New Year's Hix

Lose yourself with a Nick Strangeway cocktail in Mark's Bar downstairs at Hix

I don’t make New Year's resolutions. I just don’t. Whether it’s down to laziness or divertive sensibilities, I’ve never been wont to shackle myself to a half-arsed promise I’ve made to myself.

Except this year, I do. I’m at dinner in the Draft House. It’s New Year’s Day, all ten of us weary with effort. In hungover despair one happy chap asks us all to declare what resolutions we have made. Slight panic. And then I remember that I’d been to the V&A not long ago, peered at Annie Lennox’s trousers and Grace Jones’ marvellous sculptured body in the Postmodernism exhibition. Perhaps I can make something up about that.

So I do - something about being more cultural. But I'm actually hiding a more guilty secret, and couldn’t quite bring myself to announce this to everyone else.

I’ve given up red meat for January.

I'm not sure when or where I came to this decision, or what influence I was under at the time. This is all a bit shock-horror for me. I’m already struggling to turn my head from the Draft House burger. I opt for macaroni cheese instead to comfort me through the pain.

Cue dinner last Friday night. Where better to really test how good I am than a place admired for chops and steakage.

Woe. I am at Hix.


Best part of the pig? Can't resist a spot of crackling with Bramley apple.

I’m deep in the Soho joint from ex-Mr Caprice Holdings that opened in 2009. Surrounded by models, fat cats and joyous art (Sarah Lucas’ Fray Bentos pie mobiles a humorous jib at my predicament), I really think I’m going to buckle and just go meat.

Gluttons for punishment, we ask to see the steak board to ramp up the temptation. We consider the virtue of the rib chop, the Barnsley chop, the rose veal, the Porterhouse. Oh the Porterhouse - so angry-looking and huge in all its rumpy, sirloiny, fillety glory.

‘But no!’ I say to myself while crunching through shards of salt-flecked pork crackling dipped in Bramley apple sauce. ‘Tear yourself away from the dastardly red of carnal lust’. Well, actually the boyfriend reminds me of my said resolution and suggests perhaps that I might like the Dover Sole instead. Why, of course I do. Yes.


Heaven and Earth. No purgatory, thank you.

We share with the much lauded Heaven and Earth starter. A meatball-sized sphere of black pud kept in shape with the merest hint of caul fat, atop a cloud of buttery apple and potato mash.


Digging in.



Broadstairs Dover Sole.

Then the beast of a Dover Sole on the bone arrives, all chargrilled and meaty - bigger than most of the chops on that board. Its coat of criss-crossed chargrill gives the usually delicate flesh a punchy flavour and the slather of creamy bearnaise and cut of lemon juice elevates this simple dish. It's fresh and unfussy, and a fresh, unfussy herby lettuce-heart salad accompanies.


Gamekeeper's Pie

My boyfriend tucks into gamekeepers pie - venison packed in pastry goodness, piped with parsnip mash - each piped dot with a caramelised light casing that bursts when bit. The venison gravy is deep and sweet and the meat is dark and falls apart through the care shown with slow-cooking. (I decide, as I chew, that this resolution thing doesn’t count if the meat is not on my plate.)


Bakewell pudding

Dessert is joyous. Mouthfuls of spotted dick with custard, and flakey, crisp Bakewell pudding with almond ice-cream - a naughty cube of almond brittle hiding in the scoop, which in my tipsy state is as exciting as a kinder-egg to a five-year-old on a long car-trip to Wales.


A less than spotted dick. Custard-covered pud.

Onto Mark’s Bar downstairs, which, in my mind is one of the main reasons to come to Hix. Nick Strangeway’s cocktails are superb - intelligent and considered, without being try-hard. A couple of these usually make me superb at bar billiards and walk funny. All I know is that I’m won over (or conquered by) a Temperley Sour, which is ostensibly a well-dressed Somerset cider in a coupe glass and an egg-white top, but on second and third sip - so much more.

By the end of the night I make another New Year’s resolution. Steak board and cocktail menu, I resolve to conquer you.



Hix
66-70 Brewer Street
London
W1F 9TR
020 7292 3518

Cantonese Steamed Sea Bass with Spring Onions, Ginger and Coriander

I think I’m turning into my mother.

Similarities keep erupting at unexpected moments... using showers of choking hairspray, needing flesh-coloured tights (the most unsexy garment bar flesh-coloured pants), spouting old wives advice (only wash your hands in warm water and drink cola boiled with ginger when you’re pregnant - apparently the potion dispels wind...).

And I take after her party-throwing ways. When she’s hosting, Daddy Lee complains she cooks too much. The guests, however, marvel at the multiple dishes they are presented with – she doesn’t serve one course after another, but many dishes - and a lot at once. Such is the Chinese and Malaysian way.

One of her classic dishes is steamed fish. Whether it’s skate, rainbow trout, bream, my mother often nourishes us with this when we’re -what the Chinese call - ‘heaty’ (that is, when we’ve stuffed ourselves with crisps, deep fried goodness and break out in acne). She’s a master at it.

This recipe is a tribute to my mother. I am using sea bass, a firm fish with delicately flavoured white flesh -perfect for withstanding the boiling hot oil that transmutes the dish from standard to spectacular. This is also for my friend Joey – an affectionately fussy eater who shies away from whole fish with heads - but I’m happy to say was clamouring for the recipe by the end of the evening.

Extremely simple to make, perfect for a quick supper.

Serves 2

1 large sea bass (already scaled and gutted)
4 tablespoons oil (vegetable or sunflower)
2 spring onions, finely shredded
5 cm knob of ginger, finely sliced into very thin matchsticks
Handful of coriander
Several glugs of light soy sauce

Place the fish in a steamer for 15 -20 minutes, or until it is just cooked. I like to line coriander in its belly, but this is not essential.

Once the fish is done, take the fish out and place in a heatproof serving dish. Pour a few glugs of light soy sauce all over the fish before sprinkling over spring onions, coriander and ginger.

Heat the oil in a wok over the highest heat (or a small saucepan that can withstand high heat). You want this to be smoking, it’s so hot. Be patient, the dish will be ruined if you take it off too early.

One hot enough (you can check with a wooden chopstick, the oil will bubble furiously around it), pour over the fish and herbs, and there will be a loud satisfying sizzle as the ginger etc. flash cooks and the skin of the fish crisps up.

Serve immediately with white rice and stir-fried vegetables (such as pea shoots).

To see the other Chinese dishes I cooked the same evening, click here.

Equation for a less-than-elegant but tasty Chinese dinner

11 people for dinner. Mine and T’s little flat. The day before, I'd bought out the contents of Loon Fung in Chinatown, scaled fish, massaged pork, armed myself with cleaver, and wondered what wines oenophile Ruth would bring to match the food.

Here’s what we eat, drink and listen to that night.

The Friends
All from university. We don’t see enough of each other, but when we do, things happen... like deciding to stalk electronic genii Daft Punk and booking a long weekend in Vegas to see them. This time - out of the 11 people in my flat, 7 are running the Belfast marathon in a few days time. In neon/spandex-tutu/superman outfits. It is my moral duty to feed everyone up.

The Menu

Bak choi and limes for the G&Ts

Tonight it’s mainly Chinese food with a bit of impro, depending on what ingredients I’m left with. During the shredding, the gutting, the fine-chopping, Anthony Bourdain’s words often whirr through my head – your first principle should be ‘meez’...’mise-en-place’. As in, getting everything you need ready so that at the last minute (and so much is last minute putting together), all your chopped garlic and onions are set out like it is when you watch Delia serenely rustle up a coq au vin.

I’ll be linking the recipes for certain dishes below in following posts.

Chinese Turnip cake with soy and chilli dipping sauce

Cantonese steamed sea-bass with shredded spring onion, ginger and coriander

Crispy five-spice belly pork with mustard and soy sauce

Shittake mushrooms cooked in their own liquor

Dried-shrimp egg fried rice

Bak choi with ginger, garlic and soy sauce

Sliced rump steak with rice noodles and spring onions

Comté, Stichelton, port and apples

Sticky ginger cake and chocolate clafoutis with crème fraîche

(My friend Rob brings cheese – one of my favourites - nutty Comté, and Stichelton – a young blue made from unpasteurised milk.
Sticky ginger cake and chocolate clafoutis with oranges and crème fraiche is brought by dessert-goddess Hannah)

The Tunes
High Contrast, Confidential: drum and bass is a spicy backdrop to the savouries.

Floorfillers 90s Club Classics: For cheese and dessert, the retro I need your loving, Dub be good to me, and Ebenezer Goode just make sense.

The Sauce
We are lucky enough to have some handpicked wines brought by my friend Ruth, and some barrel samples from a Bordeaux tasting.

Here are the wine notes for anyone who wants to know what can go with Chinese fish, pork and beef.

Stormy Cape Chenin Blanc 2009 - South Africa; easy, fruity, cheapie!
Henschke Tilly’s Vineyard 2007 - V famous Australian producer making premium wines; the Tilly’s is their ‘entry level’ white, blend of Semillon 55%, Sauvignon Blanc 20%, Chardonnay 25%; very aromatic, juicy tropical fruits, lots of body.
Quartz Reef Pinot Noir 2006 - 100% Pinot from v reputable New Zealand producer, winemaker Rudi Bauer has won lots of awards; savoury, juicy red fruit, spice

Bordeaux 2009:
Ch Petit Bocq 2009 St. Estephe
Ch Pierre de Montignac 2009 Medoc
Ch Pontac-Lynch 2009 Margaux

Do watch this space for the recipes.

Chilli Crabs, Fish Heads and other stories

The feasting begins at 7.30 Saturday night and wraps at 1 Sunday morning.

Thinking about what we eat - I can now see why...

7.30pm - ‘Loh Sang’ salad
8.00pm - Grilled fish heads

BREAK (We’re pretty full at this point, and this is only the beginning)

9.00pm - Chilli crabs
9.45pm - Steamed crab shells
10.15pm - Baked pomfret with chilli pepper and fried noodles

ANOTHER BREAK (Walk, breathe)

11.15pm - Garlic and spring onion prawns
11.45pm - Pomelo and satsumas

On the seventh day of Chinese New Year falls ‘Everybody’s Birthday’- a day in the Chinese calendar apparently more important than your own. Cue excessive eating back at the Lee family household. My mother has commissioned me to cook chilli crabs, and her school friends who also whip up some prime seafood (and whose grilled fish head dish makes its way onto this post).

I’m only posting recipes for Malaysian Chilli Crabs and Grilled Fish Heads, but special mention must go to the evening’s opening salad, the extraordinary ‘Loh Sang’ - which I’ve only ever seen Malaysian Chinese make. Everyone round the table must toss the ingredients - a variety of shredded vegetables, like carrot, fruit, pomelo, raw fish (symbolising life) and peanuts. A sweet dressing is poured over it, and everyone grabs their chopsticks and tosses the salad altogether. Permissible playing with food. We're beginning to enjoy ourselves.


Adding the dressing then mixing the salad.


Thinking of chilli crabs evokes outdoor restorans in the cool of a Kuala Lumpur evening - piles of crustacea lacquered with sauce, mucky hands grabbing the next leg, hearing the crack of teeth against shell and the satisfying sound of the suck of sweet crabmeat from the claw.

It’s such a wonderfully communal dish and there are infinite ways of making chilli crabs – but this particular recipe has been cooked countless times for hawkeyed Malaysians who leave not a scrap, which I guess is a good sign. I’ve experimented with brandy, extra tamarind, and even vermouth (big mistake) but the ingredient that makes the difference is actually lashings of Sriracha hot chilli sauce (discovered by accident when a friend up-ended a bottle into the wok). And when I didn’t have the chilli sauce, the understudy was ketchup, which worked as lickably well – both add a sweetness and depth that cut through the spices of the base paste.


And then fish heads. They provoke strange behaviour in the older generations.

Imagine you’re at dinner. You’re having a perfectly normal conversation about the demise of Cheryl and Ashley over a plate of whole fried fish, and all of a sudden, passionate spatting erupts, and chopstick-wielding parents and uncles fight over the fish head in the way teenage girls squabble over a spotty pubescent boy.

And I’ve noticed that whoever wins is silent for the next 15 minutes as they work to reach then savour every morsel of cartilagey goodness and soft meat and cheek that nestles in the head.

I realise this may not be to everyone’s taste, but I can say with a surety a fish head is an absolute treat as it yields so much flavour and tender meat. The Chinese talk about whether you ‘know how to eat’ something. Fish heads are something you have to ‘know how to eat’ because it’s a maze of bone which you expertly nibble around. My very English boyfriend does amazingly well amongst such seasoned cranium-eaters. But he can’t bring himself to eat the eyes. He’s still got a way to go.

And, as you can imagine, the heads are also terribly terribly cheap. I once went to Billingsgate market after 2 hours sleep (post-night- out). Marvelling at how little everything cost, I bought five huge salmon fish heads for £2.50 (as well as 3 lobsters, 5 cheeky crabs who terrorized my kitchen, 3 sea bass and 5 sea bream all for 35 quid. To say I got carried away is beyond understatement). Bargainous.

I wanted to post this fish head recipe – it’s so simple, so cheap, and such a tasty starter that I salute anyone brave enough to make it.


Grilled salmon fish heads

Serves 4

Ingredients

- 4 salmon fish heads, cut in half down the centre between the eyes (get your fishmonger to do this for you if you don’t have a sharp enough knife)
- Lots of salt

Recipe

Preheat grill to the highest temperature.

Wash the fish heads, and if there are still scales on them, give them a quick rub with a knife to take the scales off. Pat the heads dry with kitchen roll – the skin should be dry.

Salt the fish heads by rubbing the entire surface of the heads, skin-side and flesh side, with plenty of salt.

Place the heads on a wired baking tray, skin side up and put under the grill for about 15 minutes, or until the skin has JUST turned black. You want the skin to be a little blistered and blackened.

Take the baking tray out and turn the heads over so it’s flesh-side up.
Grill for another 5 minutes until the flesh is just cooked and still tender.

Serve immediately.


Chilli Crabs

Serves 4

You’ll need a good wok, or a deep frying pan

Ingredients

- 2 large live crabs. Buy on the day you want to cook them. You can keep them in the fridge in wet newspaper until you need to use them.
- Plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper
- Sunflower, vegetable or groundnut oil
- 1 teaspoon tamarind paste mixed with ¼ pint water and 1 teaspoon sugar
- 4 large squirts of Sriracha hot chilli sauce OR tomato ketchup and chopped fresh chillies

For the paste:

- 1 stalk lemongrass
- 12 shallots
- 6 cloves garlic
- 4 cm ginger (or 2 cm galangal, 2cm ginger)
- 1 level teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
- 10 birdseye dried chillies

Garnish:

- 2 spring onions finely sliced
- 2 sprigs coriander

Recipe

Chop all the ingredients for the paste. If you have the energy, forgo the gym and pound all the ingredients in a pestle and mortar. This seems to yield a better texture and taste. You can magimix the paste instead though - put all the ingredients in and whiz until an ochrey yellow paste. It won’t be smooth, but you want all the bits small enough so that there aren’t individual bits of lemongrass that get stuck in your teeth. Set aside.

Prepare the crabs.
Clean the crabs first under running water. An old toothbrush is best for a thorough scrub.
Place the crabs on a solid chopping board. Hold the crab on its back (shell side down) and stick a sharp knife into the crab directly behind the eyes to kill it.

Pull off the tail flap from the underside and discard. Then, either press down on the centre and legs and pull off the shell, or, if you’re having difficulty, insert the knife under the shell to give yourself some leverage.

Pull off the gills (dead man’s fingers) and throw away the spongy sand bag, which sits behind the eyes.

Using a sharp knife, cut the crab in half, and then cut off the claws. Use a mallet or rolling pin to bash each piece so that it’s easier for those eating to get to the meat.

Dip these parts (claws and legs) into the seasoned flour and make sure they are dusted all over.

Heat about 200ml of oil in a wok or a deep pan. You know the oil’s hot enough when you stick a chopstick in and the oil furiously bubbles.

Fry 4 pieces at a time, 2-3 minutes each side. The outside of the crab should be bright red and the flour crispy. If the oil turns brown at any point, use fresh oil.
Set the crab pieces aside on kitchen roll.

Heat the wok again. Using 2 tablespoons of fresh oil, fry the paste in the wok for about 2 minutes, until the spices smell amazingly fragrant. You do not want the paste to burn.

Add the tamarind-water-sugar mixture. Bring to the boil, then tip in the crabs back into the wok. Stir to make sure all of the crab is covered in sauce. Then cover the wok for about 5 minutes, giving the crabs a stir every now and then, so that they steam a little.

Open the wok, and add the ketchup and chillies/chilli sauce. Stir and cook for an extra minute.

Add the spring onions and coriander.

Stir once more, then serve.

If you’re at a loose end with the crab shells, which have the roe inside, you can either cook them the same way as the claws and legs, or you can steam them just as they are, and eat with a spoon. They are an acquired taste, but absolutely delicious.