A Trilogy of Curries Part One - Korma
The korma is perfect for folk who are new to curry as it's aromatic and not very (or at all) spicy. Over the years I've had korma's with lamb, goat, fish, prawns and chicken. The were mostly good but I do think the chicken one is my favourite, probably with lamb or goat a close second. I recommend chicken thighs for the recipe simply because it's what I always use having not bought chicken breasts for years (unless they are still on the chicken of course). The thighs are without doubt tastier and, in my opinion, add a little something to the dish. If you want to use breasts then go for it, it'll still be a good dish.
You need about ten minutes to prepare and about half an hour to cook.
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 3 bay leaves
- 10 cardamom pods
- 2 onions - one sliced into half rings and one finely chopped
- 1kg of chicken (thighs)
- 3 tablespoons of grated ginger
- 6 cloves of garlic, smashed
- 120ml of natural yoghurt and1 tbsp of lemon juice, beaten until smooth
- 1-2 tspn of fresh green chillies
Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil in a pan until hot and add in the cinnamon, bay leaves and cardamom. Let them sizzle for a few seconds before adding the onion rings. Give the whole mix a stir and let the onions brown just a little. Add the chicken and stir for a few minutes until the chicken browns. Now add in the garlic, ginger and the finely chopped onion, stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the yoghurt and a teaspoon of salt, give it a good stir and let it cook for about ten minutes. Add half the green chillies and three tablespoons of water then cover, turn the heat down and let it simmer gently for another ten minutes or so.
The final dish won't be quite as brown as the kormas I used to see in the UK, but the flavour is fantastic; aromatic and rich but also quite fresh with a little kick of chilli and lemon juice. I like the fact that the green chillies add a little kick of heat without making it a spicy dish.
You can serve it with whatever you fancy. I guess rice is what most folk go for, but I prefer flat breads with a bitter lime pickle and some poppadums. Beer is a good accompaniment but lager is a bit bright and fizzy, I prefer a proper ale or a Belgian beer.
A Trilogy of Curries - Introduction
Curry from the Indian sub continent is one of the things I really miss about living in the UK. Popularised in the UK during the 1950's as a result of immigration, curry has since become something of a national dish in the UK. I'm sure what you get in many restaurants is bastardised all to hell and there are without doubt some truly awful curry restaurants in the UK (a lead contender for the single worst meal I've ever had was at Shezan Tandoori in Edinburgh), but you were never far away from a good one if you take the time to look. I didn't really appreciate this enough when it was freely available and now I miss it.
I love everything about curry. I enjoy the spicy, hot, fragrant, sweet and sour flavours. I adore hot and sour lime pickle in roti and stacks of pappadums with onions. I like all the veggie dishes and the cool, sweet lassi. One of my favourite meals is a whole bunch of curry dishes served up Thali style with a couple of beers and a good movie.
So it is unfortunate that Australia does not do curry well. I've had some really bad curries since moving here, including Butter Chicken loaded with pureed tomatoes (which is possibly authentic but definitely revolting) and a lamb Rogan Josh so overcooked that the meat crumbled. In general the sauces tend to be pretty thin and watery and are less like the tasty stews I'm used to. I have had a couple of decent curries too, but after so many disappointments I decided it was best to start making my own.
I used to cook a lot of Thai curry at home because Thai food in the UK, at least at that time, was generally quite expensive and not terribly good. In Oz, Thai food is incredibly good and dirt cheap so my focus switched to learning how cook a decent British style Indian sub continent curry. The first few times the dishes weren't quite right but practice has made them......well, better if not perfect.
Over the next week or two I'm going to post up recipes for a vindaloo, a korma and keema. All three are extremely easy to make, damn tasty and, best of all, remind me of the British curry houses I miss so much.
Homemade Beef Stock
Of all the things I prepare in the kitchen, I reckon stock has to be one of the most satisfying. It requires little effort, it uses up stuff you'd otherwise toss in the bin and it provides you with an extra ingredient that is, for me at least, becoming indispensable. More often than not I make stock on a Sunday after a lazy breakfast. I put on some music, make another cup of tea and start the familiar process or slicing, packing the stock pot and skimming. The type of stock depends on what bones I have stashed away in the fridge or freezer or whether I've been able to track some down at the market. Usually it's beef or chicken stock as I seem to use them most often, but lamb stock and fish stock have also been done in the past. Pork stock I haven't tried yet but it is definitely on the list.
I must admit I was sceptical at first as to whether the hours of slow simmering would be worth it. Would all that effort really make a noticeable difference to, for example, an oxtail stew when compared to just bunging in a ready made stock cube? Well, in my opinion the answer is an emphatic 'hell yes'! It adds a savoury depth to a dish without adding additional salt. If used as the basis for a broth then the difference is enormous. I still use ready made stock cubes when I have to and they are fine (some better than others) but the dishes or sauces prepared with the homemade stock really are a cut above the rest.
To make a couple of litres of fantastic beef stock you'll need the following:
- 2kg of beef bones
- About ten onions, ten carrots and ten sticks of celery (including the tops) - veg peelings kept in a tub in the fridge are also good here
- A couple of bay leaves
- Some parsley stalks
- A few peppercorns
- About 3-3.5 litres of water
- A pot big enough to fit all of the above
This is a good base but you can add in whatever else you fancy. In the past I've added fennel, a bouquet garni and leeks. Don't go mad as you don't want to overwhelm the beefiness, but play around a bit and see what works for you. Don't add any salt though.
Getting the stock on the go couldn't be simpler. You don't need to peel any of the veg, just give it a quick wash, chop it in half and set it aside. I usually roast half of the beef bones for about twenty minutes at 200C. You don't need to do this but it makes the stock a bit darker and certainly doesn't seem to hurt the flavour. That's the prep done.
Next I layer the bones and veg in a ten litre stock pot, tucking the parsley, bay leaves and any other bits and pieces into the gaps. When everything is packed in tight pour in enough water to just cover everything. This ought to take about three to three and a half litres.
Now comes the most critical part.
You can't let it boil. You can't even let it simmer. It needs to come up to a 'shudder'. That point where the surface is quaking and every few seconds a big belch bubbles up the surface. If it boils or simmers then it'll be ruined. I find a simmer mat or trivet is pretty handy at this stage. Once it's at that shuddering point you need to skim off any dirty white scum that floats to the top (it looks kind of like washing up bubbles). Sometimes there is quite a bit and sometimes almost nothing at all. After about half an hour the scum should stop appearing and you can just leave it alone. It needs at least 3-4 hours and 5-6 is better. It's not hard to leave it alone as the smell when it's cooking is sensational. They say you should bake a tray of cookies when trying to sell a house but the smell of beef stock on the hob would sway my opinion further.
When it is ready all of the liquid should be drained into a large bowl and set aside to cool. You should get about two litres of top quality beef stock. At this stage I usually put it in the fridge overnight to let the fat rise and solidify on top. This is then skimmed off and binned. The photos below show how much fat there is and without the final skim the stock can taste a bit greasy. The stock itself will be jelly like and can be frozen as it is (best split into batches) or reduced until concentrated and then frozen. I tend to do half and half so I have a bout a litre available for soup/ramen and a half a dozen deeply concentrated stock cubes for making sauces and dropping into stews.
Repeat the process every couple of weeks and you'll soon build up a nice reserve of top quality stock. Once it's sitting there the uses that present them self are almost endless.
Steak au Poivre
I had my first steak (that I can remember) when I was in my mid 20's. I was a vegetarian for four years when I was younger and then didn't eat any red meat for another ten years. That aside, steak was never a big thing in my house when I was growing up. I can't recall a single time when steak was served as I sat munching my veggie alternative. Anyway, it took a few years but eventually Weepix managed to show me why such a simple meal is viewed with such reverence.
Tonight we have a couple of inch thick sirloin steaks from Isola farm (via Feather and Bone). The beef comes from grass fed Chianina cows and is hung for five weeks before sale to improve the flavour. It's not a cheap steak but you sure as hell know where the extra money went when you taste it. I'd rather eat one of these every six months than a poorer quality steak on a weekly basis. No contest.
More often than not I just cook my steak and eat it, maybe with some mustard or horseradish but often with nothing at all. Sometimes I fancy something a bit fancier and I'll get some beef stock out the freezer and make a red wine or green peppercorn sauce. This recipe (if you can call it that) is somewhere between the two.
- Steaks - fillet is traditional but I prefer cuts with a bit more fat.
- White and black peppercorns (I only have black just now)
- Salt
- Butter
- Brandy
Word of warning - this can get a little smoky so turn on the extractor and/or open the windows.
Lightly crack a couple of tablespoons of peppercorns in a mortar, just so they split apart a bit you don't need to pulverise them. Sieve the pepper to get rid of the powdery fines and tip half the cracked corns onto a plate with some flakes of salt. Lay the steaks on top and then sprinkle the rest of the cracked pepper over the top with another pinch of salt. When it looks like you've got too much pepper on there then you're about good to go. Get a pan good and hot and add a couple of spoons of sunflower oil. For steaks an inch think I do them for about two minutes on each side and they come out rare but not cold in the middle. Remove from the pan and put them on a warmed plate. If you've bothered to spend cash on decent steak then cooking it past medium is pointless. If you want well done steak then save yourself some cash and just buy the cheap stuff.
While the steaks rest a little add about 30g (two decent lumps) of butter to the pan and let it melt and froth, scraping all the tasty black bits as you go. A minute is more than enough. Now add a good slug of brandy and give the pan a final scrape. Take the pan from the heat and then return the steaks to the brandy and butter, turning them to get a good coating. Plate up the steaks with a crispy skinned baked potato and pour over the rest of the buttery sauce. If you're throwing caution to the wind you can put some sour cream on the potato but it doesn't really need it and it means you have to run twice as far the next day. A few lettuce leaves on the side are also pretty good.....especially when they get covered in the butter and brandy.
Grab a decent bottle of cab or shiraz to go with it and you're sorted.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
It's been a busy week so here's another quick recipe for when you've had no time to hit the shops. It's easy to keep all of the ingredients in the cupboard so you can throw it together when nothing else presents itself. The name translates as 'whore's style spaghetti' and apparently originated because ladies of the night couldn't make it to the morning market for fresh ingredients. Sounds pretty dubious but if it is true then those ladies were onto something as it's cheap, quick and damn tasty.
- Two cloves of garlic, chopped up fine
- Tablespoon of capers, chopped a little
- 8-12 anchovy fillets diced
- 1 tsp dried chili flakes
- handful of olives chopped
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- Spaghetti
Word of warning; for some reason passata doesn't really work here, at least it doesn't for me, so best use the chopped tomatoes.
Put the water on to boil for the spaghetti. Add a little olive oil to a pan big enough to accommodate everything and heat. Add the chopped anchovies and leave them, stirring occasionally, until they sort of melt into the oil. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two. Add everything else to the pan, give it a stir and reduce the heat to low. Let it heat through so all the flavours amalgamate and it sits just below a simmer. Set aside about half a cup of the water the spaghetti was cooked in and add it a little at a time to the sauce just to loosen it up a bit (this really makes a difference). Drain the spaghetti and add it to the pan with the sauce, stirring to coat everything nicely.
The whole thing takes about 15 minutes and, with a little practice to get the balance to your liking, it's a great meal. It's not fancy but there is something really satisfying and a little chic in it's simplicity. It's also really good for lunch during summer while sitting outside in the sun with a glass of wine and some fresh bread. I guess you could add prawns or clams if you want, but I like it just as it is.
Rack of Lamb
Generally speaking, I'm not an impatient person. I can happily bide my time. I'm content enjoying the anticipation whilst the good things in life meander toward me. I usually save up rather than bash the credit card. I drive like an old man because I'm never in that much of a rush to get anywhere. I'm learning to play the banjo and I've allowed myself ten years to become competent. No sense rushing these things.
And then there is resting roasted meat, which is where I go from patient to pacing and anxious. I don't want to wait even longer, I want to eat it now!
Often times I've spent days or even weeks planning that roast and hours preparing it. The smells coming from the kitchen are driving me mad and it looks glorious! Finally, it's done. And now I have to wait another twenty minutes before I can tuck in? It seems.....well, to be honest, it seems mental and more than a little masochistic. Hard as it may be, it is a worthwhile exercise and here's why.
As you heat meat the proteins in the cells begin to denature and squeeze out some of the water molecules that separate them. This denaturing process starts to happen at about 50 degrees C, which is the equivalent of rare. Continue up to 65 degrees C and the denaturing turns to coagulation and you lose a lot more moisture. So, as you cook you lose moisture, it's unavoidable and necessary assuming you want the outside of the meat to be brown and tasty (Maillard reaction). Generally speaking after cooking you'll end up with a piece of meat that is hot and dry on the outside and cooler and moist in the middle. As the meat rests it continues to cook a little, which means that moisture continues to be forced out albeit at a slower pace. The net result is that some of the moisture in the centre makes it's way toward the outside and the meat seems less dry due to the more even distribution.
Steaks and chops can benefit from a minute or two, large roast ribs of beef or a turkey can easily rest for an hour.
What got me thinking about all this was a simple rack of lamb. This recipe isn't really much of a recipe at all as all you have to do is slather a basic marinade on a rack of lamb and cook it for 18-20 minutes at 200 degrees C (or on the bbq). It's good enough to serve up at the poshest dinner parties (where all will declare you genius!) and yet quick enough to make on a Wednesday night after a long day at work.
Don't let the anchovy put you off. The end result does not taste at all fishy and anchovy and lamb have an affinity that, in my opinion, can't really be beaten.
- Rack of lamb (half a rack, four cutlets, per person is generous)
- 10-12 anchovy fillets chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- some thyme and/or rosemary chopped
- a splash of Worcestershire sauce
- a splash of olive oil
Mix all of the marinade ingredients together in a cup or bowl until you have a thick paste and slather it over the rack of lamb. It will be sloppy and make a bit of a mess so do it on a plate or board. You can let it stand for as long as you want or cook it straight away. I cook mine for about 18 minutes at 200 degrees C......let it rest for a few minutes......and serve it rare. Often times I have it with mashed potatoes or roasted squash, but it's great and a bit lighter with just a green salad.
I'm not sure exactly what it is that does it, but this dish makes all seem right with the world. You get four (or more) little individual servings of meat on the bone, each one the perfect size. The sweetness of the lamb and the salty, savoury marinade are just sensational together. The marinade burns a bit in places and forms a partial crust over the lamb, which is tender and juicy. Maybe the flavour and texture contrast is the secret? I don't know for sure but's one of by favourite meals.
The Wine
Pepper Tree 14 Shores Merlot 2008 - $29.50 from the vineyard
Strawberries and rhubarb (little bit of red pepper maybe) on the nose with a little vanilla and oak. The strawberry was surprisingly pronounced for a merlot. We got thyme as well but that's possibly due to the thyme in the lamb marinade. A light and silky mouth feel and the fruit really carries through. Decent length on the finish and gentle tannins as you'd expect.
We bought a lot of this last time we were at the vineyard and that was the last one. We'll be buying more.
Fish noodle soup
The search for tasty, quick mid week meals continues and this one is fantastic. It's dead easy to make, tastes incredible and goes from the fridge to the bowl in about 20 minutes. You need a few specialist things in the store cupboard, like mirin and sake, but if you buy them in a big bottle you'll be able to make this a dozen times before you need a refill.
It's a Nigel Slater recipe originally but I've adapted it a little bit and rarely make it the same way twice. As long as you get the marinade sorted then you can do what you want with the rest of it. As with many things I cook there is nothing authentic about it, but I guarantee you can make it quickly and it'll taste great.
- One salmon steak per person - other fish will work too so try what you fancy and see how it goes
- 2 tbsp of dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sake
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp sugar
- Piece of ginger cut into thin sticks
- 2 spring onions sliced
- Noodles - whatever type you fancy
- 500ml of chicken, fish or veggie stock - cubes/liquid are fine
- couple of handfuls of greens - spinach, bok choy, pak choy etc
- Any other toppings you fancy - snow peas, green beans, corn, beansprouts, bamboo shoots, pickled ginger
Take the skin off the salmon and marinade it in the soy sauce, sake, mirin, garlic and sugar. You can leave this as long as you want, but it still tastes good if you use it straight away. Put the stock on to simmer in a pan and cook, drain and rinse the noodles. I usually steam the greens over the noodles while they are cooking because I like them more just warm as opposed to cooked. Make up a couple of bowls with noodles in the bottom and some of the greens on top.
Now heat some peanut oil in a pan and stir fry the ginger and spring onions for a minute. Then add cook fish and a couple of tablespoons of the marinade. Generally speaking I like my fish pretty rare so, depending on thickness, a minute or two on each side is plenty. You can add as much or as little of the marinade as you like at this stage; leave it at a couple of tablespoons and the final dish is pretty light, add the whole lot in and it's dense and rich.
Add the fish to your bowl, pour over the stock and finish it off with the rest of the toppings. Perfect with a cold beer.
If you are organised enough you can do almost all the prep the night before and throw it together in the time it takes to cook the fish and heat up some stock. It doesn't get much faster than that.
Chicken with basil and chili
I first had this dish five years ago in a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms in Bangkok. It was mind bendingly hot and it's the first time in my life that chilli made me feel.....well....a little odd. The strangeness was compounded by thousands of fairy lights festooned around the place and by the giant snail and chorus of frogs that had taken up residence on the wall next to our table. It was all a bit Lewis Carroll. I digress; the dish was incredible. The chili was an essential part of the flavour and not just there for heat, something that I didn't really appreciate prior to that night. I've never had a better version to this day.
There seem to be hundreds of 'authentic' recipes for chicken with basil and chili and I have no idea (and don't especially care) which is correct as long as the end result tastes good. My recipe is a hodge podge of various online versions and David Thompson's version, although he includes coriander root and doesn't add any oyster sauce or kecap manis. My version was a mix of what I had sitting in the fridge and cupboard. The whole thing takes about half an hour and you can cut that further by chopping up the chicken and veg the night before.
The essential base is the chili, thai basil and fish sauce. The rest can be altered within reason according to taste.
- Chicken thighs (breast if you must, but it's not as good)
- 4-8 large red chillies coarsely chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2-3 small red birds eye chillies
- 1 large bunch of Thai basil, leaves picked off and left whole
- 1 red pepper - chopped
- 1 large onion - chopped into wedges and the layers separated
- 1 tbsp palm sugar - easy to buy in blocks
- 3 tbsp of fish sauce (maybe more)
- 2 tbsp of kecap manis (thick, sweet Indonesian soy sauce) or oyster sauce. I used kecap manis this time.
- Salt
Before we start I've got a couple of kitchen tips that may be obvious but have saved me a lot of time;
- the easiest way to peel garlic is to first crush it a little with the flat of the knife, after which the skin will fall away; and
- to de-seed a large chili just chop of the fat end, turn it upside down and roll it between your hands like your trying to make a snake out of plasticine. The seeds will fall right out.
Put two or three of the chilies, the peeled garlic and a teaspoon of salt into a mortar and pestle (or electric blitzer) and mash them up to a coarse paste. Turn the hob on high and put some peanut oil in the wok if you have one, which I don't just now, but a saute pan works just as well. When the oil is hot add in the chili/garlic paste and fry for a minute or two. Now add the chicken and onion and stir fry for a few minutes. Next up add the peppers, fish sauce, palm sugar (just bung it in, it'll melt down) and kecap manis/oyster sauce. Give it a good stir, add half the basil and let it cook for a minute. Turn the heat off and add the rest of the basil and the coarsely chopped chilies. Taste and add more fish sauce depending on preference. Serve with rice and, if like me you're chasing the perfect chili high, a dish of freshly chopped bird's eye chilies. Serve with some jasmine rice and a cold beer.
Quick, easy and incredibly tasty.
Beef with stout
Well I must confess that a year is a little longer than I'd anticipated between blog updates. My legions of devoted foodie fans have been vocal in their disapproval (my mum said I should start again) and so here we are. It's been a busy year. Weepix and I have left Sydney and moved to the Central Coast (more on that later) due to work related shenanigans that see us travelling for up to twenty hours a week, hence the lack of blog activity. The downside of this is the loss of daily access to all the food related wonders that Sydney has to offer (which we are feeling acutely). The upside is we're cooking an awful lot more often as the temptation of 'let's just grab some Thai' is no longer there. So plenty of blog fodder. There have been litres of stock produced, ice cream made, absurdly good steak prepared, cheesecake perfected and a pork pie incident.
On that note, let's dive right in.
Any recipe that starts with 'fry your pancetta in the butter until the fat runs' is a solid gold promise of tasty things to come. It's also potentially a nod toward heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes, but as long as we don't start all our recipes like this then it's an acceptable risk. The recipe in question is a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall one for Beef In Stout (page 288 of 'Meat'). As Hugh points out it's a particularly good recipe if you don't have any beef stock (more on that later too) on hand but still fancy something with great depth of flavour and that provides a perfect excuse for a good bottle of red.....as if such an excuse is ever really needed. It's dead simple and freezes amazingly well (it actually seems better after it's been frozen for a while) so it's worth making a large batch. This serves 8-10.
- 1.5kg of chuck, rump or shin (stewing beef) - trimmed and shopped into large chunks.
- 250g of slat pork, pancetta or bacon - chopped into chunks or squares.
- 50g of butter of dripping.....mmmmm, dripping.
- 500g of baby onions - peeled but left whole.
- 50g plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper.
- 1 litre of stout (I used Guinness, bottles not cans, but any stout will do).
- A bouquet garni of a few parsley stalks, some thyme and a couple of bay leaves.
- 500g mushrooms - half button and half big flat ones sliced up.
- Salt and pepper.
Once you have everything sorted as per the list you need to toss your beef in the seasoned flour, shaking off any excess and set it aside. Heat a large frying pan (with a large casserole pot off the heat alongside) and fry the pancetta/bacon in the butter until the fat runs, at which point you want to remove it to the casserole but leave as much butter in the frying pan as possible. Now fry your whole baby onions in the pan until they have a bit of colour and add to the casserole. Brown the beef in batches until it's nicely coloured* and add it to the casserole. Add half a bottle or so of the stout to the frying pan and deglaze making sure you get all the tasty sticky bits, then pour into the casserole with the rest of the stout (covering the beef, add a little hot water if short), the bouquet garni and some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then set to a very gentle simmer for 2.5-3 hours either on the hob (a simmer mat is handy here) or in the oven at about 120C. After 90 minutes or so you need to sweat the mushrooms in some butter and then add them and the juices to the casserole.
That's it. The only thing that can go wrong is simmering too quickly or for too short a time, which causes the meat to become chewy and a little tough. Cook it slow and it'll coalesce into a meltingly tender, incredibly rich stew that smells as good as it tastes.
* Should you brown the beef? I think that's a whole separate blog post right there. By doing so you dry it slightly but you add nice flavoursome brown bits. As the beef in this recipe is cooked covered in beer I say you should risk the browning for the extra flavour.
The Wine
Brezza Barbera d'Alba Cannubi 2004 - $45 from Dan Murphys
Surprisingly light in colour, not far off Burgundian, with a beautiful but fairly delicate nose of redcurrant and rhubarb with a bit of a smoky leather with a vegetal thing lurking at the back. Might need a bit more time for the nose to develop. It's soft on the palate at first and the slightly smoky woodiness comes through with the redcurrant. Then you get a belt of tannins at the end that will soften with a bit more time. Great with food but a bit young.
Homemade Tantanmen
Is ramen addictive? I think it maybe is. There is something about the deeply savoury broth, slippery noodles and fresh toppings that results in me having withdrawal symptoms if I don’t indulge at least once a week. I’ve had conversations with Weepix along the lines of ‘Well we could move back to the UK, but where will we get decent ramen?’. Suffice to say I’m a bit of a ramen junky.
Before I even came to Australia I was drooling over blog posts about Sydney ramen shops and noodle bars. Ryo's Noodles in Crow's Nest became almost like a second home when I lived just round the corner. It was right between my apartment and the library; not much can compete with the double pleasure of a new book and a deep bowl of miso ramen.
Alas we've now moved away from Crow's Nest and Ryo's isn't as regular occurrence as it once was.......so it's just as well that my office is five minutes from Ichi Ban Boshi in Galaries Victoria. I take it as a good sign that both Ryo's and Ich Ban Boshi have long queues outside them every single day without fail. A restaurant must be doing something right if people are prepared to wait for an undetermined period before being allowed in. I've got to say it's a master stroke in heightening the anticipation; there we stand waiting for our number to be called, the smell of broth and tapping of chopsticks nearly driving us crazy. As soon as you're called there is an instantaneous change of mindset from 'hurry the hell up!' to 'I'm going to savour every minute of this and who cares about those still waiting'. If you want to witness basic human nature then simply observe the queue outside Ichi Ban Boshi.
Despite the current quality noodle abundance I'm still worried that at some point in the future I may have to do without. The only solution is to learn how to make some of the best dishes myself. At Ichi Ban Boshi I'm a freak for the Tantanmen. A quick Google search results in about a hundred definitions and recipes for tantanmen, but basically it's a spicy pork ramen (often tonkotsu) with sesame, pork mince and various veggies. It's actually a Szechuan dish but usually served in Japan as ramen.
The recipe I used was a bit of a hybrid of many different sources and I've no idea how authentic it is, but the end result was not too shabby.
The Means
Stock:
- 900ml of torigara soup stock (or chicken stock)
- 2 Tablespoons of red miso
The Rest:
- 1 Tablespoon of sesame oil
- 1 minced garlic clove
- 1 minced piece of ginger
- 1 minced dried chile pepper
- 1/2 Japanese long onion, minced (substitute scallions)
- 200grams minced pork
- 1/2 of a small bamboo shoot, minced (I missed this out)
- 1 teaspoon tobanjian (Chili bean sauce)
- 2 teaspoons tenmenjian (Chinese sweet black miso)
- Noodles
The Method
First cook the noodles, drain, rinse well in cold water and set aside. Then prepare the stock, add in the red miso, give it all bit of a stir and let simmer for a while.
Next you need to heat up the sesame oil and stir fry the garlic, ginger, chili and scallions. Give them a minute or two and add the pork mince. Stir fry until the mince browns and add in the tobanjian and tenmenjian and about 200ml of the stock. Let it simmer for about ten minutes or so, until the mince is cooked through.
To serve put the noodles in a deep bowl with your favourite toppings (I like corn, boiled egg, pak choi, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots....not generally all at once though). Pour over enough stock to cover the noodles and then add a few spoons of the pork mince.
I'm afraid my lack of skill as a photographer is evident with these shots but the final dish was damn tasty. It didn't have the depth of flavour of the store bought tantanmen but then they actually know what they are doing and simmer stock for hours. I might try to make some genuine (free range!) pork stock next time and report back how it goes.
