A face like a bucket of Ma Po tofu.

I'm a fickle bitch. Quixotic and mercurial.

Only the other day I blogged about my latest obsession being dumplings.

No more.

My affair with dumplings was fleeting and tawdry.. based on my basest animal urges.

What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh. ~Henry Fielding

Now I have discovered The One. The Real Thing.

The one, at whose first tender lip brush, I hear heavenly choirs of seraphim.

Ma Po tofu.

Seriously. This is a dish so made of awesome.. from its odd translation ("old lady pockmarked face beancurd"), to the rich and hearty soupy broth, in which resides slow cooked minced pork and cubes of silken tofu, there is nothing not to love about this dish.

Wiki says:

Ma stands for "mazi" (Pinyin: mázi Traditional Chinese 麻子,) which means a person disfigured by pockmarks. Po (Chinese 婆) translates as "old woman". Hence, Ma Po is an old woman whose face was pockmarked. It is thus sometimes translated as "Pockmarked-Face Lady's Tofu". Legend says that the pock-marked old woman (má pó) was a widow who lived in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Due to her condition, her home was placed on the outskirts of the city. By coincidence, it was near a road where traders often passed. Although the rich merchants could afford to stay within the numerous inns of the prosperous city while waiting for their goods to sell, poor farmers would stay in cheaper inns scattered along the sides of roads on the outskirts of the ancient city. Another less widely accepted explanation stems from an alternate definition of 麻, meaning "numb": the Szechuan peppercorns used in the dish numb the diner's mouth.

The combination of dried birds eye chili and Szechuan peppercorns gives this dish a bite that is NOT for the faint-hearted, but you can adjust it to suit most palates. True Mapo doufu is powerfully spicy with both conventional "heat" spiciness and the characteristic "mala" (numbing spiciness) flavor of Sichuan cuisine. The feel of the particular dish is often described by cooks using seven specific Chinese adjectives: 麻 (numbing), 辣 (spicy hot), 烫 (hot temperature), 鲜 (fresh), 嫩 (tender and soft), 香 (aromatic), and 酥 (flaky). These seven characteristics are considered to be the most defining of authentic Mapo doufu.

The other benefit, if that all of that chilli increases you metabolic rate, giving you a natural chilli high, and is said by some to aid weight loss. The tofu is an awesome source of phytooestrogens.

• Marinade for Ground Pork:
• 1 1/2 Tbsp tapioca starch (can substitute cornstarch)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• Other:
• 500g pound ground pork
• 500g pound regular tofu (medium firmness)
• 1 leek or 3 green onions
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Chinese salted black beans (fermented black beans, also called Chinese black beans), or to taste
• 1 Tbsp chili bean paste, or to taste
• 3 Tbsp stock (chicken broth)
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 Tbsp light soy sauce
• Freshly ground Szechuan pepper
• 2 - 3 tablespoons oil for stir-frying, as needed

Preparation:

Mix marinade ingredients. Marinate pork for about 20 minutes.
Cut the tofu (bean curd) into 1/2 inch (1 cm) square cubes, and blanch (drop into boiling water) for 2 - 3 minutes. Remove from boiling water and drain.
Chop leek or green onions into short lengths.
Heat wok and add oil. When oil is ready, add the marinated pork. Stir-fry pork until the color darkens. Add salt and stir. Add the salted black beans. Mash the beans with a cooking ladle until they blend in well with the meat. Add the chili paste, then the stock, bean curd, and leek or green onions.
Turn down the heat. Cook for 3 - 4 minutes.
While cooking, mix cornstarch, water, and soy sauce together. Add to wok and stir gently. Serve with freshly ground Szechuan pepper.

recipe from http://chinesefood.about.com

More on Furry's learning curve.

I am currently obsessed with dumplings. Gow Gees. Shui Mai. Gyoza. Wrap pretty much anything in a pastry wrapper, and I'll give it a red hot go. Coming off 5 weeks of being sick means that I have to treat my system with kid gloves. Dairy is still out, as is anything fatty. I've been living off Majick Phở and rice dishes for weeks, so I am on a major flava crava jones right now.

Furry.

Hmm. Yes.

Well.

He's back in Melbourne, longer than he expected. A few irons in the fire to get him back to PNG, but nothing set in concrete yet. We've adjusted to sharing living spaces again and I must admit, it's nice to come home and have the house all clean, and dinner cooked. In lieu of rent, I get my gutters cleaned and Furry Balls on demand.

Not such a bad arrangement, actually.

So yesterday, Furry announces he want to improve his repertoire of Furry Ball recipes. So I phaff off to work, leaving him with some $$ for ingredients and my car.

And get home to 90 dumplings, in 4 different flavours.



A quick call to friends up the hill, with an impassioned plea to come and help us eat all of the fruits of his labour, and we've got an instant Furry Ball Feast! It was so SO good, we have decided that while he's in town we'll utilize his skill and we've declared Tuesday "Dumpling Night"

This, from the man I met all those years ago, who thought serving nachos with a paint scraper was the height of his culinary possibilities. ]

Last nights offerings were chicken and ginger, pork and 5 spice, classic Furry Balls, and beef with Schezhuan pepper. The dipping sauces were siracha, red vinegar and sweet chilli, hoi sin, classic light soy and Furry's own concoction of soy, vinegar, sliced birds eye chillies and diced coriander roots.

He is now the proud owner of a mincer (for his up and coming seafood gow gee fest next Tuesday night), and is, as we speak, at home experimenting with xia long bao, or Shanghai soup dumplings.

And in true GREAT home cook style, he is realizing that a repertoire is not about how many recipes you can churn out from cookbooks, but on how you can adapt your knowledge-base to allow for seasonal ingredients, individual palates and plain old cravings.

Not "Drowning", ... swaying.

Image shamelessly lifted from UK's Channel 4 web site.

I've never done this before. Shamelessly lifted an image off another site. I pride myself on the oft-dodgy but clearly genuine imagery of food that graces this blog. You can tell, I hope, that the photos were taken in my kitchen, as the dogs licked their nethers just out of frame, and Furry huffs loudly while I turn the plate too and 'fro, looking for the "WOB" shot.

But here's the thing.

Has anyone ever tried to photograph ice cream, with boiling liquid poured over it? Can you imagine what you end up with?

I once heard that professional photographers use mashed potato in shots requiring ice cream. Which allays my conscience somewhat, in that the above image of "ice cream" is probably actually Deb.

Anyway, I digress.

Last night, Mme Mouse and her friends came for dinner and I decided to serve affogato for dessert. Affogato is Italian or drowning. The actual name for this dessert/drink is affogato alla cafe, or "drowning in coffee".

Furry recently sent me a care parcel of Goroka organic coffee, my latest obsession. Which was my latest obsession for about 5 minutes before I decided to turn said coffee into an affogato, which is NOW my new obsession.

I made a double strength pot of coffee, chilled some Marie Antoinette style champagne glasses, whacked 3 hefty scoops of Street's Blue Ribbon Vanilla Ice cream.

(Note to readers, Street's also makes the Pine Lime Splice, possibly the most amazing commercial ice cream in the known Universe. It is made of pure awesomeness and when I am Empress of the World, it will be my official emblem)

Anyway, back to the affogato. I poured the coffee into a gravy jug and added a goodly splash of Frangelico AND a spoon of Green and Black's organic hot chocolate powder.

Now take the hot coffee/chocolate/liqueur mix and pour it over the ice cream. Scarf down immediately and savour the intense hot/cold/creamy/bitter sensation that is an affogato.

OR, you can do what I did, which was to pour the hot liquid onto the ice cream and try to take a photo. And end up with a kinda nasty grey schmaltz. So you drink it. And make another. And try to photograph it. But it doesn't work. So you drink it. And make another. And wonder why your photos are now of BLURRY grey schmaltz. So you make another and come up with the great idea of an action pouring shot. Which doesn't work. So you drink it.

And then realised you've consumed 8 shots of espresso, 4 shots of Frangelico, you're pissed and you heart is doing the Tarantela. You sway off to bed and spend the next four hours wide awake, waiting for the booze to override the caffiene, realising that you are meant to be doing Ocsober and cursing your own stupidity.

An Ode to Duck Fat

image from /www.luvaduck.com.au

Had we but world enough, and time,
Every dish would be made of thine!
We would sit down and think which way
To cook with thou, everyest day.
In the 'fridge, by the home made pesto's side
Shouldst there I find you.
Your vegetable love should grow
Vaster than braising, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
The sheen you givest to a red-wine glaze;
Two hundred to you and lemon zest,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Duck Fat, you deserve this state,
Nor would I cook at slower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Hungry children hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of fast foodie-ty.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
in a Macca's chain, ne'er shall sound
Your oleaginous song: then worms shall try
That long preserved confit,
And your quaint flavour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
KFC's fine and private place,
But Subway, I think, do not you, embrace.

Now therefore, while the oleaginous hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy salivating tongue transpires
At every pore with wood-fired ovens' fires,
Now let us sautee while we may,
And we'll get to use our Le Creuset ,
Rather at once our Chats devour
Than languish in the slow-cooker's power.
Let us roll all our Rosemary and all
Our Maldon Sea Salt up into one ball,
And tear your pleasures with rough strife
Forgetting what you'll do to our cholesterol, for life:
Thus, though we bought you for a hefty price,
you'll go SO well with Arborio rice!

Apologies to Andrew Marvell.

Someone stop me!!!

Hi, I'm pg and I'm.....


**collective gasp**

A rub-aholic.

A marinate-ophile.

And my organic grocer is my enabler.

There I was, quietly buying some salad mix from the grocer, when, I saw it... well.. them actually, but it was THE ONE.

I had to have it.

corriander, sea salt, chilli and kaffir lime rub.

It's pay week.. I can afford it.

I don't neeeeeeed it.

(but I want it)

I bought it.

And then realised that it's the SIXTH packet of rub I've bought this week.

I am helpless.

I see a rub and I MUST have it.

How can I resist when I read this on the back of a rub:

BED OF ROSES
Massage into lamb shanks or chicken thighs for a sensuous tagine, or rub onto a deboned leg of lamb

See??? My hands get all shakey just being NEAR a rub.

Could hardly take the photo with the jones I had going!!!

I'm like some women are with shoes. Or hand bags. Or chocolate.

I got home and realised I have purchased 9 different rubs in two weeks.

Something is wrong with me.

Help.

I've already opened it, so I can't take it back. ... and I want it so bad.

it's sad.

(Corriander, chilli, SS and kaffir lime potatoes tonight )