Go Behind the Scenes and Into the Untour Kitchens
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Cook With UnTour G O B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S A N D I N T O T H E U N T O U R K I T C H E N S Thank You! We really appreciate your support. To say thank you, we have not digitally restricted this product so you can use your cookbook across all your devices. Please help us achieve our goal of making great food accessible all around the world by not torrenting or sharing this cookbook. We are donating 25% of all proceeds of Cook with UnTour to Off Their Plate, a grassroots organization that supplies free meals to these healthcare workers AND employs restaurant staff who would otherwise be out of a job. If you want to share this cookbook with your friends and family, please send them to: untourfoodtours.com/cookbook You’ll be helping us make it through this crisis so we can go on to lead tours for years to come, as well as getting resources to those who need it most right now: frontline healthcare workers and local restaurants. Happy eats, The UnTour Food Tours Team Table of Contents CHINESE PANTRY 4 - HOMEMADE CHILI OIL (辣椒油) - HOMEMADE FERMENTED CHILI SAUCE (辣椒酱) HOW TO SEASON A WOK 7 COLD DISHES & SALADS 8 - SPICY SMASHED CUCUMBER (拍⻩⽠) - PEANUT & TOON SALAD (⾹椿拌⻩⽣⽶) NOODLES 10 - BIANG BIANG NOODLES ( ⾯) - DRY-FRIED BEEF NOODLES(⼲炒⽜河) - SCALLION OIL NOODLES (葱油拌⾯) - TAIWANESE BEEF NOODLES (台湾⽜⾁⾯) - WEI XIANG ZHAI'S SESAME NOODLES (味⾹斋⿇酱⾯) - WUHAN HOT DRY NOODLES (武汉热⼲⾯) DUMPLINGS 19 - BOILED DUMPLING WRAPPERS(饺⼦⽪) - HOW TO WRAP & BOIL DUMPLINGS - PORK & CABBAGE BOILED DUMPLINGS (猪⾁⽩菜馅⽔饺) - VEGETARIAN BOILED DUMPLINGS (素⽔饺) - LIAU FAMILY DUMPLING DIPPING SAUCE (廖记⽔饺蘸料酱) - CANTONESE SHRIMP DUMPLINGS (虾饺) - SHANGHAI SOUP DUMPLINGS (⼩笼包) MAIN DISHES 26 - JIANBING (煎饼) - STEAMED HAIRY CRAB (⼤闸蟹) - MONGOLIAN STYLE HOTPOT (涮⽺⾁) - SESAME HOTPOT DIPPING SAUCE (⽕锅蘸酱) - DRY-FRIED GREEN BEANS (⼲煸四季⾖) - STIR-FRIED EGG & TOMATO NOODLE SOUP (番茄鸡蛋汤) DESSERT 32 - ALMOND TOFU (杏仁⾖腐) - OLD BEIJING YOGURT (⽼北京奶酪) Chinese Pantry First things first – if you want to make great Chinese food, you’ll need a proper pantry. Don’t worry if you don’t have all of these! The recipes in this book don’t call for every item we’ve listed below, and we’ve only included things here that occur in multiple recipes so will be most useful. For other hard-to-find ingredients that don’t come up that often, we’ve added links to Amazon, Mala Market, Fly By Jing, and other specialty shops right in the recipe. Dry Goods - Dumpling Flour (饺⼦粉) – ask for dumpling flour at your local Asian market. If you cannot find dumpling flour, you can use all-purpose flour. To make it as fine as the dumpling flour, you can mill it one or two times, but it’s not necessary. You can also use dumpling flour to make noodles, as we do in the Biang Biang Noodle Recipe on page 12. If your Asian market has pre- made dumping wrappers and you’re planning to make a lot of dumplings, don’t be a hero. You should just buy those. Vinegars - Zhenjiang Black Rice Vinegar (镇江⾹醋) - From Jiangsu province near Shanghai, this rice based vinegar is used more in dipping sauces and cooking in the South. You can substitute balsamic vinegar here, but it won’t be the same. - Shaanxi Mature Aged Vinegar (⼭西⽼陈醋)- From Shaanxi province – Xi’an is the capital city – this vinegar uses sorghum, wheat, barley, or bran (but NOT rice). You’ll see this more in Northern cooking and dipping sauces. Soy Sauces - Light Soy Sauce (⽣抽): This is the first run-off from the fermented soybeans – expect it to be light in both color and texture (thin & runny). Light soy sauce is for flavor, and that flavor is very salty. - Dark Soy Sauce (⽼抽): This is what’s left over after the light soy sauce is extracted – expect it to be dark in both color and texture (thicker, more molasses-like). Dark soy sauce is for color (and less salty), and used to bring out deep colors as opposed to the light soy sauce. Chili Oils -Chili Crisp (辣椒脆): This addictive (and not that spicy) Sichuan sauce combines garlic, shallots, ginger and chili flakes to make a drizzle that goes good on everything from dumplings to vanilla ice cream to everything in between. Trust us. For the best version, order from Fly By Jing. - Chinese Chili Oil(辣椒油) – we recommend making this yourself rather than buying it. It’s easy to do, and if you make a small, fresh batch every time you need it, you’ll never go back to having cold, out-of-the-fridge chili oil again! See below. Other Sauces - Chinese Sesame Paste (⿇酱): Sure, you can use tahini here, but Chinese sesame seeds are toasted before being ground into paste, so you’ll lose a lot of that yummy nutty flavor if you do. - Shaoxing Wine (⻩酒): Like any cooking wine, you want to use a high quality product that you can cook with or drink straight. - Sesame Oil (芝⿇油): A little goes a long way. You’ll be using this bottle for years. - Rapeseed Oil (菜籽油): This is also known as canola oil. With a high smoke point, this is great for fast cooking in woks. Homemade Chili Oil (辣椒油) (Recipe by Garth Wilson, Beijing Guide) Tip: Really freshly-made, still-warm chili oil is so much better than taking a jar out of the refrigerator. This will change your life. Ingredients - 1 tbsp red chili flakes - 2-3 tbsp neutral oil with a high smoke point (rapeseed, peanut, or rice bran) Method 1.Put the chili flakes in a heatproof dish 2.Heat the oil until ~300°F/150°C. 3.Pour over the chili flakes into the dish and let cool. Variations: Feel free to add some aromatics to your oil while heating it, like cassia bark or cinnamon, star anise, Sichuan peppercorn, bay leaf, cardamom, etc. Just strain the oil as you pour it into the chili flakes. You can also add some Sichuan peppercorn to the chili flakes if you'd like some numbing spice. Homemade Fermented Chili Sauce (辣椒酱) (Recipe by Carla Bellamans, former Shanghai Guide) Ingredients - 1.7 oz / 50g dried Erjingtiao chilis - 1 tsp / 5g salt - 3-4 tbsp / 45-60 grams baijiu* (any brand will do – even the cheap RMB 5 type you can get in convenience stores in China) Method 1. Wash the chilis and discard the tops. Dry in the sun (or air dry in the house) until completely dry. 2. Blend in a blender with salt and baijiu. 3. Put the mixture in a clean, dark pot with a good lid. 4. At first, the sauce will only be salty but after some time, fermentation will start and a rich acidic flavor will develop. The longer you keep the sauce, the more complex and deeper the flavor will grow. Too much salt inhibits the fermentation process, and not enough salt and your sauce will grow moldy at which stage you have to discard the lot. So make sure you use a 10% ratio salt to chili. *Baijiu literally translates as ‘white alcohol’ made from grains like rice, sorghum, wheat, or corn, but encompasses a wide range of Chinese spirits that can be as dissimilar from one another as tequila and rum, generally between 40–60% (ABV). It is the most widely-consumed spirit in the world, yet virtually unknown outside of China. How to Season a Wok If you’ve bought a new wok, it will be shiny and silver. That’s not what we want! We want woks to have “wok hei” or the breath of the wok that infuses everything that’s cooked in it with flavor. 1. Remove the factory oil that was added to prevent rust. Fill a sink with hot, soapy water and scrub the inside and outside of the wok with a scouring pad. Rinse completely, then dry with a towel. Place the wok on the stovetop over low heat to completely dry it. 2. Select a seasoning oil – we recommend rapeseed, but peanut works too. 3. Preheat the wok on high heat. Make sure there’s plenty of room around the wok – it will get very hot – and open windows and doors and turn on your exhaust as things are about to get smoky. Splash a drop of water on the wok. Once it evaporates immediately, the wok is ready: ~1 minute. 4. Take the wok off the stove and add in about 2 tbsp / 30 g of oil. 5. Reduce heat to medium and put the wok back on the stove. 6. Add aromatics like chopped onions, ginger, and garlic to the pan. This helps to keep the wok from smoking. 7. Spread the mixture and cover the entire surface of your wok from rim to bottom. Continue doing this for about 20 minutes over medium heat. Watch for color changes – it should go from shiny and silver to light yellow or brown. 8. If you notice ingredients are becoming too dry or are starting to burn, add in more oil, a little at a time. 9. Dump mixture out, and let the wok cool down. 10. Wash the wok with hot water (no dish soap). 11. Place wok back on stovetop over low heat to completely dry and evaporate all water. 12. Your wok is ready to be used! But if you want that real wok hei, you should do this 1-2 more times.