A quick, family friendly one this time that your little ones can help with. Everything on a pizza but using a tortilla wrap then warmed in the oven.
I also added some surreptitious veg on this occasion which was a bit risky – I had a bit of rocket leaves and chopped it up very fine before adding it to the tomato sauce. Fortunately the little one ate it as it was masked by all the other flavours! So definitely a good way of getting some veggies in.
On this occasion we added ham and pineapple to the ‘pizza’. You can add whatever topping you like or just keep it simple with tomato and cheese.
Then simply, roll it up. Spray a little oil on top of the wrap and put it in an oven at 180C for around 10 mins. These can also be cut into bitesize lengths perfect for parties as we tried recently.
Ingredients
Tortilla wraps
Homemade tomato sauce
A batch of this will keep for a week in the fridge. Sautee some finely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil. Add 2 tins of tomatoes and a spoonful of brown sugar. Simmer for around 20-25 mins on a low heat stirring occasionally. It will reduce down to spreadable consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste as needed (or if you’re cooking for a toddler, it should be tasty enough without).
I will confess that cooking Chinese food is not my strong suit. I therefore have to usually rely on cook books if I wanted to make anything slightly authentic. At least to give me an idea and guide to what I’m doing.
I was very excited to finally get my hands on my very good friend George Wong’s (Instagram) cookbook during my recent, long overdue trip to Hong Kong.
88 Dishes of George (王子的88道菜）
As the name suggests, it has a staggering 88 recipes in this treasure trove of authentic Cantonese and Chiu chow dishes that have been perfected by George over the years. Ranging from Chinese soups (broths), main dishes such as salted egg prawns, sauces, to his signature dish – Hainese Chicken 🐔.
On this occasion, I was lucky enough to get my hands on some fresh E-fu noodles from Hong Kong. E-fu noodles (伊麵 – yee mein) is a flat Cantonese egg noodles made of wheat floor that are sold in rounds in a stack. They frequently feature as part of Chinese banquets as well as the accompaniment to lobster dishes as they soak up sauces quite well whilst still retaining their texture.
So I had some E-fu noodles and needed to make a quick dinner midweek after putting the 👶 to bed which took quite a while that particular evening. I decided to look through George’s cookbook which had a recipe for Braised E-fu noodles (乾燒伊麵) as I had never cooked with yee mein before and didn’t even know you had to parboil it to soften it and get rid of the oil that coats the dried rounds of yee mein. So that was a really useful tip.
I decided to also raid my store cupboard and found some dried Chinese mushrooms (東菇) and dried scallops (also know as Conpoy or 瑤柱). These had to be soaked beforehand to rehydrate them. I kept the soaking liquids from the mushrooms and scallops to use in the recipe instead of water and stock as suggested by the recipe.
And then it’s just a case of getting all the ingredients chopped and ready before starting to cook which is a must for any Chinese recipes involving frying as you need a hot wok which cooks everything very quickly. So if you’re having to chop your mushrooms up whilst other ingredients are sauteing, the other ingredients will burn.
As usual, I deviated from the recipe a bit but kept to the spirit of it using mushrooms. It was also helpful to have a guide on the quantities for the sauce consisting of oyster sauce, sugar and soy sauce. But as mentioned earlier, rather than using stock and water, I used the flavoured soaking water from the Chinese mushrooms and dried scallops which added the layer of umami taste to the noodles.
When using dried scallops in this way, always make sure you fry it off with a little oil with your starter ingredients such as onion and garlic. You’ll be able to smell it once the scallops heat up. Same with the Chinese mushrooms before you add any other fresh mushrooms you might be using in your recipe.
The whole process including parboiling the yee mein took 15-20 minutes (Chinese mushrooms and scallops were soaked beforehand). Perfect midweek dinner.
Can’t wait to try another recipe from this cook book soon!
There are a number of local breweries in Bristol. Some of them supply chains of local pubs as well. We first came across Dawkins Ales at The Hillgrove Porter Stores in Kingsdown, Bristol when trying out Kensai Kitchen, the resident restaurant serving delicious authentic Japanese food out of the pub (more on that another day!). We really liked the Dawkins Ales Bristol Best ale that was on tap at The Hillgrove Porter Stores and decided to go and track them down in person a few months before the Covid lockdown in 2020.
Dawkin’s Ales premisesMini keg
Tucked away in an industrial estate in Easton in Bristol, Dawkins Ales has a small tasting area on site where they brew their wares. We bought a mini keg of Bristol Best along with a selection of bottles and loaded them up into the back of our car.
During Covid, the brewery developed their online ordering and delivery service which we have continued to support over the last couple of years. I remember when their system started off as a Google spreadsheet link which tells you their stock levels at any one time and then you submit your order on an online form. Now they have a slick website with an online ordering system to rival any e-stores – https://dawkinsgeorgesltd.selz.com/
With a mini keg you can get around 8 tall glasses (not quite a pint). Otherwise, each bottle is 500ml.
Another one of favourites from Dawkins Ales is their East Bristol Session Porter, a dark, fruity and malty porter.
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