鄭立勳。常滿。Bountiful。Mandy Cheng: 2019-06

Showing posts with label 2019-06. Show all posts

Salted duck egg

I made salted egg before, but the yolk is never sandy and oily like shop bought ones. Read a friend's blog about making it by rolling the egg in alcohol first and stored them longer than the standard 28 days.

salting duck eggs

With some new tricks it is worth to try again, indeed after keeping them in 20% salt solution with a couple of star anise for extra fragrance, and on 38 days, I cooked one to see the result. It worked, the yolk is tasty, oily and sandy. The white is very salty, so best used in soup for seasoning.

Potato, zucchini, coriander soup seasoned with salted egg

potato, zucchini, coriander soup with salted duck egg

A simple soup to make using whatever veg that is available in the garden. I grow a lot of coriander, and the stalk is very aromatic, best used in a soup.

1. Wash and dry shrimps, warm in oil until fragrant.

2. Add to water and simmer with coriander stalk, potato cubes and salted egg yolk.

3. Gently stir-fry zucchini, cut into cubes, at medium heat to draw out flavor.

4. Add zucchini into soup, stir in salted egg white, and add coriander leaves just before serving.

5. Cut salted egg yolk into halves, and add nasturtium flowers around for decoration.

Hemerocallis (day lily) 黃花菜

This family of lily is very common here, grows well without much looking after, it will spread easily with the underground bulbs, there are many different colours and number of petals.

I only learned from studying internet vegetable catalogue that the flower bud is actually edible, and a popular dish in Asia.

Sure last year I ordered and planted the bulb of the edible variety and now I can start to harvest the buds.

Hemerocallis (day lily) 黃花菜

I do not have a lot of expectation from it in the beginning, but what a surprise. There is a pleasant texture and a mild sweet taste, actually a good finger food, and a pretty one, for pre-dinner drinks.

Hemerocallis (day lily) 黃花菜

Blanch them in water, the buds will soften and open up slightly.

Cabbage 2 ways

cabbage

Harvested a beautifully formed cabbage, enough for 2 meals and devised 2 ways to prepared it.

Slowed cooked with dried shrimp

cabbage with dried shrimp

I do not have a powerful stove like in the restaurant to force flavor out of ingredients in the intense heat, but I feel that slow cooking in medium heat actually can draw out a lot of flavor.

Wash dried shrimp and warm in oil until fragrant, add cabbage and stir-fry gently in medium heat, no need to add water or any seasoning yet. The mild heat will gradually draw moisture out of the leaves and concentrate the flavor.

When edge turns golden, season with salt, mix well and ready to serve.

Raw cabbage with dried fruit and nuts

raw cabbage with dried fruit and nuts

Cut cabbage finely, season with around 1% its weight of salt, white pepper, mix well and rest for at least an hour, or keep in the fridge for later use.

Cabbage will become soft with the salt treatment, mix in thick yogurt or sour cream, dried fruit, walnut and edible flowers like Calendula and Nasturtium.

Vegetable garden benefited from heat wave

sweet corn plants

End May and early June have been unusually cold and wet, young vegetable seedlings have been struggling to survive, without much growth.

zucchini

Then followed a week of intense heat, with enough watering, the plants enjoyed the needed warmth and growth picks up tremendously. Finally the vegetable garden looks lush green.

soy bean

beetroot, carrot, parsnip

cabbage

3 days tour of Zermatt area, Switzerland

Day 3

cable car up to Matterhorn Glacier Paradise

Take cable car up to Matterhorn Glacier Paradise at 3883m, highest station in Europe. Fabulous view of snow mountains all around, there is a gallery dug into the glacier with ice sculptures around.

Matterhorn Glacier Paradise

On the way down, get off at the last station Furi, follow the sign to Gorner gorge. The trail goes through a couple of groups of traditional wooden buildings, among a rich carpet of wild flowers.

Furi village

Furi village, lush green and packed with wild flowers

Gorner gorge

The gorge board walk was built 150 years ago by hand using traditional methods and local materials. It is hanging along the river edge on the rock surface, crossing the rushing river at the narrowest point.

Gorner gorge walk

The walk ends at the outskirts of Zermatt. This is the end of 3 action packed days with excellent panoramic views everywhere.

3 days tour of Zermatt area, Switzerland

Day 2

Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge

It is the photo of this world longest suspension bridge Charles Kuonen on a travel magazine that caught my eyes. 500m long, deep in the forest, without any road access, it is really very unusual. Then found that it is very close to Zermatt and great to make a short trip to visit that area for an active holiday.

Randa traditional farm huts

Take train to Randa, second stop from Zermatt, follow direction to go to Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge. The up hill walk is hard, nearly 2 hours zigzaging up the steep hill to get there.

trail up to Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge

Randa is at around 2000m altitude, the hike up is strenuous, it is advisable to acclimatize the day before at Zermatt high mountains. Bring walking stick and do not attempt when the trail is wet.

Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge

The bridge is rigid to walk on, do not swing much, with views of snow topped mountains and glaciers around.

Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge

Walk same way back to Randa.

Charles Kuonen Suspension bridge

3 days tour of Zermatt area, Switzerland

Day 1 afternoon

Take funicular up to Sunnegga, then cable car to Blauherd, walk some of the 5 lakes trails. Good high altitude walking and fantastic mountain scenery.

Sunnegga 5 lakes trail


Sunnegga 5 lakes trail

Sunnegga 5 lakes trail

3 days tour of Zermatt area, Switzerland

An action packed 3 days, using mountain climbing train, funicular and cable cars to get to the peaks, for panoramic views and for hiking.

Base in either Zermatt or Tasch, buy 2 or 3 days pass to use all forms of transport and entrance fees.

Day 1 morning

Matterhorn

Gornergrat station

Take the train up to Gornergrat top, great view of Matterhorn, walk around the viewing area.

Gornergrat station

Take train to one station down at Rotenboden, follow trail to a few lakes for the reflection of Matterhorn, return to the next station Riffelbert to get down.

Matterhorn reflection trail

New potato Rose de France

Potato grows well this year, flowered and fruited, it is time to starting digging them up, 2 plants at a time as needed on the tabel. While still small, they have a waxy texture and nutty flavor.

potato with fresh herbs

1. Cut them in halves vertically to similar thickness, place in a single layer in a pan, add a cm high of water, simmer until cooked. Cutting in halves takes less time to cook than a whole potato, and is easier to see that the middle of the potato is cooked, there is a colour change from outside to inside, around 5 minutes-10minutes depending on thickness.

2. Place potato in a dish, add butter, fresh herbs like coriander, fennel frond and season with salt.

Salmon fish tail in tomato sauce

The remaining wild Atlantic salmon tail is cooked in a light sauce using semi-dried tomato from last year and miso as flavoring.

1. Season fish tail with salt and white pepper.

2. Bring to boil a sauce using a cup of water, slices of ginger, coriander stalk, miso, semi-dried tomato, soy sauce, brown sugar and rice wine.

3. Place fish tail into the sauce, simmer gently for 4 minutes each side, rest for another 5 minutes. Add coriander leaves just before serving.

Savoy cabbage with quinoa

Savoy cabbage

I planted Savoy cabbage and green cabbage seedlings in mid March, under net cover to avoid white butterfly laying eggs. They should form a head in 3 months' time.

While green cabbage is doing well, the Savoy cabbage has no sign of the head yet. Since there is not much to harvest at the moment, I decide to pick the outer leaves of the Savoy cabbage and cook them like normal. The leaves look thick and rough but are actually easy to cook soft, I feel that they have more flavor than kale.

Savoy cabbage with quinoa

1. Sweat garlic, add Savoy cabbage(cut into shreds), cut up dried apricot or raisin, season with salt, simmer with half a cup of water.

2. When soft, add sour cream and cooked quinoa, stir to mix well.

Freshly caught shad

Fisherman is having very good luck with the timing in catching shad, which only feed at dawn and twilight. Brought back 2 the other night and after cleaning both and baking, the dinner is served really late.

Compare with wild salmon, the flesh of shad is more delicate, oily and juicy. The two fish looks very similar and the reasons why salmon is much more popular than shad and being fished to near extinct are first, shad has many fine bones, so need to be very careful in eating it; second is shad turns smelly very fast and salmon can last for a long time without giving bad odour.

baked shad

Season both sides with salt, bake at 180˚C, the big one for 20 minutes and smaller one 15 minutes, then leave the oven door ajar and rest for further 5 minutes.

Edible flowers, calendula and nasturtium

calendula

This year I grow 2 types of edible flowers, calendula and nasturtium, both produce flowers from summer to autumn and are pretty.

Calendula flower petals do not have much flavor but is said to contain lutein which is good for the eyes.

nasturtium

On the other hand, nasturtium flower has a mild cucumber sweetness with a back spicy note, really good for decorating any dish.