Merry Christmas, as traditional, I and my beloved one prepared an Italian Christmas dinner this year, although it really take many times and afford to do so, but it’s more than enough we have had a very warm and delicious Christmas time, cheers.
I believe that you will enjoy lamb stew in the winter time, but most of the time may cook Chinese style lamb stew, sometimes you can change to western style, although the flavour not as strong as Chinese style one but it’s more sweetie and more strong taste of lamb, no matter Chinese or western style, both are very warm dishes.
材料 (Ingredients) :
羊腩 (Lamb chunk) – 1磅 (1 lb) –> 如果讀者在肉檔買,請店員為你切成大舊 (if you buy from butcher, ask them help you cut into big chunk)
In this post, I also wanna talk a bit about WHO’s just announced that processed meats caused cancer, however, don’t panic about this, WHO’s actually meant processed meats made in factory, as I mentioned in earlier post, factories make processed meats with sodium nitrites, nitrates and artificial flavouring, since when the cured meat occured, the meats will absorb and transform those chemicals with its protein and this is what caused cancer afterwards. On the other hand, our homemade processed meats without these chemicals, once you are careful while process the meat in temperature, humidity, hygiene and acidity, you should safety to enjoy it. Since we are just using salt and sugar to help the meat to get rid of water to prevent growth of bacteria and herbs just add natural flavouring for meats. For the smoking meats, generally will use grill stove or outdoor smoker and process smoking with coal and wood to get the flavour, but barbecue with coal, it will be caused the risk of cancer itself no matter added wood or not. Actually, the stove-top smoker that I’m used that without process with coal, just heat up the wood and get its smell, and, the cooking temperature is low compared with general direct cooking, so it’s safety as well.
The most popular curing pork are bacon and sausages. Of course, you can make ham as well, but I can’t find boneless pork leg, on the other hand, you have to buy beef casing in order to make ham.
Well, we talk about bacon and pancetta (Italian bacon), both are using pork belly, it’s easy to find in supermarkets or butchers, and they are the most easiest way to enter homemade curing world. Bacon and pancetta curing method are the same, but after curing, bacon have to be smoked and pancetta have to be air-dried for a month.
First you need a large pork belly in square or rectangle shape, but if you wanna just try first, you can also buy a small one, but the curing time are the same.
煙肉的做法 (Bacon) :
1. 先清洗一下,用紙印乾,然後把豬皮慢慢地用刀分開,豬皮可以留作其他用途的,不要棄掉;
Wash it and dry it using paper towel or cloth, cut out the lard using sharp knife carefully, keep the lard for other usage
2. 用小刀小心地去除腩肉底部的膜 (如有)
Cut out the sheet underneath of the belly of the pork (if necessary)
3. 先量度腩肉的重量,而鹽的分量是腩肉的2.5%
Measure the weight of the pork belly and prepare the salt around 2.5% of meat weight
4. 準備一個密封的袋或可用真空機幫助,把腩肉放入,然後加入鹽、黑胡椒、蔗糖、月桂葉、蜜糖或楓糖 (用於煙肉),以及乾杜松果(可以不加,視乎個人喜好),把醃料平均地塗滿整舊腩肉,密封好袋口,一定要封好,不然醃料的汁液會留出的。
Prepare a vacuum bag or ziplock bag, put the pork belly in and add salt, black pepper, brown sugar, bay leaves, honey or maple syrup (bacon only) and jupiter berries (personal preference), mix all the seasonings well and cover the whole pork belly, vacuum it or zip it well (make sure no water can be escaped)
5. 然後放入雪櫃7天,但每天也是翻一次,最好按摩一下腩肉。
Put it into Refrigerator for 7 days and flip it over every day, better massage it too.
6. 醃肉7天後在雪櫃取出後,先在水喉下沖先及用手把醃料沖走,然後準備一個大碗,加入水及冰,把沖洗好的腩肉放入並浸水3小時。
Take it out after 7 days curing, wash it and get rid out all the seasonings under tape water, then prepare a large bowl, add water and ice and put the pork belly in for 3 hours
7. 浸好後可以取出並印乾水份,最後可以進行煙燻了。 熱燻100°C,1小時,請不要離開,要一直保持這個溫度才可。
After 3 hours, take out and dry it using paper towel or cloth, and you can start smoking at 100°C for 1 hour, please keep in eye and maintain in constant temperature.
8. 煙燻好放涼後就可以切片存放
After Smoking, just cool down and you can cut into slice and keep it in refrigerator.
由於醃好的肉比較硬身,小編建議使用切肉機幫助,切成薄片。 小編找了很久才找到這個非一般輕巧的小型切肉機,除了切肉外,也可切硬的鄉村包,真的很方便,當您時常也做自己不同的醃肉時,這真是個好幫手,這部切肉機比中國製造的還要便宜很多了 :
Since after cured, bacon is quite hard, better use meat slicer to assist for cutting into thin slices. Since most of the meat slicer is bulky and require much space, finally, I found one that very compact and light, and the most important is cheaper alot than made in China one, you can also use it to slice for sourdough as well :
2. 準備好紮肉的綿線,把腩肉卷好,依以下方法紮好
prepare a butcher string, roll it well and follow the below step to tie the knot well
3. 準備好綿袋或魚湯袋(小編用2個袋以防止蚊蟲在肉上產卵),把袋掛在沒有陽光及比較潮濕的地方,例如 : 星盆附近,等待風乾一個月,切成粒就可以用來煮食了。 最重要是注意風乾的時間,如果在香港,最好在深秋至初冬時候進行,因為溫度必須保持在10-18°C及濕度在60-80%進行,否則必須買來特製專用來做風乾熟成的雪櫃來控制其溫度及濕度,或者買來一般的酒櫃加以改裝可控制濕度來進行,不然就不可進行風乾,特別是在炎熱的天氣,這樣會容易滋生奪命細菌,請大家不要掉以輕心,食物安全是很重要的。
Prepare a cotton bag or soup bag (I’m using double soup bag to prevent any eggs from bugs and mosquitos), hang the bag in a place that moisture but out of sunlight. After a month, you can take it out, cut it in chunk and cook it. But it is very important about to proceed this in a right temperature and humidity, in Hong Kong, you can do it during late Autumn and early Winter, keep the temperature around 10-18℃ and humidity around 60-80%, if you can’t kepp it, I would strongly advice you to buy a dry aged chiller to control temperature and humidity or buy a wine chiller which modify it to control humidity to proceed the air dry process, otherwise, I don’t suggest you to make it, especially on hot weather, it is really easy to grow harmful bacterias that really kill youself, so please please take it seriously, food safety is really important.
I saw many people posted their recipes about spaghetti carbonara, it’s really oh my god, so many wrong ingredients and cooking method, i.e. cream, onion, or even ham. Therefore, I wanna share the real spaghetti carbonara recipe, hope not cook wrong again.
Real spaghetti carbonara orginally is a dish from Romans which using Guanciale or pancetta, if you can’t find both, you can use smoked bacon, but I can tell, it’s not the same taste. I just used my homemade pancetta.
而芝士就用上羊奶芝士,但沒有的話也可用巴馬臣芝士。
Also, it’s using pecorino cheese, if not, use parmesan cheese also ok.
材料又簡單又易做。
The ingredients are so simple and easy to cook
材料 (Ingredients):
豬面頰咸肉或意大利咸肉 (Guanciale or pancetta) – 4片 (4 slices)
1. 把肉切粒,分開蛋黃及蛋、蛋黃加入芝士碎及黑胡椒碎發均
Cut the Guanciale or pancetta in small chunks, separate egg yolk and egg white; whisk egg yolks with grated cheese & black pepper
2. 準備平底鍋,加入橄欖油,放入肉粒,慢慢地煎香至脆身
Prepare a saucepan, add olive oil and cook the meat until crispy
3. 關火及待涼少許,加入意粉,然後倒入蛋黃伴勻
stop the heat and cool down a little bit, add spaghetti in and add egg yolk, stir well to combine
4. 最後加入芝士及黑胡椒就完成了
Add cheese and black pepper, finished.
If you love baby octopus, you will love this pasta, it’s another special taste of octopus. It’s also easy to cook and good for summer time, let’s try to cook it.
材料 (INGREDIENTS):
小八爪魚 (Baby Octopus) – 10隻 (10 pcs)
青橄欖 (Green Olives) – 8粒 (8 pcs)
西班牙酸豆 (Capers) – 1湯匙 (1 tablespoon)
油浸鯷魚 (Anchovies) – 4條 (4 fillets)
車厘茄 (Cherry Tomatos) – 12粒 (12 pcs)
蒜頭 (Garlic) – 2個 (2 gloves)
鹽 (Sea salt) – 小量 (A pinch)
紅辣椒 (Red chilli) – 1條 (1 pc)
橄欖油 (Olive Oil) – 4湯匙 (4 tablespoons)
意大利芫茜 (Parsley)
做法 (METHOD):
1. 蒜頭切小粒、辣椒切碎、鯷魚切小份、車厘茄切半
Chop garlic, slice chilli and anchovies, cherry tomato cut in half.
2. 準備一個平底鍋,加入橄欖油,放入八爪魚,中火煎一會,待八爪魚開始變硬後,加入蒜頭、辣椒、鯷魚、橄欖、酸豆、車厘茄及一小紮蕃茜,略炒勻
Prepare a saucepan, put olive oil in, add baby octopus, medium heat for cooking until turn a bit hard, then put garlic, chilli, anchovies, olives, capers, cherry tomato and a small punch of whole flat leaf parsley, mix it a little bit
3. 轉細火後,蓋上,煮大約35分鐘
change to small heat and lid on, cook for around 35 minutes