Bêh Zam Goi 白斬鷄

My Chinese friend, Christina, has asked me to cook bêh zam goi 白斬鷄 for her, this long week end. In Mandarin it is said as bai2zhan3ji1 and in Cantonese said as baak6 zaam2 gai1. Bêh zam goi 白斬鷄 is the Teochew pronunciation.  However, many Mandarin speakers know this dish as 白切雞 báiqiējī.

She was counting how many chickens I have to cook and she said her guilao 鬼佬 friend can eat half a chicken and she told me last evening she has invited someone else. 

Bêh zam goi 白斬鷄 is very easy to cook. I use 1.5 kg Oakham chicken from Marks and boil it for 10 minutes in 3 litres of boiling water, which has ginger, onion and black peppercorns, and leave it in the hot liquid for an hour. At the end of this hour, plunge the cooked chicken into ice cold water until the chicken skin firms up. One 1.5 kg chicken should be able to feed four people. 

Real Chinese people would cook the chicken for a shorter time and soak it for no more than 45 minutes in the hot boiling liquid.  However, there is a tendency for people in this country to eat chicken which is a bit more cooked. 

The chicken could be deboned and sliced after half an hour. The bones could be returned into the stock and boil for a further hour, to extract the maximum flavour from the bones.

白斬鷄 

Jiang'rong 薑蓉 is a Cantonese dipping sauce, which is made out of minced ginger, spring onion, oil and salt. Everybody has their own proportions - and I use two portions of ginger, one portion of spring onion, salt to taste, pour enough oil until it covers the top of the jiang'rong.  I normally use extra virgin olive oil and one can use extra virgin cold pressed rapeseed oil. [By the way - extra virgin = cold pressed and I have no idea why my new bottle of rapeseed oil has both cold pressed and extra virgin! LOL]

My friend has invited her Malaysian friend who loves chilli hot food. I have prepared a special dipping sauce for Margaret, the lady who cooked the Malaysian prawns with minced ginger and garlic, two teaspoons of 潮洲辣椒油 Chaozhao chilli oil, 1 tsp of brown sugar, half a teaspoon of sea salt, a little sake and juice of half a lime. I just invented this sauce and I have no idea if this sauce is delicious or not.

Jiang'rong 薑蓉 and chilli sauce for Margaret

I will be serving the Bêh zam goi 白斬鷄 with pulao rice. Wash and soak 600 grams [3.5 cups] of basmati rice in salted water for 20 minutes. Drain the salted water and leave to drain for 20 minutes. Fry the rice grains in shallots flavoured oil and minced garlic and ginger. Then boil the rice in 2 litres of seasoned chicken stock for 6 to 7 minutes until the rice is almost cooked. At the 6th minute, add fried shallots to the almost cooked rice and give a good gentle stir. Drain all the excess liquid and then place the almost cooked rice in a rice cooker to finish the cooking, and pour 50 ml of prepared saffron water and 75 ml of hot chicken stock.



The pulao rice was very delicious - imagine 3.5 cups of rice [600 grams] eaten by four people. 

Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil

Cold pressed rapeseed oil is England's answer to extra virgin olive oil. 

While I was at Christina's over the weekend, Margaret Joseph, the lady who cooked that delicious Malaysian prawns, talked about cold pressed rapeseed oil.

I was cooking a Teochew fish, bua ziang ze gai he 半煎煮個魚, while watching Margaret cooked the special prawns, and she explained about the wonders of this wonderful oil.

I noticed the wonderful taste of the fish was really an improvement on my previous Teochew fish. So I thought I was going to buy at least a bottle of this wonder oil.

I had a voucher from Waitrose and therefore on Tuesday I bought the Leckford Estate cold pressed rapeseed oil which on offer at Waitrose for £4, for free. I am going to buy the Hill Farm cold pressed rapeseed oil today with MyWaitrose card and get a 20 percent discount and paying a 500 ml bottle for £3.40.  

I am so pleased I have discovered this oil. 

So what is so good about cold pressed rapeseed oil?

First, the food taste much better than other oil.
It has less saturated fat than olive oil - less than half.
You can cook your food at a higher temperature and this means you can fry your food.
It has good oils such as omega 3 in it.
It is less expensive than olive oil. 
It is planted and made in England.
You can use it to dress your salad, to fry your food etc and you can make life less complicated and just use rapeseed oil!

Malaysian Prawns

I saw Margaret Joseph cooking 20 huge king size prawns on Sunday. She cooked 20 huge prawns for four of us. I asked her for the name of the dish, and she said she did not know the name of the dish.

Margaret cleaned the prawns first, including removing the intestine and other items from the head of the prawns. She then padded dry the prawns with paper kitchen towels.

She then sautéd the prawns in batches with cold pressed rapeseed oil and set the prawns aside.

She then sautéd minced garlic and chilli padi [she used two], curry leaves and added at 50 grams of butter then returned the prawns into the pan. After coating the prawns with the buttered garlic, chilli and curry leaves, and seasoned the dish with Maldon sea salt and Meigui lu jiu 玫瑰露酒 and she then removed the prawns from the heat to avoid over cooking the prawns.

The dish was just excellent! Worth trying next time.

When I try cooking this dish, I will post a picture. 

Meanwhile, does anybody recognise this dish and does anybody know the name of this Malaysian dish?

Ian's visit

Ian, a friend of mine from Kent, is making his annual visit today to have lunch with me. 

We have been friends for some 26 years - imagine how time flies! 

I have decided to serve him guo'tie 鍋貼 , WenChang Ji Fan 文昌鷄飯 , Eton mess and orange chiffon cake. 

I will cook 450 grams of sella rice and I will measure 950 ml of chicken stock [plus 50 ml stock for evaporation] to cook this amount of sella rice. I did not measure accurately the amount of stock I used in my previous post cooking this amount of rice. 

In my previous post, I boiled the chicken for 12 minutes and I let the chicken sit in the boiling stock for 60 minutes. On Saturday, I will boil the chicken for only 10 minutes and let the chicken sit in the hot boiling stock for 60 minutes.  

The chicken was cooked perfectly as shown in the picture below.



What I have found out! The amount of stock [950 ml] is ideal as it produces moist cooked rice.

A cooking time of 10 minutes for a 1.5 kg chicken is also very good. The chicken flesh is soft and succulent and the bones are cooked, not pink. It is not a good idea to reduce the cooking time. 

The weather in London is cool and there is no need to drop the cooked chicken into a bucket of ice cold water. Apparently, people in hot climates drop their cooked chicken in a bucket of ice cold water to stop the cooking process.

On another topic

While making the orange chiffon cake on Friday, a neighbour knocked on my door because he has found a cat in the bottom floor of the block of flats where I live. I was so excited and carried the cat back to my flat. 




The cat told me his name was Finn and his mother's phone number. So, I rang her and she gave me her address and I carried the cat home in the rain and got soaking wet. I wrapped the Finn, the cat, in a large bath towel, to keep him dry. 

I was so happy to be able to play with Finn.  Oh! How I have missed my little Charlemagne! It has been nearly 3 months since my little Charlemagne had passed away.  See the picture below on how I remember my little Charlemagne.



Back to baking

When the orange chiffon cake is cooked, turn it upside down and rest it on an upside-down Chinese rice bowl as shown on the picture below.



The bowl, by the side of the cake, has sella rice soaked in salted water. 

The sauces I have made to go with the chicken rice.



The chicken rice on a plate - just delicious!


The guotie - Ian likes the guotie very much and remember Ian does not eat tomatoes!



Well there will be no more cooking until Mid-Autumn Festival on 15 September. 

文昌鷄飯 WenChang Ji Fan - Chicken Rice from WenChang, HaiNan

What are the Hainaese famous for? Their chicken rice! The dish which I am going to make is called WenChang Ji fan 文昌鷄飯. In the old days, Chinese people would eat chicken only on feast days and people in Hainan would eat WenChang Ji Fan and the rice would had been rolled into rice balls, which we would call as fantuan 飯糰. 

So for those people out there, fantuan is not only eaten in Japan, but people in Hainan have been eaten fantuan for millennia. 

On Sunday is our high feast day. Fr Alan said that in England, August 15 would had been our High Summer Feast day and people would had partied on the streets, but this was terminated after the Reformation by the puritans. 

However, this high summer feast day has been transferred to Sunday 14 August 2016, by the Church in England, because our bishops have very low expectations of the faithful and they have assumed the faithful would not go to church to celebrate this high feast day on Monday after going to Mass on Sunday.

So on this high feast day, it will be most appropriate to make this WenChang Ji Fan for lunch. 

WenChang Ji fan 文昌鷄飯

On that morning, Daniel the seminarian, will be coming for a cooking lesson to learn to make Guo'tie 鍋貼.

Guo'tie 鍋貼

At lunch time, Ola will be coming to eat and she will be bringing her daddy too.  Michelle and Tabi will be coming for tea at 4 pm. So there will be lots of feasting on this summer high feast day. 

Some notes: WenChang Ji Fan - WenChang is a city in HaiNan Island in China; Ji means chicken and Fan means rice - so it could be translated as WenChang chicken rice. In places like Singapore and Malaysia, it is called as HaiNan Ji Fan or HaiNan chicken rice. 

WenChang Ji 文昌鷄

However, I am not able to go to WenChang City to buy a fresh chicken and I will not be making the rice balls either.

Instead, I have purchased an Oakham chicken from Marks and Spencers and I am going to use Sella rice. People outside China would normally use Thai fragrant rice to make this WenChang Ji Fan, but I like sella rice because nutritionally it is as good as eating brown rice. Furthermore, sella rice absorbs more liquid stock than other types of rice, twice as much as Thai fragrant rice and this means the rice is tastier after absorbing so much stock. 

In my humble opinion, I reckon Marks and Spencers' Oakham chicken is the best chicken one can buy in the UK. It has lots of meat, full of flavour and if one were to cook the chicken properly, the meat can be juicy and succulent. Oakham chickens have not been injected with antibiotics or growth hormone. I know Marks and Spencers will make sure their chickens are reared in the best of conditions and fed with the best natural food. In addition, Oakham chicken is a slow growing chicken and it lives 50 percent longer than chicken one buys from Waitrose. 

In my other post, I have already explained that I would not buy huge chickens which Marks sells, and the maximum size I would buy is 1.5 kg. And so I have bought a 1.5 kg Oakham chicken. 

Another good thing about Oakham chicken is that is comes pre-washed and ready to cook. Therefore I have to do very little to the chicken.

I first measure out 3 cups [rice cups] of sella rice which has a volume of 500 ml or a weight of 450 grams or 16 ozs. I soak the rice for 24 hours in salted cold water and refrigerate the soaked rice overnight. 

In a very large cooking pot, I will bring 3 litres of water to boil, and add slices of ginger, an onion, a few black whole peppercorns. When the water is boiling, I will slowly lower the chicken into the water. I will boil the chicken rapidly for 10 - 12 minutes and turn off the heat at the end of the cooking time, cover the pot with a lid and drape a blanket of towel over the pot to keep in the heat. I will let the chicken sit in the hot boiling liquid for 60 minutes. At the end of the hour, I will remove the chicken and place it on a large plate. I will rub Himalayan salt on the chicken and also with sesame oil.  This chicken is also called BaiQieJi 白切鷄 and Teochew people call this chicken bêh zam goi 白斬鷄.

Note: 12 minutes boiling time for a well done chicken and 10 minutes for a perfect chicken which have bones which are still red. 

The rice is the piece de resistance of WenChang Ji Fan, and like paella, the rice is the most important aspect of this dish. Therefore it is important that the rice is separated, cooked [not soggy nor undercooked] and fragrant. In SouthEast Asia, people could add pandan leaves into the rice. However, the original dish does not have pandan leaves when made in WenChang, HaiNan, China. 

After soaking the rice for 24 hours, I will rinse it with very cold water and drain the rice for 20 minutes using a colander, and one has to be very careful not to break the rice grains in the washing process. 

To prepare the stock, I would debone the cooked chicken after it has cooled for 45 minutes and return the bones to the stock. I would then simmer the bones in the stock for an hour. 

To prepare the stock for cooking the rice, I would prepare just under 1 litre of chicken stock - adding a Kallo organic chicken stock cube, 1 tsp Himalayan salt to the stock and bring this to a simmer.

I will then sauté minced ginger, garlic with 2 tbsp of shallots flavoured oil and then sauté the rice grains and make sure the grains are coated with oil, garlic and ginger. I will then place this rice into a rice cooker pot and add the prepared boiling stock and let the rice cooker do the rest of the cooking. As soon as the rice cooker finishes cooking the rice, I would fluff up the rice, switch off the rice cooker and the rice can sit in the rice cooker for up to half an hour or until the guests arrive.

Note: If you were to use Thai fragrant rice, and you were to wash the rice, then you should use the same volume of stock to the rice. You would also need to soak the rice grains for 20 minutes, then drain the rice and let it stand in a colander for 20 minutes. So if you were to use 500 grams of Thai fragrant rice, you would use 500 ml of prepared stock. 

I will serve the rice with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes on the side and place some chicken pieces on the side of the plate. WenChang Ji Fan is eaten with minced ginger sauce traditionally in WenChang but one could eat it with the Cantonese minced ginger and spring onion sauce, which is called JiangRong 薑蓉.  The people in SouthEast Asia eat this chicken rice dish with homemade chilli sauce, which is made from chillies, garlic, ginger and lime juice. 



However, as my guests are Europeans, and I have a hunch that the Cantonese jiang'rong would not be suitable for their taste, I have decided to modify the Teochew diam'zio 甜醬. I make Teochew diam'zio by mixing soya sauce and plum sauce and for this sauce, I add the juice of half a freshly squeezed lime. 



For dessert, I am going to serve marble kungen with chocolate sauce.



Daniel and I are going make guotie 鍋貼  and we will serve these to the guests as well. 



When Michelle and Tabi arrive for tea at 4 pm, they will be served orange chiffon cake.



One aspect of the WenChang Ji Fan which I have not discussed is the use of fried shallots to garnish the rice.   One aspect of cooking Indian pulao rice and biryani is the use of fried shallots to garnish these dishes. I think fried shallots would go very well with WenChang Ji Fan.  Daniel particularly likes scattering fried shallots on his rice. The question is would he scatter fried shallots on his paella?

Shopping Galore

I had chipped my 19 cm plate and apparently this breeds bacteria and I have to buy a new plate. So I went to Ealing Broadway to find for such a plate. I found it in the first shop, TK Maxx, and bought a Jamie Oliver side kick plate for £2.99. The normal price of this plate is about £8. 

I will use this plate to turn over Spanish tortilla from my 20 cm frying pan. 

While there in TK Maxx, I saw a Kugelhopf Bundt baking tin for £19.99 and bought the bundt baking tin and this is my fifth Nordic Ware baking tin. This particular baking tin sells for 50 USD in the US and £36.95 at Divertimenti. 

I will use this bundt tin to bake a marble kungen and serve this German cake with delicious chocolate sauce. This bundt baking tin is a 10 cup size and hence I will use a six egg marble kungen recipe. 

Why do I like Nordic Ware bundt tins so much? The quality is really excellent and babka or Kugelhopf tins made in Europe cannot match Nordic Ware's quality. Nordic Ware baking tins are relatively heavier and conducts heat very efficiently and I bake at 10 C lower compared with other baking tins and cakes bake in these tins bake for a shorter period and the cake bakes evenly, thereby saving electricity. 

Christina's birthday 鍋貼

It is Christina's birthday today and I am going to make some guotie 鍋貼 and bring to her place and share these with her. 

I am also going to sing a happy birthday song for her in Chinese [Mandarin] as well. 

祝妳生日快樂

祝妳生日快樂

祝妳生日快樂

祝妳幸福祝妳健康

祝妳前途光明。

祝妳生日快樂

祝妳生日快樂

祝妳幸福祝妳健康

祝妳溫暖家庭。

I have posted my old guotie recipe in November 2014 and since then I have improved my way of making guotie.  So what are the changes. 

The filling, which we call xian'r 餡兒 or just xian 餡, has been improved. I use coriander leaves, spring onions and ginger, plus very lean pork mince and the seasonings remain the same.

As for the wrapper, which we call skin in Chinese or said as pi 皮, I roll this very thinly - and we say pi2 bao2 皮薄 [thin wrapper] bao1 dao4 bao3bao3 包到飽飽 [fill with lots of filling] - well if you do not get the tones right, nobody would understand you.

One guotie and homemade discs wrappers

Guotie galore

Cooking the guotie in my small frying pan and using a lid from my pyrex bowl

Guotie after cooking

Packing the guotie drizzled with balsamic glaze

Chicken Biryani

Karen and Julia Pinto, two ex-students of mine, are coming for lunch on Saturday 6 August 2016. Dr Marie will also join us for lunch. I am preparing chicken biryani for our lunch.

The Mughal Empire empire, which ruled India for years, brought Biryani to that nation. There are many types of biryanis and the old Mughal King used to eat many different types of biryani, at least one type per week and there must have been at least 52 different types of biryani.  

I bought a 1.3 kg young spring chicken from Waitrose and I had removed all the back bones, wings, parson's nose, skin and cut the chicken into 8 large pieces and the weight of the skinless chicken pieces [without the backbones, skin, parson's nose, wings etc] came to 1 kg, which should be enough to feed four people.

I then marinated these pieces of chicken with the following spices which were mixed with 150 gram of Onken natural set full fat yogurt.

25 grams peeled and minced ginger
25 grams peeled and minced garlic
half tsp ground cumin
half tsp ground turmeric
half tsp ground garam masala
2 bay leaves
1 tsp good quality sea salt [I used Maldon sea salt flakes]
1 little pot of Knorr chicken stock pots



Preparation of Onion and Whole Spices 
2 medium size onions peeled and diced
2 pieces cinnamon sticks
5 pcs green cardamoms
5 pcs whole cloves
2 star anise
2 whole mace
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tbsp [30 ml] vegetable oil - I use rapeseed oil

Traditionally these spices would have been fried in ghee. However, I think vegetable oil is much more healthier than ghee.

Sauté the diced onions in vegetable oil and then add the whole spices and allow these to be sautéd until the onions have turned slightly brown and the spices fragrant.  Allow the spices and onions to cool and then add these to the marinated chicken and allow the chicken pieces to marinate overnight in a fridge. Do remember to cover the chicken pieces or else the fridge would smell. 

Soak 3 cups of sella rice [420 grams] in salted water for at least 24 hours. 

In addition soak a few pinches of saffron in two tablespoons of water for a few hours. Saffron is the most expensive spice and it is very good for people who do not want to get cancer. You can add as much or as little saffron as you like. I pay £12 for two grams of Iranian saffron, which I buy from an Iranian shop at West Ealing. 

Bring to boil 2 liters of water and then add the bones of the chicken into the water - boil for an hour until all the flavour from the bones is released into the stock.
Fish out the bones and set the stock aside - You will need this stock for parboiling the soaked rice.
It is better to make the stock a day before and allow the stock to chill in a fridge overnight. This allows one to remove any fat which will float to the top of the stock easily. 
Add two Kallo organic stock cubes and 1 tsp of Himalayan salt to this stock and allow the stock to boil gently to make sure the stock cubes have dissolved into the liquid stock. 

Prepare three rice bowls full of coriander leaves and chop the stems finely. 
Julienne 1 onion and saute this and set aside. 

Julienne 3 peeled large shallots and sauté the shallots in oil and set aside for garnish.
Sauté a couple of handfuls of cashew nuts until light brown, drain and set aside for garnish.
Sauté a handful of raisins and set them aside for garnish.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon and set this aside. 

Drain the sella rice and add the sella rice into the prepared boiling chicken stock.
Meanwhile, place a large pot with a heavy bottom containing the marinated chicken and mix in two bowls of coriander leaves and finely chopped coriander stems.  The marinated pieces of chicken should be arranged on the large pot with a heavy bottom in a single layer.  Scatter one rice bowl of coriander leaves and fried onion on top of the chicken pieces. 
Turn on the heat to medium high [number 6] and start cooking the chicken pieces and when the chicken pieces start bubbling, reduce the heat to medium [number 5].
Parboil the sella rice for 8 minutes. [If you were to use basmati rice, then boil the soaked and drained basmati rice for 6 minutes. You only need to soak basmati rice for about 20 minutes, unlike sella rice which should be soaked for a longer period.]
Drain the parboiled rice completely. 




Pile the parboiled rice on top of the chicken, coriander and onions like a little hill and make a hole using the handle of a wooden spoon on the rice to allow the steam from the chicken to escape.
Pour the soaked saffron water around the rice.
Cover with a lid and cook in low heat for 50 minutes - first 15 minutes at number 4 and then reducing to number 3 for the rest of the cooking time. 



Switch off the heat after the 50 minutes and allow the biryani to stand for 15 minutes before serving and do not open the lid of the pot. 

Spread some biryani cooked rice on a very large serving dish, and then place pieces of the cooked chicken on top of the rice and add more cooked rice on top of the meat. Remove any whole spices which one can see.
Then garnish the top of the biryani with the sautéd cashew nuts, sautéd shallots, sautéd raisins and some coriander leaves. 
Place hard boiled eggs, which have been halved on top of the biryani - allowing an egg per person.
Drizzle the juice of one lemon on top of the biryani.  

Chicken Biryani

Serve the biryani with raita. I have prepared a pomegranate and pineapple raita to accompany this biryani. Please see the picture below. 

Raita

Daniel, the seminarian from my community is coming for lunch on Sunday 7 August 2016. I have cooked the same dish again for Daniel.

The Chicken Biryani with Daniel on Sunday 7 August 2016

And for dessert, Daniel and I had Eaton Mess. 

Questions and Answers

What is sella rice? Sella rice is a Pakistani parboiled rice and it is usually yellow in colour, which is a sign that it has been aged for several years. I do not use Indian basmati rice because I find the grains break easily and basmati rice cannot take the amount of cooking I need for making good pilaf or pulao and especially biryani. Please read the link given for parboiled rice above and you can better understand why I use sella rice. 

Why do I use raw chicken and not pre-cook the chicken curry? I like my chicken pieces to be juicy and succulent. If one were to precook the chicken as a curry and then make biryani from this cooked chicken curry, then the chicken pieces become dry and loses much of its taste and texture.

8 minutes for parboiling the soaked sella rice - how do you count the 8 minutes? The duration of eight minutes is counted from the moment the stock and rice starts bubbling and one has to continue to boil the rice at high heat. My induction stove has a 10 dial setting - P [for power] or 10 to 0 which is off. I start boiling the stock at 10 or P and when the stock starts to come to the boil, I add the soaked drained rice into the boiling stock. I continue to boil the stock and rice at maximum heat until the stock starts to bubble. I turn the heat down to 8 and set the timer to 8 minutes. After boiling for 8 minutes, I drain the par-boiled completely and then place this half cooked rice on top of the chicken pieces which have been cooking for some 15 minutes in a pot with a heavy bottom and tight fitting lid. 

Why don't you add chillies with the spices you have used for marinating the chicken pieces? Many people are unable to eat chilli hot food. People can have stomach ulcer after eating chillies for a long time. Some people suffer from diarrhoea after eating chillies in their food. Some people, who have had cancer, cannot eat chillies. Children cannot eat chillies. These are some of the reasons why I do not add chillies into my biryani. However, people who like chilli hot food, can add chilli oil onto their biryani on the table before they eat. However, there is nothing stopping you from adding chillies into your biryani. 

There are many good ingredients in biryani - and these are turmeric and saffron which stops people from getting cancer. Pomegranate seeds also stops people from going senile. 

Everybody uses different combinations of spices in making their biryanis. I use these spices because I like their taste and fragrance. You can use whatever spices you wish and like and there is no set rule. However, you must use turmeric and saffron in your biryani. 

Size of chicken - Why do you use such small chicken(s)? If I were to have six people, I would need 560 grams of sella rice but two small chickens. I would not buy a 2 kg chicken. Why? Small chicken meat has a better texture - it is softer and is more succulent. The maximum size chicken I would buy would be a 1.5 kg. So, if I know I have people who are real carnivores, I would get two 1.5 kg chickens instead of two 1.3 kg chickens.  However, there will be too many pieces of chicken to place on my biggest pot and I therefore have to cook the chicken pieces in two pots - one with rice and one without rice. It is a good idea to place all of the 560 grams of sella rice into one pot.  

I do not have an induction hob and I only have a gas stove. Will this make a difference? Yes, it would. You would need a tava [an Indian cast iron flat pan] to distribute the heat from the gas evenly and to not allow for hotspots.  So, you need to place your pan, which has a thick heavy bottom, on the tava and then cook the chicken on medium high initially, turning it down to medium heat and then to low and then very low, in order not to burn the chicken pieces on the bottom of the pan. 

Some people add butter on top of the half cooked rice. Why don't you use butter? I do not use butter for health reasons. I want to reduce my saturated fat intake.