Wonton Gluttony

31 Jan 2011 4 Comments

by katsmama in food, holidays, learning Tags: ,


I stopped in the grocery only to get milk the other day and somehow by the time I got past produce, I had decided to get the ingredients for dumplings. There had been a story in the paper about Chinese New Year, and it was like a time bomb ticking. (I have mostly had to stop calling it Chinese new year, by the way. I had a Korean student a few years ago who confided that it really bugged him when people said Chinese New Year, instead of Lunar, or Asian. It’s a hard habit to break, though)

I had a roommate just after college, Mei,  who was from Shanghai, and she taught me how to shape these little dumplings. The filling she used was pork-based.

Two dumplings, hot out of the fryer.

I made mine last night with fake crab- krab with a k. My frugality bit me here- crab, or krab, is so mild flavored that I didn’t want to spend big bucks on something that would pretty much taste like ginger and onion. Looking back, though, I only used part of the package, maybe 4 ounces, so it wouldn’t have broken me to use real crustacean. If I lived closer to the ocean, I probably would. When Mei taught me to make these, we steamed them to ensure the pork cooked all the way through. Since the krab is already cooked, this is less of a worry. I steamed about 9 dumplings while the rice for the rest of our dinner was cooking, and fried the rest.

Oh my gosh. They are good both ways, but wow. the filling is bright, and the oil was hot enough, and I was eating them quickly enough, that they were better than I’ve had in a restaurant. I wouldn’t fry these for a party, because they’d lose that texture, and it would be a big pain in the ass.  But to make them for me and DH (and we ate an emabrrassing number) wasn’t too bad, frying a few at a time in 1/2 an inch of oil in a small frying pan. We leaned on the counter and talked about our days after he got off work, to the tune of sizzling oil.

Adjust the heat until the oil is hot enough to sizzle- too hot it just burns, too cool, it soaks up a lot of grease.

I didn’t really use a recipe for this filling, although I did google a bit for proportions. You’ll see from my parentheticals that this is extrememly variable. Put in the things that you like- DH didn’t say it, but he probably would have liked this better with chili paste in it. Watch, this will be the blog post that he comments on! It would be great with ground pork, or beef, or salmon, or scallops. Or tofu, if you insist.

Krab Dumplings (this quantity served 2 shameless people)

4 oz flake style krab (or whatever)

 1 knuckle sized piece of fresh ginger, minced

1 tablespoon minced onion (Traditionally green, but I had purple, so that’s what I used)

2 or 3 drops vietnamese fish sauce

1 splash rice vinegar (or lemon or lime juice)

1/2 package wonton wrappers (use the rest to make Krab rangoon next week)

Finely mince the onion and ginger, shred the krab and mix together. Put it all in a bowl and add the fish sauce (a little goes a long way here- it adds salt and savoriness, but too much and you’ve got 7th grade feet) and a splash of rice vinegar (my rice vinegar is unsweetened, but if you have the sugary kind, use it- I wouldn’t use regular vinegar, because it is way more acidic.)

I like round dumplings, so I use a juice glass to cut the corners off the square wrappers. Keep the wrappers covered so they don’t dry out, and try not to let them touch each other, or they’ll stick. It is surprizing how little filling goes into these. Half teaspoon, really. When you overfill them, they burst, or the liquid leaks out and makes the oil spit and sizzle. 

Now, the girl and I made a video showing how to fill and seal the dumplings, then I discovered I will have to pay extra to upload it to this blog. I balked. Maybe I’ll put it on Facebook.  So, now I’ll narrate the video as if you are watching it. Umm…so take the wonton skin and put a half teaspoon of filling in the center, then dip your finger into the water and run it along the edge of one side. Press together in the center, then dip your finger again and poke in the corners.

Steam: place in steamer basket or colander and put over boiling water with lid. Cook until wrapper is transparent. Some people put a lettuce leaf under the dumplings so they don’t stick, but I didn’t and last night didn’t have any trouble.

Fry:  I use my smallest cast iron skillet, about 6 inch diameter, and heat about 1/2 inch of canola oil til it shimmered.  I was going to check the temperature with my thermometer, but then the boy got upset with me because I told him he spelled Jurassic wrong, and all hell broke loose. Fry a couple at a time until they are goldn brown and delicious, place on a paper towel to cool. DH thought any dunking sauce was gilding the lily, bless his heart, but I used a little orange sauce (from a bottle- I’m not perfect)

Asian New Year is February 3 this year- I love stretching out the holiday season, and I can justify this better than having a big groundhog celebration. Happy New Year to you!

Zupa means soup

27 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in food Tags: ,


Last week I made some “Zupa Tuscana,” a complete ripoff of one of the soup choices from Olive Garden. For those of you not addicted to breadsticks, this is a potato and kale soup, with chunks of sausage. My home version was with homemade stock, and I actually went out and bought kale for it, something I swore never to do after having a glut of it two summers ago when our CSA would bring 2 or 3 bunches of it a week.
The soup was pretty good, got a thunbs up from DH, who is not usually a soup lover, unless that soup is called chili, and smothering a burrito. I decided to make it again, but make it less…soupy. I wanted it to have a mashed potato vibe… I believe there’s and English dish called bubble and squeak, which is mashed potatoes and cabbage (English food!? Too ethnic?) which I have read about, but never tried. The name is interesting, anyway.

 So, I peeled and sliced some potatoes, set them up to boil with boullion to cover.

For two potatoes, two cups of broth were about right.

I’m out of homemade stock, and Better than Boullion is a good substitute. If you’ve never tried it, do. The name is accurate, it is better than boullion.

I then sliced some kale into thin strips, and put it in when the potatoes were almost tender. After a week in the fridge, the kale was a little the worse for wear- what was too gross for the soup went into the compost bucket, with a little leaf for the hermit crabs. Once the potatoes were all the way tender, I  mashed them without draining off the broth. I added some pre-cooked  Italian sausage at this point. No photos of those- I tried, but they all came out weird. I usually fry up a batch of Italian sausages at one time, and put the extras in the freezer.  

 The texture of the soup is somewhere between soup and side dish- serve in a bowl rather than a plate. With unlimited breadsticks, if you have them…mmmm, wish I had unlimited breadsticks.

ramen cabbage salad

24 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in food Tags: ,


I had extra napa cabbage left after I made kimchee, so I decided to make ramen noodle salad. I know- Michael Pollan says, “eat food that comes from plants, not food that was made in a plant.” but honestly we eat a lot of ramen at our house. We watched a documentary about how they make it, and it is really disgusting- the noodle part isn’t so terrible, but then it flows through a bath of oil to flash fry. Bleah. Not a foundation for a healthy diet. Still, it’s pretty good in this salad. Sources on the interwebs vary on whether the noodles are there to add crunch or if they should soften. I think it needs time to marinate, so the noodles soak up the flavor and soften. I put in radishes, green onions, carrots and whatever veggies I happen to have that would work with coleslaw.

Chopped veggies before the ramen and dressing have been added.

1 package of Ramen noodles with flavor packet
1/2 head of napa cabbage (or regular)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
shredded carrots, radish, brocoli stem, or whatever else you want                                                                                                   

In a jar with lid, shake up oil, vinegar, and flavor packet. Chop up napa cabbage and other vegetables and mix with dressing in a large bowl.  Break up the noodles and stir in with the veggies. If you like it crunchy, eat right away, or if you’re like me, let sit several hours or overnight- this is one of those that gets better the longer it sits. Top with sunflower seed or almonds for crunch and protein.

Kimchee update: There are bubbles rising up in the jar. DH worried that it was the source of the funky smell…but no, something else in the house smells funky.  I think it was the trash- the jar smells fine. I am a little scared to taste it- is it too hot? Not sour enough? I know, I’ve just got to be bold and try it…

Ferment with me…

19 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, learning Tags: ,


Got a new book the other day- “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz. I got it with yogurt in mind, but it has a ton of stuff on pickled vegetables, too.

Yeah, it bugs me too, that they divided fermentation after the T, instead of between the N and the T.

A couple of years ago we had a glut of cabbages from our CSA, so I decided to make sauerkraut. I’m a white American, but I don’t have childhood memories of kraut- either my parents had it growing up and hated it, or it was considered “too ethnic” by both sets of grandparents. Anyway, I had a ton of cabbage, and all of the instructions I found online called for a ton of cabbage. The problem is, I wound up with a ton of sauerkraut…I didn’t know I didn’t like sauerkraut… yeah, I know, too ethnic.
Now, there’s a Mexican restaurant in town that serves pickled cabbage as a side. I learned it was called cortido, and it is essentially…Mexican sauerkraut. Too ethnic? No!

The recipe I found at the library made only a quart of it, which was just right.  The ease of the recipe inspired me to get this book- Wild Fermentation, for more recipes. I started a batch of Kimchee this weekend, which is like… Korean sauerkraut.  It has napa cabbage, radishes, carrots, onions and jalapeno peppers. The veggies are soaked in brine, and the spices are minced, then we drain the brine off and stirred in the spicy paste, then jar, cover with brine and let sit at room temperature for a week.

Minced jalapeno and garlic- see how fast my knife goes? No, it's just that I can't focus with my left hand.

 I’m very excited- just a few days for it to ferment, and I can try it.

I have a friend who loves pickles- only a week until we can try it.

 The cookbook has a ton of other ideas- I am thinking about sour dough and yogurt and a ton of other naturally fermented stuff. Not beer, though. Beer’s gross.

What’s the opposite of rice pudding?

17 Dec 2010 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, holidays Tags: , , , ,


The boy’s first grade teacher asked me the other day to make up a batch of rice pudding for their “Christmas around the World” party on Friday.  I thought, “ooooh, I can blog it.” Little did I know that everyone else in the world has blogged it also- google has a ton of extremely “authentic”  Swedish rice pudding recipes. I threw out the ones that called for evaporated milk, and raisins (bleah! the texture!) and also decided I didn’t want to get into separating eggs and making a meringue to spread on the pudding, who cares whether that’s authentic or not?

So, first we weren't Jewish and making latkes, now we're not Swedish, and making rice pudding. I wonder what we aren't going to be next? Chinese, I hope, or Mexican...

            I wound up taking what I know about rice, and what I know about pudding, and making a leap. I can’t really say it’s authentically anything, though. Note- I used 1% milk, because that is what we always have. This would probably be better with whole milk. Also, I just got a brainstorm, what about steeping a Chai tea bag in the milk? Of course, then it would not only be not Swedish, it wouldn’t be great for first graders, either…

Beating the eggs with the sugar, and then adding the hot milk a little at a time prevents the eggs from scrambling.

           

First Grade Rice Pudding

2 cups cooked rice (you know how to cook rice, right?)

2 cups milk

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the milk to almost boiling in a large, heavy saucepan. Meanwhile, beat sugar and vanilla into eggs. Temper the eggs by adding about half a cup of hot milk to the eggs and mixing, then add that mixture to the rest of the hot milk.  Now add the cooked rice to the egg and milk mixture. Add all of it to a casserole dish nested inside another dish.

This is a casserole nested inside a 9x13 lasagne pan. I poured an inch of hot water in once it was in the oven.

Sprinkle with the spices. Place the pans in the oven, and carefully add hot water to the outside pan. This forms a water bath, and helps the custard cook evenly. Cook for one hour at 350 degrees, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

            One of the traditional things Swedes do with this pudding on Christmas Eve is put an almond in it about 10 minutes before it is finished. Legend has it that whoever gets the almond in their serving will get married the next year.  That will go over well with the first graders…

So, as I see it, rice pudding is a blank slate- what would you do with it?

Making Latkes

06 Dec 2010 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, holidays Tags: ,


We’ve been so busy this past week, that today is the first time we have to make some homemade Latkes. We’re not Jewish, but last year the girl came home with a recipe for Latkes, we made them and discovered how delicious they are with French Onion Dip, and a tradition was born)
The girl just learned how to peel potatoes at Thanksgiving, so she peeled some, and now she’s grating the potatoes. Sigh, my little girl, so grown up… Last year we didn’t have any applesauce, so we just grated some Golden Delicious apple- which was a tasty alternative. This year, we have some homemade applesauce, but I forgot to take it out of the freezer…so we might grate some apple again. Sour cream is also a traditional topping, but now that we have tried French onion dip, I’ll never go back.

2 cups grated peeled potatoes,

1 small onion, grated,

 1 teaspoon salt,

 grind of pepper,

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder,

2 eggs, beaten

Soak the potatoes in cold water for an hour, then drain and press out as much water as possible. Mix the potatoes, onion, salt and pepper, then add the flour and baking powder. The flour makes the latkes hold together when they fry, but too much and you lose the crispiness. Add eggs and mix well. Drop the mixture by tablespoons in a well greased, hot frying pan. Spread out with the back of the spoon. Cook on one side until golden brown, then flip. Eat immediately, or save up on a plate in the oven set on 200. The advantage to doing this is that everyone gets to eat together, but the disadvantage is that they really are best fresh out of the frying pan. I think it is worth it for everyone to eat at the same time.

This recipe makes about 15 or 16 latkes.

Mini Greenhouse Experiment

26 Nov 2010 Leave a comment

by katsmama in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,


I bought Four-Season Harvest a few years ago hoping it would tell me how to have tomatoes in January. It doesn’t, but the author, Eliot Coleman, writes about growing greens in inexpensive hoop houses- basically PVC pipes covered in plastic sheets. So, I decided to plant a fall garden, with spinach, and mesclun greens, and kohlrabi, and they have looked lovely all fall. I didn’t put the plastic on, and few light snows didn’t faze them, when the snow melted, they bounced right back. We went away for Thanksgiving, and the weather prediction was for temps in the 20’s, and high winds. I put the plastic on, tucking it in, weighting it down with bricks and stones. Wasn’t enough, of course- I should have used duct tape… When we got back from Nebraska late last night, the plastic hadn’t blown all the way to Denver, but it had gotten loose, and the greens are fried. I’m sure the spinach, at least, will come back from the roots, but not until spring. The parsley looks undamaged, and the garlic will just hunker down and sprout again next spring. So, the lesson for me is to be more careful with attaching the plastic. I don’t think the problem was going out of town- I am pretty sure if I had seen and heard the plastic flapping around in 40 mile per hour winds, I would have just stayed inside and watched it.

Lows in the twenties make me feel like this, too.

I paid probably $10 for the PVC and a plastic dropcloth. Should have used staples and duct tape, too, though.

Ode to Smoked Paprika

08 Nov 2010 Leave a comment

by katsmama in Uncategorized Tags: ,


My new favorite spice is smoked paprika. I had read about it on various cooking blogs and fancy food snob websites, and assumed that I would have to get to a fancy food store, and it would be imported from Spain and fabulously expensive. I was wrong, though, when I was looking for something else at the grocery store, and found Smoked Paprika right there in the spice rack.
I remember a few years ago, when I “discovered” chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce, and put them in everything, meatballs, garlic bread, salad dressing. The problem was, from my point of view, that chipotle peppers are a bit too hot for me. They are smoked jalapeno chiles, and a little goes a long way. With the smoked paprika, though, you get a little heat, with some smoke flavor too. And it smells amazing.
I put it in a dry rub for pork loin on Friday. (Sorry, no pictures. Kind of can’t find my camera…) And it was so good, DH didn’t use sour cream on his mashed potato, he just used the juice from his pork. That sounded really gross. Don’t take it that way.
It would also, of course, be good on anything else savory, or eggy. I am thinking about the ancient can of regular paprika in my mom’s spice cabinet, which we broke out whenever we made devilled eggs. I am sure the can is still there, kind of sawdust flavored. You have probably heard the rule “spices shouldn’t celebrate birthdays.” My goal is to use up this jar of smoked paprika before it has to celebrate a birthday.

Homemade Pizza

18 Oct 2010 Leave a comment

by katsmama in food Tags:


Mini pizza with salami, onions and artichoke hearts.

When I was a kid, my dad would make homemade pizza when my mom went out of town. We would get mix from the grocery, Appian Way brand, which if they still make it, is not available in my local megamart. It was quite the production, making enough pizza for 8 people, which is probably why my dad did it when my mom was out of town.  It was always one of my favorite meals.

Now that I am a grown-up, homemade pizza is still one of my favorite meals.  I don’t use a kit, I use a dough recipe that I think originally came from Better Homes and Gardens. I haven’t altered it beyond adding 1 cup of whole wheat flour, but I have lost the original clipping, so that’s why I don’t know the source.  What I usually do is make the dough, and shape about half of it into rounds and bake them for 5 minutes, then we can top them with whatever we like, then bake again.  What I love about minis is that everyone can have the toppings that make them happy, and we don’t have to pick peppers off mine, or meat off the boy’s.  We’re picky.

Pizza or Calzone or Breadstick Dough

1 Tablespoon Dry Yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups warm tap water

1 Tablespoon olive oil

5-5 1/2 cups flour (I usually put in at least 1 cup of whole wheat)

2 teaspoons salt (don’t forget this- I have sometimes, and it is disappointing.)

Pour water over yeast and sugar, let sit a minute while you get the other stuff ready. Add 2 cups of the flour, olive oil, and salt, and mix with dough hook (or by hand if you don’t have a mixer:(. Gradually add remaining flour, and knead about 10 minutes total. Let rest- you can let rise about 40 minutes, and punch down, but I often just let them rest while I get the oven preheated, and work on the garlic butter or pizza toppings.

With the other half of the dough, I have started making garlic twists, according to the directions from the Frugal girl blog. http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2010/06/wednesday-baking-italian-cheese-twists/ The first time I used the recipe, we ate up a dozen of them before DH got home from work.  He came home to a house smelling like garlic bread, and only had one measly stick left… If I am planning far enough in advance, I’ll do the garlic sticks and spaghetti on a non-activity night, and prebake the pizza rounds while the oven is on. Then I bag up the pizza rounds, and we can decorate them a day or two later, when we are getting home from soccer and starving.

One last note- what makes this recipe, and most of my bread projects, possible, is that DH got me a Kitchenaid stand mixer a few years ago for Christmas. One of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.

Rustic Apple Tart and Hand Pies

16 Oct 2010 Leave a comment

by katsmama in favorite things, food, learning Tags: , , , ,


Hand pie- it’s a perfectly cromulent word.

These could have stayed in the oven for another five minutes for that golden brown deliciousness.

Worlds collided today when the girl brought home My First Cookbook, which  has a pastry recipe, and I picked a zillion apples from our tree. A surprising number of them weren’t wormy.

Look how many of them don't have worm holes! We don't spray or anything, so worms are the rule rather than the exception.

I chopped enough for a crockpot full of apple sauce, and a pie. Then the girl’s recipe turned out to be for tarts, and I said, what about hand pies? Hand pies, she asked, did you just make that up? Ummmm, no. I’m sure I’ve heard it somewhere.  So, we’ll cut circles, put in apples, then fold them over.  The circle we chose to use was the ring from a half gallon sized canning jar, which made lilliputian sized pies…They’re very cute.  The girl made pie crust for the first time, and we actually should have asked Grandma or Great-grandma for lessons, because I think I’ve only made pie crust twice before in my life.  The girl did a good job, though, it’s nice and flaky.

Baked them for a surprisingly long time- I guess I’ve learned something with this project, because I keep saying how surprised I am. It took about 25 minutes at 350, which was enough to brown the bottoms and lightly brown the tops. The apples are still a touch crisp, so it could have gone even longer. We had enough for 6 half moon shaped pies, and I rolled the scraps into a freeform circle, dumped the rest of the seasoned apples into the center, then folded the edges up over it, into a rustic apple tart.  “Rustic?” she says, as if that isn’t a real word. Rustic is totally a word! The rusitc tart held together beautifully when cooled and sliced.

Promise me you'll eat this with ice cream.

Rustic apple Tart

3 cups sour apples, peeled, seeded and chopped

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon flour

your favorite pie crust recipe, or whatever instant pie dough solution you like best.

Toss the apples, sugar cinnamon and flour together in a bowl. Roll out the crust and cut reasonable-sized circles. On reflection, the canning lids, about 3 inch diameter, made very small pies. Place on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, fill with the apple mixture, fold over and bake for 25 or more minutes. For once, we forgot to put sprinkles on top, but sprinkles would have been good.

For the rustic tart, I was recalling something I read in Cook’s Illustrated a year ago, so there are probably better sources of instructions. Roll out the dough, place apple mix in the middle, with a good 2 inches of border. Fold up the edges and crimp it, then bake for 35 to 40 minutes.  Because the top is open, it is easier to test these for doneness- just stab an apple with a paring knife to see if they are soft enough.

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