Beef Lasagne

Beef Lasagne

I actually made Beef Lasagne the same evening I was preparing the sweet braised pork which probably contributed to our inability to stomach more food that day. I remember now that it was just after the weekly cooking class offered by our residence (we learnt a spring onion crab dish that morning) which set me off on a cooking frenzy 2 days in a row. Yes, I made black pepper crabs too in the same 2 days because the same cooking class got Judy into a similar frenzy and she bought crabs from the wholesale market and even killed them for us! Fei kept saying that she only got so plump because of me and my obsession with food.

My sage and rosemary plants

I didn't make the pasta for the lasagne myself this time and the packet of Barilla I got from Carrefour was really expensive. I just realised that I've never blogged properly about lasagne probably because it's one of those simple dishes that requires quite a bit of preparation and I've never managed to find enough natural light at the end to have a picture taken. I still haven't, but have decided to blog about it anyway.

Basically making lasagne is about making pasta, béchamel and bolognese/ragu and putting everything together. It's easy, but it does take quite a bit of time and organisation. There is however no need to go the Bologna Chamber of Commerce way and cook your meat in milk etc for the ragu because once you've mixed your meat sauce with the béchamel you wouldn't quite remember how it looked like before.

Fresh out of the oven

Beef Lasagne :

rectangular pasta dough (9-12 sheets depending on how many layers you'll be making)

boiling water

100g grated parmesan cheese

200g grated emmenthal, cheddar, gruyere or mozzarella cheese

6-8 fresh sage leaves

The Béchamel :

1 l milk

a pinch of nutmeg

2 bay leaves

1 tsp crushed black pepper

80g butter

65g plain flour

150g grated parmesan cheese

salt to taste

The Meat Sauce :

500g minced beef

olive oil

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

1 small onion (chopped)

1 sprig fresh rosemary

1 bay leaf

a few basil leaves

400ml tomato purée

400g tin of ripe peeled plum tomatoes

1 bird's eye chilli (chopped)

salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the meat sauce first. Hand form the beef into patties and grill them till they are brown on the outside. Chop roughly and set aside.

Heat up some olive oil and fry the onions and garlic till fragrant. Add in the fresh herbs, the tomato purée and tinned tomatoes, chilli, salt and pepper. Gently add the meat into the sauce. Cover and simmer while you prepare the white sauce.

Gently boil the milk with the bay leaves, nutmeg and pepper. Remove the bay leaves and set aside.

Melt the butter in a small pot and stir in the flour. Pour in the milk bit by bit taking care to stir all the time. The flour needs to be cooked or the sauce will taste horrible. Bring the sauce to the boil gently, remove from the fire and stir in the parmesan cheese. Salt to taste.

Bring a pot of water to boil and blanch the pasta sheets. Even if they tell you there's no need to pre-cook them, I'd still do it because the taste of raw pasta is not fabulous.

Olive oil your lasagne dish and heat your oven to 220°C/425°F.

Place a layer of pasta sheets in the dish and spread the meat sauce over them. Pour some béchamel over the meat sauce, sprinkle over some parmesan cheese and cover with another layer of pasta sheets.

Repeat till you've reached the top of the lasagne dish. The final layer should be pasta, béchamel, parmesan cheese, sage leaves and a layer of cheese good for melting like emmenthal or mozzarella.

Before going into the oven

Bake for between 30 and 45 minutes - watch that the cheese doesn't burn.

I was hoping to get a daylight shot of just a serving of lasagne the next day but the kids took the remaining 2 portions with them in their lunch bags so the plan couldn't come to fruition. A German kid also had 2 servings actually, he happened to pass by the house and invited himself to dinner when he saw the lasagne.

Sweet Soy Braised Pork Belly 红烧五花肉

红烧肉

It took me hours to prepare this Sweet Soy Braised Pork Belly, I ate a few pieces when it was ready, gave a few more to the neighbour's cat and offered the rest (about 1 kg) to the cleaners working outside in the garden. It must have made their day because they usually do not get to eat much meat in their very poor and simple diets. Tant mieux.

Why this waste? The meat was delicious and I've been having such a craving for it. But it's fattening and I've been to quite a number of buffets lately with another one scheduled for tomorrow. Nobody else in the family likes to eat their meat sweet and this fat, so better it went to the poor folks' stomachs than mine.

五花肉fresh from the supermarket

I've been dying to buy the pork belly they were selling in my supermarket as I find the Chinese name 五花肉 (5-flower meat) so enticing. Then I've been reading Ken Hom's A Taste of China cook book and have been dying to try out his pork dishes. So I combined 2 different recipes and cooked this dish, using the method from recipe 1 (liangban rou) and the ingredients from recipe 2 (dongpo rou).

I didn't throw away the stock in which the pork had simmered for an hour and a half, using it to make a hot and sour soup the next day (after I've removed the fat, of course). Didn't answer Hub when he asked me why the soup was particularly tasty that evening, he probably would have had a heart attack if he had known.

Sweet Soy Braised Pork Belly (loosely adapted from Ken Hom's A Taste of China) :

1 kg pork belly

1 small onion or 6 whole spring onions

half a leek

a large piece of fresh ginger (sliced largely)

1 tbsp salt

peanut oil

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

one piece fresh ginger (chopped)

125g rock sugar

125ml dark soy sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce

125ml rice wine

125ml water

Simmering in a pot of water

Bring a big pot of water to boil and put in the pork belly (either whole piece or sliced into large pieces), onion, leek, ginger and salt. Cover and simmer for an hour and a half. Remove the pork belly and set aside, allowing it to cool before slicing it into smaller pieces.

Cooked pork belly

In another pot, heat up a little peanut oil and fry the ginger and garlic till fragrant. Stir in the sugar and sauce ingredients and add the pork belly into the pan. Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes or more. Make sure that the meat doesn't dry out due to exposure to the air. It should be very tender, sweet, slightly salty and make you want to eat a lot of rice or mantous with it.

I wouldn't replace the rock sugar with normal sugar as the former gives a glaze to the meat that the latter wouldn't be able to.

Serve hot or at room temperature with the braising liquid over the meat. Goes really well with above-mentioned white rice or steamed buns.

Chicken Wings Braised in Chinese Hua Diao Wine

Chicken braised in Hua Tiao Wine

The girl who calculated my fortune said that I wasn't meant to do business because I was too "nice". The kind who wouldn't dare sell anything to the friends for a profit. In other words I'm no entrepreneur.

I was therefore feeling a little awkward when I found myself last evening in a beautifully restored old house in the former French Concession, at a wine tasting dinner that turned out to be a test session organised by a newly set-up wine investment company in Shanghai.

We were 6 : Hub, myself, the American sommelier, the Scottish manager, Hub's married Italian colleague and his lovely and magnetic Shanghainese girlfriend MY. There was also a Chinese girl serving us and a Chef à domicile newly hired and being tested.

They have been in business for quite a long time, even in Singapore, and have arrived in Shanghai a few months ago (everyone comes to Shanghai soon or later). They hope to find investors for good Australian wine. Investors are (rich) people who would buy the wine, have the bottles stored for up to 15 years if not more, not drink the wine, expect the price to go up (hopefully by a lot), and who would finally sell everything at a profit to someone else (who may or may not drink the wine).

Most of the people in the room (meaning except us) were seasoned investors and business people. They don't just like things. When they are interested in something (e.g. sex toys, lingerie, art, cars, whiskey...), they usually also want to make money with it.

I want to get rich, of course. But I have a difficult time trying to imagine buying wine and not drinking it. Or a nice painting and not hanging it up on my wall. I have nothing against sex toys, but I would prefer not to have to buy it in front of 20 other people in the same room. And I'm sure business'd be great when you round up a couple of guys in a room, throw in a few Chinese girls lounging around in scanty lingerie and next thing you know a couple of wives, mistresses and girlfriends get a new set of something sexy.

Anything is possible and there is a lot of new money here in Shanghai. People are bored and they do not know how to spend it. We should try to cash in - just don't ask me how. Ask them.

Dinner was kept simple so that the wines would not be overwhelmed by the food. But there was no real effort to pair the food with the wines either. Conversation flowed rather easily, especially when you have such an interesting character as the manager (between his family's and his own experiences) and the alluring MY.

I've mentioned her in one of my earlier blog posts. We met a few months ago at a company dinner held literally in "her" arena. We are actually of the same age, though of course I'm fat, dowdy and useless next to MY who's tall, slim and pretty like a model, very confident, exudes sexuality whether in gesture or parole (a couple of smartly inserted sexual innuendos always work well with the men, especially European men, you can literally see their minds and other body parts working over time), has a successful career and men running to her for her sexy person, business acumen/partnership, lovely company or all of the above.

Hub asked me if I was jealous (I guess I should be if I were not, I mean when your Hub asked you a question like that it meant he thought that you ought to be, don't you think so?). I think I can honestly say that I'm not. At my age, I have learnt to accept that there are all kinds of people on earth, some better, some worse off. I am envious though, because she seems to have everything going for her, while I'm just a housewife doing nothing exciting except growing fatter and fatter. And even then I'm not doing a good job (as Hub likes to tell me) for my kids are not brilliant academically and my youngest has been really mischievous lately (surely my fault).

But in this macho world I think it's good to see women like MY holding their own. Make the guys salivate, run to you with their tails between the legs, run the show and enjoy it at the same time. This girl smokes cigars, drinks, dances etc. She sounds intelligent, has business acumen and lots of guts. I only wish she could have better taste in men.

Keeping to the theme of wine, though not investment grade, I made Chicken Wings Braised in Hua Tiao Wine today. I've been meaning to use the pyrex dish I bought some time back and this seemed like a good time. I cooked the dish entirely in the oven. If you have a gas stove, a claypot would do great.

Chicken Wings Braised in Hua Tiao Wine :

a dozen chicken wings

30g ginger (finely sliced)

3 garlic cloves (halved)

2 tsp sesame oil

3 pieces black fungus (soaked in hot water - will become quite big)

60ml (or more) chinese rice wine (hua tiao)

200ml chicken stock

1 tsp salt

Heat up the oven to 190°C.

Dry roast the ginger and garlic in a pyrex casserole in the hot oven till fragrant.

Add sesame oil to brown the ginger and garlic.

Cook the chicken wings in the sesame oil till they render their own fat.

Add in the black fungus (cut into smaller pieces), the wine, salt and the chicken stock.

Cover the pyrex dish with its lid and simmer in the oven till the chicken wings are tender.

Adjust seasoning, and drizzle more wine over the dish.

Could be eaten immediately or cooled so as to have the fat removed. It actually tastes (and smells) even better reheated.

麻辣咸鸡 Ma La Salted Chicken

麻辣咸鸡

This morning we drove to Baoshan which is about an hour from our home so that the men could catch the Lake Malaren Golf Shanghai Masters 2011 at the Lake Malaren Golf Club. The Teenager's school had a few tickets to give away and we grabbed them.

There were apparently quite a few famous Golf Pros in the competition e.g. Rory McIlroy, Anthony Kim, Noh Seung-yul, Ian Poulter, Hunter Mahan, Geoff Ogilvy, Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington...all fighting for the 2 million USD top prize. One of my regrets about Italy certainly would be losing the chance to become a successful golf Pro's mum. When we were living next to the Modena Golf and Country Club the boys used to train and play there and we've been told by their instructors that they had talent. Moving to Shanghai killed whatever talent they had for golf in the bud what with golf being such a very expensive and elite sport here. Irony's that we actually live next to the Tomson Golf and Country Club - but couldn't afford to play/train there.

While the boys were following the Pros in the competition, we girls did a spot of shopping at the Lake Malaren Outlet next door. This Baoshan neighbourhood is literally covered in "European-style" construction. Villas and apartments are sprouting up everywhere each one looking more luxurious and expensive than the last one. The Outlet however is crap - another example of Chinese plans always looking better on paper than in reality. Even on a Saturday it was quite empty and the shops had almost nothing to sell. We managed to buy a few items though - a woollen skirt (supposedly some Parisian brand), a pair of Converse shoes, Betty Boop sports shoes and Nautica swimming trunks.

The highlight of our day was our first time eating in a cheap Lanzhou (Chinese Muslim) eatery. I thought that there weren't other restaurants around (which wasn't true as I would discover later) so I dragged the driver and the Girl to the "only" eating place I could find for a late lunch.

They did a good thing hiding the kitchen from public view while the dining area itself was messy but looked reasonably clean. The prices were really low (for us) : 5 rmb for a plate of egg fried rice, 9 rmb for a small bowl of beef noodle soup, 7 rmb for noodles in spring onion oil. The driver said that the same things used to cost much lesser not that long ago though. And he paid for lunch!

I have never eaten in such a very "local" place since we moved to China because I'd been so afraid of falling sick. But when you thought you had nothing else to eat you discover that you were not that afraid of having a stomach upset after all. And I do so love noodles of any kind.

I also couldn't resist the sight of Chinese Muslim men in white caps. For some reason they fascinate me. The low prices probably helped, I was curious to see how such cheap food would taste like.

Quite good's the verdict. The egg fried rice was oily but tasty, the rice cooked al dente and the egg well-mixed with the vegetables. The noodles in spring onion oil was very oily but quite yummy and even came with small slices of beef and a small bowl of hot soup that tasted of beef and spices. I could get really used to eating so cheaply - if I do not die of a stomach upset after this meal. Actually quite unlikely as I also drank a bottle of Coca Cola during the meal to help clean out the stomach.

This set me thinking that I've yet to post my Ma La Salted Chicken dish. Inspired by our lunch at our hostel in Hangzhou. It was a chicken dish that came in a big bowl filled with a skinny whole chicken chopped into pieces, covered in a very salty clear soup and topped with red chillies, leeks and whole szechuan peppercorns.

I made mine using a combination of methods : first poaching the chicken pieces Hainanese chicken-style, reducing the broth and finally frying the leeks, chillies and peppercorns in hot oil and then pouring them over the chicken in its broth just before serving.

Ma La Salted Chicken :

1 whole chicken (chopped into pieces) or a few chicken thighs (separated)

salt and pepper

a large piece of fresh ginger

5 garlic cloves (bashed)

spring onions

chicken stock

vegetable oil

fresh ginger (sliced)

3-4 garlic cloves (halved)

1-2 thin leeks (cut into 3-4 each)

1-2 dozen(s) whole red chillies

1 tbsp szechuan peppercorns

Rinse and pat dry the chicken pieces. Rub salt and pepper very generously all over them.

Bring a pot of stock (just enough to cover the chicken pieces) to boil with the ginger, garlic and spring onions. Add the chicken pieces and when the stock starts to boil again, lower the heat to the lowest and cover the pot. Simmer the chicken for about 20-30 minutes.

Remove the chicken pieces and put them in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes. Remove and drain. Set aside.

Reduce the stock. Ideally it should be quite salty. Put the chicken pieces in a serving bowl and cover with the stock.

When ready to serve, heat up some oil till sizzling in a frying pan and fry the ginger, garlic, leeks, peppercorns and chillies till fragrant. Pour over the chicken pieces and serve hot. They should not be removed as you fish out the chicken pieces since they add flavour to the stock.

Mine will require improvement as the chicken pieces were too juicy and the stock not salty enough. I could also have been more generous with the garnishing.

Lamb with Potatoes & Szechuan Vegetables 柞菜土豆羊肉

Lamb with Potatoes and Szechuan Vegetables

We had gone the rustic way during our Hangzhou visit based on a recommendation from one of Hub's Chinese colleagues. I could barely believe it when Hub sent me the guy's email containing a link to a...Chinese Youth Hostel. In my middle years it hardly seemed appropriate to rough it out (much as we're quite broke now after summer) and added to that we had the MIL with us.

But said colleague insisted that the rooms were clean and more importantly, he added that the food (home-style) was delicious and not to be missed. Apparently as a client of the hostel you get priority seating and since the restaurant tends to be full, this would be most helpful.

When we were ordering our lunch, the waitress suggested that we try their house special "beef with potatoes and salted vegetables". I was hesitant upon hearing the word "salted vegetables" but Hub and his mother said they wouldn't mind trying the dish so I ordered it.

It turned out to be simple but good, a cross between a beef stew and a potato salad, with a slightly sourish and salty taste and between mouthfuls, you discover bits of what seemed to be cumin. Since I had a packet of szechuan vegetables in the pantry and half a leg of lamb left over after using the other half in a lamb stew (a simpler version of my Irish Stew and a hit with the family), voilà Lamb with Potatoes and Szechuan Vegetables 柞菜土豆羊肉for dinner this evening.

柞菜土豆羊肉 :

800g leg of lamb (deboned and cubed)

2 tbsp canola oil

half an onion (chopped)

2 large garlic cloves (chopped)

1 large piece fresh ginger (bashed and chopped)

2 tbsp cumin seeds

30g preserved szechuan vegetables

1-2 fresh red chillies (sliced)

crushed black pepper to taste

500ml hot meat stock

2 large potatoes (peeled and sliced thickly)

2-4 tbsp white vinegar

Heat the oil in a casserole and fry the onions, garlic and ginger till fragrant.

Add the cumin seeds, chillies and szechuan vegetables. Use more szechuan vegetables if you are a fan, but the rest of my family wouldn't like it so I used it sparingly.

Fry the lamb cubes in the fragrant oil and add black pepper to taste. There is usually no need to salt the dish as the szechuan vegetables will be salty enough.

Cover the meat with the hot meat stock. Cover the casserole, lower the heat and let the meat simmer for at least an hour or till it melts in the mouth.

In a separate frying pan fry the potatoes in a little oil till both sides are lightly browned. Add them to the lamb stew and cook till they are soft (maybe about 30 minutes). It depends on how mushy you like your potatoes but in my case I prefer to still see pieces of the vegetable.

If you like your dish sourish, stir in a bit of white vinegar. Best served hot with steamed jasmine rice.

Baby Boy refused to try the dish in the restaurant, but said that since his mummy cooked it, he would this evening. It was a pleasure to see him serving himself at least twice, he loved it!

Home-cooked Fare 家常便饭

Chinese Sausage Omelette (cooked scrambled egg-style)

Mum said she was sick of eating in restaurants - even if they were 5-star. She was craving for simple fare, stuff that she usually cooks for herself, stuff that her late father used to cook her, stuff that she would buy from the economical rice stalls back home. In other words, 家常便饭 or home-cooked food.

So while I served Hub's guest a heavy Thai dinner last night, I cooked the rest of the family the most basic of meals a few hours earlier : Ginger Pork, Chinese Sausage Omelette and Fried Potatoes in Dark Soy Sauce - all served with steaming hot rice porridge. And they enjoyed it like I had cooked them a gourmet meal with the most expensive of ingredients - not.

Fried Potatoes in Dark Soy Sauce

Fried Potatoes in Dark Soy Sauce :

3 large potatoes (half-moon shape, sliced thinly)

half an onion (sliced)

2 garlic cloves (chopped)

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

60ml water

2 tsp corn starch

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a frying pan.

Fry onions and garlic till fragrant.

Add the potatoes spreading them evenly over the pan.

Using a spatula turn them over from time to time. Cover with a lid if you have one to let them cook in their own steam.

Drizzle the dark soy sauce over the potatoes. Stir to mix well.

When the potatoes are cooked (shouldn't be too soft - al dente is preferred), add the corn starch solution. Turn off the heat and make sure the potatoes are coated evenly in the thickened sauce.

Serve hot with rice or rice porridge.

Mapo Tofu Revisited 麻婆豆腐

Mapo Tofu

Chef Wang taught us how to make Mapo Tofu 麻婆豆腐 in our last cooking class and I have decided to try out his method before I forget. I have been making my own version of the dish for a while now, but his method is even easier with fantastic results which is much appreciated in this household.

He demonstrated how to remove tofu cleanly from its plastic box - to many oohs and ahs from the audience. It basically involved a bit of tapping and shaking.

Then we were told that in good restaurants like his, they cook their tofu before using it. This helps to remove any smell or taste from the soy beans, and cooking the bean curd beforehand also means that it would be less likely to break later.

Mapo Tofu :

2 packets of firm silky tofu

2 garlic cloves (minced)

1 slice fresh ginger (minced)

150g minced pork

2 tbsp chilli bean sauce 辣豆瓣醬

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp sugar

chicken stock or water

cornstarch solution

1-2 tbsp chilli oil

1 tbsp szechuan peppercorns (crushed)

1 tbsp spring onions (chopped)

Marinate the pork with a bit of salt, pepper, cooking wine and light soy sauce. Set aside for at least an hour.

Slice the tofu into small cubes. Bring a wok of water to the boil and gently slide the sliced tofu into it. Simmer for about 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat some vegetable oil in a wok or frying pan and fry the ginger and garlic till fragrant. Add the meat and stir fry till it's cooked. Add the chilli bean sauce and mix well. Chef Wang uses mainly Lee Kum Kee sauces but I have decided to go for the cheaper Lao Gan Ma 老干妈 brand. And instead of touban paste I've opted for fragrant chilli paste. The former however will give one a brighter, lighter red coloured sauce.

Add in the stock, dark soy sauce and sugar. Stir to mix well and simmer for a few minutes.

Gently slide in the cooked tofu after having ladled up half of the minced meat. Return the meat on top of the tofu. Do not stir.

Simmer the tofu for a few minutes to allow it to absorb the sauce. When ready to serve drizzle over the cornstarch solution to thicken the sauce, making sure that the solution is not too thick. Do not stir, just shake the pan a few times.

Gently scoop out the tofu and the sauce (I had too much of it - but liked it that way) onto a serving dish. Drizzle the chilli oil and sprinkle the crushed szechuan peppercorns and spring onions over the dish. Serve hot with steamed rice. The szechuan peppercorns give the dish its distinctive numbing hot taste and according to the chef is best added only before serving the dish.

Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken (三杯鸡)

三杯鸡

I must have mentioned that we have a Chinese State-run 5* hotel in our compound. In it there is a "model" 5* Chinese restaurant. And for a few Thursdays now I have been learning how to cook with one of its top Chefs, a certain Wang shifu. The cookery lessons were included in our rent.

One of the dishes we learnt recently was Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken 三杯鸡. It supposedly originated from China but has since become very popular in Taiwan. As a matter of fact we have a few Taiwanese ladies in our group and they were protesting as the Chef finished his lesson - that in Taiwan they didn't cook this dish the way he just did!

I therefore decided that I needn't follow his recipe to the letter, me too I will cook it my own way. The important thing is to respect the use of 3 basic ingredients : dark soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and Chinese cooking wine and to eventually cook the dish in some earthenware. From what I've understood after hearing out the Taiwanese present, garlic, chilli and basil leaves also feature importantly in the dish.

San Bei Ji :

boneless chicken drumstick meat (cubed largely)

salt

pepper

chinese cooking wine

egg white

cornstarch

fresh ginger

red onion

garlic cloves

red, green and yellow peppers

fresh basil leaves

bird's eye chilli (for decoration)

The Sauce :

oyster sauce

chinese cooking wine

sugar

dried hot chillies (crushed) or chilli sauce

dark soy sauce

toasted sesame oil

dark chinese vinegar

fresh basil leaves

water

cornstarch

Wang shifu never provided measures when he taught us how to cook. Cooking is about personal taste. He would show us the "standard" method to cook a dish, telling us for example if the dish would be better off sweet, sour, bland etc - and why, but how much of anything we should add is really up to us. His favourite word is "估计" or estimate.

One thing for sure is that one should marinate the chicken for a few hours with some salt, pepper, wine, egg white and cornstarch to prepare the meat for cooking.

Chinese restaurant cooking uses a lot of oil and 5* restaurant or not, the Chef uses quite a bit of msg in his cooking. We would give him the ugly look whenever he started to reach out for the latter and he has learnt to say, "We will use just a tiny bit of msg for this dish..."

I have therefore adapted the recipe for home cooking and also to suit my personal taste.

After the chicken has been seasoned, prepare the sauce by mixing all the ingredients (except the water and corn starch) together in a bowl. Steep some fresh basil leaves in the sauce.

Cut the onion and peppers into medium pieces. The garlic can be used whole and crushed, or sliced. The ginger can be just sliced or julienned.

The dish can be prepared directly in an earthenware e.g. claypot or cooked in a frying pan or wok and then finished in an earthenware. I used the second method.

Add about 2 tbsps of toasted sesame oil to a medium-hot frying pan and fry the ginger, followed by the onions, garlic and fresh basil leaves. It is best not to overheat sesame oil, by the way.

Add 2 tbsps of canola or peanut oil to the pan and fry the peppers. Add the marinated chicken pieces and brown them on both sides.

Now stir in the prepared sauce and coat the chicken thoroughly in it. After about 5 minutes, pour in some water and let the chicken simmer in it over low heat till half the water is absorbed by the meat. Stir in some cornstarch-water solution to thicken the sauce.

I poured the meat and sauce into a Spanish clay dish at this point and placed it under the grill in my oven to finish cooking. Parts of the chicken would be caramelised (this is basically a sweet dish so be generous with the sugar).

Take the dish out of the oven, mix the chicken properly with the sauce, drizzle more toasted sesame oil over the chicken and serve it hot with steamed jasmine rice or rice congee.

Braised Sesame Oil & Ginger Beef

Braised Sesame Oil & Ginger Beef

I still have at least half a bottle of top-quality sesame oil to finish and our days in Modena are numbered as you know. I therefore had the idea to make a big pot of Braised Sesame Oil & Ginger Beef and the result was given the unanimous full thumbs-up by the children. Boy, no dish could be easier to prepare nor to please.

And I prepared it as I was getting ready for Babinette's belated 8th Birthday bash. Which was really more of a big play date, with 8 screaming girl guests and a crying Babinou trailing behind because the girls "were not kind" to him. Poor darling.

Babinette blowing her birthday candle

Once again, I tried to liquidate my food stock with the party. I came up with : Chocolate Brownies (en guise de birthday cake), fried Prawn Crackers with sweet and sour dip, Almond Jelly with canned Lychees, sweets, pretzels, raw vegetable platter, home-made butter popcorn, lemonade...

Now, I'm back to packing - until I have something else to liquidate.

Braised Sesame Oil & Ginger Beef :

1 kg piemontese braising beef (chopped into large cubes)

flour for coating them lightly with

1 large onion (chopped)

4 garlic cloves (chopped)

1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger (julienned)

50ml toasted sesame oil

150ml light soy sauce

150ml chinese rice wine

50ml chinese or japanese rice vinegar

3 dried bird's eye chillies (crushed into flakes)

1 tsp ground black pepper

250ml* beef stock

toasted sesame seeds for garnishing

Using a heavy-bottom pot fry the ginger and garlic in the sesame oil till fragrant.

Add the onions and the lightly-floured beef cubes.

Sprinkle the chilli and pepper over the browned beef.

Pour in the soy sauce, rice wine and rice vinegar and coat the beef cubes in them.

Pour in the beef stock, enough to cover the meat*. Cover the pot and simmer for about 2-3 hours or till the meat is tender. Adjust the seasoning if necessary (e.g. add more soy sauce, wine etc).

Garnish with toasted sesame seeds before serving. I served the meat over white jasmine rice and topped it with a runny fried egg. On another day, I served it with ginger and garlic fried rice and it was yummy too!

Steamed Minced Pork on Silken Tofu

Steamed Minced Pork on Silken Tofu (with French Beans)

I have been busy. Like the Queen is English.

Though of course there are different kinds of busy. Like can-be-avoided busy (e.g. having lunch with friends, visiting Margi in Bologna, going to the sauna, learning how to knit with MD, planning holidays to London, Zurich, Shanghai and the French Alps...), cannot-be-avoided-anymore busy (e.g. doing the laundry because we've run out of underwear and socks, shopping for food as one has 6 adults and 8 children to feed in 2 days, making the kids do their homework...) and just-busy busy (aka I-do-not-know-why-I'm-busy busy).

When I was a kid I often wished that I could just sit around and do nothing (especially no cleaning windows every Sunday or doing tonnes of homework everyday). Though now that I am economically unproductive and the kids are at school - I find that sitting around doing nothing is one of the most horrible states in a person's existence.

So keeping busy is necessary even vital. Only some people are more productive in their busyness than others. I'm the sort who has been busy and has nothing much to show for it at the end of the day. Bollywood beauty spends her mornings busy in the gym and she has an hourglass figure to show for it; Me, I'm still fat, the house is still in a mess, the kids are still not brilliant, and my to-do list is so long I've lost track of where to start.

Anyway, I started out the morning booking the hotel for our weekend in Zurich (and I'm close to finalising our coming week in London) and I am just procrastinating on getting the clothes, furniture etc sorted out. We do not yet know for sure (meaning it's still not official) where we'll be going to next, but we do know that we will be leaving Modena in a few months. Hub had made his intention to leave the company known to his hierarchy a few months ago and they have finally approved it the day before. Once they've found someone to replace him, we'll be free to leave. And every one in the family is looking forward to the change - surprisingly.

Before being steamed

When I procrastinate, I cook. Steamed leftover minced pork and prawns from yesterday's dumpling soup on silken tofu. That was for breakfast. Now, what should I cook for lunch?

After

Roast Beef with Porcini in Red Wine Sauce

Roast Beef with Porcini in Red Wine

Everyone would have experienced at some point envy or jealousy. Though as a general rule, I look upon envy as admiring and/or wanting something better that someone else has, whereas jalousy means that you think that that person doesn't deserve it (and may or may not be incited to do something to sabotage it).

How each of us cope with feelings of envy or jealousy is different, though I try, really I do, not to be jealous of anybody because I am old enough to know how it could poison one's life. And over the years, I have indeed seen and experienced how other people's jealousy has poisoned their lives and those around them.

Envy, on the other hand, I still sometimes indulge in. Like when I see someone with a smarter child, a cleaner or more obedient one, someone with a bigger diamond, a more expensive bag, a more compliant husband, a slimmer figure, the list goes on...

My mum however has done her duty when we were children, telling us all the time never to be envious of others who have more. Because there are many more people who have less, so naturally we should just be happy with our lot in life. Then she'll tell us her sob story about her very poor childhood, or that of her even poorer mother's - bref, you get the picture, we weren't born with a silver spoon in the mouth.

We were not born with a silver spoon in the mouth, but went to school with others who were in our meritocratic country. So I often found myself the poorest kid among my friends. I didn't live in a big house like most of my girlfriends, have a father who owned big cars and fat bank accounts, we never had maids or branded shoes (till I could afford to buy them myself). If I didn't do well at school, my dad wouldn't be able to send me overseas for my education either. I felt disadvantaged, and I was.

When I was a kid, I've therefore felt that life had been unfair to me. I wasn't born pretty, and have always been fat. And to rub it in, my parents weren't rich or important. The reality was that we actually lived quite well, always had more than enough to eat, only dad didn't save or invest so the good conditions were not meant to be permanent. We took note of that and promised that it wouldn't happen to us.

Once older however, I realised that sometimes it helped not to have been born too advantaged. Just like if you had never tasted bitter you wouldn't appreciate sweet, having suffered a little in life allows you to appreciate the days when things are easier - and learn not to take them for granted. You also learn to work for what you need/want.

As such, I sometimes wonder if my children are having things too easy. Though we do try not to spoil them and are quite strict on things that matter. We rejected one private school in Bologna because we felt that both the clients and the principals looked too rich - and we have no desire to have our children grow up amongst people like that.

But my sons play golf at the golf club. And it is filled with the children of some of the richest Italians in Modena. I noticed lately that the Teenager has become quite materialistic, and is always envying his peers for what they had (that he hadn't) - when he is already in a pretty good situation himself. What will that lead to? I will need to have a good talk with my child soon.

I am a chaser of many material objects myself. Though I like to think that I've not lost track of what really matters in life nor have I forgotten that we were born naked and will return to the earth more or less the same way. I know that I can live without many many things if I had to - and that I wouldn't be any less happy because of that.

Before the porcini run out and I start envying those who had a forest full of them, I am trying to eat my fill of the delicious mushroom. Prepared Roast Beef with Porcini cooked in Red Wine. Hub licked his plate and started reminiscing about the year his late father found 2 baskets full of porcini in the forest. What his dad cooked with them...

Roast Beef with Porcini cooked in Red Wine :

1 kg beef for roasting

fresh rosemary

olive oil

1 onion (chopped)

1 garlic clove (chopped)

300g fresh porcini (cleaned and cubed largely)

2 bay leaves (torn)

120ml red wine

2 tsp beef stock granules

pepper and salt to taste

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

corn starch for thickening the sauce (optional)

Using a roasting pan (or Le Creuset pot), heat up some olive oil and brown the roast beef on all sides.

Add the onions and garlic to be browned, followed by the bay leaves and the porcini. Mix the mushrooms well in the fragrant oil. Then pour in the red wine.

Starting here, watch the timing for the beef. If you like it rare like we do, it'll be 20 minutes on medium-low heat pot covered. At the end of this period, remove the beef from the pot, cover it in foil and set aside.

Add the beef stock granules and the balsamic vinegar (just use the normal one) to the red wine porcini sauce in the pot, plus the salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. If you like a thicker sauce, stir in some corn starch solution. I didn't use any this time.

Return the roast beef to the sauce in the pot for 5-10 minutes just to warm it up. Remove, slice and serve with the sauce.

Chicken and Bacon Roll with Chanterelles

Chicken Roll Roast with Chanterelles

I never wanted kids when I was younger and sometimes wonder why I ended up with 3 of them. Do not get me wrong, God knows I adore them all each in his own way and wouldn't have them any differently (or maybe just...), but on certain days I do remember why I didn't want any. And those moments long ago had been illuminated ones after all.

Pregnancy was fun and I do regret not having one of those studio shots taken during mine. Bringing up babies had been better than playing with Zapf dolls, baby clothes costing less than doll clothes, but we did end up using more than one diaper. Past age 3, they started getting difficult to be ignored and the chances of being called up to meet the school principal(s) or other person(s) of authority increased frighteningly. Mum would say that it's karma, since she has had her share of meeting persons of authority where I was concerned.

Last evening Hub was called to the Golf Club to meet its Director. I will not embarrass my teenager by telling the whole world what he has done wrong this time, but suffice to say that as usual he had not taken our advice and has therefore gotten himself into some trouble.

My blood was needless to say boiling all evening, but given a night's sleep and a morning stuffing myself with baked curry puffs, I'm feeling more philosophical about the whole thing and can now say that that's all part and parcel of growing up, that hopefully it will teach him something - if he will only but learn from it.

It was however fortunate that I had thought to get dinner out early yesterday or I would have poisoned the family in my state of mind. As it was, we had a lovely Chicken and Bacon Roll Roast with Chanterelles in Cream and White Wine Sauce. Voilà, I got it all out.

Chicken Roll Roast with Chanterelles :

800g chicken thighs and breasts (deboned, skin-on, tied into a roll)

2-3 bacon strips

fresh rosemary leaves

300g fresh chanterelles

1 large fresh porcini

1 onion (chopped)

1 garlic clove (chopped)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp chicken stock granules

80ml dry white wine

salt and pepper to taste

2-3 tbsp crème fraîche

Get your butcher to prepare the chicken roll. It's usually deboned whole chicken or chicken thighs and/or breasts covered with bacon and fresh herbs and tied together with kitchen strings.

Clean and slice the mushrooms.

Using a Le Creuset or similar pot, oil the bottom and brown the roll bacon-side down. Then brown the other 3 sides.

Add more olive oil and the chopped onions and garlic. When they are fragrant, add the mushrooms. Coat them with the fragrant oil.

Sprinkle black pepper all over. Add the stock granules to the mushrooms and pour the white wine over everything. Cover the pot and cook on medium-low heat for 20-25 minutes.

Check that the meat is cooked or almost cooked. Add salt to taste and stir in the cream. Cover the pot and cook for another 10-15 minutes on low heat.

Serve hot on steamed basmati rice.