by Ken Hom
I met a young footballer called David Beckham, aged fourteen or fifteen – and he was very polite, I recall. ‘Extremely nice to meet you, Mr Hom.’ I met Ryan Giggs, and we got along very well. And I met, of course, Eric Cantona, who had inspired this unusual event. Eric was slightly surprised when he said, ‘Hello,’ and I took the conversation politely from English into his native language. I could see him thinking, Hey, a Chinese guy who speaks fluent French. I love it. A week or so before our meeting, Eric had been in trouble for slugging a fan who had insulted him. I said, ‘I figure you did the right thing.’ And he laughed. I was being serious.
I unpacked my wok, cooked for the whole team, and then the Man United chef, Jasper, joined me and we cooked a carb-rich dish. It was huge fun. The following day’s newspapers ran photos of the get-together. Headlines included ‘Ooh aah, Cantonese’.
There is one bond of friendship that was sealed on that day and has remained ever since. It is with Alex Ferguson, the club’s figurehead. Sir Alex Ferguson OBE is a true gourmet: a man who loves and lives for excellent food and exceptional wine. Alex and I got talking about food, and we have never stopped. On that day, it quickly became clear that when Alex was not delivering the team talk or barking orders from the side of the pitch, he was rustling up a dish in his kitchen at home in Cheshire, or pleasing his taste buds at the tables of fine restaurants.
Aside from being a great foodie, it emerged during our chat that he is also a wine connoisseur of some note and keeps an impressive cellar. ‘Do you know, Ken,’ he later told me, ‘I always drink one bottle of good wine before a match.’ As I was considering the effects of a bottle of wine, Alex added, ‘For luck.’
Wine drinkers are divided: there are those who prefer wines from Bordeaux to wines from Burgundy, and those who prefer Burgundy wines to the ones from Bordeaux. I am a Bordeaux man; Alex is a Burgundy man, a fan of the pinot noir grape, which makes the finest red Burgundy. Our friendship was founded, I suppose, on a mutual passion for eating good food and drinking interesting wines, and we help each other with charity events.
Since that day at Old Trafford we have shared many meals, and I gave him one of my woks so that he could work on his stir-fries. He eats often at the Yang Sing, that legend of a five-storey restaurant, set in Manchester and serving Cantonese dishes.
On occasions, Alex’s lovely wife Cathy has joined us, and, in contrast, she likes her food plain, with neither salt nor pepper to season it. Unlike her husband, she does not drink alcohol. This has worked out perfectly as I have sometimes invited Sue Burke, whose well-done-steak-and-chips approach to food means that she and Cathy can opt for the unfussy dishes while Alex and I enjoy the chef’s specialities and Burgundian beauties from the wine list.
When I sent him a copy of my latest book, he wrote back to say thank you and added, ‘I can’t say that the book has helped my cooking skills, but I certainly know what to order when I visit Yang Sing!’
AT one point in the early ’90s, I was asked to appear on a show called Hot Chefs. The series was presented by Antony Worrall Thompson, and is where Gary Rhodes was ‘discovered’. I would have to cook a dish in front of the cameras and a studio audience, and the producers said I should have a ‘sous chef’. Well, I did not have a sous chef, and did not really need one, but the producers were adamant that there should be two people working on the dish. So I asked Sue to help out. ‘You won’t be my sous chef,’ I said, ‘but my Sue chef. This is your chance to become a star!’
There we were, I was cooking noodles in the wok and Sue was slicing this or that. She had not realised that she had left a tea towel next to the gas. Suddenly, the tea towel went up in flames and there was a fire to put out. When they called that show Hot Chefs, they could not have realised the appropriateness of the title. At that moment, when I felt the burning tea towel scorching my skin, I was indeed a very hot chef. I put a wok lid on top of it, extinguishing the flames. It did make me realise why the BBC had sent three fire officers to stand guard during Chinese Cookery.
The fire incident was cut out of the final broadcast but passed on to a show that featured TV bloopers. My agent phoned me and said, ‘They need your permission to run the clip. They’ll pay you £400.’
I said, ‘Sign for me and take the money – it’s more than I got from Hot Chefs.’
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Braised Pork Belly, Shanghai-Style
Pork belly is an inexpensive cut of pork which is very popular in Chinese cuisine, and it has always been a favourite of mine. At first glance, it might look rather fatty and unappetising, but its gelatinous texture is highly prized by the Chinese and, when it is properly cooked, the taste is fantastic. In this recipe, the long simmering process renders down most of the fat, leaving a juicy, delicious dish which goes very well with plain steamed rice.
Serves 6
1.5 kg (3 lbs) belly pork, including the bones
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons groundnut or peanut oil
For the braising liquid:
6 slices fresh ginger
1.2 litres (2 pints) chicken stock
600 ml (1 pint) Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
150 ml (5 fl oz) light soy sauce
150 ml (5 fl oz) dark soy sauce
150g (6 oz) Chinese rock sugar or plain sugar
2 teaspoons five spice powder
2 teaspoons freshly ground white pepper
3 tablespoons whole yellow bean sauce
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
6 spring onions, whole
This joint can be cooked with its bones left in. If you get your butcher to remove them from the joint, be sure to add them to the pot with the braising liquid for greater flavour. Rub the fresh pork belly with the salt and let it stand for 1 hour.
Then carefully rinse off the salt. This helps to clean the pork and to firm it up by drawing out some of the meat’s moisture. Dry the meat with kitchen paper.
Heat a wok or large frying pan over a high heat until it is hot. Add the oil and, when it is very hot and slightly smoking, brown the pork belly, rind side only, until it is crisp and brown (cover the wok to prevent splattering). Add more oil if necessary.
Cut the fresh ginger into slices 7.5 cm x 0.5 cm (3 inch x ¼ inch). Put the ginger together with the rest of the braising liquid ingredients into a large pot or casserole. Bring the liquid to a simmer and then add the browned pork belly.
Cover the pot and simmer it slowly for 2–2½ hours or until the pork is very tender.
When the pork is cooked, remove it from the pot and let it cool slightly. (The braising sauce liquid can now be cooled and frozen for re-use. Remove any surface fat before transferring it to the freezer.) Then slice the meat thinly. The Chinese would serve the pork rind and fat as well as the meat, but do remove it if you prefer. If you like, some of the braising liquid may be thickened with a little cornflour and served as a sauce over the sliced pork. If so, be sure to remove all traces of fat from the sauce before thickening it.
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27
At Home with Hom
THERE MUST HAVE been a point when Alex Ferguson was chatting to Alastair Campbell and the topic veered from politics or football to food. The Prime Minister’s director of communications may have mentioned that he was looking for a chef. Or perhaps the manager of Manchester United was talking about a Chinese meal that he had enjoyed. Either way, the two men found themselves discussing food and me.
It was early 1998, and Tony Blair had been in power for less than a year. He was due to host his first Asia–Europe Meeting, which would take place in London and bring together twenty-two heads of state: twelve from Europe, ten from Asia. They would all need feeding, of course, and Britain’s leader felt they would need feeding well. He wanted the meal to be a special part of the day, rather than merely a fuel stop punctuating the talks.
The leaders would be seated at one long table in a room at the Lord Chancellor’s residence in the House of Lords. It is substantially grand
and splendid, and then even more so: Derry Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, had just caused national outrage when it emerged that he had spent £650,000 of taxpayers’ money extravagantly redecorating the place, including hand-printed wallpaper at £300 a roll. Anyhow, Alastair was in the middle of scouting around for the right chef to feed the leaders. And Alex said, ‘Ken’s your man.’
No. 10 phoned Sue Burke, my personal assistant in Britain. ‘We’d like Ken to do this meal. Can he come up with something that’s interesting? A meal that everybody can eat.’ They had a point, as I realised when I studied the list of dignitaries. Pork was probably out of the question, as the Sultan of Brunei is Muslim. Then there was the President of Indonesia. He, too, was Muslim, so I definitely couldn’t do pork. There was a lengthy catalogue of dietary no-no’s; people didn’t like this and they didn’t like that.
For the starter, I decided to serve fish, which was wrapped in rice paper and then pan-fried. A quick double-check that everybody could eat fish, which they could, and so that was fine. As a main course, I would serve Asian duck confit, a nod to the French classic. For dessert, I settled on warm mango compote, served with vanilla ice cream and basil. It is an unusual dish, but one that I have served to guests all over the world, Asians and non-Asians, and it always pleases everybody.
I liked Tony Blair even before meeting him. He seemed to be on a mission to rectify some of the excess of the Thatcher years, and ready to invest in the NHS, schools and education. He was dynamic and very smart, and a refreshing change to his predecessors. Along with everyone else around the globe, I had watched when Tony Blair stood outside church in the late summer of 1997, hours after the horrific death of Princess Diana. In a heartfelt tribute, he called her ‘the people’s princess’ and said all the appropriate things to a nation – indeed, a world – in shock. He was not a distanced politician, but in sync with the public.
As a child, I had seen another young, sharp, dynamic man become President. Tony Blair reminded me of John F. Kennedy. Many of our leaders are old farts, aren’t they? Blair was passionate and enthusiastic, and with a young family. He was inspiring. This was like the new Camelot, if you will, of Britain, with a premier who would change the way things are done. He was hugely popular.
With that in mind, you will not be surprised when I say that I was thrilled by the invitation to cook for Tony Blair and the summit leaders. Regarding his plan for a special and interesting menu, I figured, I like it. That’s innovative. He’s thinking outside the box.
Derry Irvine may have spent extravagantly on the rest of his residence, but the kitchen did not seem to have benefited from his splurge. Ahead of the function on 3 April, I had made enquiries about the kitchen space and equipment, and concluded that it was small. Therefore, it would be best – and would save time – if I prepared the confit of duck at my home in Catus, before leaving for the event in London. I strive to be organised, as you know.
I asked my friend Alexis Pelissou – chef-patron of Le Gindreau near Catus – to help me prepare this dish. We used thirty pieces of duck in the confit.
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Asian duck confit is not only fit for a world leaders’ banquet but is also an excellent dish to serve at home for your guests at a lunch or supper party. Imagine you are cooking for six; in which case you will need to begin with six pieces of duck thigh and leg.
Lay the pieces of duck on a tray and evenly sprinkle both sides with a generous amount – 50g (2 oz) – of coarse sea salt. Cover the duck with a tea towel and store it overnight in a cool place, or in the fridge.
The next day, the fun begins. Wipe off the salt and use kitchen paper to pat dry the duck pieces. You will need 4x350g (12 oz) tins of duck or goose fat – heat this fat in a large pot. When it is hot, add 8 whole, unpeeled garlic cloves, which you have crushed slightly. At the same time, add – here comes the Asian twist – 8 slices of fresh ginger root, 6 whole star anise, 3 cinnamon sticks or bark and 2 tablespoons of whole roasted Sichuan peppercorns.
Now add the duck thighs and cook slowly for an hour over a low heat. The duck should be cooked and tender. Let the duck cool in the fat. Refrigerate, with the fat covering the duck, until you are ready to use it. The confit will keep for months in the fat in the fridge.
When you are ready to cook the duck confit, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4). Scoop the duck from the fat and cook on a roasting tray for 40 minutes, or until the duck is crispy. Remove the duck pieces from the hot fat and drain them on kitchen paper. Strain the hot fat and keep for future use. Serve at once. The fat can be used to sauté potatoes.
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ALEXIS and I vacuum-packed the confit, ‘sous-vide’ style, so that it was ready to be roasted in London. The following morning I began my journey. I checked in for my flight with unusual hand luggage: a large bag that contained confit of duck for twenty-two world leaders, as well as my cherished Chinese cleaver. This was, remember, before 9/11.
The great chef Anton Mosimann assisted me when I arrived in London. Everyone who came close accepted that baggage had never smelled as appetisingly fragrant as mine on that day.
The lunch was a resounding success, and I was not disappointed by the Prime Minister. After the meal, he was kind about the dishes and he went out of his way to introduce me to each one of his important guests. ‘This is Ken Hom,’ he said. ‘He’s one of our most famous chefs.’ He insisted that I have a photo op with the world leaders. I gave him my most recent book as a gift, obviously not knowing if he would find time to flick through the pages, although I would later discover that he was a fan of mine and had watched my first series. Later that day Ron Batori called me to say, ‘Jeez, I saw you on CNN!’ I headed back to France, via a couple of interviews with reporters who interrogated me about Derry’s wallpaper.
A few days later I was delighted to receive a note of thanks from the Prime Minister. ‘Ken, your meal was a big hit, everybody loved it … The flavours were wonderful … Thank you for the book…’ It went on and on, heaps of praise.
I wrote back, along the lines, ‘Thank you very much, Prime Minister. I’m glad everything worked out.’ I added, ‘I know you come to France on holiday, and if you happen to be there during the summer I would be delighted to have you and your wife Cherie, and your family, come and eat.’ Sure, so I said it, but I did not think it would happen.
FOR the next part of the story let’s go to a beach on the Canary Isles. That’s where wonderful Sue Burke was on holiday. (She was born in Southport, as I have mentioned, which means she is grateful for any sun she can get. For many years Sue lived in the warmth of Spain.) As she was tanning herself, as the Mediterranean waves lapped at her ankles, her mobile phone rang. ‘Hello, this is No. 10 calling … The Prime Minister would like to come to Ken’s home in France.’ He’d received my letter, then.
Should you ever invite a British Prime Minister to lunch at your home, and should he accept the invitation, then prepare yourself for the kerfuffle that ensues; not that I would wish it any differently.
As I was trying to absorb the notion of cooking for the Blairs at my home – will it be Peking duck and what about Chinese wonton soup with truffles? – there were agents of the British secret service who were busy scrutinising the security of chez Hom. They were gathering ‘intel’ about my medieval watchtower: doors, locks, windows, walls. Heaven forbid there was an assassination attempt while the salad was served. The French police were also despatched, garnering glances from villagers and curtain-twitchers when they arrived on my doorstep to ensure the house was ‘clean’.
When word reached the Mayor of Catus, he, too, was keen to receive an invitation. World leaders don’t drop into the village often. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; they were all ready and well preened, awaiting Tony Blair’s visit. And then … a catastrophe happened in Britain. Tony Blair had to stay on that side of the Channel. He could not come.
Although Tony couldn’t come – and he was ‘Tony’ to me by then – his family came en
masse for a fabulous lunch. There was Cherie and the children, as well as Cherie’s lovely mother, Gale, and Cherie’s sister Lyndsey and her husband. We had a fine time without Tony.
WE thought we would try again. In the following year, 1999, I invited them to Catus, hoping Tony would be free. Once more, they accepted. I suppose I kind of treated the first year like a dummy run. This time around, I knew the drill. Things were slightly altered, however, as Tony’s presence meant the level of security was increased. The town was practically sealed off by police officers and men in dark, mirrored sunglasses.
There were also stricter regulations about the meal. For instance, nobody could set foot in my watchtower unless they were on the list of invited guests. A few weeks before the event, the mayor (who was on that list) had button-holed me to ask, ‘Can we have a reception in the town hall for the Prime Minister? Do you mind?’ I said that I would have to ask No. 10. I phoned my contact at Downing Street.
‘Oh, hello. The Mayor of Catus would like to have a reception for the Prime Minister.’
Pause.
I continued. ‘I’m so sorry to have to ask this.’
My contact: ‘No, it’ll be fine. It’s OK. As long as it’s not…’
I could see where this was heading and jumped in, ‘Oh, it won’t be a long thing. Don’t worry.’
The day began with the mayor’s reception in the town hall, with scores of dignitaries eager to shake the Prime Minister’s hand and pose with him for a shot (if it happened now, the shots would be selfies). This event in the town hall was filled with VIPs from the land of Lot, not confined merely to the pillars of Catus society.