Kwoklyn Wan – Food for Thought
Life is busy for Kwoklyn Wan. When the third-generation restaurateur and chef isn’t appearing on This Morning to teach Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield how to make wonton soup, he’s probably making crispy noodles on Steph’s Packed Lunch. If you’re not hearing him laugh on the radio, then you’ll probably find him grinning in several magazines. And if he’s not teaching karate chopping to hundreds of people, you’ll most likely see him teaching vegetable chopping to hundreds more.
It’s little surprise that the success of his three cookbooks, Chinese Takeaway Cookbook, Chinese Takeaway in 5 and Veggie Chinese Takeaway, has catapulted Wan into this glamorous world of television and radio appearances, glossy magazine spreads, and deals with Amazon Prime. But it turns out, that the culinary success he is now known for today, has in fact, always been hardwired into his DNA.
“It wasn’t so much that I discovered a love for cooking, but more that it was a necessity of life,” explains the 48-year old as he dials in from his family home in Leicester. “My dad opened his restaurant in 1978, and I was only five, but I remember going to my grandpa’s restaurant before that, so cooking was always a part of my life.” Wan’s grandfather had come over to England during Hong Kong’s mass migration in the mid-fifties, and in 1962 he opened Leicester’s first Chinese restaurant. Wan explains that his grandfather’s “chop suey” house had a menu that was a fusion of British and Chinese cuisine; you could order a traditional roast dinner but also tickle the tastebuds with sweet and sour chicken.
Kwoklyn Wan’s father, “Poppa Wan”, helped his own father manage the restaurant until 1978, when he opened the city’s first Cantonese restaurant called The Bamboo House. Wan explains how he, his sister, and his brother (the TV star Gok Wan) spent their childhood running around, greeting guests, washing up and helping keep the family business on track. “It wasn’t a life choice,” Wan says, “it was a lifestyle.”
After working at the family restaurant, he moved to the South Coast of England to work as a doorman. “I was living hand-to-mouth, sleeping all day, going to the gym in the afternoon and working all night,” he recalls. In-between jobs, Wan always found himself working at the family restaurant or in their chip shop. After a spell as a taxi driver, he saved up to open up the first Kung-Fu centre in Leicester City. “It took off from there,” he says. Wan would go onto open big martial arts shows, teach classes, and put on events for tens of thousands.
Years spent teaching students to strike and punch meant that Wan honed in essential skills of entrepreneurship and teaching, skills which enabled him to pursue his passion for teaching Chinese cuisine. He started uploading a few family recipes to a website he had created about six years ago and it all kicked off from there. “The next thing I know, I had a book deal for five books; I was doing TV programmes, radio interviews and hosting classes,” he says. “But, it wasn’t a conscious decision to do that. The recipes I was sharing with people, it was clearly what they wanted to try.”
His first book, Chinese Takeaway, is “everyone’s firm favourite”. The recipe book is a food memoir for Wan, as he has filled the pages with family recipes and his life stories. “It was a very personal book for me,” says Wan, “and so it was the easiest to write as I could pour myself into it.” The book is structured around a takeaway menu you could find anywhere in the UK, but thanks to Wan, there’s no need to fork out for a disappointing Deliveroo as you can now recreate it at home. The book is filled with takeaway staples that anyone partial to crispy duck pancakes on a night-in will drool over. As expected, there are recipes for: prawn toast, spring rolls, chilli beef, honey and lemon chicken, crab and sweetcorn soup, king prawn ginger and spring onion, chow mein, boiled rice, egg fried rice, and much more.
His Veggie Chinese takeaway cookbook offers over 70 meat-free recipes, most of which can also be made vegan. Wan explains how Chinese food highly complements a vegetarian diet, as it makes the most of fresh vegetables and meat substitutes, using very little dairy. Expect recipes for tom yum soup, fried tofu with chilli and black beans, Hong Kong crispy noodles and sticky rice parcels.
A confessed “carb-head”, Wan decides his last supper would have to be outside of the Slimming World restrictions he is currently subjecting himself to. He picks a starter of “hot and sour soup with prawn crackers”, followed by “Chinese roast duck on the bone with crispy skin” and a vegetarian dish of “broccoli and oyster sauce with boiled rice.” For dessert, “strawberries and cream Haagen-Dazs”. As Wan is tee-total, he opts for a glass of Pepsi-Max.
Over the years, Wan has opened a full-time Kung Fu School, a Martial Arts & Fitness show, opened a Trucker’s café, a Taiwanese Bubble Tea store and a Hong Kong street food bar. He has been the author of three hugely successful cookbooks and has won praise for his affable demeanour whenever he is broadcasting. It’s no doubt that Wan is a multitalented trailblazer, and although his lips stay sealed about his next “big” project, chances are that it’ll be a sure-fire success.
Try Kwoklyn Wan’s recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls here:
Ingredients
125g (1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tsp baking powder (soda)
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
160ml (2⁄3 cup) semi-skimmed milk
1 tbsp groundnut oil, plus enough for deep-frying
4 chicken breast fillets, cut into 3cm (1¼in) cubes
For the sweet and sour sauce
240ml (1 cup) orange juice
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) mixed
with 6 tbsp water
Method
First make the sauce – put all the ingredients, apart from the cornflour mixture, into a large saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes.
Slowly pour the cornflour mixture into the sauce a little at a time, stirring continuously, until you have the desired consistency, then take off the heat and set to one side.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, milk and the 1 tablespoon of oil together. Pour the wet mixture into the flour and mix well to create a smooth paste.
Add the chicken and mix, making sure each piece is thoroughly coated.
Heat oil to 170°C (345°F) in a deep-sided saucepan or wok, ensuring you have enough oil in the wok so that the chicken will fry without touching the bottom.
Carefully lower the chicken into the oil one piece at a time and fry in batches of 5 pieces for about 5–6 minutes,until golden brown and cooked thoroughly. If you have a food probe thermometer the internal temperature should reach 78°C (175°F).
Remove the chicken from the oil and drain on a wire rack or on a plate lined with kitchen paper. Repeat until you’ve fried all the chicken, then serve with the sweet and sour dipping sauce.