Spotting a Chinese restaurant in a regional Australian town is like spotting a bakery serving meat pies and vanilla slices: pretty much every town has them. These dining staples have often been serving locals and visitors for decades, and are the focus of Chopsticks or Fork?, a new book profiling 10 families across Australia running Chinese restaurants around Australia. It’s a spin-off of the 2021 ABC series of the same name, which saw comedian Jennifer Wong and producer Lin Jie Kong survey Australia to discover the history and stories behind these institutions.
Along with diving into the history of Chinese migration and food in Australia, as well as the story behind the lazy Susan and a how-to guide for eating with chopsticks, it features 32 recipes from the restaurants visited by Kong and Wong. It’s loaded with recognisable dishes that, mixed and matched, can be turned into a classic Chinese-Australian banquet: sang choy bao, honey prawns, lemon chicken, sizzling Mongolian lamb, combination fried rice and, of course, deep-fried ice-cream.
The deep-fried ice-cream recipe shared in Chopsticks or Fork? comes courtesy of New Bo Wa, a restaurant in Moree, NSW, that has been serving locals (and visitors to the local hot springs) since 1975 – and despite having three owners during its lifetime, the menu has barely changed. Its prawn cutlets, sweet and sour pork and deep-fried ice-cream have become local signatures. Everything is made from scratch, from the dim sims to the sauces. And so is the deep-fried ice-cream, a beloved dessert for generations of Aussies visiting their local Chinese joint.
“As desserts go, deep-fried ice-cream is a joyful and thermodynamic wonder,” write Wong and Kong. “To recreate this sweet childhood memory at home, remember: the oil temperature needs to be high (so in this case, a cooking thermometer would be especially useful), and speed is of the essence when removing the deep-fried ice-cream from the oil and onto serving bowls. Make it once, and you’ll most likely always have cake-coated ice cream balls at the ready in your freezer, just like a Chinese restaurant.”
New Bo Wa’s deep-fried ice-cream
Makes 4
Preparation time: 25 minutes, plus freezing
Cooking time: 30 seconds
Ingredients
500ml vanilla ice-cream
3 egg whites
3 cups breadcrumbs
4 slices madeira cake
½ cm of vegetable or canola oil, for deep-frying
Flavoured topping of your choice, for example: chocolate, caramel, strawberry
wafer biscuit, whipped cream, maraschino cherry (optional, to serve)
Method
Scoop out 4 balls of the ice-cream, roughly 125ml each, onto a tray lined with baking paper. Freeze for 1 hour.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites until slightly frothy. Place breadcrumbs in a separate bowl.
Remove the ice-cream balls from the freezer, wrap each ball with one slice of the cake and smoosh together, forming a sphere roughly the shape of a tennis ball.
Working quickly, roll the ball in the breadcrumbs, press with your hands to firmly coat, then coat in the egg whites, followed by a second coat of breadcrumbs. Coat in egg whites and breadcrumbs once more.
Return the coated ice-cream balls to the tray and freeze overnight.
When you’re ready to serve them, fill a large wok or saucepan approximately two-thirds full with oil. Slowly bring to 200°C over medium–high heat. This might take up to 10 minutes.
Take the coated ice-cream balls out of the freezer and, using a ladle, drop each one gently into the oil. Deep-fry until golden, about 20–30 seconds. Serve with your favourite topping.
Chopsticks or Fork? (Hardie Grant) by Jennifer Wong and Lin Jie Kong is available online and in bookstores from September 3.
