Rolling Stone's foodcourt

 

 Serves 2-3

Preparation 10  minutes

Cooking 10 minutes

  

500g  soft tofu

Uncooked crab roe (from one crab)
a small bowl of cooked crabmeat (about half crab)
some minced ginger (about 2 tablespoons)

some chopped spring onion (about 2 tablespoons)

 

1 tablespoon  rice wine (about 15ml, can use white wine instead)    

some salt,

2 tablespoons oil

some cornstarch (about 3 teaspoons)

500ml chicken soup (or 500ml water with 3 chicken stocks)

 

1.  Cut tofu into small squares and chop crab roe

2.  Heat  oil, fry the ginger and crab  roe for a few seconds. Sprinkle some  wine. And add crab meat.

3.  Pour  in the chicken soup immediately. Add  the tofu gently. Add some salt if the soup is unseasoned. Cook over middle heat for 3-5minutes.

4.  Mix cornstarch with some water(about 3 teaspoons). Stir it into tofu until thickened.  Sprinkle with spring onion.

 

Ingredients (for making about nine moon cakes):

 

1. 500g Shortcrust pastry*

 

2. 300g Chestnut puree* 

 

3. One egg yolk

 

4. Some sesame seeds

 

Procedure:

 

1. Separate shortcrust pastry into nine equal size blocks, and flatten each pastry block with rolling pin (see pictures)

 

2. Add chestnut puree in the pastry, and wrap up.

 

3. Flatten the pastry balls into rounds with thumb and fingers.

 

4. Brush egg yolk on the top. And sprinkle some sesame seeds*.

 

5. Preheat oven to 220C. Bake them for 10-15 minutes until the egg yolk turns brown.

 

 

*Additional notes:

 

1. Both puff pastry and shortcrust pastry are suitable for making moon cakes. But I prefer shortcrust one as it is less oily. In Uk, the pastry are usually displayed near cheese in the supermaket.

 

2. Becky used chestnut puree in her recipe. However, I used red bean paste and pork mince as stuffing to make sweet and salty moon cakes separately. Both of them worked.

 

3.The sesame seeds need to be soaked in the water for a few minutes beforehand.

 

 

Serves 2-4

Preparation 20 minutes

Cooking 20 minutes

 

125g-150g beef, cut it into small cubes (the same size as clove garlic)

many garlic cloves (the same amount as beef pieces), pressed

1 red pepper for garnish

 

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 tablespoon cooking wine (can be rice wine or white wine)

1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce

a pinch of ground ginger

3 or 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

 

1. Mix beef cubes with light soy sauce, ground ginger, cooking wine, cornstarch, and oyster sauce. Let stand for 15 minutes.

 

2. Heat oil in the wok. Fry beef until half cooked. Remove and set aside. Leave oil in the wok.

 

3. Add garlic cloves into the wok; reduce heat to low; fry garlic cloves until yellow; add ground blackpepper and butter; fry until butter melted; add salt.

 

4. Return beef; add red pepper to add some color to this dish; saute over high heat quickly until beef are done.

 

 

 

Serves 4

Preparation 10 minutes

Cooking 15 minutes

 

3 raw or frozen prawns, peeled and deveined

6 crab sticks (i.e., seafood snack) 

250g or 1/2 package soft tofu (or silken tofu)

1 egg white

 

1 teaspoon shrimp sauce(or using fish sauce instead)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

a pinch of ground white pepper

a bowl of chicken broth (or using chicken stock and water instead)

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

chopped green onion or parsley, for garnish

 

1. Cut prawns and crab sticks into small pieces and combine them in a bowl. Add fish sauce, sesame oil and white pepper. Let stand for 10 minutes. 

 

2. Put seafood mix into boiling water. Remove them out of the water as soon as prawns change color.

 

3. Meanwhile, cut tofu into small pieces, and put it into a bowl, add some water in the bowl and move the bowl into microwave, heat it 1 minute in full power (800W). Remove the bowl from the microwave and drain the water.

 

4. Pour chicken broth into a wok. Add cornstarch solution gradually. Add seafood mix, cook, and stir until thickened, about 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to low and slowly drizzle in egg white, cook, stirring constantly, until egg white sets. Add chopped green onion or parsley as a garnish.

 

P.S. Don't use the tofu in the picture blow. Please click the link 'soft tofu' in ingredients. 

 

I separated Becky's recipe from my blog in order to follow my initiative, introducing 'real'  Chinese dishes to my foreign friends.  And also continue translating Becky's recipes.  

 

 

Written on 28th August, 2005

 

"Food and Drink" category of this blog is written for my friend Carmen who is interested in Chinese cooking. Most of the recipes will be adapted from Becky's Blog. As a loyal reader of Becky's blog, I enjoy reading her blogs very much (although I may be not a good doer). And I want to spread the joy with my friends. I also hope it will be a way of showing my foreign friends what real Chinese food is (comparing with food in China town). So with Becky's permission, I decided to translate some of her recipes into English and publish them here.  I want to take this chance to say a big thank you to Becky, and hope my friends will like it.