Dumpling Dinner Party

It seems like I've been ho-ing it up with Hobag a lot lately.  Well maybe it's because none of the rest of my so-called "friends" ever asks me to hang out hmmm???  It's likely your loss because if you're not hanging out with me, you're probably not eating all that well.  Hobag's donut and my food baby speak to the very fact that when together, we eat REALLY well.  For a change of pace, Hobag invited me to a little dumpling making party.  The original party was getting out of control with the head count going upwards of 10 people.  So that was scraped and a new party was planned with just 4 of us, 5 if you include the dog.

I missed most of the prep that went into the dumpling filling making.  Hates Food Porno gave me a rough rundown of the ingredients.

Shrimp, Pork, and Chive Dumplings

(makes ~100 dumplings)

2 lbs shrimp

1 lb ground pork shoulder

2 big bunches of Chinese chives

1 egg

1 tsp cornstarch

1/3 of a 16 oz bottle of sesame oil

Salt and chicken bouillon to taste

I've made plenty of dumplings at home, but this by far had to be the best tasting one.  Paucity of ingredients?  I guess most other dumpling recipes have soy sauce, cooking wine, and ginger from what I've noticed.  Ground pork is usually used and the ratio of shrimp to pork is way higher than what I've seen.  Lastly, Hates Food Porno's recipe uses way more sesame oil than I've ever seen before as well.  Though, maybe it was the chicken bouillon powder that added that specialness.  It's a ragtag recipe, but I'm saving it to try on my own one of these days.

I think the tip I picked up here was to stop overstuffing my dumplings.  I think I get super greedy and want to put a ton of stuff in each wrapper.  Each wrapper can only accommodate so much filling and will usually tear when pushed to its limit.

To give you a point of reference, the almighty and ubiquitous Yogurtland spoon was used to fill our dumplings.  Hobag was all out of silver spoons that night.

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Fish Dinner Party

One of the main reasons to upgrade the camera was to try and do more cooking blog entries.  Sooooo, that has really yet to happen, but then one day my friends and I had a spontaneous dinner party.  It was really great because everyone pitched in and cooked something as opposed to most of my dinner parties where I do all the cooking, which makes picture taking pretty impossible.  

Big Fishy, Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat, and Fairius (previously known as Dairy Queen) woke up at the butt crack of dawn to go fishing at Irvine Lake.  Who knew a man made lake had fish for the catching, let alone the eating?  Contained bodies of water always kinda creep me out and add to that the man made component?  Ugh, what could those fish be eating?  Where is all their waste products going?  Nowhere!  Anyways, no point in contemplating these things since the fish has long since been enjoyed and digested.  So those guys caught some delicious trout which Big Fishy prepared.  Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat manned the potatoes and brought a side of his mother's homemade kimchi.  Fairius roasted the Brussel sprouts, which he never gets to eat in Thailand, his current home, because they are so damn expensive.  I took over the cauliflower.  Sleepy Snoozy and Big Fishy's wifey pitched in and helped clean up.

Garlic Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

Do you ever get small random chunks of butter leftover after cooking or baking something else?  Well I had one of those so I just threw it in to finish the potatoes at the end.  Everyone's eyes bugged out at the amount of butter I just tossed in there, but nobody had a darn complaint about those delicious potatoes.  There's a reason butter and better only different by one letter.  Where is my winky face emoji when I need it?!

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Spaghetti with Pinot Grigio and Seafood

I don't know what the seafood consumption of most average American homes is, but in my house growing up, we didn't eat a lot of fresh seafood.  I think my mom would buy a fried fish from the Asian supermarket and then she would cook frozen shrimps, stir fried or tempura style.  My mom never bought truly fresh seafood.  As a result, I don't really buy it either nor do I feel comfortable preparing it.  I'm just afraid it will spoil the minute I take it home.  So when I watch cooking shows, which I believe targets the average American household, I am surprised at how often it showcases recipes using fresh seafood.  I just cannot fathom that most households can really afford fresh high quality seafood.

Anyways, I finally had the courage to try out this recipe which calls for clams and shrimp.  I learned from my mom that you can get away with frozen shrimp, but with clams there's only ONE option, fresh and still kicking.  I just bought them at the local Asian market so the freshness was questionable to begin with.  It was at this same market that I got violent food poisoning from the seafood soon do bu.

Saute up your shallots, garlic, and sundried tomatoes and deglaze with the wine.

Then you add your clams.  I was very paranoid about killing my clams since I wouldn't be cooking them the same day I bought them.  I fervently Googled how to store clams, and the worst thing you can do for them is soak them in water overnight.  Apparently that will kill them!  They'll run out of oxygen. So I just covered them in a lot of moist paper towels and hoped for the best.

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Linguine with Shimeji Mushrooms

This had got to be my most FAVORITE recipe discovery of the year, mostly because it's so easy and doesn't require a lot of extra ingredients that I wouldn't normally already have laying around.  Surprisingly, the dish is completely VEGETARIAN and still excites me.  Just the other day it was "meatless Mondays" in the cafeteria and I was completely disappointed and struggled to find something good to eat.  I ended up fishing out as much chicken in the chicken noodle soup, but I was thoroughly disgruntled with my polenta terrine and steamed zucchinis.

The key ingredient to this dish are shimeji mushrooms which are also known hon-shimeji, white beech, or brown beech mushrooms.  At my supermarket they are sold prepackaged in 3-4oz portions.  I don't do much to them but cut off the roots so they can separate.  I don't even wash them because they're mushrooms and I think they'll just soak up all that excess water, which you don't want.

You sautee them up in a decent amount of olive oil and garlic.  I cut back the amount of oil from what the original recipe calls for, but you do want a good amount because the oil helps create a sauce.

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Rigatoni with Ragu Bolognese

I love food that is hearty and comforting, stews, slow braises, and meat sauce anything just to name a few.  When I go out to Italian restaurants, I have to force myself from ordering the ragu or bolognese.  I can't help but gravitate to it because I know it's probably gonna be solid with no surprises.  I figure if I'm going out to try a new restaurant, then I should order something different.  Anyways, I came across this recipe from Darin Dines and I wanted to see if I could recreate this yumminess.  If I could get my ragu fix at home, maybe I wouldn't gravitate toward it so much when I'm out.

So the recipe is very interesting because you use a food processor to munch up a ton of garlic and pancetta.

You then fry this up and try to resist the intoxicating aroma of fat, pork, and garlic making love in your pan.

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Oxtail Ragu

Sometimes, I am limited to cooking certain things because ingredients are either prohibitively expensive or not conveniently obtainable.  I would say this about duck, rack of lamb, and some seafoods.  Surprisingly, one of the Asian supermarkets here has oxtails, which I guess is no surprise since Asians do use oxtails.  Granted when the Asian markets carry certain items, they aren't usually top quality and it's reflected in the price.  Since I'm just cooking for myself and Dumpling Man for a regular weekday dinner, I don't mind chintzing on quality sometimes.  Darin Dines inspired me to try out this recipe, but for some reason my version turned out a much darker color than his, which I can't really figure out why.

This is a recipe from Mario Batali, which I confidently believed would result in something solid.

First you gotta season your tails.

Then dredge 'em in some flour.

Brown it up.

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Hainanese Chicken & Rice

Dumpling Man really likes Hainan Chicken & Rice.  It's a pretty simple dish that I usually cheat to make since I never wanted to attempt poaching my own chicken and making my own rice.  So I've used various versions of this pre-made seasoning in a jar over the years, and Dumpling Man has always been pleased.  All you do is add a couple scoops to your rice and then pop it in the rice cooker.  As for the chicken, I usually season it and slather it with some ginger and steam it. 

Anyways, I decided to hunker down and do it all from scratch.  Watching the episode of No Reservations, when Anthony Bourdain visits Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken and Rice Stand in Singapore, was the final push to try and do it.  They showed the process of poaching the chicken and using the poaching liquid to make an aromatic delicious rice.  I found an easy enough recipe at Steamy Kitchen.

So when my mom makes bun thanh, which is a kind of Vietnamese chicken noodle soup dish, she says it should be made with a free range chicken.  She's not very clear on why, but it's supposed to be better.  This recipe too, called for a free range chicken.


I have no idea how many pounds the chicken was, but by my guestimation it was at least 4 lbs?

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Thanksgiving 2011

So my mom has become sort of a traveling gnome these days.  She plans these elaborate trips, it's beginning to feel like every years now, with all her lady friends to quite exotic destinations.  This year it was Turkey and Sri Lanka with a short jaunt to Vietnam.  She often goes in the fall and this year she happened to be gone during Thanksgiving.  With her gone, my siblings and I were sort of at a loss of what to do.  In the end, everyone else decided to take a trip too.  Triple F and Running Man went to South America and Smooth Obturator and Triple T went to Bora Bora.  By the time I thought of going back home to spend Thanksgiving with Dumpling Man's family, plane tickets were through the roof.  So that left Dumpling Man and me, alone, in rainy Portland for Thanksgiving.  Luckily, Zhu Zhu Hamster was also in town and she brought along her friend, Little Pet.  So I took this opportunity to attempt my first Thanksgiving dinner for 4.  I didn't make all the usual things I normally eat with my family.  The only thing I really missed out on was the Oyster and Shrimp Stuffing which I have been eating with my family for as long as I could remember.  Dumpling Man very much dislikes my family's stuffing so I tried to do a more normal one this year.  All the recipes I used this year came from trusty foodtv.com.

Brined Herb-Crusted Chicken 
I adapted this recipe for a 4.5lb chicken instead of the intended 12-14lb turkey.  First of all I don't like turkey all that much.  And second of all, how can 4 people eat all that turkey?  The recipe also called for brining for 2-3 days and drying it out for another day.  Uh, who has all that time?  I brined it for 1 day and dried it out for 4 hours.  I figured, smaller bird, shorter prep time?

The recipe also called for cooking the turkey at 17 minutes per pound.  I did some cross referencing and went with the timing suggested by the roasted chicken recipe in Ad Hoc At Home.  It's a darn good thing I did that, otherwise the turkey would have ended up dry as a bone.  

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Ricotta Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel

Making your own pasta looks so easy.  Mix some flour, water, eggs, etc and roll out the dough and presto!  I've been wanting to try it but I haven't gotten around to it.  Instead, I've tried making my own ricotta gnocchi, also known as gnudi, which apparently means "naked."  I guess these are supposed to be like the filling of a pasta but without the pasta, hence the nakedness.  My first encounter with gnudi was at Restaurant Zoe in Seattle.  In short, it was heavenly.  So I wanted to see if I could recreate a little bit of heaven in my kitchen too.  In short, I could not.

Mario Batali's recipe for ricotta gnocchi seems simple enough.  Eggs, flour, salt, nutmeg, and ricotta cheese.  He suggested goat's milk ricotta but I couldn't find that and had to settle for regular cow's milk.  I think I bought a reduced fat one by accident.  I suppose the key here is draining the ricotta through a fine sieve overnight in the fridge to drain out the excess liquid.  After a whole day in the fridge, hardly any liquid drained out.  I think I should have taken that as a bad omen.

Here is what it looks like after all the wet ingredients are mixed together.

This is how it looks after the flour gets mixed in.  The directions say to mix in more flour if the dough too wet and sticky.  I ended up putting in a whole sh*t ton of flour just so I could handle the dough to make the little balls.  It was still sticky up to that point but I didn't want leaden balls rolling around in my sauce.

After much blood, sweat, and tear, I finally had a tray full of gnocchi balls to boil.

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Batali's Basic Tomato Sauce

Who knew making your own tomato sauce could be so easy and tasty!  When I bought Mario Batali's cookbook, Molto Italiano, I was excited to get down and dirty with some of his recipes.  But first, I'd have to make my own sauce.  I was surprised at how such few basic ingredients could make a subtle yet tasty difference to your everyday pasta.  All you need are carrots, onions, garlic, canned whole tomatoes, olive oil, and thyme.  I found it strange that thyme was the herb of choice instead of something basil.

I've always heard about San Marzano tomatoes, but I never quite understood what made them so special.

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Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Dumpling Man likes his curries, specifically Thai yellow curries.  I'm not such a fan, but I'll eat it.  It's just a bit too creamy and sweet, but that's exactly how Dumpling Man likes it.  I prefer Vietnamese curry instead which is more fragrant from lemongrass and ginger and saltier from a good helping of fish sauce.  So my curry somehow walks the middle road, and as a result is never sweet enough for Dumpling Man.

I've made this before but with the lemongrass cut into short stalks.  This recipe from Ravenous Couple called for finely sliced lemongrass.  If you've cooked lemongrass before, you'll know that it is not something that softens as you cook.  So, all that lemongrass ended up being lost in the sauce and into my bowl and it was not fun to chew on.  Next time, I'm keeping the lemongrass in stalks so they can be fished out at the end.

Your basics.  I found these mini cans of coconut milk.  Perfect for making a serving of curry like this.  For most recipes, a mini can like this may short change you on the called for amount of coconut milk, but I'd rather have a less coconutty curry than half a can of coconut milk that will slowly mold in the back corner of my fridge.  I randomly picked this curry powder.  It's pretty darn spicy.

First you gotta marinate your meat.  I like to keep my meat in semi-large pieces so that they end up being fall apart tender after a while.  Unfortunately, it takes longer to cook that way.

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Galbijjim

So after discovering the deliciousness of galbijjim at Seongbukdong, I had Korean savory fall-off-the-bone tender meat on my mind.  It was never anything I thought I could recreate at home.  The Pouter and I discussed that a pressure cooker was probably involved in making such a culinary treasure.  But I actually came across a pretty manageable recipe on Manngchi.com.  So off to H Mart I went.  Yes, there is an H Mart in Portland!

I bought a family pack of short ribs because it was on sale.  The other half is in my freezer waiting for some inspiration.

There was a WHOLE LOT OF FAT that I had to trim off the meat.  Some pieces were mutilated because they were soo fatty, so after all the trimming, there wasn't much left but a big bone and some meat dangling off.

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Mom's Steak Salad

You won't usually hear me say things like, "Oh my mom makes the best..." or when I'm at a restaurant you won't hear me say "Oh my mom's version is better."  My mom isn't that kind of mom.  The type of mom who loves to be in the kitchen, perfecting recipes that have been handed down generation after generation.  That's not to say I didn't eat home cooked meals every night and liked it.  Every night my mom cooked, and I usually enjoyed the things she made.  But now that we're all grown up, it turns out my mom cooked purely out of necessity and not out of passion.  She's actually pretty lazy when it comes to cooking.  Still though, there are a handful things my mom made that have just stuck with me all these years as things that I just love to eat.  Her steak salad is one of those things.

It's totally simple, but to me it's delicious.  She would take leftover rib-eye steak, cut it up, stir fry it with some oyster sauce and throw it on top of a salad with a really simple vinaigrette.  Eaten with a side of rice, makes for a complete meal.  I think I just love the idea of meaty flavorful slices of beef mixed into a refreshing salad.  I love the Thai beef salad, yam neua.

Here I just take a cut of flank steak, sliced up into strips, marinate it in some oyster sauce and garlic.


Then, I stir fry it on very high heat with some onions and extra oyster sauce.  It's important to get some good color on the meat without overcooking it.

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Roman-Style Chicken

So after a couple days of eating rice, I got a little tired.  I wanted to mix things up and try out an Italian recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, who is turning out to be my favorite and most reliable Food Network chefs.  I've found her recipes to be pretty simple and tasty to boot.  I'm pretty picky about the food I cook and especially about the food I post about.  So you better bet that if I've gone to the effort to make a recipe and even post about, then it should be something you might like.

I don't know how chef's always say you can substitute prosciutto for bacon.  Bacon has a smokiness which I would find distracting in most dishes that call for prosciutto.  I try to make as few substitutions as possible.

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Tori Soboro

This is definitely one of my go-to recipes for a quick easy dinner and it is easily one of Dumpling Man's favorite foods.  I like it, but he LOVES it.  You can substitute the chicken for turkey and it tastes just the same or even better.  I would avoid using ground chicken breast since it can be pretty dry.

Tori Soboro adapted from toirokitchen.com
Serves 2-4

1lb.  ground chicken (may substitute with ground turkey)

4 tbsp dashi stock, optional

3 tbsp sake

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp ground ginger
Sliced scallion, nori, egg for garnish

1.  In a pan, brown the ground chicken.
2.  Add the sake, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar and combine over medium-heat.  Stir frequently so that the ground chicken makes nice even crumbles.
3.  If it looks dry, add the dashi stock.  You can substitute for chicken stock or water.
4.  When the liquid in the pot is reduced down to very low (15-20 minutes after), add the ground ginger and continue to cook for another few minutes.  
5.  Serve over white rice.
6.  Garnish with thinly sliced egg, green onions, dried nori.

Seriously, an instant and delicious dinner!

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Clay-Pot Miso Chicken

So after a most disastrous attempt to make my own Japanese curry, I felt pretty down and discouraged.  But along came David Chang to make things right in my world.  I've had good luck with some other David Chang recipes from his Momofuku cookbook, which I have decided to purchase instead of continuing to leach his recipes from random internet sites.  I've never eaten at Momofuku, but I have heard such great things and all his recipes look fun and interesting.

So I actually got the recipe from a once great and active fellow food blogger.  She decided to do one recipe in the Momofuku cookbook everyday until she cooked everything in the book.  Since she finished, her blog has now become defunct.

Sorry I don't have many pictures of how I got here, but I'll probably make this again and update it.

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Bistro-Style Short Ribs

In keeping with the theme of all that is stewy, saucey, and fall-off-the-bone tender I attempted to make braised short ribs. I found a nice recipe by Tyler Florence for "Bistro-Style Short Ribs."

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 pounds short ribs, in 1 long piece or at least in pairs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 large tomato, quartered
• 3 ribs celery
• 1/2 head garlic, peeled
• 1/4 bunch fresh thyme
• 1 1/2 cups dry red wine
• 2 cups low-sodium, organic beef stock
• 4 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

I pretty much followed the recipe to the tee which is unusual when I do western food because it always calls for something I'm missing, but I had all of the above. I just substituted the beef stock with chicken stock. I don't know why, but I just never use beef stock. Even when my mom makes pho, she doesn't use beef stock. You'd think that for beef noodle soup you'd want to use beef stock. Anyways, because of her I'll probably never use beef stock unless someone can give me a good reason to use it. As for the "dry red wine," I just used a wine that I probably wasn't going to drink anymore. I know, I know, I know, "never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink." But what am I supposed to do, go out and spend some more green, while I got some perfectly decent red at home? I think not.

Anyways, the recipe called for a dutch oven and motherf*er do you know how much those things cost?? Plus my dinky kitchen cannot fit anything else. So I wasn't gonna go out and get one especially since this recipe didn't call for some stove-top to oven action. So after some googling, it seemed like a big pot with a heavy lid would suffice. Who knows, maybe things woulda tasted heartier had it cooked in a dutch oven. I didn't have a grill big enough the brown the meat, so why not just brown it in the pot I'm gonna cook it in? So that's what I did.




Next step called for pureeing tomatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic. This part was sort of a hassle since my food processor is miniature. I had to puree, dump some things out, add more ingredients, and repeat it all till it was all pureed and well mixed. I probably overdid it with the carrots since I have a whole darn bag probably 10 or more carrot stick and the recipe only called for 2 so I fudged it a bit and put in 3.


So here's my cheap wine and chicken stock. At least its organic and low sodium =).


A starch that would absorb all the sauce of the short ribs would have been ideal. Maybe mashed potatoes, polenta, risotto, but I had been itching to try something new with roasted potatoes. I really love the potatoes at CCC, all those caramelized onions...mmm. They turned out well except on the salty side because I have this new coarse sea salt I'm trying to use. It's a much milder salt so I'm just getting used to the difference in proportions.



So the finished product, TADAH!







I tried to be a little difference and make brocollini instead of the usual brocolli. It was good, slightly undercooked but that always makes it better for the next day. A side of steamed (more like popped in the microwave) sweet white corn made a delicious accompaniment.

The meat was falling off the bone, literally the pot just had a bunch of empty bones in it. I think it'll prob taste better tomorrow too. Goood stuff overall, I'll keep this recipe in my box for another day.

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Chinese Chicken & Potato Stew

So I found this recipe on another food blog. The picture of the end product looked delicious, so I had to have me some of it, of course. So courtesy of World Foodie Guide we have Chinese Chicken and Potato Stew.

The stewing includes potatoes, shitake mushrooms, carrots, leeks. I would say the leeks are probably the key ingredient. They really give the soup a sweet yet fragrant flavor, oniony without all the pungency. I love it. It reminds me of a beef stew my mom would make. I think its essentially the same thing, the only difference is the soy sauce and ginger. Really makes it "Chinese" in my opinion.


The Stew:

• 4-6 good sized dried Chinese mushrooms
• carrots
• leek
• potatoes
• onions
• 3 slices fresh ginger, with peel left on
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 or 3 spring onions
• vegetable oil
• ½ tsp sugar
• ½ tsp soy sauce

The recipe is unclear about how much chicken you should use. It says use a "whole chicken." Well I don't like everything in a whole chicken. I love thighs so that's what I usually cook with. I just bought a package from the market which usually has about 6 pieces, roughly 2-2.5lbs. The "marinade" is so light, so I'm not sure if its meant for less chicken or what so I increase the portions a bit.

Chicken Marinade:

• 1 tsp salt
• pinch white pepper
• 1½ tbsp soy sauce
• ½ tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• cornflour / cornstarch
• 1 chicken

So you basically fry up the ginger and garlic in some hot oil. Get the pot all nice and fragrant before you add the chicken. The first time I made this I used whole thighs and the darn thing took hours to cook. The 2nd time I cut off the bone, but still cooked the bones for the extra flavor. It could in maybe 40 min? Definitely a time saver! Anyways, the marinade really allows the chicken to get some color and flavor initially before you start stewing everything. It really smells as good as it looks.




Then you add all the veggies and mix mix mix.



Then you add water. The first time I used water as instructed and I was really annoyed I had to add so much salt, soy sauce, and fish sauce so it wasn't so bland. The 2nd time I cheated and used chicken stock so it didn't need as much seasoning but I found that the flavor wasn't as pure and I couldn't control the taste as much.


So the next part is just stew stew stew. Although the end product doesn't look as appetizing as the picture from the blog seen here, I give it 2 thumbs up!





I'm not often times impressed with my own cooking, but my final product was certainly tastey and homey. Good to have when you're craving something warm and soupy but still substantial. I blame the crappy picture for robbing my stew of its true deliciousness. Come over and I'll make you some so you can taste for yourself!

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