New life

I mustn't let things slip here too much - I have a backlog of articles again! To keep things ticking over, this is a quick photographic update on my seedlings.

When chillies, aubergines, and tomatoes germinate, they emerge as a little thread like this, straightening out after a few days.

These are chilli seedlings.

I tend to pre-soak large seeds, like sweetcorn, peas, and beans. It's useful for older seeds especially, allowing you to see which are viable and which are dead. These have been neglected though - their main root has withered, but they should recover.

After a couple of days, the peas (in this case, purple-podded) begin to grow towards the light.

The broad beans are treated likewise. This is 'Aquadulce longpod', a robust green-seeded variety.

Chillies: the plan

I've written at length on the many tomatoes I've grown and will be growing, but this year there are other plans (and plants). Chillies are something I've had mixed experiences with in the past; shop-bought plants often thrive, even outdoors - so long as they get lots of sunshine and adequate watering. In fact, you treat them rather like their close relatives tomatoes (and aubergines), in that they are hungry, thirsty, heat-loving plants, but they seem less prone to disease. From seed, however, I've never succeeded, in part because I haven't been careful enough. Last year I concentrated on tomatoes to the detriment of their kin, which I left lingering as seedlings until they gave up, so this time I'm sowing them earlier - also because chillies seem to be much slower to germinate and grow.

There are many advantages to growing chillies. The plants are small, tending to grow to a fixed size, small bushes at most. This means they need no pruning and little support. The fruits aren't juicy, so they need less water and cope better with drought. Many of their fruits are small, but intensely-flavoured, so you can easily grow enough for your needs - whereas self-sufficiency in most crops is beyond the home grower with an small garden, it's not at all unrealistic in this case. Finally, they can be overwintered - at the very least, the fruits will keep well on the plant, even if it dies, and you might get a second flush the following year (in fact, all these plants are perennials in their homeland).

So here are the varieties I'm going to try. Apologies for poor-quality photos; there aren't many available. The heat ratings (﹆﹆﹆, ﹅﹆﹆, ﹅﹅﹆, ﹅﹅﹅ for no heat, mild, medium, and hot respectively) and other info are from The Chileman, an excellent online resource on the subject:

Black Hungarian ﹅﹅﹆

photo: conalloughry

Attractive Hungarian heirloom variety, with red-to-deepest-purple fruits, and purple flowers. Good flavour.

Chocolate beauty ﹆﹆﹆

photo: Gelatobaby

A dark bell pepper, no heat. An F1 (breaking my normal rules, but I didn't know this when I bought the seeds) with deep-red-to-dark-brown, large fruits.

Corno di toro rosso ﹆﹆﹆


Long, often curved, horn-shaped sweet fruits from Italy. Like the long bell peppers sold in supermarkets, I'm hoping, perfect for stuffing with goat cheese.

Costeno amarillo ﹅﹅﹆


Medium-sized, narrow golden fruits, thin-fleshed with complex aroma, used in yellow mole (Mexican chilli) stews.

Habanero mustard ﹅﹅﹅+


Rare; peach-coloured, warped, blunt fruits, extremely hot.

Hungarian yellow wax ﹅﹅﹆


Long, pointed, Hungarian variety, ripening to orange or red, but harvested unripe when pale yellow-green. Good for pickling.

Onza ﹅﹅﹆?


Could be one of two varieties, either Mexican or Italian (I think it more likely I'm growing the Mexican one). Either way, little information is available.

Red cherry ﹅﹆﹆

photo: Scott Hamlin

A number of similar varieties exist; probably mild, small, round, red fruits. Varying heat. Good for pickling or stuffing with cheese.

I'll post an update once they've started growing.

Big plate chicken (大盘鸡)

For a food blog, I haven't written much about the stuff recently! To be honest, I've been concentrating on the garden, and unusually for me, I've not been flicking through cookery books for a good few weeks. Well, I've dug out a few in the past couple of days, but this recipe doesn't feature in any of them.

In fact, this is another recipe I owe to my brother - in a manner of speaking. The last time I visited him in London (to help him move into his new flat), he recommended we visit a restaurant he'd been to before. It was unusual - focusing on the cuisine of Xinjiang, the largest and least Chinese region of China. My brother and I have long been fascinated by Central Asia and the Silk Road, so it was perfect. A review had appeared, I think in the Guardian, and had attracted the attention of my brother's colleagues. He went, and liked it, despite the spiciness and exoticism of a lot of the food.

We went, and had "big plate chicken", much the best main course according to my brother. Incidentally, I tried tripe for the first time - skewered, char-grilled, and spiced. It was flaccid and bland. But the chicken was great - rich, hot, copious. It turns out, this is the definitive dish of the region - a fusion of Chinese and Turkic. Effectively it's a chicken and vegetable stew, with spices and noodles. Potatoes and rustic, hand-drawn noodles hint at the harsh simplicity of landlocked peasant food, and the Chinese influence is felt in the inclusion of soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, Sichuan pepper and star anise. Like most of my favourite recipes, it can be altered to suit many tastes, and a lot of the ingredients are optional.

"Big plate" chicken • Dàpánjī • 大盘鸡

ingredients

• chicken
• potatoes
• onion/spring onion
• bell pepper (Capsicum)
  
• garlic
• ginger
• tomato (tinned, fresh, or puréed)
  
• oil
• chilli (fresh or dried)
• soy sauce
• Shaoxing rice wine/sherry/beer
• noodles
• star anise
• Sichuan pepper
• Xinjiang spice mix*

*This spice mix is a combination of cumin, Sichuan pepper, black pepper, salt, chilli powder, ground ginger, and garlic powder, ground together. Alternatively, just add toasted cumin seeds, salt and pepper to the main stew, and extra chilli if necessary.

method

1. Peel and roughly chop the potatoes. Finely slice the onion or spring onion. De-seed and chop the pepper. Peel and finely chop the garlic and ginger.
2. Heat oil in a wok or large pan. Fry the Xinjiang spice mix, or substitute spices, for a minute, to release the fragrance. Add the chicken, and brown for several minutes. Add the potato, onion, garlic, pepper, chilli, and ginger, and cook for another few minutes - do not allow to brown.
3. Add a generous glug of rice wine and soy sauce, a spoon or two of Sichuan pepper, two or three star anise, and the tomato. Add enough water to cover the potatoes and chicken, and bring to the boil.
4. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for two hours or more, until the potatoes are tender, and the chicken is well cooked.
5. Add the noodles. Fresh noodles can be added straight in; dried should be rehydrated according to packet instructions before adding. Serve immediately.
   

notes and substitutions

• I use chicken on the bone. Today I jointed a whole chicken, cutting it into ten pieces - halving each breast, separating the wings, the legs and the thighs. You could use chicken legs, thighs, breast, or any combination - but meat on the bone will take longer and add more flavour (and it's more authentic).
• Most of the vegetables are optional, except the potatoes. I added carrot today, but used no onions. Any colour pepper is fine, though I believe green is most common.
• Any oil is acceptable, as the strong flavours will overpower even something assertive, like extra virgin olive oil. Peanut and sesame are most authentic, I suppose.
• The noodles are traditionally handmade, rough 'la mian', or pulled noodles. I've done a simple wheat and water noodle, but today I used prehydrated egg noodles for speed and simplicity. Coarser noodles work best. You could omit them, and serve it as it is, or with bread.
• I rarely use rice wine or any alcohol - it's not essential, though will obviously add some complexity. White wine, sake, or even a dash of mirin might work as alternatives.
• I often add a little sugar, especially if the chilli levels are too high. The spices can be adjusted up or down to your taste. I do recommend tracking down star anise and Sichuan pepper (unrelated to black pepper), however - both are widely used in Chinese cooking, featuring in five spice mix (along with cloves, cassia, and fennel seed).

It's a great dish for cold weather - rich, warming, satisfying. You can make in in the oven or a slow cooker, too - after the ingredients have been pre-fried. Slow cooking in particular renders the meat incredibly tender.

Asian Improvisation

I selected a few recipes to make in the first half of this month, mostly from Delicious magazine back-issues and my new Rick Stein book (Far Eastern Odyssey). I stocked up on meat, some vegetables, spices and SE Asian speciality ingredients, and then promptly ignored half the recipes.

So I had a chicken, and decided to create my own Asian broth rather than follow a recipe. It's a first attempt, and therefore somewhat less polished than my normal posts, but it's good enough for me to want to record it here for future reference.

Ingredients

1 medium chicken

1 stick celery, chopped

2 sprigs fresh green peppercorns

2-3 star anise

2 large lemongrass stems, peeled, topped and tailed, and chopped

2 large cloves garlic, squashed but not peeled

4-5 cloves

2cm stick cinnamon, crushed

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 large bay leaf

3-4cm root ginger, peeled and chopped

2-3 lesser galangal roots, chopped but not peeled

1 tbsp dried shrimp

2 limes

1 hot chilli (I used Scotch bonnet), halved

fish sauce

chestnut or shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1/4 white cabbage (or pak choi, water spinach or other bland leafy vegetable), thinly sliced

1/2 packet rice noodles (I used pad thai)

2-3 spring onions, finely chopped

palm sugar or light brown sugar

sweet chilli sauce to serve

Put the chicken into a large pan. Add the celery, green and black pepper, spices, lemongrass, garlic, bay leaf, ginger and galangal, and dried shrimp, but not the chilli (unless you want it to be very hot). Add enough cold water to cover the chicken.

Bring to the boil, cover the pan and simmer for 1-1/2 hours, until the chicken meat starts to fall off the bone.

Remove the chicken carefully, set aside. Strain the soup, return to the pan. Add the chilli, continue simmering. Taste regularly, and when it has reached the desired level of hotness, remove the chilli.

Meanwhile, remove the meat from the chicken and shred with forks. Season the soup with fish sauce, the juice of the limes, and the sugar, to taste. Add the cabbage and mushrooms, and return the shredded meat to the pan. Simmer until the cabbage is almost tender, then add the noodles.

Serve when the noodles are tender, sprinkled with spring onion and chilli sauce.