Making our own dumplings
February 25, 2010 § Leave a comment
When I was younger, I used to help my parents make dumplings. About twice a month, they’d take out the huge wooden board, dumpling wrappers, home-made pork filling, and methodically wrap them, each one looking exactly like the one before it. I remember for our elementary cultural carnivals, where each student would bring food from their country of origin, our dumplings would be the first to go.
Making dumplings is definitely a communal or family activity. Usually, we’d set up little stations. Since I was the most useless, I’d always end up being the one lining the dumpling wrappers with water so they’d stick when my mom or dad wrapped them. Once in a while, I was allowed to try my hand at wrapping one, but it’d always come out so ugly that I’d give up and go back to my original station.
This past Chinese New Year, I was especially homesick and decided that I’d not only make dumplings, but I’d go further than my parents ever did and make them completely from scratch, skins and all. The process was surprisingly simple, just flour and water with a little salt mixed together, and rolling out the individual skins became quite meditative, even though I’d occasionally freak out about the Chinese BBQ ribs in the oven.
I stuck with the filling that I’ve been eating since I was a kid – pork and leek. Except I didn’t have any leeks so I used scallions instead, and they still turned out great. Until recently, we always used to boil dumplings at home, but lately, my dad (maybe it’s a regional thing? He’s from southern China and my mom’s from northern) likes to pan-fry them. And I’m a huge fan of anything with golden crusty bottoms.
Pork and Leek Dumplings
2 lb flour
1 1/2 cups cold water
pinch of salt
1 lb ground pork
4-5 stalks of green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon minced ginger
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
Mix flour, water and pinch of salt and knead to make a soft dough. Cover for 20 minutes with a damp paper towel.
Marinate ground pork with soy sauce, salt, chopped ginger, and sesame oil. Add the sliced scallions, vegetable oil, eggs and mix thoroughly. This is your pork filling
Knead dough on a floured cutting board and form a flattened dome. Cut into strips about 2 inches wide. Shape each strip into a round log, and cut into 3/4 in. pieces. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle, and with a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper. Line the outer edges with water using your finger. Take 1 tablespoon of filling and put into the center of the wrapper, fold in half, and pinch.
Place dumplings in a fry-pan with 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Heat on high and fry for a few minutes until the bottoms are golden. Add 1/2 cup of water and cover. Cook until the water has boiled away, uncover, and reduce heat to medium or low. Let dumplings cook another 2 minutes and then serve.
I like to serve my dumplings with a dipping sauce – soy sauce, sesame oil, chili oil, rice wine vinegar, minced ginger, scallions.
Chinese BBQ Ribs
February 17, 2010 § 1 Comment
And here’s the ribs recipe that I made for Chinese New Year. With really tender meat just coming off the bone and a great, sticky caramelized crust, these were a big hit that day. The recipe was adapted from RasaMalaysia.
Chinese BBQ Ribs (adapted from Rasa Malaysia)
Marinade – For the marinade, the measurements of the ingredients do not have to be exact. Instead, make sure that you taste and season according to your personal preference.
3 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
salt to taste
1 rack baby back pork ribs
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Add all the marinade ingredients in a sauce pan on med-high heat and stir until blended. Cool.
Rub the ribs on both sides with the chopped garlic and then marinate the ribs with 2/3 of the sauce, preferably overnight, though 6 hours should be enough.
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheet with foil and place the ribs on top. Cover with another sheet of foil and roast for 2 hours.
Afterwards, take the top sheet of foil off, coat the ribs with the rest of the marinade, and set the ribs under the broiler for 5 minutes, so the crust gets slightly charred and crusty. (This is where I set off the fire alarm in my apartment). Let the meat rest for about 10 minutes, and then dig in.
Chinese New Year 2010
February 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
I always get really homesick when it’s Chinese New Year. Usually we have some family friends come over and we all sit down to eat a huge meal of roast duck, roast pork, dumplings, etc. This year, in addition to celebrating the beginning of the Year of the Tiger away from home, I also had to deal with yet another date-less Valentine’s Day. womp womp.
No matter. To console myself, I made a menu of a bunch of delicious Chinese dishes that would at least make me feel like I was at home and with Jia’s help, we made a truly amazing dinner. Chinese-style eggs and tomato, hoisin glazed eggplant, pork and scallion dumplings (with even the skins made from scratch!), sesame noodles with chicken and cucumber, and the piece de resistance…Chinese BBQ spare ribs.
The big success of the night was definitely the ribs. In the Chinatown in New York, there’s always this one particular roast meats shop that our family visits to pick up spare ribs, roast pork, and roast duck, and I never thought I’d be able to replicate those flavors in my own kitchen. On Saturday night, I came back from a party a little tipsy but somehow managed to remember to create the hoisin-soy-honey marinade, which just goes to show that food is always a number one priority for me. So even with the ever-present danger that I’d drunkenly slice off my fingers while mincing garlic, the ribs made it to the fridge to marinate over night.
The next day, after fretting over the pork and setting off the fire alarm in our apartment, I finally pulled those babies out of the oven. They had that beautiful charred but glossy outer coating, and the meat on the bone was perfectly tender and succulent. They were a huge success with everyone and now, they’ll probably be my go-to barbecue recipe.
So, our 3 1/2 hours of cooking yesterday really paid off, especially since there are plenty of tasty leftovers in the fridge. Even though we weren’t with family and didn’t do the traditional exchange of New Year’s greetings and red envelopes, we still got a taste of home.
Snow days and Snickerdoodles
February 9, 2010 § Leave a comment
The snow has really been pounding down on us here in D.C. This past weekend we got about 2 feet and now, it’s supposed to be another 8-10 inches from what I’ve heard. So, where the heck does that leave me? Baking, reading, catching up on television shows, eating and sleeping. Because I only have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and because this coming Monday is President’s Day, I’ll have had no classfor two weeks! (Yeah, I don’t care if I’m rubbing it in. I’m bound to pay for it later. Maybe evening make up classes?)
And of course, because nothing is better than the smell of sugar, butter, and cinnamon in the oven, and because they were the only ingredients I had on hand, I decided to make snickerdoodles. I don’t bake that often when I’m at home (I think it may be an Asian family thing…not many Chinese recipes require use of an oven), so this was a pretty big achievement for me. Especially since the cookies came out absolutely perfectly – doughy and cinnamon-y – and made the entire apartment smell like absolute heaven.
Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup (two sticks) butter, salted is fine but make sure it’s at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Beat butter and sugar using an electric whisk until smooth. Beat eggs into the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides and then add vanilla and mix again. Add flour, salt, and baking powder to the mixture, a little at a time, and beat until you have a smooth dough that comes together. Form into a ball and chill the dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix the 1/3 cup sugar and cinnamon. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll into 1 inch balls. Coat the balls of dough with the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges start to get slightly browned. Cool and serve.
Celebrating World Nutella Day
February 7, 2010 § Leave a comment
Friday was World Nutella Day, and our apartment celebrated by making Nutella crepes topped with bananas! The recipe came from Mark Bittman and follows his minimalist approach. The best part is definitely filling the thin pancakes with whatever the hell you want. If you choose to go with a savory filling, just omit the sugar.
Sweet Crepes (from The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman)
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups milk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of melted better, plus a little more for cooking
Filling and Topping
Nutella, as much as you like!
1 sliced banana
Whisk all the ingredients for the crepes in a large bowl. Ideally, let the batter rest for at least an hour to 24 hours. I actually didn’t let it rest and the crepes turned out just fine.
Melt butter in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add a ladle of batter and swirl the pan so it forms a very thin layer on the bottom of the pan. When the top of the crepe is dry, after about a minute, flip and cook on the other side for 15 to 30 seconds. Any longer and you’ll have a dried out crepe.
To fill:
Take a single crepe and smear thinly with Nutella. You may need to put the Nutella in the microwave for 30 seconds so it smears more easily. Fold crepe into quarters and place four folded crepes on a plate. Top with sliced bananas and drizzle with Nutella. Serve
Also, this past weekend, Mother Nature dumped a ton of snow on the D.C. area, which meant that I was stuck inside watching the Georgetown vs. Villanova game (103 to 90 baby!!), eating baked goods from Trader Joe’s, and catching up on coursework. In between, I got really homesick and decided to make scallion pancakes. When I started rolling out the last one, I remembered I had two cans of sweet red bean paste in the pantry and tried it in the last pancake.
At first it looked like a bad idea because the paste started leaking out of the pancake, but when I fried it, the red bean caramelized and make the outside even crispier than usual. And there were individual layers of red bean throughout. YUM! Homesickness cured.
Restaurant Weekend
January 21, 2010 § Leave a comment
This past weekend was filled with so much good food, and there was quite a variety of it too. We had dimsum at China Garden, hearty Italian at Filomena, where I only managed to finish half of my entree and dessert (two meals in one!), and a light breakfast at Leopold’s Kafe down in Cady Alley.
Sunday morning, Ameya imed me asking to go to dimsum at China Garden, but because it was already 1 PM, I was a little reluctant since it would take him a while to drive down from UMD and get us to the restaurant. What ensued was probably the fastest sit-down restaurant meal of my entire life.
When we got there at 2:15 (because parking took a while as well), the cart ladies swarmed us, trying to finish off all the steamers they still had before they had to pack stuff away. So, in about 20 minutes, Ameya, Varun, and I devoured about 12 dimsum dishes – dumplings, har gao, egg tarts and all – and paid our check at around 2:35. In a way, it was a meal of perfect efficiency.
Restaurant Week at Filomena is probably one of the best promotions during that entire week. We had four courses of soup, appetizer, main course, and dessert (as well as a complimentary sambuca or amaretto), and the portions were absolutely huge! I went last year as well so I was able to plan my eating strategy more accordingly, and saved enough food for an entire extra meal the next day.
The next day, we stopped at Leopold’s Kafe for breakfast/brunch and luckily, we got there before it became packed with patrons. I opted for the fresh grapefruit juice with the most amazing and flaky almond croissant I think I have ever had (my plate was completely covered in crumbs) and giant roasted baby red potatoes with caramelized onions seasoned with fresh thyme.
RW 1 – Sushi-Ko
January 18, 2010 § 1 Comment
So many people visited DC this weekend! Tiff came by Friday night, and we had an amazing meal at Sushi-Ko, Washington D.C.’s very first sushi restaurant.
It’s actually Restaurant Week here, so we were able to get the three course meals for a lot less than what the usual price would be. Jia and Tiff both chose the smoked mussels and eggplant miso soups while I had the sushi-ko crab cakes with avocado, which were meaty yet light. They also came with the usual Japanese-style and zingy horseradish sauce that I’m absolutely addicted to. They were gone in about 2 minutes. I have no restraint.
Second and third courses were great as well. Tiff had a beautifully presented dish of salmon ceviche with giant glistening beads of orange ikura, salmon roe. It came dressed in yuzu vinaigrette, the citrus giving a perfect balance to the whole dish. Her final course was a spread of yummy sushi and a spicy tuna roll. Jia had rock shrimp and asparagus tempura which I didn’t try, but she seemed to enjoy it. Jia’s final course was the beef tenderloin, and even though she opted not to get sushi, it looked absolutely delicious.
My second and third courses came together: the chef’s assortment of the day’s freshest fish as well as a crunchy spicy tuna roll with avocado and scallions. So fresh, so packed with flavor. You could really tell that everything, including the pickled ginger and wasabi, were homemade because they tasted so vibrant and powerful. I’ll definitely be returning a couple times this semester to try the chirashi and other entrees. YUM!
A new favorite in NYC
January 11, 2010 § Leave a comment
Yesterday I accompanied Laura on her extra credit excursion in New York City. Well, more like completely organized her trip because she’d be completely lost in the city without a guide. In the bitter cold, we walked all over Battery Park, to the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial near the Staten Island Ferry, around Christopher St-Sheridan Square and Stonewall Inn, and up to the Paley Center of Media located close to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and MoMA.
We did get some respite from the freezing winds however. In the West Village, on my new favorite street, Cornelia, we sat down to the most delicious brunch everrrr. There are at least three other great restaurants on this street, including Pearl Oyster Bar with their lobster rolls, French favorite Le Gigot, and Cornelia Street Cafe. But Home Restaurant is now my favorite for it’s tiny but cozy space, friendly and attentive service, and most importantly, local and DELICIOUS food.
The orange juice was freshly squeezed and tart. I ordered the duck confit and butternut squash hash with 2 sunnyside eggs. The rich and melt-in-your-mouth tender duck covered with oozing egg yolk was absolute heaven. And while the perfectly cooked butternut squash and canteloupe slice did absolutely nothing to cut the fat going into my stomach, I wasn’t complaining at all.
Laura looked equally blissed out on the other side of the table with her ginormous oyster po’ boy sandwich, paired with Old Bay shoestring potatoes. I had a bite and tasted crispiness sea flavors with the zing of the chipotle mayonnaise. The potatoes kept calling to me throughout our meal, and after many attempts of eating them with a fork, I eventually gave up and resorted to grabbing them with my fingers.
Another great thing about this restaurant? Right down the street, on Bleecker, are Amy’s Bread and Murray’s Cheese Shop. We picked up some Spanish anchovies and fontina cheese at Murray’s as well as a giant loaf of sourdough bread for everyone at home.
Samgyupsahl
January 8, 2010 § 1 Comment
I tried this grilled pork belly dish for the first time at Honey Pig in Annandale, VA. When I went grocery shopping with my mom this weekend at H Mart, I saw already-sliced pork belly and decided to give it a go. Though I know the traditional way to prepare and eat this dish requires that the meat is unseasoned and given the good old lettuce wrap treatment, I wanted something spicy, sweet, and savory.
With the 7 lb container of gochujang that I still have from one of my mom’s impulse buys, I threw together a bunch of traditional Asian ingredients for a marinade and hoped for the best. Surprisingly, the pork belly turned out just as I had hoped. Here’s the gist:
3 heaping tablespoons of gochujang, Korean red pepper paste
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 green chili pepper, diced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
as much water as you need
Whisk all those ingredients together while pouring in water little by little, until you have a thick liquid. The marinade should not be pasty but able to soak into the pork belly.
Marinade 1.5 – 2 lbs of pork belly in the red marinade for at least an hour, preferably several. When done marinating, grill or pan-sear, flipping on to the other side after about 30 seconds and after 30 seconds on the other side, take off the heat. Don’t move them too much while they’re cooking. Also, make sure you don’t grill them for too long otherwise they’ll dry out and I hate nothing more than dry pork.
You can either wrap this in lettuce with white rice and Korean bean paste, or do as our family did and simply eat it over white rice with sauteed greens. YUM.
Shake Shack and Otto
January 8, 2010 § Leave a comment
Wednesday was a really good day. Anne, Maria,Tonia, and I went to the Tim Burton exhibit (photos on dessin numero 1) where we didn’t have to wait in any lines because we’d ordered timed tickets beforehand. His drawings were amazing, and there was even a letter to Johnny Depp asking him to insert the “everything’s edible except you because if i could eat you, that would be called cannibalism” line! The only gripe I had were the crowds, but I guess that could only be expected with such a popular exhibit.
Because it was way too cold to eat outside, we headed to the Upper West Side to grab some Shake Shack. On the way, we passed the Fordham Law School area, which was wonderful. Going to school there would definitely spoil me.
Shake Shack was awesome, as always. Delicious, well-seasoned burgers with a tart freshly squeezed lemonade. Even better? They had Food Network playing on their televisions, so we got to jeer at Sandra Lee combining canned ingredients while we chomped on our food. Whatever’s going on with Scripps and Cablevision better be solved soon, because I will not tolerate being parted from Food Network for very long.
Afterwards, we spent a good chunk of time in Soho, mostly on Spring Street. We checked out the crazy skeletons and bottled penis bones at Evolution (where I seriously contemplated buying a butterfly wing pendant and Tonia had an equally hard time deciding whether or not to get the beetle wing earrings), made the obligatory trip to Uniqlo, and had a good scrub down at Sabon, where I bought a lavendar apple scrub that may just be my new obsession.
Dinner was at Otto, because we wanted something light. The pizzas definitely surpassed our spaghetti alla carbonara, which I’m going to remember for next time. My favorite was definitely the prosciutto arugula, mainly because I can’t resist good prosciutto and the greens balanced out the meat’s delicious fattiness.
However, the best part of the meal was definitely the Olive Oil gelato. So creamy, so tasty. My first bite got all the sea salt sprinkled on top so that wasn’t too pleasant, but after that, sigh. The olive oil taste doesn’t really hit you until later. At first, you just taste the rich sweetness. Maria and I also ordered a tangerine sorbetto that was packed with citrusy flavor.
SO: culture, shopping, and delicious food all in one day. We traveled from midtown to the UWS to Soho, covering most of Manhattan. Can you think of a better way to spend your time?
Notes on Food 