and coconut milk. It’s quite a fragrant dish with a spicy kick to it. I personally didn’t mind this considering I don’t really ‘do’ coconut. But Brazil, fish and water seemed to really hit it off. So I kind of left all three of them to their own devices.

rice treats

This one’s for the road, so don’t be shy and make sure you pinch one of these yummy treats on your way out!

Welcome to Street Market Asian Tapas, for the best of Asian Tapas.

Street Market Asian Tapas Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Street Market Asian Tapas Restaurant
02 9922 3111

Kirribilli
Shop 3, 12 Fitzroy Street
Kirribilli, NSW
streetmarketasiantapas.com


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Super Bowl, Dixon Street Chinatown

Posted on by Standard 4

I always feel so bad when I am given the obligatory show and tell of the live crab before it goes under the knife. But then there’s the other part of me that says, “Well… it’s really the only way to eat crab. Can’t wait!”

Growing up, I used to enjoy the thrill of the kill. I would eagerly and hungrily keep my eye out on the most liveliest crab, where I would point out, “That one!” Now, I don’t even recognise myself anymore…

fresh mud crab

Before – live mud crab

crab w ginger and shallot sauce

Super Bowl is a personal favourite of mine. Food is always delicious, cheap and served to you in your traditional Hong Kong (Honkie) style eatery. You have communal seating with plastic chairs, food served and moving at warped speed while patrons are merrily burping and slurping away. Hong Kong, eat your heart out.

Here you can find mud crab w ginger and shallot sauce, a traditional Chinese favourite. The crab is sweet, fleshy and cooked to perfection. And the sauce is simply out of this world. It will have you double dipping and spooning for more.

Pipis w xo sauce

Pipis w XO sauce – a must try $26.80 (Market Price)

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New Shanghai Chatswood Chase, Delicious dumplings?

Posted on by Standard 2

Sweet & sour pork rib with dark vinegar sauce @ New Shanghai

Sweet & sour pork rib with dark vinegar sauce served cold

With the vote of confidence from some trusted fellow bloggers and co-workers alike. New Shanghai was rumoured to have really good dumplings on offer.

Brazil and I began our night with an order of the sweet and sour pork ribs with dark vinegar sauce. A step away from the original sweet and sour version we have all come to know and love or hate, the pork ribs sat covered in the glossy sticky sauce that had a strong sour vinegar flavour as opposed to the balance of both contrasts. The ribs were served cold and despite the taste I couldn’t help  but long for a piping hot serve of sticky pork ribs.