Onion Bread, Beef with Broccoli and Maggie’s Special Recipe No. 3 Lemon Chicken Fillet from “New Idea’s: Let’s Cook Chinese.” by Maggie Han Hawthorne

In the past I have tried to cook Chinese recipes and failed each time.  It seemed that the skill set and abilities to cook this type of cuisine was beyond my ability.  (Yes, I know there are many different types including Hunan, Cantonese, Sichuan etc.  I don’t wish to detail all the failures.) Any time an attempt was made, the food was edible but failed to taste anything like the food I enjoyed from skilled Chinese cooks.  Eventually I gave up.

Despite this there are at least 5 ‘Chinese’ cook books on the shelf.  This one was chosen randomly and any attempt to replace this book and choose another led to a reminder that we are reviewing all the cook books.  No one stepped forward to volunteer for this cooking adventure so, after lots of sighing and threats of edible but bad food, the agreement was made.

This cookbook is second hand and to my knowledge I have not used any recipe from it.  It was apparently printed in either the 1970’s or 1980’s (no publication date).  Looking through the recipes it seemed clear it was a product of its time and it was difficult to accept some of the combinations.

All the tasters like Spring Onion pancakes/Shallot pancakes/Green Onion pancakes and it was suggested these might be similar with hope and optimism.

We had broccolini available (as it is preferred to broccoli), which made the Beef with Broccoli a logical chose and in consolation for my fear of disaster the Lemon Chicken Fillet was the final choice.

 

The marinades for the chicken and beef were prepared and Chinese rice cooking wine was substituted for sherry as it was already open and seemed to be a more (maybe?) authentic ingredient.  Both the beef and chicken were put in the refrigerator to give them time to marinade while contemplating the next step.

Beginning with the Onion Bread seemed sensible and the recipe looked simple and short.  Looks may deceive.  It was a new technique to make hot water pastry and quite a challenge not to burn my hands while mixing the flour and water together.  Originally, a spoon was used but did not seem effective which meant using the hands.

The pastry became quite stiff when permitted to cool and was difficult to knead.  It might have been better if it had been kneaded until it was elastic in texture, but the recipe did not specify that.  It was difficult to roll out to the 6mm required.

Lindsay wandered into the kitchen at this time and was dragooned into helping.  Poor Lindsay.  Kitchens can be dangerous to the unwary.

Sprinkling the spring onions over the dough was easy but attempting to knead the dough with the spring onion was very hard.  It may have worked better if the spring onions had most of the moisture removed before this was attempted.

A very approximate cylinder was eventually formed and cut into the required pieces and rolled once more, but due to the pastry it was very difficult to roll it thinly.

The other steps were completed until it came to cook them.  Lindsay who had helped with the rolling and reassuring that we were following the recipe, was placed in charge of frying the bread.

Knowing the bread was in capable hands my attention now focused on the beef.  Being a little tired from the work required for the Onion Bread it seemed that cutting the carrot and bamboo shoots into pretty shapes was not an essential task, so a baby capsicum was added for colour.  The question “How do you cut broccolini into shapes?” is not a question that can be answered in this blog.  The broccolini was cut into pieces, but that is all.

The beef was easy to cook and took little time or effort to complete.  Hoi Sin sauce was substituted for Oyster sauce because it was the cooks’ decision and the cook hates Oyster Sauce (and there wasn’t any in the house).

Realising the recipe directed the chicken was deep fried raised the usual dilemma: should the deep fryer be used, or just a saucepan?  As the amount of chicken was limited it seemed quicker and easier to use a saucepan.

The chicken seemed to cook quite quickly and the lemon sauce was made around the same time.  Normally liquid would have been added slowly to the cornflour to make certain no lumps were formed but the instructions did not mention that.  Cooking the mixture had strange effects on the egg yolk and the resulting sauce looked unappealing, while the chicken looked very good.

I’d demurred about including the glace cherries.  Glace cherries with lemon chicken? It seemed weird, it looked weird and there seemed to be indications it might taste odd.  On first looking at the recipe photo the glace cherries were like a warning beacon but as this blog tries to follow the recipe (mostly) we agreed the glace cherries would be included.

By the time both the beef and chicken dishes were ready, the onion bread was not.  Lindsay indicated, many times frying each piece took a long, long time.  The last piece was left cooking on the stove while we ate the rest of the meal. (This did not cause any problems).

Tasting

The Onion Bread

It looked okay but after questioning the exclusion of salt and dipping sauce for the bread I wondered how it might taste.  The spring onion flavour was present and the bread was okay but it needed something more.  Some salt in the dough would have helped but instead we used Soy Sauce.  For the amount of effort and time the onion bread was a disappointment.

Beef with Broccoli (or Broccolini)

The beef was tender, the broccolini was still slightly crunchy, and the sauce brought out the flavours of both. It is now on the list of dishes to be cooked regularly as it was very good.

Maggie’s Special Recipe No. 3 Lemon Chicken Fillet

Even though it was deep fried the chicken was not greasy, but instead light and very easy to eat, almost too easy.  As the chicken had been marinated before cooking, the flavour was very good.  Some attempts were made by the tasters to ‘liberate’ the chicken from the other tasters so they would not be forced to eat it.  (In other words, each taster did not wish to share the chicken).

At first no one tried the sauce, or ate the glace cherries.  Eventually we did sample the sauce and it wasn’t good.  Very, very bitter as there seemed to be too much lemon juice.  As a challenge three of us dipped a piece of chicken in the sauce and ate it with a glace cherry.  The sweetness of the cherry offset the bitterness of the sauce and it was quite pleasant.  There have been many requests for the chicken to be cooked once more and served without the sauce, or the cherries.

Verdict.

Once again it seemed this cookbook would be sent to find another home, but instead it will be kept.  As mentioned before, some of the recipes seem peculiar and do not conform to the current understanding of Chinese cooking.  All the same, other recipes seem easy with an interesting combination of ingredients.

So, New Idea’s Let’s Cook Chinese, you will remain on the sagging bookshelf, safe while being jostled by those cook books whose fates have yet to be decided.  Deep Fried Beef with Walnuts sounds good.