If you hear something about Hong Kong the first thing that pops in your head is that it is absolutely modern, mod, huge-scale city, where there was some incredible miracle. No wonder it is called the “Asian tigers”. Hong Kong id fast-moving, impresses with its volume, territories, but at the same time showing your color!
And thinking about Asian food, you just imagine something unusual and extraordinary. And just today, I want to show you the recipe of the chef from Hong Kong. Roasted Langoustine with Crab Cookies and Veal Leg Salad.
Ingredients
Method
- Boil the bisque in a small saucepan until it has reduced to about 2 teaspoons of thick paste, then let it cool.
- Heat the 20 g butter for the tuiles in a small pan over medium heat until it foams, turns light brown and smells nutty; let it cool until just warm.
- Heat the oven to 150°C (300°F) and line the baking sheet with the silicone mat or baking paper.
- Whisk the browned butter with the egg white, then whisk in the flour until smooth.
- Stir in the bisque paste and then the maple syrup.
- Spread level teaspoons of batter very thinly into 8 cm circles, 5 cm apart, as they spread.
- Bake for 10–12 minutes, until golden and lacy with small holes; watch the last minutes closely.
- Let the tuiles cool on the sheet until crisp, lift them off with the spatula and repeat until you have at least 8. Keep them in the airtight box.
- Cook the green beans in boiling salted water for 6–7 minutes, until completely tender, then cool them in iced water and drain.
- Blend the beans with the cream and 1–2 tablespoons of water until very smooth, then press the purée through the sieve.
- Melt the 20 g butter for the purée and cook the diced mushrooms and carrot over medium heat for 4–5 minutes, until soft.
- Stir the mushrooms and carrot into the purée and season with salt, white pepper and a few drops of lemon juice.
- For the sauce, boil the Madeira and port in a small saucepan until reduced to about 2 tablespoons of syrup.
- Melt 20 g of the butter for the sauce in the medium saucepan and cook the leek over low heat for 5 minutes, until soft and translucent.
- Add the stock and simmer for 2 minutes, then stir in the truffle paste and simmer for 2 minutes more.
- Add the wine syrup and the remaining cold butter and blend until smooth and frothy.
- Strain the sauce, season with salt and keep it warm without boiling.
- Mix the ham hock with the egg, capers, anchovies, shallot, olive oil, sherry vinegar and chives.
- Mix the crab with the celery, avocado, basil, mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt.
- Peel the langoustine tails and pull out the dark vein.
- Heat the olive oil in the frying pan over high heat and cook the langoustines for about 1 minute per side, until just opaque; season with salt.
- Warm the green bean purée and spread a spoonful on each plate.
- Add three small spoonfuls of the ham hock salad and three langoustines to each plate.
- Spread the crab salad on 4 tuiles, top each with a second tuile and set one on each plate.
- Add the truffle slices, if using, scatter over the herbs and flowers and pour the warm sauce around.
- Green bean puree
- Cook the Green Beans until cooked through.
- Refresh in ice-cold water.
- Drain the beans and blend in thermo mix.
- Pass through a fine sieve.
- Re weigh 400 gms of Green Beans.
- Cook the brunoise mushroom in butter.
- Mix the two vegetables in a pan with the cream and cook until soft.
- Allow to cool and mix in the mushroom.
- Then mix the brunoise mix and bean purée together.
- Season with white pepper, salt and a few drops of lemon juice to give it balance.
- Truffle Sauce
- Chiffonade the leek and sweat in the butter until translucent, approximately 5 minutes.
- Add the hot reduced stock.
- Simmer for 2 minutes.
- Add the truffle juice and simmer for 2 minutes more.
- Blend in the thermo mix on high for a few minutes and pass through the fine chinois.
- Flame and reduce the alcohols.
- Once both are reduced to heavy syrup, pour into the sauce and blend.
- Cool down over ice, whisking to emulsify.
- Salad of veal leg
- Cook the veal legs in broth.
- Once cooked, clean and dress the meat with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice and put in a mold.
- Let it cool and cut into small cubes.
- Add it to a brunoise of boiled eggs and lightly chopped capers and anchovies.
- Season with sherry vinegar, chives and shallot oil.
- Crab tuile mix
- Preheat oven to 140°C.
- With a hand blender, mix the butter and egg whites.
- Add the flour a little at a time until smooth.
- Add the crab reduction to taste.
- Take 100 grams of the above mixture and add 150 grams of maple syrup and mix well.
- Spread thinly onto a non-stick mat.
- Half of the biscuits need to be sprinkled with coral baking powder.
- Bake in the preheated oven until slightly holy in appearance.
- Carb salad
- Poach a leg of king crab.
- Remove the pulp and season with basil, diced celery, diced avocado and a spoon of mayo.
- Make a disk the same diameter of the cookies and fill one cookie with the mix.
- Langoustine
- Remove the shell and pan-fry for a few minutes.
- Season and serve.
- Assembling
- Place the bean purée at the bottom of the plate.
- Garnish with 3 cubes of veal foot salad.
- Add one crab cookie and a few slices of black truffle.
- Fill with herbs and flower, and pour the truffle emulsion.
What we changed for home
- Batches cut to four plates: 250 g of green beans instead of 600 g, and a sauce on 200 ml of stock instead of 400 ml plus 600 ml of wine The chef's quantities are for a restaurant service.
- Thermomix replaced with a blender or stick blender and a fine sieve A blender gives the same smooth purée and sauce for a home batch.
- Truffle juice (a 390 ml tin) replaced with black truffle paste Truffle juice is an expensive specialist product; a couple of teaspoons of paste give the sauce the same aroma.
- Cream added to the list for the purée The method cooks the vegetables 'with the cream', but the list leaves it out.
- Sauce served warm straight after blending, instead of chilled over ice Cooling over ice is how a restaurant holds a sauce through service; for four plates it can go straight to the table.
- Crab tuiles made at a fifth of the batch with store-bought bisque, and the coral powder left out The chef's crab bisque reduction comes from his own kitchen; a bought bisque boiled down gives the same flavour. The coral powder only colours half of the biscuits.
- Veal foot salad replaced with cooked ham hock Veal feet are rarely sold and need 3–4 hours of simmering and a night in a mould. Cooked ham hock gives the same soft, gelatinous cubes, though it is saltier, so the salad needs no extra salt.
- King crab leg replaced with any cooked white crab meat King crab is expensive and mostly sold frozen; fresh or pasteurised crab meat works the same in the salad.
- Langoustines can be large raw prawns, and a cooking time is given Langoustines are hard to find away from the coast; the original only says 'a few minutes'.
The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.
Screen stays on while you cook