Ingredients:
1 cup of sugar
2 sticks of butter
3 tablespoons of water
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 chocolate bars
crushed nuts if you want them (usually 1/2 cup is enough)
You will need:
1 medium saucepan
1 cookie pan with the edges up*
*some experience here, don't use those nice baker's secret pans. The two
layers will prevent you from getting it out easily
Directions: Heat 1st four ingredients in a saucepan. Cook until the
butter browns (usually about 10 minutes...sometimes longer depending on
the heat). Stir constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent burning. Pour
into a buttered cookie pan. Lay the chocolate bard across the hot mass
and spread. Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the top. Cool. (I usually put
mine in the freezer because it freezes faster, but it will cool if you
leave it out on the counter, too). Break into pieces and serve when cool.
This looks a bit like brittle, and always best if the pieces are
irregularly shaped!
Black Tower Chicken In Lotus Leaves
1 chicken (You may use a whole chicken or a whole cut in two halves.
Either way this is meant of a medium sized chicken. If cut in 2 halves then the
stuffing may be divided and half put on a bed below the two spread out
chicken halves and the other on top. Porkfat cut in two and one on each
half of chicken.)
Stuffing:
1/2 cup black beans
2 horse chesnuts
5 to 6 shitake mushrooms, diced
1 small piece of pork fat
Sauce:
3 tablespoons Oyster sauce
1 tablespoon black sauce
3 table spoons sugar
1/8 cup water
5 teaspoons of cornflour, dissolved in 10 table spoons of hot water
4 star anise
4 cinnamon stick
Salt
Other stuff:
2 teaspoons of Rice wine
3 sstems of celery, chopped
1 sprig of Chinese parsley
2 lotus leaves, washed clean Twine
1) Begin by rubbing the chicken down with salt, then washing it off.
Leve it for 5 minutes before washing it off. The salt helps dissolve the fat and
keep the chicken from drying when steaming.
2) Stuff it will the stuffing. (Duh) Putting the pork fat on the top of the chicken.
3) Wrap it in lotus leaves, tied with twine and steam for 15 minutes.
4) While steaming, prepare sauce by boiling everything except the
cornflour, then adding the floury water when the sauce comes to a boil. Let it
simmer for 3 minutes and set aside. This may get goey when it cools. But it's
alright. no worries. Hunters are tough.
5) When chicken is done, put it in a large bowl. Unwrap the chicken and
remove stuffing. Surround the chicken with the stuffing and pour sauce
over it. The sauce should cover the top of the chicken. But bowls may differ,
so if it doesn't cover, no worries. Add rice wine and celery.
6) Cover it with other lotus leaf, without tying, return it to the
steamer to cook for another 15 minutes.
7) This is up to you, but for presentation purposes, I usually scoop
away the layer of oil that floats on top of the gravy. it's quite a bit if ya got a fat chicken. *grins* So yeah, probably ya could do as I do and remove
this layer. Alternatively if you don't really care then... well... who cares
really? Also don't remove the lotus leaves when serving. Twine, yes, leaves, no.
8) Serve with a garnish of chinese parsley.