Chinese chicken cabbage rolls with tofu

One of my all-time favorites dishes of German cuisine are Kohlrouladen - cabbage roulades.

These are minced meat farce [my mother always used beef] stuffed leaves of white cabbage braised and served nicely browned. They are really tasty.

Anyway - I wanted to do something new - and looked for an Asian dish - and I found several references for Chinese cabbage rolls.

Usually the Chinese variation, is just poached in broth. And instead of making a farce with egg and breadcrumbs they use tofu.

So I minced my chicken with my knives [more work - but the irregular and larger meet pieces are much better than the meat mash], added soya sauce, sautéed brunois of garlic, scallions, carrot, mushrooms and also added it to the mix and besides of seasoning [salt, pepper and some homemade Chinese 5 spice], I also added tofu. Mixed everything properly up and voilà.

I blanched the whole head of cabbage, to get easier the leaves off - and I shaved off the middle rib of the cabbage leaves, to make it easier to roll. Then I filled the leaves with the farce.

Instead of using butcher twine [which is quite a pain], I rolled them into cling film, and made a bonbon out of it [and knotted together the twirled ends of the cling film].
Then I put them into my sous vide hacked rice cooker and poached them for 1.5 hours at 63ºC.
After that I put them into a ice water bath to chill them down fast.

Momofuku Ko's Ginger Scallion sauce
via Tastespotting blog

Off course - if you like to have something tasting really great, you need to utilize the Maillard reaction (which normal people would call browning] - hence you would need to undress the cabbage rolls out of  their cling film sleeve, dry them [don't throw the liquid - put it into your sauce, it is tasty], and fry them in a smoking pan with peanut oil [or any other heat stable oil like corn oil].

Cut one open to try; delicious!

As a dish, I thought to serve it on fragrant rice, with slightly thickened miso sauce and David Changs scallion ginger sauce.

Do you need sous vide here? No definitely not, but it makes live easier - you don't have to watch over it, that it doesn't start to boil.
Well - the recipe is a go. let me see, if I will be able to make the whole dish, without eating one after the other delicious roll...

Sharpening knives

Last week I bought 2 Japanese sharpening wet-stones at Dean Fujiya Japanese supermarket. And I was beyond believe, how much I had to drop on them [you will not find one stone below AED 220!!!].


Bought a combi stone - 220 / 1000 [this is the grain fineness] and one around 6000.

My long serving Wusthof Trident Santoku

Yes my Ken Onion knife is that pretty!!!

Why? Because I have great knives, one Wüsthof GrandPrix Santoku knife and one Ken Onion by Shun chef knife. But over the time, the knives really suffered - and looking on the blades, they looked more like serrated knives, than normal chef knives.

The Ken Onion knife was also quite disappointing, when it comes to the blade strength. The steel of the blade edge looks really soft, much softer than the German knife - even after only a couple of months, it had a lot of grooves and dents...

Yes - it is still a beauty - and if sharpened properly, one of the sharpest things around.

Inspiration was the amazing youtube video of Chefsteps. Love these videos:

Well - in the video, they just took 10 minutes to sharpen a knife [even with reshaping the tip] - in reality, I needed a bit longer... for both knives I needed 2.5 freaking hours, to get them perfectly sharp.

But now I am proud again, on my jewels in the kitchen. I even tried the neat trick of shaving some hair of my arm with the my Santoku and it worked without problem!

In future, I will use much more often my new sharpening stones, that my knives are never getting in such a bad shape ever again.

And: while the stones were expensive: to buy a new knife is much more expensive: My Santoku is no more produced [in absolutely the same configuration] - however similar knives would cost definitely AED 700 and more... and the Ken Onion by Shun sets you back also more than AED 600 [and it is for the moment no more longer available - bought it at Barrel & Crate - but they don't have this exact knife anymore].

So my advise: Sharpen your knives yourself with a wet stone. Yes, it will take time, and it is definitely quite a mess [I didn't mentioned, that the whole kitchen floor was wet, due to the consistent wettening of the stone - my better part freaked out, when she came home and saw the mess]. But it is so worth it. My knives cut now better than when they were new. And: if I see my German knife, which is already older than 10 years, I think, that I can keep my two main knives for the rest of my life. I just love this idea!

Mooyha burger, can it score?

This is a pretty new opening... Maximum a couple of weeks operating.

The staff welcomed me very enthusiastic... Maybe a bit contrived mirth, but who am I to judge.

The place isn't the Ibn Battuta mall and is clean, features bright colors like red and yellow, which is accompanied by wood textures.

There are two big chalkboards on the wall, but it seems, that is more for the show than for daily specials.

Overall a quite pleasant interior.

I got a pager, to notice, when the order is ready, but it didn't took long and it was my food was served. While this might be not the standard (they we not busy at all), I value the effort; very good.

My order: mooyah burger, sweet potato fries and lemonade. I paid AED 61.00.

By the way: they have coca cola products (nice).

The fries:

Johnnie Rockets: please come here and try! Other than your miserable examples of fries, these sweet potato sticks are awesome! Crispy and spiced outside and creamy inside. Hell yeah!

The burger:

I've ordered the tomato on the side... And it came in a small bowl on the side. Finally someone who understands me.

The burger has a double patty. Nobody asked me for the doneness, but it came medium well. Juicy and nice. While they say on the trayliner that they have different cheeses, mine was by default American (cheese imitation). My own fault, but someone could have told me...

There were also caramelized onions on the burger (great but a bit too wet), salad (didn't hold up against the patties) and pickles (average). Overall a darn tasty burger, which was a bit messy, though.

The lemonade:

This was of the kind: stir powder into water. Not really great... You could even taste the secondary sweeteners (something like aspartame). It was not revolting, but also not good at all. They offer though one free refill!

Lets get to the ratings:

Yay or meh: yay. I will definitely come back. Not driving extra down like this time. But the venue is directly besides the cinema. So coming a bit earlier and munch a good mooya burger is better,Nathan the overpriced cinema snacks.

Restaurant comfort: 6- but only due to noisy Tagalog chatting. Even in a fast food place, I really don't like to hear staff conversation!

Food and Beverages: 7 - the burger is good. Not not as good as JR, ShakeSh., or Elevation Burger

Service: 7 - very friendly and helpful. At times a bit too noisy.

Value for money: 7

Overall: 6.5

I would drive to venues like Shake Shack or even Johnnie Rockets. But Mooyah burger is not such a place. Yes the burger is good, and they had the best fries yet in my reviews. But there is a little bit missing for real greatness. But well... Like mentioned, definitely advisable before a movie...

Döner Kebab... In Dubai... at German Döner Kebab

This was my idea... Really!

A couple of years ago I told a,couple of friends, that German Döner would be an instant hit in the UAE. It's so obvious: people like here comfort food, sloppy food, Middle Eastern cuisine, sandwiches... And a "döner" is everything and more...

My concept was, to team up with a Turkish-German "imbiss" and replicate it here with their help and some of their 'cooks'.

Then, a couple of months ago I have seen the first 'coming soon' ads. When I have seen, that they finally opened, I wanted to be here... I had to come here... And here I am!

The restaurant

Common guys, in Germany this kind of restaurants are more cafeterias... Often little bit more than a white tiled hole in a wall. Here it is like an ultra modern bistro... Very nice, with free wifi... Black, orange, white with ambiance lighting. Wonderful and strange at the same time. This would be in Germany the Döner Kebab for hipsters...

The service

I wanted to have a beef döner... beef and lamb is usually the way to go. Chicken is for whimsies! However beef was sold out, so I had to go for poultry.

Most servers are African (again strange... what is wrong with Turks?). They are confident, but not exactly service oriented. And don't have the appeal of Ali of 'Döner an der Ecke'.

Though.., also no complains here.

Der döner

I have to say... This döner is pretty kick ass. It is that good. 97% from the best Döners in Germany. The bread is a good Turkish fluffy flatbread, nicely toasted. The composition is really great. Tasty - tasty - tasty. Much better than the British-Indian concepts... Take this, UK!

They have also German potato salad which doesn't really make sense... It is a Turkish concept, remember (you would not expect a truly German dish in a Chinese German restaurant, would you? It wouldn't be so far off, if they would also offer other German popular dishes like currywurst. But they don't... So it is weird).

Drinks are pretty standard: coke product (bravo, I don't like Pepsi), but no refill (sad)- Snapple products, which again doesn't really fit... 

But

And this is a big but: they took away the ordering and customizing experience. You can order at the cashier, and gives the order to the kitchen. In Germany it is so different. I guess part of the popularity of this dish and its venues is, that the German Turks implemented long before Cold Stone Creamery or other similar concepts the theater of food preparation.

You come to Ali (or Murat) - most of the time, he knows you and chit chats already some small talk. He knows your order... off course... But even if you are a first timer, you order at the guy with the big knife (or electric round cutter) and he will assist you for our dream döner. Salad, cabbage, onions, yoghurt garlic sauce, tomatoes, spicy chili sauce, chili flakes... Everything is in front of you and is heaped onto the sandwich as soon as he asks, and you confirm. It is like "build your dream döner"- and this is truly wonderful.

Unfortunately this stylish outpost just ripped away this essential experience from us.

Yay or Meh: definitely yay!

Restaurant comfort: 7 (in comparison to German venues it would be a 10- letting their counterparts on a 3 or 4)

Food and beverage: 8.5 

Service: 6

Value for money: 6

Overall: 7

Proper Döner Kebab bonus: 10

Lack of friendly snotty Ali: -10

Verdict: 

Döner alone is superlative to anything here in Dubai. Yes I would even say, it would be quite with the top 10 of Döner sandwiches in Germany. BUT, due to the unique concept in GER, you almost always have your perfect burger there... Like lots of garlic? Your friend at the spit puts more garlic sauce on... Like it spicy? He put some extra spicy sauce on the bottom and/or adds some chili flakes on top. Don't like tomato or like more onions? You get it. And here all German döners are outplaying the Dubai counterpart.

If you don't know it from Germany you won't miss it and you will celebrate the glorious sandwich. If you know it, you will miss it. A lot!

Still, it is a very pleasant place to go... A bit hard to find...

They seem to be on hard work with several franchises, which is a good thing. But they really should consider to put the assembly back to the front, where it should be...