New dishes for Chinese New Year

To welcome in the year of the Dragon, we added some new dishes and some very special and rare teas to our menu at Mama Lan’s.  Sneaky peak below:

Woodear mushrooms, Chinese leaf and carrot dumplings

First up, we have some new vegetarian dumplings made with my mum’s favourite Woodear mushrooms.  The more observant of you may have realised that these were on our menu in the first week of Jan.  Well, the reason for this was that the filling takes a bit more technical skill to prepare given the water content of the ingredients and so we needed to check if we could make these, en masse.  I shouldn’t have doubted my mum’s recipe as every dumpling we made turned out crisp, juicy and very tasty, if I do say so myself!

Spiced lamb skewers

I have been wanting to put these on the menu for a while but have held back especially for Chinese New Year.  Hailing from Xin Jiang, these lamb skewers are sold pretty much all over Beijing, but being of Chinese Muslim origin, I find some of the best can be found on Cow Street which serves Muslim snacks only.

Dusted with a hint of cumin and enough chilli to give a nice mild kick (but not to burn or ruin the flavour of the lamb) these are very addictive.  We made some for some friends a while back, and before we could tell them what they even where, all we had was a big pile of empty skewers on the plate.

Unfortunately, health and safety means we’re not allowed to have an open charcoal BBQ in our tiny store in Brixton Village but the grill we bought says it was made in China, so it’s still authentic innit!

“White Monkey Paw” Green Tea

The cute name of this rare tea comes from the furry tea leaves which resemble little monkey paws.  Handpicked in first two weeks of the season and gently steamed, this is a really delicate and smooth green tea.  Don’t be confused that it doesn’t come out Hulk green – it is very pale, almost like a white tea.

Peregrine 1st Flush Mountain China Black Tea

Like the White Monkey Paw tea, the Peregrine 1st Flush black tea is a rare and sought after tea.   It has an intense deep, full bodied flavour.  A relatively high caffeine content means this tea is great for perking you up and increasing alertness.

As for the name?  Well, legend has it that a young boy came across a Peregrine, caught in a snare.  The bird spoke to the boy and promised that, if he set him free, he would lead him to a field of undiscovered tea which would bring him riches.  Thankfully, the boy made a great choice and we can now put it on our menu.

Well, I hope thats made you hungry.  All the dishes can be found on our menu as of…wait for it… as of …NOW!

January celebrations

With the wind lashing and drizzly rain rapping on my bedroom window, I spent the first 10 minutes of the new working year, lying in bed thinking up reasons why I couldn’t get into work that my boss would find vaguely plausible…

“The high winds have caused a power failure on my train”

“I’ve come down with the flu”  cough, cough, splutter, splutter

“Stomach cramps”

A hundred excuses later, it became obvious that there was no chance of duping my boss.  The task master had heard all the elaborate stories and lame excuses before.  She had even synchronised her cycle to match mine, if she can work through PMT, then she demands that I do as well.

Sigh, as I clambered out of bed I thought to myself….sometimes, just sometimes, being self employed losses its appeals.

With the most difficult part of the day over with i.e. getting up, my spirits were lifted as I was going through my to-do list for the day.  Ordinarily, this would largely consist of mundane tasks such as, ordering more stock for our restaurant in Brixton, preparing veg for the dumplings, making chilli oil etc, but this week, my to-do list also include preparing for Chinese New Year.

A little over a few weeks away, the Chinese New Year is the event I have looked forward to most of all.  Whilst the western New Year is somewhat of a damp squib in my household back in Beijing, the Chinese New Year, is a celebration of colour, dance, family and feasting.  Based on the lunar calendar, the Chinese New Year this time around falls on 23rd January and will be the year of the Water Dragon.

Now of popular culture, the Chinese Zodiac consist of 12 different animals which rotate each year.  The animals consist of: the Rat, the Ox, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Dragon, the Snake, the Horse, the Ram, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Dog and the Pig, in that order.  So 2011 was the year of the Rabbit, so 2012 is the year of the Dragon and so on.

 

The 12 animals

The Zodiac is also complimented with 5 elements, namely, metal, water, wood, fire and earth.

Each animal (when combined with each element) is said to have different characteristics which you inherit depending on which year you were born.

For me, I’m a Water Pig.  Apparently this means I enjoy entertaining my friends and enjoy life.  Pigs also like peace and will do what is necessary to maintain it.  Water pigs, are especially flexible (like water) in their approach to people and therefore make good negotiators.  However, because of the constant need for peace, water pigs can be taken advantage of.  (Boo!)  When it comes to money, Pigs also enjoy spending more than saving.  (No comment)

Following my piggy nature, I’m hoping to celebrate Chinese New Year will all new friends at Mama Lans.  We will putting on a few special dishes, but still deciding the final menu so keep an eye on Twitter and our blog for details.

Even when there is no smoke there is fire!

Not long ago we’ve set up our little store in Brixton and bought ourselves a state of art induction hob. Just when I thought what a smart decision it was to go for induction as there’s no smoke, no fumes, no industrial equipment required… our worst nightmare happened. Yes, you might have guessed it, it broke. 2 out of the 5 rings on our beautiful induction hob had died without warning.

How. F*cking. Brilliant – 2 months, 2 months seriously?! Ok I get the fact that it’s a domestic hob and it may break down quicker if it’s used commercially but 2 months? Brand spanking new best induction hob – I was lost for words. The rings were meant to have a life of 12,000 hours but we barely made it to 800 by my estimate! What’s more, the warranty doesn’t cover commercial use. So now we have to pay for an engineer to visit and for parts.

Call me cynical but an appliance would break down more often once it’s broken once, right? Does it mean we have to get our state of art hob repaired every 2 months or even more frequently? I don’t even want to think about it now but I guess I have to think about it because unlike working for an organisation that has a technology department – I am on my own. Making every single decision, right or wrong, good or bad, there’s no running away or ‘don’t feel like doing anything today’ thoughts. Oh just for the records if any of my ex bosses is reading these, I was just referring to other people’s thoughts as I was always 100% dedicated and efficient all the time .

If it doesn’t rain it pours

Despite doing the IT thing (i.e. turning it off and on again) the two hob rings just wouldn’t fire back up. The engineer who we called in said our cooker had a major malfunction or, in technical terms, f*cked.

It turns out our cooker was so state of the art they needed to order parts from Germany which would take a week. There was nothing more to do but wait.

It was a long wait. Cooking for en mass had been difficult with all 5 rings working, cooking with 3 was proving very draining. Apologies for the longer than usual wait to all our diners over the last few weeks.

As the week rolled over, I was so excited that we were finally going to get our hob fixed. The engineer turned up on time and all the custom made parts. Everything was looking promising and it was going to be routine fix. The company even said would provide the parts under warranty. Things were looking up.

SNAP!!!!!

“what’s that noise?”

“oh sorry I’ve cracked the glass.”

“what do you mean you cracked the glass?!”

Cracked cooker top aka being royally f*cked

I was not best pleased.

In attempting to lift the cooker out of the worktop, the engineer hadn’t bothered to cut through the sealant at the back of the hob so when he tried to lift it out the glass on the corner of the hob just snapped. Of all things, it had to snap over the ring that was working! So now we were down to 2 working rings.

Instead of just being f*cked we were now royally f*cked. Sigh. If it doesn’t rain it pours.

“… er, sorry Miss Ma, but parts for the top will take another week”

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuck!

So… just what is Beijing food?

It’s been just over a month since we opened our kitchen at Brixton Village Market and it would be somewhat of an understatement to say things have been just a little hectic.

Our plans of a nice easy opening, getting used to cooking in volume and generally familiarizing ourselves with our new Ikea kitchen (vintage, Spring 2011) changed somewhat when certain, Mr Jay Rayner, walked through our doors when we were all of 3 hours old and still trying to find our feet, or rather, pans.

Well we’ve not looked back since that fateful lunchtime and before we knew it, we sold our 10,000th dumpling.  My mum isn’t nicknamed the ‘machine’ for nothing!

Me and the 'Machine'

With dumplings and a variety of small plates at the heart of our menu, it’s not surprising that the question we’ve been asked most frequently is,

‘…so, you guys do Dim Dum right?’

Without putting too fine a point on it, the answer is no.  We just do dumplings and a few street snacks.

‘oh, so err… what’s the difference?’

Apologies for any aficionado’s reading this but put simply, Dim Sum is better defined as meal, much like breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, elevenses etc.   Dumplings maybe something you eat at Dim Sum but they are more commonly eaten as dish by themselves in Northern China, much like having a big bowl of ravioli.  My enviously stick thin cousin regularly eats 40 plus dumplings a sitting.

Dim Sum is a very south China concept, or more precisely, a very Hong Kong concept.  Dim Sum is also what you would have if you were invited to go ‘Yum Cha’ which literally translates to ‘drink tea’. Traditionally eaten on Sundays for lunch, though this etiquette seems to be more relaxed now, Dim Sum typically comprises of small dishes which can range from anything from  a whole host of different dumplings (more on those later) to buns stuffed sweetened meats, fried spring rolls, chicken feet, beef balls, to eating a whole duck.    Despite trend setters such as Ping Pong or Yauatcha, most Chinese would still think twice at eating Dim Sum for dinner.

If you’ve not noticed, Yauatcha, is a play on words of Yau Yam Cha.  Alan Yau being the mastermind of, unsurprisingly, Yauatcha and  other iconic London restaurants such as Hakasan, Busaba Eathai and Wagamama.

Dim Sum dishes themselves are also very southern in their flavour combos and cooking techniques.  For example, the process of steaming rice flour batter to create cheung fun, for want of a better word, a pasta, is almost non-existent in traditional Northern cuisine.

Cheung Fun

So what about the dumplings?

There’s a great tradition in Northern China at New Year’s Eve when families, old and young come, together to make and feast on dumplings.  But dumplings are pretty much eaten at all times throughout the year.

Undoubtedly, you eat dumplings at Dim Sum.  But to put this into context, just because you eat a sandwich on a park bench doesn’t mean you’re having a picnic, neither does a burger count as a hot sandwich as I constantly have to remind the Boyfriend!

Much like the term sandwich, or pasta, or pie, dumpling, is also a generic term.    A pork pie is different to a fish pie which is different again to a pie which you would get at half time at a football match or a quiche – not that you’ll find many blokes searching for a quiche at half time!

There are sites all over the web which describe all the different types of dumplings there are in the world much more extensively than I care to here.  All I will say is that, all Beijing dumplings should be made using wheat flour, should not include pork lard in the dumpling casing (as you would find in those served in Dim Sum restaurants or those which are massed produced) and be pan fried or boiled and never steamed.

Most people refer to the fried dumplings as Guo tip, but to be ultra nerdy, the classical definition of Guo tip, means the dumpling is not actually completely sealed at the ends (does that mean we invited the sausage roll?!)

Guo Tip - open ended and not crimped

I know I’m making a bold statement, but in my experience, most dumplings served in Dim Sum restaurants contain some pork lard either in the stuffing or the dumpling wrapper or skin.   Even the roast ducks hanging by the windows (and even glazed cakes!) are often brushed with pork fat for that added shine.  When buying frozen dumplings, always look at the ingredient list of what you are buying.   My family are actually Chinese Muslim so are acutely aware of the wide use of pork lard in foodstuffs.   If you are in a restaurant and in doubt about the use of pork lard or fat ask the waiters /chef – you can always tell when they are unsure.

Cantonese roast duck dripping with pork oil

At Mama Lan’s, there is no such problem.  Only the pork dumplings contain pork – proper pork an all, not lard drippings.  There are no secrets to our cooking.  It’s just good home cooking using, albeit our own family recipes which have been handed down the generations.

Conscious that I could ramble off a books worth about dumplings, I’ll just finish by saying…

WE DON’T DO DIM SUM!

Mama Lan @ Brixton … now open

First, can I please apologise for our disappearance over the last couple of months.

As you may have heard by now, mama lan has brunched out to a more permanent location – Brixton Village Market. The past two months were kinda interesting to say the least. We ripped out everything in the store (a former fishmonger) including the bright red wall, the dodgy electrical supply and the dated sign.  Weeks of  work consisting of relaying the floor, painting the walls & ceiling, building the kitchen… we have this!

Grand designs eat your heart out.

We have tried to capture what it’s like to eat in little eateries you would find in Beijing complete with communal dining tables, small stalls and chopstick pot holders. Hair curlers and fag handing off the lip in a few years time perhaps….

In terms of food, we’re doing what we do best i.e. Beijing classics such as handmade dumplings, Beijing street snacks, salad and pickles.  Every single dish on our menu has been served at the mama lan supper club at one point or another.  I can’t wait to serve mama lan’s recipes to everyone!