In My Kitchen: September 2019

It's been a bit of a slow month cooking wise, as I was in China visiting my dad and grandma. It was just the height of summer there, and I enjoyed the warm weather break from our winter.

The quintessential Shanghainese breakfast is a quartet of foods (also nicknamed the 4 transformer gods 四大金刚)

1. Deep fried dough stick  油条  - light as air dough sticks, flash deep fried in giant vats of oil for less than a minute. Fried to order, they must be eaten hot or they turn gluggy and soft

2. Doughy cake 大饼 - these can be sweet (filled with sugar and covered in sesame) or savoury (filled with shallots). They are extremely flaky with a crunchy exterior and soft inside, the best ones have big air pockets

3. Deep fried rice cake  糍饭糕 - square blocks of sticky rice deep fried to a shattering crunch

4. Soy milk curds 豆腐花 - tofu in its elementary phase, hardly set and usually served savoury style with dried shrimp, seaweed and soy sauce / sesame oil.

3 + 4 

 2 + 1 + 4

4 + a different type of pancake with a soft large pancake stuffed full of dough stick, shallots and peanut sauce

I love having wontons for breakfast too! 

My dad's friends came over for lunch and brought some hardcore Chinese style liquor. The one on the left is rice wine 52% alcohol and the one on the right barley liquor 53% alcohol! Needless to say a few nips of these left everyone highly cheerful. 

Our garden in Shanghai has limited space but even then my dad has started a baby bok choy patch.

These baby bok choy are so skinny and delicate, more like a micro-green. Here they are cooked in a fragrant soup with fresh edamame and tomato. 

Just a few loaves of bread this month, 

A plain loaf I shared with work friends

And a beautiful black olive loaf I took to Melbourne to visit my friend. What a wonderful weekend I had learning to cook Sri Lankan food from my friend's family! 

Barney my beloved sourdough starter is also in his 3rd Chinese rendition. We have taken to use sourdough for our Chinese steamed buns as well as Western bread. These twisted buns are actually quite easy to make. Once the starter is bubbly he is mixed with plain flour and water to become a smooth dough ball, then left to rise till doubled. Turned out onto a surface the dough is rolled out to a large rectangle, brushed oil and scattered with salt & Sichuan pepper. The rectangle is rolled up and cut into rounds (this is really like a Western recipe for cheesymite scrolls). Stacking two rounds on top of each other, use a chopstick to make an indent down the middle, turning it in towards itself. What delicate beauties!

On the music front, there's very little to report as both my string & piano quartets have been taking a break with travels. I've also had a lot of problems with my hands recently and hence the break is very much well timed.  

But, I ate an artichoke for the first time! 

My piano duet buddy invited me to share in these artichokes with her and her daughter - they were simply boiled and served with a dollop of homemade mayonnaise (with lots of mustard) - I had absolutely no idea how delicious fresh artichokes were!  We ate these with a selection of easy piano duets by Leroy Anderson, a Mozart sonata for four hands and an adaptation of Schubert's 3rd symphony. How I adore piano four hand music, a much under loved genre. 

Finishing with some of my dad's cherry blossoms and the last of his pumpkins. I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen series - thanks for hosting Sherry!