We spent time in the kitchen with Heather Madeira Ni to put together our first episode of Luxembourg Foodies! Heather prepared some traditional Taiwanese dishes that were out of this world.
She was also kind enough to share two of the recipes from her episode!
Happy cooking! And if you’d like to be featured shoot us a message: hello@citysavvyluxembourg.com
Recipe 1: Taiwanese chicken
Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken thighs
Marinade:
1/2 tsp 5 spice powder
1/2 tsp of cornstarch mixed with a tablespoon of water
2 tsp of soy sauce
Egg Wash:
2 eggs
1 cup of water
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup of potato flour (or cornstarch)
A large handful of Thai basil
2-3 cups of cooking oil
Directions:
Cut each thigh into bite sized pieces. Mix the ingredients for the marinade and mix into the meat. Let it sit at least 20 minutes before cooking.
Beat the eggs and mix with the water and salt.
Place the starch in a bowl.
Heat the oil until it shimmers. Dip 5-6 pieces of chicken into the egg wash and then coat in starch, shaking off the excess before adding to the oil. Fry until cooked through, about 5 minutes total, turning occasionally. Let it drain on paper towels. When all the chicken is cooked, scoop out the excess starch from the hot oil with a straining spoon. Add the washed and dried basil and briefly fry until crisp. Toss into the chicken and serve.
Recipe 2: Tea eggs
Ingredients:
‘LU’ Brine:
1/2 cup of soy sauce plus a couple of tablespoons of dark soy sauce if possible
1 cup of rice wine
2.5 cups of stock (Asian chicken stock is best) or water
1/3 cup of sugar (rock sugar is best, but brown or white is also fine)
A spice pouch with the following (if you can’t find all of these, put as many as possible in)
2 black cardamom pods
5 green cardamom pods
5 cloves
1 tsp of fennel
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorn
1 stick of cassia or cinnamon
2 star anise
2 bay leaves
1 tsp allspice
Directions:
Heat a little oil and fry the following until fragrant while stirring:
4 discs of ginger
2 scallions chopped into 5 cm lengths
4 peeled garlic cloves
Add the remaining marinade ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved (rock sugar may take some time). Keep at a simmer for up to 45 minutes to meld the flavours together.
Boil a large pot of water. For quails eggs, cook for 1 minute 30 seconds then drain and put in cold water… for chicken eggs, cook for 7 minutes and then drain and place in cold water.
When cool enough to touch, roll them in the counter to crackle the shell, but don’t peel. Place them into the warm lu (brine) off the heat. Leave in the brine for 24 hours at least. When you peel the shell, these should be marbled.
To save the lu, strain and put in the freezer as your master broth- this can be used to cook chicken legs, tougher beef cuts, other pieces that need long slow cooking, or firm tofu/tofu skin.
Top up the broth with the same ingredients but adding the master broth each time will increase the depth of flavour.
