The Year of the Dog
YESTERDAY, February 16, saw the start of the Chinese New Year, taking us in to the Year of the Dog. Famous people born in a Year of the Dog include Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Clinton, Herbert Hoover, Golda Meir, Mother Teresa, Voltaire, Confucius, Dame Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Steven Spielberg.
The Chinese consider the dog to be an auspicious animal, and if a dog comes to your house, it is thought to symbolise the coming of fortune. People born in the Year of the Dog are usually loyal, responsible, courageous and valiant, although they can also be stubborn, emotional and sensitive.
The celebrations last longer than our January 1 ones, with most employees in China having at least seven days off work and schools and colleges closed for a month. Foods prepared and served during the celebrations tend to have special significance. Noodles are left uncut, to signify a long life; prawns are for laughter, fish for an abundance of luck and happiness and goldenfried dumplings represent wealth, because they look “like gold nuggets”. Pigs are a symbol of plumpness or abundance, and therefore any pork dish symbolises prosperity. Our first recipe this week combines that symbolic prosperity with a sweet and sticky Peking-style glaze indicating “a sweet year ahead” and “family cohesiveness”. Even the red tint to the sauce is significant as red is the Chinese colour for celebration, prosperity and longevity. 1 tablespoon sugar A pinch of Chinese five-spice powder 1-2 tablespoons water 4 tablespoons sunflower oil 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Cut the pork into 1cm thick slices and pound with a mallet or the back of a kitchen knife until tender.
Mix the egg, sherry, cornflour and salt together in a bowl, add the pork slices, stir well and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
In another bowl, mix together the tomato purée, hoisin sauce, chilli sauce, Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar. Stir in the sugar and spice and enough water to make a sauce. Taste and adjust the sweetness/sourness to suit your palate, then set aside.
Heat the oil in a wok and stirfry the marinade-coated pork slices, cooking them for about five minutes (in batches if necessary) until they become golden and slightly crispy. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper and keep warm.
Discard the pan drippings, pour in the sauce mixture and bring it to a rapid boil. Add the fried pork and stir until thoroughly coated in the sauce. Transfer to a heated serving dish and sprinkle with sesame. Serve with rice and a vegetable dish, such as broccoli stir-fried with ginger and garlic.
A similar dish made with spare ribs is also very popular. Either use whatever-size ribs you can get, or ask the butcher to chop them into 3cm pieces, so that you can eat them more easily with chopsticks.
Much of the food we eat in Chinese restaurants has been adapted to suit Western palates. For example, the Chinese love of offal is not to everyone’s taste, but one popular dish that we
are likely to be hearing
more of in future is jian bing, a type of pancake that is a breakfast staple across the whole country.
If you are a fan of Peter May’s “China” series, you will already be familiar with jian bing, as Detective Li Yan frequently has one on his way in to work. Believed to have originated in China’s northern Shandong province in the third century AD, jian bing’s popularity has spread throughout the country, with the inevitable regional variations creeping in. In northern China, the batter is often made from mung bean or black bean flour; across on the east coast, the mung bean flour is combined with wheat flour.
Jian bing are always cooked to order, with batter poured over a cast-iron hotplate, followed by an egg or two, spread over the surface of the pancake as it cooks. That is topped with chopped spring onion and pieces of crispy fried wonton before the pancake is folded in half and spread with a sweet and spicy layer of hoisin and chilli sauces. The rounded edges are then folded in like an envelope and the jian bing is cut in half to make it easier to eat. All sorts of other fillings can be added, such as sliced meat, lettuce, coriander or pickled vegetables. In towns and cities all across China, every neighbourhood has its own jian bing vendor serving breakfast to people on their way to work. Many of them consider it impossible to make jian bing without months of practice and tuition from a master but the dedicated fans now introducing jian bing to cities such as London, Manchester, New York and Portland, Oregon are persevering through trial and error to create their own style. The lack of mung bean or black bean flour here sets us at an immediate disadvantage but if you want to have a go at a TRNCcompatible version, try the following recipe. Alternatively, you could use the wholemeal lavaş wraps that are on sale in some supermarkets as your “pancake” base, heating them in a frying pan and topping them with egg, chilli etc. In the absence of wonton wrappers, try crispyfried pieces of yufka pastry or, as one blog I read suggested, crushed potato crisps. 50g plain flour
1 tablespoon buckwheat flour or finely ground semolina (irmik) A pinch of salt 115ml water Sunflower oil for frying Beaten egg Chopped spring onions Sesame and nigella (çörek otu) seeds Crispy-fried yufka pieces Hoisin and acı biber sauces
Mix the flours and salt together in a bowl, then whisk in the water to form a smooth batter about the consistency of double cream.
Heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan. Pour in half the batter and swirl to spread over the pan. After a couple of minutes, when the pancake starts to curl at the edges, pour over some beaten egg and spread it out in an even layer. Sprinkle over some chopped onion, sesame and nigella seeds, and cook for a further minute or so, until the egg begins to set. Scatter over some crunchy bits, carefully fold the pancake in half (to form a fan shape) and spread the surface with hoisin and chilli sauce. Fold the edges in to make an envelope and serve immediately. Repeat with the remaining batter.
Jian bing is now so deeply a part of Chinese culture that people talk of a “jian bing ren” (jian bing person), meaning someone who is like the pancake itself — little substance spread thinly in many directions over a large area. It tends to be a criticism aimed at the younger generation, “spoiled” by the consumerism of China’s recently privatised market, in much the same way as people in the UK criticise the “snowflake” generation of millennials.