Sichuan Sausages

Earlier in the year I had an inspirational meal at Chilli Cool. Having never had Sichuan food before, I was oblivious to the narcoleptic charms of Sichuan peppercorns which not only set your mouth on fire but numb it at the same time. I left feeling invigorated and keen to dabble with Sichuan pepper.

So I invented my own Sichuan sausage recipe. And would you believe it, the sausages are amazing. Here’s how you make them.

Mince a 60/40 mix of pork belly and pork shoulder. For 6 sausages throw in a handful of breadcrumbs. Then, in a pestle and mortar, grind 3 dessert spoons of Sichuan peppercorns to a fine dust. Add them to the pork. Then slice up a spring onion and add it to the party. Grate a whole thumb of ginger into the pork along with a a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Then sprinkle in a generous amount of chilli seeds and then as much Chinese 5 spice as you think seems right. Season with salt, or for added authenticity some MSG.



Mix the pork and spices together and then feed into sausage casings. Allow the sausage to rest for a few hours before cooking as this will allow the meat to settle and relax after the trauma of the sausage making process.



Amazingly a few wires got tangled up in the Brown kitchen and we landed up serving them with Brussels’ sprouts and carrots! The winter vegetables admirably stuck to their task. It prompted one of the funnier moments over Christmas when my Grandfather, who isn’t a fan of spice, said, “I don’t mind about the chilli because my mouth has gone numb”. There was something deeply surreal about the whole experience. And this odd situation allowed us to concentrate on the flavour of the sausages which whilst taking no prisoners, were a spectacular success.

My plan had been to take inspiration from "Dan Dan Noodles" (see photo above courtesy of scaredy_kat on Flickr via creative commons ) and cook them in a liquor of soy sauce, chillies and stock and then serve them with noodles and pak choi. They would also be great without their casings as meat balls in a Chinese broth. If you’ve got any suggestions about what to serve them with, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And if you are thinking what wines would go well with a Sichuan sausage, then Gareth from Bibendum suggests drinking Argentine Bonarda and Fiona the Winematcher suggests a New Zealand Pinot Noir.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Chilli Cool

I'm no expert in Sichuan food, but I do know that I loved every single mouthful of our meal at Chilli Cool. The food was authentic, punchy and numbing all at the same time. My research tells me that Sichuan cuisine is built around the elixir of garlic, red chillies and sichuan peppercorns which produce a numbing, tingly experience. The fact that the Chinese language can express this in one character, "麻", just goes to show that we Brits like to waffle and are missing out on an exciting sensory experience.

Lizzie took control and ordered an array of dishes for us all to share. The huge benefit of going as a group of 6 is that you get to try more food. and the fact that Lizzie knew what she was doing helped us no end. I'm sure if I had been ordering we'd have landed up with some chicken chow mein and pineapple infested sweet and sour pork.

"Sliced Pork Belly in Mashed Garlic Sauce" was soft and almost creamy in texture. It had us all playing chopstick hockey to get the last slither of garlicky flesh.



"Beef & Ox Tripe in Chilli Sauce" would have many people wondering whether they had just been brought a bowl of dog food. But the truth is that this was delicious. The tripe was soft and deeply flavoured with a big kick of chilli to keep you on your toes. It isn't for the faint of heart.



"Hot & Chilli Crispy Pork Intestine" was a revelation. The sections of intestine had been battered and deep fried in a way that made them explode with gungy porky goodness in your mouth. I was deeply fearful of these when they arrived and was delighted when I not only managed to not spit them out, but liked them so much I managed to get a second helping.



"Stir-Fried Before Stewing The Jack Bean Dry" is a bizarre name for what was essentially, beans with minced pork and enough chilli to start a world war. As delicious as they were oddly named.



Bean curd with spring onions, garlic and more than enough chilli was a triumph. I'm never quite sure about bean curd, but I am growing to like it. Especially when it is served like this.



And then what we'd all been waiting for. The famous Sichuan hotpot. This particular hotpot was full of soft grouper, Sichuan peppercorns and red chillis. It's the sort of dish that would give anyone who has a subscription to the Telegraph a heart attack. It managed to keep us all quiet for a solid 10 minutes which is quite something.



It's a cracking little restaurant that was doing a roaring trade on an otherwise innocuous Wednesday night in the back streets of Bloomsbury. I'm gagging to go back in order to introduce some friends to the addictive charms of Sichuan cooking.

Chinese New Year at Leong's Legends

Saturday was full of serendipity. Three of us converged on Chinatown to continue our search for London’s best sandwich. Given that it is Chinese New Year, the theme for February’s sandwich is Chinese. It’s been quite a struggle to find somewhere that sells Chinese sandwiches, but yet again Chowhound has come up trumps by suggesting a pork belly filling in a steamed bun. My concerns that this isn’t a legitimate sandwich were dispelled when I read Su-Lin's review on Tamarind and Thyme.

I emerged at Leicester Square station and was amazed by the sight of a full on parade that brought back memories of the street carnivals in the Roger Moore James Bond films. I had been worried that Chinese New Year had been and gone. But this was insane!















Cowie and I met up at Leong’s Legends, Taiwanese restaurant, on Macclesfield Street having battled through the excitable crowd. As predicted by World Foodie Guide, the maitre d’, tried to bully us into settling for a substandard table, tucked away out of the action. But we stood firm and commandeered an excellent table with full view of the festivities outside and the buzz of the kitchen. His waspish behavior punctuated the experience, in a way that developed all the way from irritation to hilarity!



Cowie and I played it safe with some wonderfully fresh dim sum.

Duck and chestnut puffs were brilliant. Sweet, sticky and flaky with a slight note of nutty sesame. Luckily Cowie wasn’t interested in this one so I scoffed all three!



Cowie was far more interested in the dinky little steamed prawn dumplings which were gorgeous. The dumplings didn’t stick to the steamer and were utterly devoid of that claggy, dense feel you get from Ping Pong’s ersatz dumplings.



Some cheung fun arrived which was a bit disappointing. Whilst it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t up to the standard of the other dishes. It tasted a bit flat but was lifted by the sweetened soy sauce. Royal China’s are far better.



Some Beijing pork and chive dumplings were as delicious as they were un-photogenic and were served with a lively soy and black vinegar dip.

We devoured our sticky rice with shredded pork which had a deep gamey flavour and hint of wild mushrooms.



As we were tucking into the shredded pork a pantomine lion from the parade outside attacked our restaurant much to the joy of the staff. He slashed through a lettuce that was strung up the restaurant's door. Apparently this brings luck to the restaurant and money to the lion dancers. It brought the whole restaurant to life and a look of glee to most of the sraff. (Thank you Su Lin for filling me in). I’ll leave the pictures to do the talking.







Just as Cowie and I were struggling with some slightly too dense siu mai dumplings when "Hollow Legs" Lizzie arrived fresh from sorting out her new flat to raise the stakes!

Cowie and I were uprooted from our comfort zone where we were happy learning to cycle with our stabilisers and launched into the exciting world of grown up Chinese food.

Century eggs with tofu arrived first looking stunning. I’ve wanted to try century eggs for some time, so this was a great opportunity. They tasted like super charged eggs. But it was their appearance that really amazed me. The dusting of chilli and spring onion set the tofu up brilliantly. I am not a big tofu fan but enjoyed several spoonfuls at well spaced intervals! That red sauce you can see lurking at the bottom of the bowl should come with a government health warning!



Slithers of beef and tripe in a incredibly spicy sauce arrived next. Again I’ve never had tripe before so this was pretty exciting. If it wasn’t for Lizzie I’d still be a tripe virgin! And you know what. It was really good. I doubt I will ever dream of eating tripe or order it that often. But I can now appreciate what it’s all about. The texture added an almost shitake mushroom feel to the dish and the aggressive chilli gave it an addictive warmth.



A steamer full of exquisite xiao long baos, AKA soup filled dumplings, took us back towards our comfort zone with a burst of scalding hot soup! This set us up perfectly for the reason we had come; their soon to be famous pork sandwich which confusingly appears on the menu as Taiwanese Kebab Bun.





It was a delicious sandwich and well worth the trip. It really couldn’t have been a better fit for Chinese New Year. Arguably the best themed sandwich so far. But to find out more you’ll have to read about it on the Londonist’s Sandwichist column.

Leong’s Legends was huge fun. It was an extremely fortunate treat that our visit coincided with the Chinese New Year parade. And Lizzie’s “out there” suggestions of century eggs and tripe have expanded our repertoire beyond the world of prawn and pork dumplings. It has cured us of the shock we had at Peninsula where we had a cultural collision with a pork hock and jellyfish dish! Leong’s was pretty good value and was buzzing with atmosphere. We will definitely return soon.

Chinese Slow Roasted Pork

Take a large and inexpensive lump of pre-scored pork belly from Brixton market. Cover it in salt and five spice. Wedge pieces of star anise and cinnamon bark into the seams of fat. Trim off nipples. Then roast in a seriously hot oven until the skin has started to become slightly crispy.

Turn down the heat to around 170'c and manoeuvre loads of ginger, a couple of chillies cleaved in half and a few cloves of garlic so that they raise the meat up from the base of roasting tin. This lets some of the fat render out. Roast gently for an hour.



Pour off the oozing fat and replace with an unhealthy glug of soy and some sake. Add more ginger, star anise and cinnamon. Return to oven and slow roast for 3 hours, topping up liquid when needed with rehydrated mushrooms and resultant stock.

Remove meat and place on a wire rack on a baking tray. Add more salt to the skin. Place under grill and give it a final whack of heat to crisp the skin up so it blisters.



Pour off the dark, juice into a sauce pan and add mirin, sake and rice vinegar. Reduce violently until it is sticky.



Meanwhile boil some rice noodles and steam some lettuce. Remove, pork from oven and hack in half. Combine all elements and serve to your ravenous housemate. Simple, cheap and seriously tasty.

Cowie's Birthday: Peninsula

Fresh on the heels of a wonderful night at Trinity, I wangled a day off from revision for Cowie. Eating on Sundays normally means 3 things for us Brits. Either a solid fry up for breakfast, a slap up roast or a blinding curry. But one of the best things to eat on a Sunday is dim sum.

Cowie and I had a wonderful time feasting on dim sum in Hong Kong. We love their little parcels of joy. It's interesting that dim sum literally means "to touch the heart". It;s a bit like the concept behind the Cadbury's Gorilla advert... it's all about the sheer feeling of joy. Uninhibited euphoria.



I met Lizzie from Hollow Legs at the Trusted Places blogger meetup. She's great fun and recommended that I should take Cowie to an obscure dim sum restaurant in a Holiday Inn somewhere in the region of North Greenwich. I drunkenly made it home and woke up realising that Lizzie had answered my long search for what to do for Cowie's birthday. Lizzie you're a genius.

Bravely Cowie and I ventured off to the back of beyond.. in search of the ideal dim sum birthday lunch. The whole of North Greenwich was deserted. Acres of car parks. Miles of dual carriageway. Like a scene from 28 days later... there was no-one. Anywhere,

But then we arrived at the very impressive Holiday Inn Express. Resplendent in its green and blue livery.



And we saw people. Lots of Chinese people wearing very smart clothes... all piling into a very municipal looking building with hilarious concrete lions guarding the entrance.



We queued for around 20 minutes, surrounded by loud and eager customers. Some more irascible than others. One enormous Indian gentleman landed up having a row with the brusque gentleman in charge of queuing before we'd even sat down. That takes some doing... and explains why any review you read of this place will mention the aggressive service. Charm isn't a word that's understood at the Peninsula!

We were shown to a comically large table and presented with what can only be described as a cross between a computer accessed driving test paper and a nationally lottery ticket. After a while we realised that we needed an English menu and proceeded to transfer our choices across to the dim sum ballot paper.



Cowie, went with the safety first option... but I was keen to test out the menu with a little more recklessness. This wasn't wise. The pork knuckle I bravely ordered arrived first in the form of thin, salami esque strips of cold meat... topped with what looked like sauteed onions. Wrong. One weird mouthful later and realised that the onions were actually jelly fish! When can you say you've ever accidentally eaten jellyfish as the first thing you put in your mouth on your birthday! After this brief bout of culture shock things soon got much more palatable. All of their dumplings were brilliant. None of them stuck to the bamboo steamers like you find at places like Ping Pong. In particular, the cheung fun was extraordinary. Almost worth the trip on its own.

It was a truly brilliant experience and we can't recommend it enough to anyone who wants to step out of their comfort zone for a mind opening experience. We're definitely adding dim sum to our list of Sunday must dos along with squash, The Observer, bacon sandwiches, lie ins and curries from the Holy Cow.



This is a great list of the top 10 places to go for dim sum. I'm keen to experience the joys of dim sum in Chinatown next. If anyone's got any recommendations please let us know.

Cha Cha Moon, W1

Firstly, I must apologies to regular readers of the Paunch, for my lack of posts over recent weeks, or dare I say it... months. Work, revision, triathlons and general wear and tear is my only excuse!

And so lets turn to the interesting bit.. the food, and in this case cheap, efficient fast Chinese food in the heart of the West End.

When I first read about Cha Cha I was extremely excited. Since I was on a another carbo mission before the Blenheim Triathlon, it seemed only fitting to feast on copious amounts of noodles and other Chinese goodies.

The set up is very much like your standard Wagmamas, but this place certainly has abit more style and snazz. Once seated, the service was efficient and helpful.. even if Browny and I had trouble concluding what sex our waitress/waiter was!

The food... £3.70 for everything.. yes everything.

Its simple concept and one that works, but inevitably you are tempted to order far for than really necessary. To accompany our delicious green tea, we selected a mix of goodies... a soup, a steam noodle dish, a smoked dish, a fried noodle dish all with either duck, pork, beef or prawns, plus some dim sum style dumplings .. which were by far and way the star of the show.

For me the food was fair. No, on reflection it was good, but there is certainly room for improvement. Some of the rich sauces where abit gloopy, the soup was lack depth and flavour, some of the noodles were over cooked and on occasions the meat was a touch on the tough side.

But that said, this a great place for a quick feed to fill you up. The place was buzzing, full of trendy media esk customers all enjoying themselves.

I don't think it will ever win awards for its food, but if you after some quick, cheap, pretty Chinese grub this place will definitely work for you.

Ping Pong, Gt Marlborough Street

Photo from Tzutzu from Flickr.

Cowie is as fanatical about Ping Pong's dim sum as she is about dressage and country houses... The love affair started in Hong Kong when we first started going out. So whenever we pop to Ping Pong for a quick bite to eat we get transported back to the summer of 2005.

The wettest June on record in Hong Kong.
Cowie getting offered a job at Knight Frank.
The Lions being humiliated by New Zealand.
Dragon boat racing.
Me working for Ogilvy.
Incredible seafood on Lamma Island.
Sensational views from our appartment.
Even better views from the Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon side.
Reflexology.
Steep hills.
No space.
Claustrophobia.
Excitement.
Tea.
Shark fin soup.
Silver chopsticks.
Dim Sum.

Dim Sum literally means "touch the heart" or "order to your heart's content". And this is exactly the ethos of Ping Pong. You queue up politely for a table, have a killer cocktail and then get buzzed to your table where should order some of the tea where the ball opens out into a flower!

Tick what you want on the list and then wait for the bamboo steamers to arrive full of goodies. Everything we've had has been great. Our only criticisms are that everything arrives in 3s which always means someone either scoffs too much or has too little. And secondly that the First Emperor's Treasure sounded amazing but turned out to be a bit mundane. Not bad. Just not as awesome as it sounded!

To get a view of how the whole place runs check out the video below that explains everything!



We'll be back time and time again. If only they'd open one in Balham or on the Northcote Road!

Modern Chinese Food at Haozhan on Gerrard Street

We tried to book Great Queen Street for our Brown family trip after King Lear. But unfortunately their kitchen closes at 10.30 and we were unlikely to get there before 11. So we opted to give Haozhan a go instead.

Buzzing after being mesmerised by McKellan as a brilliant Lear we raced down from Covent Garden to China town and were treated to a master class in big tasting modern Chinese food.

Haozhan stands out from its Gerrard Street neighbours. Its what the Anchor and Hope is to the dodgy pub grub you get at a Toby Carvery. You won't find any freaky red plastic dragons or surly staff.

I was delighted with my chilli quail which was generous in both the portion size and the amount of spice. It brought an enormous smile to my face as I picked away at it with my greasy hands. Dad loved his curried soft shell crab; Mum enjoyed her sweet corn soup and Cowie couldn't have been happier with her single steamed scallop. You can order crispy duck and sweet and sour pork if you want but they have a piece on their menu encouraging you to try something new. Maybe Haozhan is the Sainsbury's of the Chinese restaurant world.

My cod with champagne and honey was stunning. The flesh flaked apart and was a sweet balance of golden honey and winey liquor. I swopped half way through with Cowie and upgraded to the XO cod which had a similar sticky, chilli sauce to my quail. Again is was delicious, if not quite as delicate as my original fish. Suz had an amazing loaf of bread filled with Assam prawns and Dad was delighted with his Sechuan lamb chops.

It was a brilliant way to end a much needed family day out and we can't wait to go back.

Really keen to visit Haozhan

Cowie and I were pottering around China Town the other day getting goodies for Anna and Edwin's dinner party when we stumbled across a Chinese restaurant that we actually wanted to go to in China Town... shock horror!

We had walked from Cowie's office on Hanover Square past the fashionable shops of Carnaby Street and down amongst the cool bars and restaurants around Barrafina, the Ivy and L'Atelier before meandering through the sex shops of Soho and popping out on Gerrard Street. It's amazing what diversity London has to offer. Too often we get taxis or take the tube which means we miss out on all the fun going on!

I've always found China Town a bit strange. Mysterious. Dangerous. Maybe it's from watching Jack Nicholson in Chinatown too often. Or it could be because of last week's Silent Witness where the Triads were smuggling ilegal immagrants into the country and dismembering the ones who couldn't pay in the back rooms of Gerrard Street's restaurants! You certainly can't say the area is dull...

All of the restaurants look the same and none of them are at all appealing. None have really caught up with the times and made themselves desirbale. No doubt they are all fronts for all sorts of dodgy businesses. The one that stands out from this questionable crowd is the very stylish exterior of Haozhan. We then read up about it when we got home to find out that it has had some very decent reviews. Jay Rayner from the Observer said:
"But then there's Haozhan, whose chef, Chee Loong Cheong, used to work at Hakkasan, and where the menu doesn't just tour the predictable Cantonese staples but flirts with the occasional Japanese or Thai flavour. It even looks different: instead of going for decor reminiscent of your auntie's in Penge, like all the others on the strip, this one is modern with lots of clean lines, the walls fitted with mirrors and jade-green panels. And, whisper it, the waiters smile.

The kitchen has a particular talent for deep frying, to produce items that are crisp but greaseless. A starter of crispy quail with chilli and salt, a dish familiar to me from Hakkasan's sister restaurant Yautatcha but available here at two-thirds of the price, brought two whole birds in a light, crisp batter sprinkled with aromatics which managed not to overwhelm the gaminess of the birds. Curry soft-shell crab sounded distinctly worrying (which was why we ordered it) but happily wasn't, the delicate creatures gently battered and sprinkled with shards of a fiery spice mix. My companion and I were divided over the spare ribs with a coffee sauce, which is to say he thought them odd in a bad way and I thought them odd in a good way. Yes, there was a bitterness to the sweet glaze on the thick meaty ribs, but also a certain fragrance which reminded me of rosemary. My friend's uncertainty didn't trouble me. It meant I got to finish them.

We agreed about the star dish, the silver cod with a dry XO sauce of minced prawns and chillies. The generous slabs of fish had first been sealed off, but so sensitively that as you cut through the outer skin, the huge flakes of pearly fish fell apart. The XO part of this plateful simply cut through the richness. I would come here for this dish alone."

So inspired by this Cowie and I are going to pay them a visit soon. I'm dying to try their silver cod in XO sauce and their curry soft shell crab.