by Ken Hom
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Savoury Beef with Asparagus
This is a delicious, quick, wholesome dish that is very ‘wok friendly’.
Asparagus is the favourite vegetable of many lovers of good food. It is easy to see why. The properly cooked stalks combine an earthy with an ethereal quality, a crunchy and a soft texture, subtle and distinct flavours. And in the spring, when it is in season and readily available, it is inexpensive.
Asparagus is congenial with almost any type of food but it goes uncommonly well with beef. The robust beef flavour does not intimidate either the taste or the texture of the self-assured asparagus. Both of these main ingredients stand up well against the hearty black beans and garlic seasonings.
Serves 4
450g (1 lb) lean beef steak
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
2 teaspoons sesame oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cornflour
450g (1 lb) fresh asparagus
3 tablespoons groundnut (peanut) oil
100g (4 oz) onion, finely sliced
2 tablespoons black beans, coarsely chopped
1½ tablespoons garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons ginger, finely chopped
3 tablespoons chicken stock, fresh or store bought
1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
1½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
Put the beef in the freezer for 20 minutes. This will allow the meat to harden slightly for easier cutting. Then cut it into thin slices 4 cm (1½ in.) long.
Put the beef slices into a bowl and add the salt, soy sauce, rice wine (or dry sherry), sesame oil and cornflour. Mix well and let the slices steep in the marinade for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the asparagus at a diagonal into 7.5 cm (3 in.) pieces and set it aside.
Heat a wok or large frying pan over a high heat until it is very hot. Add the oil and when it is very hot and slightly smoking, add the beef from the marinade and stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Remove the meat and drain it in a colander. Pour off all but 1½ tablespoons of the oil and reheat it over a high heat.
When the oil is very hot, add the onion, black beans, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the asparagus and stir-fry for 1 minute. Now add the stock or water, rice wine, salt, pepper and sugar. Continue to stir-fry for 3 minutes or until the asparagus is slightly tender. Add more water as necessary. Quickly return the meat to the wok, add the oyster sauce and stir well. Turn the mixture onto a platter and serve at once.
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23
A Moment in a Château
THERE ARE TIMES when a chef appears on a radio show, to cook a dish. Being frank, I consider this a bit peculiar. To the listener, there are the sounds of chopping or bashing or sizzling. However, the result is odd. The listener, of course, cannot see what the hell is happening. There is usually only one person who benefits, and that is the radio presenter, salivating and fork at the ready. He or she ends up with a free meal.
So if I am asked to cook on a radio programme, I decline, politely. This was not always the case. My travels with Sue Burke, personal assistant extraordinaire, took us to Nottingham, where I had agreed to cook on a radio show. I would not be cooking in the studio but in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. There would also be a presenter and a technician, and the segment was due to be broadcast live after the 11 a.m. news bulletin.
At 10ish, Sue and I arrived at the restaurant to be greeted by the producer and soundman. They were standing on the pavement, and the producer said, ‘We can’t get in.’
We shook hands and I said, ‘Good morning. What do you mean: you can’t get in?’
She explained that the restaurant was locked, and when they had knocked there was no reply. We knew that the chef was in a flat above the restaurant and assumed that he was still asleep after a hard night’s work. So we set about trying to wake him up, in order to let us in and do the live broadcast from his kitchen. In British parlance, this constituted a matter of some urgency. We rang the doorbell. We knocked. We rang lots of times. We knocked loudly. We shouted up at the window above the restaurant. Still, there was no response and we were getting close to 11.
The presenter was desperately anxious. Sue and I picked up gravel from the ground and started to throw it at the window. I said, ‘Sue, look at us. This is crazy. We are throwing stones at a window.’
I turned to the presenter and said, ‘Look, I’ve got an idea. This is radio. No one can see us. Why don’t we just make some noises – bang a spoon against a drainpipe or something – and pretend I’m cooking?’ She was having none of it.
Finally, the gravel on the glass was successful. There was a face at the window: the face of a bleary-eyed chef, whose long jet-black hair was sticking up messily like rigid tarantula legs. I shouted up to him in Cantonese, ‘This lady beside me is having kittens,’ I said, pointing at the presenter. ‘Come down and let us in, please.’ In a scruffy T-shirt and shorts, he was at the door. We managed to do the live broadcast, but that episode is another reason I don’t like cooking on radio.
WHILE I was having fun in Britain, my connoisseur friend Ron Batori was building his wine business in California and, in 1987, he was out to make a big splash during Vinexpo, the annual wine expo in Bordeaux.
Ron’s company had already established a good trade in the States. Now they were trying to build up the exports. So he got in touch and told me the plan. Ron has big ideas. He had rented an entire château, Château des Fougères, in la Brède, fifteen miles south of Bordeaux. Ron and his colleagues from the company would live there during Vinexpo. He would take me along as their cook. From the château they would be available to host dinners, lunches and parties, entertaining contacts from Bordeaux in an impressive style. You might think ‘book a room in a comfortable hotel in Bordeaux’; Ron thinks ‘book a château with a dozen acres of land’.
Yves Vidonne, whose father carried that pill box of laxatives (as mentioned in Chapter 1) was also drafted in. Yves ran a restaurant, so would be able to help with catering equipment, as well as supplying a head waiter and sous chef.
Ron rented a van and we packed up pots and pans and everything else, and threw them in the back of the van. There were a few minor issues on the way to Bordeaux. We put diesel in the rental car that was supposed to run on petrol. Then a bottle of wine broke in one of Ron’s suitcases. Red, since you ask. Pelting rain followed us on the journey, which might mean nothing to you, but rain is calamitous and unusual to those who live mostly in California.
In Bordeaux, Ron and his colleagues went to a supermarket and did a massive shop that took ages. They reached the till, unloaded their trolleys, loaded up their bags, and then it was time to pay. None of them had any French money or acceptable credit cards. The store would not take traveller’s cheques. One of Ron’s colleagues produced US dollars, but there was a tut-tut and ‘Non, non’. This caused a stink: ‘Why don’t you accept US dollars? If it wasn’t for the US there wouldn’t be any France.’ That got them nowhere. So it looked like we would have no food. Eventually, somehow someone acquired some money.
On arrival at the château, Ron realised that he had overlooked two things that were very important. He had overlooked the hot water supply. Although there were eight bedrooms, there was only one water heater, indistinguishable in size from a kettle. Americans like to get up in the morning and take a hot shower. That was problem number one.
Ron had also overlooked the kitchen. That is to say, there was no kitchen to speak of. That was problem number two. There was a cooker which had two burners. We stood and gazed at it. Ron said, ‘Ken, we’re gonna have sixty people to lunch and dinner every day and night. How you gonna do it?’
I said, ‘Ron, we’re gonna do a lot of barbecuing.�
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That is what we did. The barbecue came into its own, and meals were served in the dining room. Guests ate in the fading grandeur, alongside propped-up suits of armour. The château’s owner, Madame de Montesquieu, didn’t want to rent the place but she needed the money. So she planted some servants among us to make sure that we didn’t do anything wrong. Well, I befriended them all and made them part of my team against Madame de Montesquieu. So when we wanted napkins they would say, ‘Oh, the napkins are over there in that drawer – the ones with the big M on them.’ The next day Madame de Montesquieu would find out and go ballistic about the fact that we were using her napkins and then she’d have them counted.
I would spend mornings shopping and on the last night we treated ourselves to a big dinner outdoors. Moral: you can always find a way.
24
The Table of the Shepherdess
IN THE EARLY 1990s I bought a house in the village of Catus, in the south-west of France. That is where I am today, and, to be more precise, I am sitting at a table, which easily seats fourteen. Many stories have been shared over lengthy feasts at this table. Those who have sat here include Tony and Cherie Blair, as well as Tina Turner and Fabien Galthié, the French rugby captain. There is an unusual story of the table itself, and how it came to be here.
In 1996, I was filming Hot Wok, and the brilliant Kate Kinninmont, who was the series producer, was looking for interesting people and settings which could feature in the series. Viewers saw me travelling with my wok and burner, making dishes for people in Britain and California, while showing the viewers how easy and versatile it is to cook in a wok; everything from curries to soups and even puddings.
Anyhow, Kate had read a newspaper article about a shepherdess who lived in the Scottish Borders. We thought she would make an interesting subject for one of the episodes in the six-part series. ‘There really aren’t many shepherdesses,’ Kate pointed out, quite rightly. So off we trundled, equipped with a film crew, and I fell in love with this stunning, dramatically imposing part of Britain.
Viv was a glamorous shepherdess, chatty, warm and friendly. When she was four, her parents had taken her to sheep dog trials and, as she watched the shepherds at work, she decided there and then on her career. What a woman! She enjoyed good food but rarely found the time to make a decent meal. ‘My diet is the odd bowl of muesli,’ she told me as we wandered the rolling fields surrounding her home.
Within her beautiful cottage, there was a large, long table, which looked pretty ancient, too, and Viv explained that it had been in her family for generations. The table was carried out to the garden in front of her cottage, as our plan was to film outside. We set up my travelling gas burner and, from the boot of the car, out came the wok and ingredients. Then I went to a fishery nearby to catch a rainbow trout for our lunch.
Viv, who had invited a few friends over to watch the fun, was overwhelmed. ‘I can’t believe Ken Hom is cooking for me,’ she said, and I was ridiculously flattered and delighted. Then I started to check the ingredients, while the cameras and lights were set up. These things take a little time, and while we were busy I could hear corks popping. ‘Have a glass to relax yourself,’ said her thoughtful friends. Dear reader, you are not stupid – you can probably see where this was heading, and it wasn’t in the direction of sobriety.
The shepherdess became so relaxed that, as we neared the point of filming, I heard uncontrollable giggling and then glanced up to see Viv weaving in my direction. Had she tried to round up her woolly flock of sheep at that point, she might have had problems. Once at my side, she started to lean against me.
Kate, the perfectionist producer, was anxious, understandably. ‘We’re going to have to deal with this,’ I could hear her saying to the crew. Now, we were working to a busy schedule so it wasn’t as if we could postpone the shoot, to cook for a hung-over shepherdess the following day. The quick-thinking home economist, Anne Stirk, disappeared into the kitchen to make vats of coffee for the hostess. Viv, by this stage, was unable to stand without looking as if her body was wrapped around mine.
We decided to go ahead with the shoot. I was cooking an aromatic dish of five-spice trout with broccoli, and Viv found a corner of her magnificent table to prop herself against. ‘Have you ever cooked in a wok?’ I asked her.
‘I’ve never seen a wok before,’ she replied.
At one stage, the dish called for rice wine, and Viv was beside the bottle. ‘Please can you hand me the rice wine?’ I asked, and added, ‘You can drink rice wine but you’d end up on the floor.’
To which she giggled, ‘Can I be the one to add it, then?’ She did, and was in the mood to be generous with it, too.
We managed to get through the cooking, although Kate had her work cut out when it came to editing. Many of Viv’s giggles were discarded. I adored that shepherdess but – truth time – it was her table that won my heart. ‘This is such a beautiful table,’ I said to her.
‘It is,’ she agreed, ‘but it’s really awkward in my cottage. It’s too big for my home. I can’t get rid of it. Who would want to buy a table like this?’
I knew the answer. ‘Well, I’ve got this medieval townhouse in a little village in France,’ I said, ‘and I would love to have this table.’
I bought the table, though you may well question my own sobriety of mind: the table could not be separated into smaller pieces and the gargantuan challenge lay in manoeuvring the massive piece of furniture up the steep steps and stairs, and through the tiny doorway into my home.
When Kate came to the house to film Ken Hom’s Foolproof Chinese Cooking, she saw the table and was instantly reminded of the shepherdess. And then it was Kate who had uncontrollable giggles.
TRUFFLES, I suppose, led me to this house in the Lot.
When I came to France in the 1970s, I had tasted and feasted my way through the colourful markets and restaurants of the towns and cities, unable to resist one ingredient when it was on offer: the truffle. Studiously, I read about the mythology of black truffle of Périgord, which no one can quite decide is either a plant or a fungus, but all agree that it has a magical aroma and is one of the finest delicacies Mother Nature has given to us.
The Périgord truffle has a patron saint, St Antoine, and if you go to Richerenches in the Drôme you can attend truffle masses. Admittedly, they are not an ancient tradition: they were started a few decades ago, though the travelling scent of the truffles in the church draws in a crowd and fills the pews, and the local parishioners have trouble finding a seat. The truffle came to be a star of French food in the sixteenth century, when cooking with Oriental spices gave way to Renaissance gastronomy.
As I tasted and read up on truffles, I frequently came across the name Pébeyre. In the late nineteenth century, Pierre Pébeyre had been a school teacher, but his fixation with truffles took him out of the classroom and into a career in the truffle orchards. He set up business in the village of La Chapelle Mareuil, in the north of the Lot, selling not only truffles, but foie gras, ceps and walnuts. His wife contributed to the business, looking after the bottling of conserves made from local fruit. After being brushed by hand, the truffles were sterilised in thick-glassed conical flasks and sealed with corks and metal wire.
Pierre sent his son Alain to study business in Switzerland and, indeed, the business moved to Cahors and prospered under Alain’s reign. When Americans crossed the Atlantic on their way to Europe, they were treated to dishes that included truffles: the taste for this fungus spread to the States. Truffles became scarce in the First World War, when people left the countryside to find work in the towns and, with no one to maintain the undergrowth, the truffles could no longer form. Truffle oaks were not replaced. The soil suffered from degradation. Truffles became rare and extremely expensive.
Truffle markets, which were once a common occurrence in the south-west of France, have declined in number. Alain’s son, Jacques, built commercial relations with Spain. He helped establish production, from upper Aragon to Guada
lajara, which meant the Pébeyre business had an ample supply of quality truffles, to compensate for the drop in French production.
The family business took another step – and a particularly interesting one – in the early 1980s, when Jacques’s son, Pierre-Jean, came on board. He revived his great-grandfather’s trade, rediscovering the tradition of foie gras with truffles. He introduced new products, such as truffle butter, truffle sauce and oil infused with truffles. They supply truffles to the world’s greatest restaurants. Now you can appreciate why I was so determined to meet the fabled Pébeyre family.
IN 1988, the year of the dragon, I was asked to do a pop-up restaurant in the Verandah restaurant at the Peninsula. Margaret Thatcher was running the UK, Ronnie Reagan was President of the US, the world danced to Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, and the phrase pop-up restaurant had yet to be coined. Instead, I was the ‘guest chef’. Plenty of guest chefs had cooked at the Peninsula, but they were the reigning, most sought-after French chefs. I was to be the first one who was Chinese, and was honoured to be asked.
Elegant and lavish, the Peninsula really is the grand lady of Hong Kong and, speaking of grand ladies, a particularly strange moment comes to mind: the moment I arrived with my mother. A mini regiment of bellboys gathered up our luggage. A doorman, pristinely attired in a uniform as bright as his smile, opened the door for us. Cooled by the much-appreciated blast of air conditioning, we stepped onto the gleaming expanse of marble that led to the front desk, and breathed in the welcome scents of the lobby; scores of pretty orchids and lilies rising from huge vases, the allure of Cuban cigar smoke wafting from the bar, the underlying hints of Chanel and new leather handbags. The smell of extravagance can really make a hotel lobby. We were thirty feet from check-in when my mother stopped suddenly and grabbed the cuff of my sleeve. She gazed around and then looked at me. ‘I’m not staying here,’ she said. ‘It’s too posh.’