Good day today - it was my birthday yesterday (51st, if you really want to know or would like to send an appropriate present, preferably cash), my laptop went titsup with the rather ominous warning that NTOSKRNL was missing or corrupt, and I'm off to Sophie's 48th birthday party tonight.
Which means that before I go up to Paris on Sunday I have to get my laptop working again, and get food ready for Jerry and Rémi, who happens to be Sophie's youngest and who's spending the night at our place. Rather atypically from a Frog-person, he quite likes exotic cuisine, and it fact it was he who asked for what our kids used to call (back in the days before they'd completely mastered the art of the consonant) "steamed pork bums".
Which are not as rude as they may sound. What you need is about 400gm of left-over barbecued pork (or a mix of pork and beef is nice), finely minced. Personally, every time I barbecue a bit of rouelle de jambon (which is just a 2 or 3-inch thick slice from the poor animal's leg) there's always heaps left over (unless of course we've got a pile of friends around) so I just cut the meat off the bone, chop it into chunks and stick them in the good old Kitchen Whiz, then stick the resulting mince into the freezer until I need it.
Once that's thawed out you need to make the sauce. Peel and finely chop a good chunk of ginger, ditto a clove or two of garlic, and fry them up gently in a little oil for a minute. Then add, in no particular order, 2 tbsp hoi sin sauce, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and, if you're that way inclined, a dose of hot chili sauce. Let that cook for a little, then add 3 tsp cornflour mixed up in a little water, bring to the boil and let it get good and thick. At which point take it off the heat, stir in the mince well so it's all nicely mixed, and let it cool.
So now it's time to make the dough. You can buy special bun flour from most Asian grocers, or you can use standard flour, or I like a half and half mix of normal flour and rice flour, which gives a lovely silky texture but, due to the lack of gluten (or something) makes a very fragile dough. Be warned. Whatever. You'll need two cups of that, about 70 gms of pork dripping and 1 tbsp of sugar - stick the lot in the whizzer and give it a good pulse to mix in the dripping.
You've two options at this point: use baking powder or yeast. If you're using baking powder, put a teaspoon in with the flour and add a tbsp of vinegar to the water; if yeast, it's be a good time to mix up a sachet of instant yeast with about 100ml of warm water and a bit of sugar to let it froth. I use yeast, myself, but it's up to you.
Whichever you prefer, put the food processor onto slooow and add the yeasty mixture (or vinegar/water): you will definitely need to add more than the 100ml but do it slowly, especially if you've used rice flour, as the line between dry and sloppy is a fine one. Once you've got a soft (but not too soft) dough, set it aside and let it rise. Which'll take about an hour. I used that time to do a few quick searches and recreate my BOOT.INI file, which at least got me to the point where my laptop was booting (and then hanging). Progress, of a sort. Still hadn't got anything ready for Sophie.
When all that's done, roll the dough out into a log and slice that into chunks. You will need to roll each chunk out into a 9cm diameter circle, so make them the right size for that. As you may have guessed, you must roll them out. Then place a heaped spoonfull of the meaty mixture on each circle of dough, fold the dough over and pinch the edges together to seal - just like Cornish pasties, really.
Except that these ones get steamed. I do that in the wok: I have a big one, with a big domed lid, and a cake tray which just fits in; it works for me. About ten minutes steaming per batch should do the trick. When you want to eat them just stick them in the microwave to reheat and serve with the dipping sauce(s) of your choice (sweet chili sauce is a must around here, but garlic/vinegar or whatever else takes your fancy is good). The little buggers freeze really well too, so freeze any leftovers for one of those days when you really can't be arsed cooking.
At around this time I managed to get my laptop back to the land of the living, after replacing a couple of files (thank god for Linux distros on a bootable USB key) so it was time to think of dessert for Sophie. And as we had three or four ripe pears lurking in the fridge that wasn't too difficult - a pastis aux poires.
In this case, pastis has nowt to do with the quintessential (and absolutely disgusting, as far as I'm concerned) provençal alcohol flavoured with aniseed: it is in fact a corruption of pastilla, which is an Algerian/Moroccan pie made with meat (often pigeon), sugar, almonds, spices and godnose what else.
I found it on Clotilde Dussolier's excellent Chocolate & Zuchini blog yonks back, and it's become a favourite. You need to start, fairly obviously, with some pears. About four would be good. Peel them, core them, and cut them into cubes, then fry them very gently in butter until they're smelling of pear heaven. At which point you should add a good handful of raisins, 1 tbsp of sugar, maybe some cinnamon, a dash of the poison of your choice and, if it looks dry (which it shouldn't) a bit of water, then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.
During which time you can get the pastry ready. This is just the bog-standard phyllo you've come to know (and, I hope, love) - brush a sheet of phyllo with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, line pie dish with it - then repeat two or three times. Old history.
Scoop the pears and raisins out of their juice and into the pie dish, fold the floppy pastry edges over the top and brush them with melted butter as well while the pear juices reduce like mad over a really hot flame. When all that's nicely syrupy dribble it over the tart and bung it in the oven for twenty minutes or so.
This is nice the next day if you happen to have any leftovers, but you really do need to give it 5 minutes or so in the oven. Otherwise the pastry is all soggy, which is not so good. But at least my computer is good to go, so I'm fine for Paris.
And, in case you're interested, the birthday party was really good. First time in years I've seen Sophie in a dress. Got elegantly wasted, as usual, but at least it was with a 98 Burgundy that I'd had lurking in the cellar for years. And those Frog-persons really do have natural rhythm when it comes to dancing.
Which means that before I go up to Paris on Sunday I have to get my laptop working again, and get food ready for Jerry and Rémi, who happens to be Sophie's youngest and who's spending the night at our place. Rather atypically from a Frog-person, he quite likes exotic cuisine, and it fact it was he who asked for what our kids used to call (back in the days before they'd completely mastered the art of the consonant) "steamed pork bums".
Which are not as rude as they may sound. What you need is about 400gm of left-over barbecued pork (or a mix of pork and beef is nice), finely minced. Personally, every time I barbecue a bit of rouelle de jambon (which is just a 2 or 3-inch thick slice from the poor animal's leg) there's always heaps left over (unless of course we've got a pile of friends around) so I just cut the meat off the bone, chop it into chunks and stick them in the good old Kitchen Whiz, then stick the resulting mince into the freezer until I need it.
Once that's thawed out you need to make the sauce. Peel and finely chop a good chunk of ginger, ditto a clove or two of garlic, and fry them up gently in a little oil for a minute. Then add, in no particular order, 2 tbsp hoi sin sauce, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and, if you're that way inclined, a dose of hot chili sauce. Let that cook for a little, then add 3 tsp cornflour mixed up in a little water, bring to the boil and let it get good and thick. At which point take it off the heat, stir in the mince well so it's all nicely mixed, and let it cool.
So now it's time to make the dough. You can buy special bun flour from most Asian grocers, or you can use standard flour, or I like a half and half mix of normal flour and rice flour, which gives a lovely silky texture but, due to the lack of gluten (or something) makes a very fragile dough. Be warned. Whatever. You'll need two cups of that, about 70 gms of pork dripping and 1 tbsp of sugar - stick the lot in the whizzer and give it a good pulse to mix in the dripping.
You've two options at this point: use baking powder or yeast. If you're using baking powder, put a teaspoon in with the flour and add a tbsp of vinegar to the water; if yeast, it's be a good time to mix up a sachet of instant yeast with about 100ml of warm water and a bit of sugar to let it froth. I use yeast, myself, but it's up to you.
Whichever you prefer, put the food processor onto slooow and add the yeasty mixture (or vinegar/water): you will definitely need to add more than the 100ml but do it slowly, especially if you've used rice flour, as the line between dry and sloppy is a fine one. Once you've got a soft (but not too soft) dough, set it aside and let it rise. Which'll take about an hour. I used that time to do a few quick searches and recreate my BOOT.INI file, which at least got me to the point where my laptop was booting (and then hanging). Progress, of a sort. Still hadn't got anything ready for Sophie.
When all that's done, roll the dough out into a log and slice that into chunks. You will need to roll each chunk out into a 9cm diameter circle, so make them the right size for that. As you may have guessed, you must roll them out. Then place a heaped spoonfull of the meaty mixture on each circle of dough, fold the dough over and pinch the edges together to seal - just like Cornish pasties, really.
Except that these ones get steamed. I do that in the wok: I have a big one, with a big domed lid, and a cake tray which just fits in; it works for me. About ten minutes steaming per batch should do the trick. When you want to eat them just stick them in the microwave to reheat and serve with the dipping sauce(s) of your choice (sweet chili sauce is a must around here, but garlic/vinegar or whatever else takes your fancy is good). The little buggers freeze really well too, so freeze any leftovers for one of those days when you really can't be arsed cooking.
At around this time I managed to get my laptop back to the land of the living, after replacing a couple of files (thank god for Linux distros on a bootable USB key) so it was time to think of dessert for Sophie. And as we had three or four ripe pears lurking in the fridge that wasn't too difficult - a pastis aux poires.
In this case, pastis has nowt to do with the quintessential (and absolutely disgusting, as far as I'm concerned) provençal alcohol flavoured with aniseed: it is in fact a corruption of pastilla, which is an Algerian/Moroccan pie made with meat (often pigeon), sugar, almonds, spices and godnose what else.
I found it on Clotilde Dussolier's excellent Chocolate & Zuchini blog yonks back, and it's become a favourite. You need to start, fairly obviously, with some pears. About four would be good. Peel them, core them, and cut them into cubes, then fry them very gently in butter until they're smelling of pear heaven. At which point you should add a good handful of raisins, 1 tbsp of sugar, maybe some cinnamon, a dash of the poison of your choice and, if it looks dry (which it shouldn't) a bit of water, then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.
During which time you can get the pastry ready. This is just the bog-standard phyllo you've come to know (and, I hope, love) - brush a sheet of phyllo with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, line pie dish with it - then repeat two or three times. Old history.
Scoop the pears and raisins out of their juice and into the pie dish, fold the floppy pastry edges over the top and brush them with melted butter as well while the pear juices reduce like mad over a really hot flame. When all that's nicely syrupy dribble it over the tart and bung it in the oven for twenty minutes or so.
This is nice the next day if you happen to have any leftovers, but you really do need to give it 5 minutes or so in the oven. Otherwise the pastry is all soggy, which is not so good. But at least my computer is good to go, so I'm fine for Paris.
And, in case you're interested, the birthday party was really good. First time in years I've seen Sophie in a dress. Got elegantly wasted, as usual, but at least it was with a 98 Burgundy that I'd had lurking in the cellar for years. And those Frog-persons really do have natural rhythm when it comes to dancing.
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