Little Lo beef short rib pot sticker dumperring

T minus 4 days till the food feast and gorge of our Hong Kong and Singapore trip. The boyfriend has never been, and it's a funny mix of wanting to just see family and do local things as well as do the tourist attractions I've not done in years. But one thing is for certain, the food. I've mapped out all the places I am dying to try. Following a load of Instagrammers from Hong Kong is agony - seeing a beautiful bowl of noodles and then realising you're thousands of miles away till you could taste it...painful. But, a google map of all the best looking local cafés, dim sum, asian fusion is my main goal to work around as many as possible in two weeks. If anyone had any more places to add, feel free to comment below! 

My last little post before I head to HK is in anticipation of a great little place that's popular in Central called Little Bao. Worth the wait and so hard to choose which bao to chow down on. But, the appetisers were so inventive on Asian fusion and everything I love cooking having a mix of British and Chinese culture in my upbringing. 

They do these great short rib beef dumplings. I definitely can't contend with theirs, but I adore short ribs - and the cut works so well for asian flavours, it's a main element in a lot of my supper clubs. 

It's a meat which isn't sold widely enough in supermarkets, but you should always go to the butcher for this sort if thing, as you'll get a beautiful marbling of fat and meat to slow cook to beefy heaven. I get mine from Turner and George, who deliver and you can order from online. It's worth the 4am-7am pre work order time slot I promise. 

Last week I had to defrost the freezer as a new one was being delivered. Playing "eat the fridge and freezer" contents all week led to some interesting combinations. (Onion bhaji and fish cakes?!).  I realised that I have FOUR different types of dumplings in the freezer, and it was almost an intervention in itself of my dumpling/potsticker obsession. So, as a form of therapy...I cooked one last batch ahead of the exciting trip to Hong Kong. This is actually two recipes, the first is beautiful as it stands.  

Catch a matcha eclair

As it gets colder, my butter and carb intake gets bigger. It's a direct and unfortunate relationship, and very hard when you're trying to save money for a food fest trip to HK and media-ville lends itself well to Christmas lunches and drink in the next few months. It's got so bad, the little paunch has got a name. As I write this, I've just stuffed a cupcake down me, and so my guilt and sugar high drives me to carry on typing in vain. Sunday blues with an icy wind just mean more baking and more slow cooking. So as the short ribs slowly braise in the cooker, I decided to make a little choux classic. My idiotic plan to make these mini just meant I ate more of the suckers - a perfect 2 bites of sugar, cream and chocolate. The matcha powder is a simple mellow hum to the very sweet white choc (I used Green and Blacks) and a really good pop of colour to lure you in. Fancy sugar work on the top is completely unnecessary, but a good way to waste time if you're impatiently waiting for the pastry to cool and the chocolate to set. Eclairs are one last blast of summer - they're lighty and pretty to eat - so go make a batch now. I was testing out some recipes for a moustache Movember bake sale I'm doing at work and thought these would be an ingenious way to get some 'tache-clairs. Follow me on Twitter to see if I can actually pull these off!

The ones below can also be made as profiteroles. Now if only it were able to be so versatile as to include it as one of my five a day.