Category: Regional Classics

Fegato alla Veneziana (beef liver, Venetian style)

A bittersweet and humble meal of beef liver and cornmeal for Good Friday

Serves 3

Time: 🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

Section of beef liver from your butcher (a bit larger than the size of your hand)
2 onions
60g butter
Water
Salt
Pepper
3 sage leaves (or sprig of rosemary)
1 bay leaf
Rosemary for garnish

Method:

1. Peel and chop onions into strips
2. Add onions, half the butter, and some salt to a pan
3. Stir to coat
4. Cook on medium heat, covered, until bottom starts to burn
5. Add water (around 1/4 glass) and stir to release bits that may be sticking to the bottom
6. Continue to cooked covered until onions completely caramelised, around 25 minutes, while you do the next steps
7. Add the remaining half of the butter to a pan and melt on look heat
8. Remove top foam and any other milk solids, so that you are left with clarified butter, which has a much higher smoking point
9. With your fingers, poke a hole in the liver to release the skin
10. Continue to peel off the skin, which should feel like taking skin off a chicken
11. Once peeled, chop liver up into several narrow lobes, then into slices
12. Add liver to the hot clarified butter and cook on high heat
13. Add sage, bay leaf, plenty of salt, and pepper, to the liver
14. While liver cooks, check seasoning of onions, which ahold be soft and sweet by now
15. Once liver is browned and fragrant, check seasoning, then pour everything in the pan into the onions
16. Remove sage and bay leaves
17. Stir to combine the two elements
18. Add more water and simmer on medium-low until the sauce thickens
19. Check seasoning one last time
20. Serve with polenta and a sprig of rosemary on top

Lemongrass Pork

Recreating a HK-style Vietnamese classic. Many of us grew up on this dish. Perfect if you have leftover oil from previous deep-frying. This recipe uses a salty green onion condiment to elevate the pork chop. If not using, then add more fish sauce and salt to the marinade.

Serves 2

Time: 🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

Rice for two people
4 frozen pork collar chops from good farms
2 eggs
Good lettuce
3 green onions
Vegetable oil
Salt

For MARINADE:

1 stalk lemongrass
1 small chunk ginger
2 garlic clove
1 egg
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
2 teaspoon flour
1 teaspoon corn starch

Method:

1. Defrost pork collar chops and pat dry
2. Cut lemongrass, ginger, garlic into a fine mince, or blend in food processor
3. Combine with rest of the marinade and mix well
4. Marinate pork chops for at least one hour
5. Boil rice
6. Add oil to pan, until it is around 1cm high (not too much, so that it doesn’t actually cover the pork during frying
7. Bring oil to medium temperature, around 160’c
8. Fry pork chops in oil until cooked through and starting to colour
9. Turn heat up to finish frying at a high temperature, until golden brown⠀
10. Set aside to drain on kitchen towel
11. Divide spring onion into white part and green part
12. For the white part, slice diagonally and slowly fry in oil in a separate, clean plan until crispy; set aside but retain the hot oil
13. With the greens, chop finely and mix with the fragrant hot oil from the previous step, and half teaspoon of salt, to form the condiment
14. Fry egg in pan, adding a bit of the pork deep frying oil for extra colour and ‘evil’ factor
15. Slice pork chop and present on slices of lettuce
16. Place egg on rice
17. Spoon spring onion condiment over pork chops

Moroccan Lamb Shank Tagine

the name of the dish (tagine, طاجن) comes from the name of the pot in which it is cooked. A cast iron pot/cocotte comes in very handy as a substitute. The uniqueness of the dish is that the contents are transformed by steaming and pressure-cooking, rather than braising or boiling. Multiply servings below depending on how big the feast is. Serve with fluffy couscous ⠀

Serves 2

Time: 🕰🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

1 lamb shank (we got ours from @feathernbonehk happy valley)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 onion
1/2 carrot
1/2 zucchini
1/2 tomato
3 new potatoes
1 handful of green peas
Olive oil

Method:

1. Defrost lamb shank
2. Coat bottom of cocotte or tagine pot with a few tablespoons of olive oil
3. Add lamb and all seasoning and spices and mix well
4. Place cocotte on flame, add 3 tablespoons of water, then cover and infuse for 10 minutes on medium-low heat without browning the lamb
5. Meanwhile, peel and cut potatoes into quarters
6. Cut onion into small chunks
7. Cut carrots and zucchini into large sticks
8. Cut tomato into small cubes
9. Open lid — the flavours should be well amalgamated
10. Sprinkle onion on the bottom of cocotte, with direct contact with the juices
11. Layer carrots and zucchini in a circular pattern, pointing to the centre, like setting up a campfire
12. Fit in potatoes between the carrot and zucchini sticks
13. Place tomatoes in the centre, on top of the shank, to keep it moist
14. Sprinkle with green peas
15. Add half a glass of hot water down the sides
16. Bring to boil
17. Drizzle with olive oil
18. Cover and cook on a low flame for 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours, until lamb is tender
19. Serve with fluffy couscous

Coq au Vin, simple ingredients version

One of the dishes that drew the world’s attention to French food.

We’re sure there are protected recipes of this dish, but for an informal weeknight meal, this could be whipped up with little attention and a large margin of error. We made this without usual ingredients such as mushrooms, bay leaf, thyme, pearl onions, burgundy red, chicken blood, and used very cheap whiskey (from corner store) instead of cognac, and the dish still felt complete.

Serves 2

Time: 🕰🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

Chicken thigh, deboned
2 glasses of chianti
Salt and pepper
1/3 carrot
1/2 onion
3 shallots from wet market
2-inch section of fennel stalk
1 tablespoon flour
1 small knob butter
2 bacon strips
1 tablespoon of contents of canned tomato
Chopped coriander

Method:

1. Wash chicken thigh and place in a small zip lock bag
2. Fill with red wine, salt, pepper, and leave to marinate — the longer the better
3. In a dry pan without any oil, brown bacon on both sides; set aside
4. Add butter to the pan
5. Take chicken out from marinate, pat very dry and brown on both sides, mopping up the brown residues at the bottom of the pan
6. While browning the chicken, chop carrots, onions, and fennel stalk, and add to one side of the pan
7. Sprinkle flour onto the vegetables, mix
8. Remove chicken; set aside; continue to brown vegetables until sticky and burnt but not black
9. Deglaze bottom of pan with a bit of red wine 🍷
10. Once red wine almost gone, add a splash of whisky and either flambé or cook off the alcohol
11. Add the entirety of the red wine marinade and also the spoonful of canned tomato contents to the pan
12. Cut bacon into slices and add two-thirds to the pan
13. Add chicken to the centre of the pan
14. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour
15. Meanwhile, peel and quarter shallots and caramelise with butter
16. Once the hour is up, add two-thirds of the shallots and the remainder of the bacon to the pan and give it a good stir
17. Plate with sauce, then chicken, then more sauce
18. Garnish with remaining caramelised shallots and some chopped coriander
19. Serve with good, toasted bread

Walnut Crostone with Cavalo Nero

Our closest bakery (Urban Bakery, Hysan Place, haha) had walnut bread at end of day, hence we use this instead of crusty Italian bread. Adds a great twist while still keeping in line with the spirit of this classic Tuscan dish. Cavalo nero #locallygrown

Serves 2

Time: 🕰
Effort: 💪

Ingredients:

2 leaves of cavalo nero⠀
2 slices crusty bread, or walnut loaf⠀
1/2 garlic clove ⠀
Salt⠀
Water⠀
Good e.v. Olive oil 

Method:

1. Slice two pieces of bread diagonally, around 1.5cm thick⠀
2. Select two leaves of cavalo nero of similar length ⠀
3. In a small pan, boil the leaves with salted water and garlic clove, until leaves are soft but not crumpled⠀
4. Set aside leaves to cool; retain liquid in pan ⠀
5. Toast bread until crunchy⠀
6. Soak bread in cooking liquid until softened on one side⠀
7. Place bread on tray, soaked side up⠀
8. Carefully lay one leaf on each slice⠀
9. Drizzle with olive oil and serve

Korean Pancakes with Seafood

We don’t know the first thing about Korean cooking, but this was pretty good! We added a sprinkle of baking powder, which made it slightly fluffy. Totally optional.

Makes 2 pancakes (pajeon)

Time: 🕰🕰 （exclude the 1 week pickling)
Effort: 💪

Ingredients:

1/2 teacup flour
1.5x amount in ice-cold water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (optional)
3 handfuls frozen seafood mix from USelect-Tesco
Greens of 6 spring onions
6 teaspoon Vegetable oil

For dipping sauce:
1/2 onion
6 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce
4 tablespoon water
3 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Method:

1. Chop onions into sizes of large marbles
2. Transfer to an air-tight container
3. Add with rest of dipping sauce ingredients and leave in fridge for one week
4. On the day, mix flour, water, sugar, and baking powder (optional) to form the batter
5. Sautée frozen seafood until cooked; pour out and reserve the cooking juices for broth or pasta
6. Get a non-stick frying pan very hot
7. Add half the oil; swirl to coat evenly
8. Arrange green onions, followed by seafood, in the oil
9. Pour batter over the ingredients in a thin and even layer
10. Once edges are coloured, check to see if bottom is golden brown; if yes, transfer onto a plate
11. Cover with another plate, flip, and add back to the pan to cook on the other side with the remaining oil
12. Once both sides golden and edges are crisp, remove from oil
13. Cut into squares and serve