Sloppy Joe Sliders with Padron Peppers

Who thought cafeteria food could taste so good?

Make the filling overnight for extra flavour. Serve with coleslaw (see separate post) and a glass of cold milk.⠀

Serves 2

Time: 🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

100g ground beef
10g butter
1/2 onion
1 garlic cloves
4 Taiwanese or Japanese padron peppers
3 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon tomato concentrate
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 dashes craft hot sauce
4 buns (from Garden in HK, or similar sources)

Method:

1. Tip ground beef and butter into pan and cook on medium heat until beef is browned and almost crisp, around 10 minutes
2. Meanwhile, finely chop onions, garlic, and two of the peppers
3. Remove beef from pan but reserve the fat; set aside
4. Add onions, garlic, peppers to the pan and cook until softened and slightly burned, around 15 minutes
5. Once the veg is ready, add the beef back in
6. Add ketchup, tomato concentrate, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and hot sauce
7. Mix well and taste; add additional salt if necessary
8. Put in fridge and use the next day, or during the week
9. On the day, split remaining two peppers in half and remove seeds
10. Roast on open fire until skin blisters
11. Transfer peppers to pan with a dash of olive oil to continue cooking on medium-low heat, until burned and completely softened; add salt
12. Cut buns in half and lightly toast — buns should be warm but not dry
13. Microwave the overnight beef filling
13. To serve, fill buns with the filling, which should be piping hot
14. Garnish with the burnt peppers

Horsehead with Fermented Soy Beans (麵醬蒸青根魚)

This is a delicate fish, steam no more than 3 minutes, otherwise the flesh will turn to mush. Also great for pan-frying.

Serves 2

Time: 🕰
Effort: 💪

Ingredients:

2 horsehead (青根) or white horsehead (馬頭)
2 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon salted yellow soy beans (粒豉)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon corn starch
1 teaspoon sugar
Garnish: hot oil, spring onion

Method:

1. Wash fish and pat dry
2. Mix everything else to form paste
3. Arrange fish onto plate
4. Spoon over paste
5. Steam for 3 minutes on medium-high flame
6. Turn off flame
7. Add chopped spring onions, cover lid for 1 minute
8. Pour over hot oil and serve

Lobster Bisque with Whiskey

Serve from a teapot for extra dramatic effect.

Serves 3

Time: 🕰🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪💪

Ingredients:

1 Boston Lobster
Whites of 2 leeks
1 celery stalk
3 garlic cloves
150ml cooking cream (~20% fat)
Big splash of whiskey
1.5L water
250ml vegetable stock
1/2 can pelati, strained
4 tablespoons tomato concentrate
3 tablespoons rice
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Basil

Method:

1. Put lobster in freezer at least 45 minutes beforehand so that it can be killed humanely
2. Preheat oven to 220’c
3. Kill the lobster with a sharp cut at the base of its head
4. Continue to split head down the middle
5. Split the rest of the tail down the middle
6. Remove the stomach (near the eyes) and keep the rest of the roe intact
7. Separate claws and knuckles either with chopper or sharp scissors
8. With the back of your knife, create cracks in claws and knuckles
9. Place lobster into roasting tray
10. Roughly slice leek whites and celery and add to the roasting tray
11. Roast in oven for 15 minutes
12. The lobster should be cooked and fragrant
13. Separate tail meat, claw meat, and knuckle meat from its shells: reserve for later
14. Transfer remainder of contents of roasting tray into a big soup pot
15. Add water to roasting tray and scrape up the bottom, leaving nothing to waste; tip liquid into soup pot
16. Add water and stock to soup pot and bring contents to the boil
17. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes to make a lobster stock
18. Strain the stock and return liquid to soup pot, setting the shells and vegetables aside
19. Add tomatoes, tomato concentrate, paprika, and rice to the stock and boil until rice is very soft, around 20 minutes
20. Blend with handheld blender until smooth and velvety
21. Add cayenne pepper; half the cream, and whiskey, and simmer for another 5-10 minutes, until alcohol is cooked away and the fumes are longer pungent
22. Add salt and pepper to taste, and more tomato concentrate to add more colour, as desired
23. Roughly chop up the lobster meat reserved earlier
24. Divide into bowls
25. In front of guests, pour bisque over the meat in each bowl
26. Finish with a swirl of cream, and chopped basil

Paccheri with Lobster and Lobster Paste

Serves 3

Time: 🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

240g paccheri rigati from @mercatogourmet_hk, or other good pasta (fettuccine are great)
1 local lobster (本地龍蝦, usually Panulirus homarus)
1/2 onion
20g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 box lobster paste
2 shots vodka
1/2 can pelati
Olive oil
Parsley

TIP

Lobster paste can be bought in frozen food shops and is a great way to flavour your dishes. It is made of roe, viscera, and head meat — by-products from suppliers who sell only the tails to consumers. Around HKD20 a box only.

Method:

1. Defrost lobster tails
2. Boil1. Place lobster in freezer at least 45 minutes in advance so that it can be killed humanely
2. Finely chop onion
3. Place butter, sugar and onion into a large pan and maintain on medium-low heat while you focus on other tasks
4. Bring large pot of salted water to the boil (it should have the saltiness of a salty soup)
5. Remove lobster from freezer and boil for 7 minutes for a large lobster, 5 minutes for a small one
6. Remove lobster and plunge into ice cold water to stop the cooking
7. Lower the saltiness of the lobster water by adding more water; bring to boil
8. Put in your pasta of choice
9. The onions should have softened by now
10. Add lobster paste to the onions and increase flame to medium
11. Once pan is dried up, deglaze with vodka
12. Add canned tomatoes and 3 ladles of pasta cooking water; maintain the simmer
13. Once the pasta is almost cooked but still a bit raw in the centre, transfer to the lobster sauce, along with more pasta water, until pasta is half submerged in liquid
14. Pull tail from lobster and de-shell
15. Divide tail into 6 pieces – 2 per person
16. Split head down the middle and remove stomach (near the eyes) but retain the roe
17. Add lobster to the pan
18: Cover with lid and cook for a further 3 minutes on medium-high heat, stirring several times, so that lobster meat is brought back to temperature, and the pasta has absorbed most of the cooking water
18. Plate the pasta, the tail meat, and the heads
17. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice
18. Garnish with finely chopped parsley (preferred) or shredded basil

Lobster and Mango Cocktail

Serves 3

Time: 🕰
Effort: 💪

Ingredients:

2 frozen lobster tails from USelect
3 kidney mangoes, or any seasonal mango
100ml full cream
1 teaspoon honey
2 teaspoon lemon
Basil leaves

Method:

1. Defrost lobster tails
2. Boil lobster tails for 5 minutes
3. Remove skin and seeds from mangoes
4. Chop mango meat into small chunks
5. Drain lobster tails and dip in ice water to stop the cooking
6. Slice lobster tails into chunks of similar size with the mango chunks
7. Mix honey, lemon, basil leaves (sliced thinly) and cream to form cocktail sauce
8. Assemble the amuse bouche: layer of mango, layer of lobster mixed with cocktail sauce, garnish with basil leaves

crispy Salmon Steak on a bed of Okra

Serves 2

Time: 🕰🕰
Effort: 💪💪

Ingredients:

2 salmon steaks
10 okras
Salt and pepper
Cayenne pepper
Cumin powder
Lemon juice
Olive oil

Method:

1. Bring salmon steaks to room temperature and pat dry with kitchen towel
2. Slice off heads and tails of okras
3. Slice okras into small discs, less than 1cm
4. Put okra into a small pan with a drizzle of olive oil and salt
5. Cook on medium-low heat and forget about it, while you prepare the salmon
6. Salt salmon steaks on both sides
7. Sprinkle with cumin and cayenne pepper on both sides
8. Get a frying pan hot – almost smoking hot
9. Add oil, followed quickly by salmon steaks, skin side down (remember: hot pan, cold oil)
10. Leave to cook and crisp without disturbing, around 4 minutes
11. Check colour of skin by flipping up corner of the steak
12. If colour is ok, shake pan to release the skin, which should be crisp and no longer sticking to pan
13. Flip salmon and brown on the other side, around 2 minutes
14. Give one final flip and lower the heat to minimum, in order to continue crisping the skin while you plate
15. Place okra onto serving plate to form a bed
16. Add sides of your desire – pictured: boiled and mashed Japanese pumpkin, with leftover pickled romanesco from the fridge
17. Place salmon onto okra bed, skin-side up
18. Squeeze with a few drops of lemon juice onto the salmon