Trust sure don’t come easy in life, but a little bit of trust goes a long way in the kitchen. I’m talking to you, baking, and your insistence that I trust that all will come out right if I follow the recipe to the tee. Fuck me. Apparently I wasn’t cut out for the culinary arts that required a heavy dose of faith and very little help in the way of course correction. Once that cake goes in the oven, you are done and there is no going back. Continue reading Masitas de Puerco
When I last went to Hawaii, I made it a personal goal to eat my weight in kalua pork. Yes, that sounds disgusting, but I don’t even care. The stuff is so ridiculously good that I find myself longing for it in an almost atavistic fashion when I am not around it. I’ve known it to be a treat partially due to the complicated preparation – a whole pig is wrapped in ti leaves and banana leaves and then submerged into an underground pit called an imu and covered with coals and/or lava rocks. Sure, I could do that in my back yard. In Arizona.
Back to the drawing board, and as I’m looking through my We The Women of Hawaii cookbook, lo and behold, a recipe for kalua pork. In the oven, no less. I can do this! Apparently, after a little more research, I come to find out that the legendary Sam Choy makes his kalua pork in the same way, using mesquite liquid smoke to replace the flavors imparted by the burning banana leaves of the imu. But how the heck am I going to mimic banana leaves in my home oven? Continue reading Kalua Pork
Ribs require a hefty dose of patience to get them right, right? In order to achieve fall-off-the-bone tenderness along with a lacquered barbecue crust, you need to give them time and a lot of TLC. Or do you?
These ribs are for the hungry and lazy – a troublesome combination that is often hard to please but will be bowled over by this ridiculously easy recipe. Parboil the ribs in a pressure cooker to cut down on the cooking time from hours to a mere 15 minutes. Paint with homemade glaze and broil for a few minutes for fresh off the grill goodness right from the kitchen and in a lot less time. Done and done. I’m not kidding. That’s really it.
1/4 c. of browning seasoning
3 tbs. of lemon juice
1/2 c. of apricot jam
2 tsp. of molasses
1/2 tsp. of dry mustard
2 tsp. of dark corn syrup
1/2 tsp. of ground ginger
2 tbs. of chili paste
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbs. of soy sauce
4 drops of mesquite liquid smoke
1 onion, quartered
6 dried apricots
2 c. of chicken stock
3 lbs. of ribs
Mix the browning seasoning, lemon juice, apricot jam, molasses, dry mustard, corn syrup, ginger, chili paste, garlic, soy and liquid smoke. Add half of the marinade, onion, apricots and 2 c. of chicken stock to the pressure cooker. Top with the ribs (cut into thirds to fit in the cooker) and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. Let pressure release naturally. Remove ribs to a rack set over a cookie sheet and let dry while you make the sauce. Add the remaining marinade to the pressure cooker and boil vigorously until reduced to a cup of liquid. Brush the ribs on both sides with the marinade. Turn the oven on broil and cook until lacquered and crisped. Let rest for 5 minutes before carving. Slice ribs into individual pieces and serve.
The October Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.
I’m totally mad for moo shu and I think that what does it is the inclusion of the awful sounding (but awfully addictively good) tree fungus. Tender pork, spicy ginger and matchsticks of bamboo shoots all solidify the greatness, but it’s the ebony slivers of the tree fungus that make me crazy with delight over this one. I’m known to pitch an actual fit over my chinese takeout if the moo shu order comes with white button mushrooms as a substitute. Blech. Not cool. Continue reading Moo Shu Pork with Homemade Pancakes
My younger sister, back before she nixed meat from her life, was a die hard consumer of pork buns. Though she’s still a champion dim sum muncher, the title of pork bun king has been passed to my husband. Apparently, he’s been a connoisseur his whole life, and in that my sister can’t partake, the torch has officially been passed to him. And because he is truly the best ever, it was only a matter of time until I tried to make these bad boys for him.
I did my homework and found a lovely (GORGEOUS) recipe for homemade pork bun dough from master Chinese recipe writer, Andrea Nguyen. And then I got a little sleepy and put off making it from scratch. After roasting the pork myself and making the savory, sweet filling, I thought I owed myself a break. What of some pre-made dinner roll dough? I could still lacqueur it with a delicious glaze before chomping away?
Well, kiddos, although the buns are not a permanent substitute for the real thing (and homemade dough for that matter), they are still addictively good. Plus, their smaller size makes for rapid-fire eating. Consider adding these to your next cocktail party menu, or make a selection of dumplings and include these babies for a little home dim sum party of your own. I’m sure my husband will find his way over to your house to indulge.
This recipe makes enough roast pork for 16 buns, with pork left over. Consider using the rest of the pork sliced up for a delicious udon noodle soup or diced in fried rice. Or eat plain with some sesame cucumbers.
Ingredients
1 lb. of boneless pork ribs
1 packet of chinese barbecue seasoning mix
1 tbs. of sesame oil
1/8 tsp. of white pepper
1 tbs. of brown sugar
1 tbs. of dark soy
1 tbs. oyster sauce
1 tsp. sherry
1 tbs. sesame oil
1 tbs. of vegetable oil
4 scallions, white part only
1 tbs. water
1 tbs. cornstarch
salt to taste
2 tubes of Pillsbury french bread dough
2 eggs
2 tbs. of water
2 tbs. of honey
Begin by making the roast pork. Mix the barbecue mix with the water and sesame oil. Toss the pork in the marinade and let rest overnight.
Preheat the oven to 450°. Line a baking sheet with a wire rack and place pork on top. Roast the pork until barely cooked through, about 15 minutes. Let cool.
Chop pork finely with a knife or in the food processor. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the sesame and vegetable oil. Add the pork, white pepper, brown sugar, soy, oyster sauce, sherry and scallions and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Mix the water and cornstarch together until smooth and pour over the pork. Stir until thickened and then taste for salt. Let cool.
Cut the roll of dough into 8 pieces. Flour a board and rolling pin, and roll each piece of dough into a 3in wide circle. Add a heaping tablespoon of the pork filling to the middle of the dough. Pinch the dough together in the center. Place the bun, pinched side down, on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat with the other buns.
Brush the buns with the beaten eggs and bake in the oven on 350° for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and while hot, brush with a mixture of honey and water. Serve warm.
In that I am an avid dumpling maker (so that I can afford to be a voracious dumpling eater), I tend to go through quite a bit of filling for the little buggers. Much like the hot dog/hot dog bun conundrum (12 hot dogs vs. 8 buns), I often find myself with more filling than I have wrappers for. What to do?!?
Given that the filling does not tend to keep very well (overnight at best, and never defrosted from frozen), I have found a quick and easy solution with wontons. The wrappers are easy to come by in the produce section of the market (usually with the tofu) and can be transformed into the loveliest of soups. In Chinese, wonton means “swallowing a cloud” – easily the perfect descriptor for a soup that is both complex and delicate at the same time.
So what’s the game plan, you may ask? Very simple. Bolster your leftover filling with some fresh shrimp, sesame oil and cornstarch. Fill the wonton wrappers and twist into little satchels until you are out of filling. Freeze the wrappers (as these guys do keep well) and make a pot of wonton soup. If you have leftover wontons beyond the soup, either pan fry and serve with soy dipping sauce or deep fry and serve with duck sauce. Last but not least, relish in your delicious frugality and trenchant wit. Probably the most important step of all.
Ingredients
1 lb. of shrimp, peeled and chopped
about 1 c. of leftover dumpling filling
1 tbs. of corn starch
2 tbs. of sesame oil
1 package of wonton skins
1 quart of chicken stock
1 tbs. of soy sauce
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 inch of ginger, peeled
In a standing mixer or with a spoon, mix the leftover dumpling filling with the shrimp, corn starch and sesame oil. Fill the wonton wrappers with a teaspoon each of filling. Wet the edges with a bit of water and twist the corners together to form a little “money bag”. Dip the bottom of the money bag into a small amount of flour and place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Repeat until you have used up all of your filling. Set aside
Pour the chicken stock, soy and ginger into a pot and bring to a boil. Add as many wontons as you’d like to eat (no more than 10 per quart of stock) and cook for 4-5 minutes. Ladle soup into bowls and top with a handful of scallions. Dig in.
As a means of extending the majesty, feel free to use any of these add-ins:
I have to apologize to my husband right off the bat, but I’ve been having a (not so secret) love affair with dumplings for pretty much my whole life. When people tell me about how much they themselves love dumplings, in the back of my head, I’m always saying “Nope. Nowhere close to as much as me.” I occasionally even question whether I love them more than Andrea Nguyen who wrote the beloved book “Asian Dumplings“…maybe we’re tied. From my early memories of eating fat, pleated jiao zi at the Hsian Foong in Arlington, VA, to scraping together pennies to buy the potstickers (like crack) from Ollie’s Noodle Shop while in college, to polishing off plate after plate of crystal chive and shrimp dumplings at dim sum, I look upon the modest dumpling as the penultimate perfect food.
When I asked my friend Tim Ma, chef and owner of Maple Ave Restaurant in Vienna, VA, to do an interview for the site, I was most looking forward to him proffering a mind-blowingly good recipe to share. When I saw his potsticker recipe, I straight up cheesed – what luck to have access to a recipe that was passed on to him through his family. And I’d get to eat the results. The beauty of this recipe is in the simplicity – garlic chives and sesame oil do all of the heavy lifting seasoning the ground pork. And as Tim explains, the wrappers are an art form – practicing rolling the wrappers yourself is well worth the effort and far better than you could get from most restaurants. This is the kind of cooking that is rooted in love – you make these dumplings for people that you care for, and hopefully have them join you in the effort. Dumpling party, anyone? I promise I’ll consider sharing one or two.
Learn more about Chef Tim and check out another one of his fabulous recipes by clicking here.
1 c. of cold water
3 c. of all purpose flour
2 lbs. of lean ground pork
1 bunch of chinese chives, chopped
1 tsp. of dried shrimp (optional) soaked in 2 tsp. of water or shaoxing wine
4 tsp. of salt (or 3 1/2 tsp. if you use the dried shrimp)
3 tbs. of sesame oil
corn starch (if needed)
Begin by making the dough. Combine water and flour and mix until all flour is just incorporated. Let dough rest for 10 minutes. Next, make the filling. Mix the pork, chives, dried shrimp, salt and sesame oil.
You’re now ready to start making your wrappers and filling the dumplings. Roll out the dough into long sushi roll and cut into small round 1 inch pieces. Use a small rolling pin to flatten it into a wrapper about 3 inches wide. You are looking for wrappers about the same thickness as gyoza, so when rolling out your own dough, it’s pretty thin. It’s really an art – you make small balls about 1-inch in diameter, then smash down with your hand. Roll the pin around the edges until you get your thin wrapper, leaving it a little thicker in the middle and thinner on the edges.
Sprinkle some flour on a clean surface on the kitchen counter. Place each wrapper on the floured surface with the floured side facing up. Put 1 heaping tsp of the filling in the center of each wrapper. Wet your finger in the cup of water and wet all around the outer edge of the wrappers. Close it by folding it up and pressing two wetted sides together. Set it down on a flat surface and make the bottom flat.
After about 20 to 30 finished dumplings, you can set a non-stick flat bottom skillet on the stove. Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in it and place the dumplings all around the skillet. Add two cups of cold water, and then put a lid on the skillet. Turn the temperature to high.
When the water is dry, turn the fire to low. Take out the dumplings when they are golden brown and crispy at the bottom.
Serve with dipping sauce (recipe below). If you like things hot, you can make a spicier dipping sauce out of hot chili paste, soy sauce and sesame oil.
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 c. of soy sauce
1/3 c. of rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tbs. of sugar
1/2 tbs. of sesame oil
Mix all ingredients well and serve. Sauce will keep in the refrigerator if you don’t use it all.
Of the dishes that I crave in an almost manic way, pawing the walls like a crackhead needing a fix, wonton noodle soup is always on the top of the list. In college, it was brimming bowls of Cantonese Wonton Soup from Ollie’s Noodle Shop in NYC. The broth studded with crisp shallots and baby spinach featured the most lovely shrimp and pork wontons – I willingly braved the lines and the brusque service just to get my weekly fix. It was hard for me to imagine a wonton soup better than it, but once I tried the Roast Pork Wonton Noodle Soup at China Fun (also in NYC), I fell head over heels in love. Blubbery udon noodles, tender slices of barbecued pork and spinach and scallions swimming around in a steaming bowl of broth. And those wontons. God, I have dreams about them – I felt a Robert Rodriguez-style need to march right into the kitchen and shoot the cook as the rest of the world didn’t deserve to eat anything so damn good.
My time spent in Orvieto, Italy, much like the experience of many students studying abroad in college, was all about turning my preconceived notions on their proverbial heads. I never imagined that following up on a random postcard in my mailbox for a summer “arts” program in the heart of Tuscany would lead to a series of revelations in terms of ingredients, cooking and collecting food memories. Up until that point, Pizza Hut wasn’t a four letter word, ice cream and gelato could be considered one in the same, and a bottle of wine per person wasn’t considered a reasonable lunch. But all of that was thrown out the window, and I was utterly spellbound by all of the tastes and sights and experiences surrounding me. I discovered fava beans, pasta cooked in red wine, tomato-less bolognese, fresh porcini mushrooms and young white wines with ne’er an additive or preservative. I ate gelato after every meal, and sometimes as my meal, choosing flavors that tasted riper than fresh fruit. I learned that in Italy, I couldn’t leave the table before finishing the bottle of grappa or limoncello plonked there by the owner, much like a child forced to eat their vegetables before clearing off. I even taught an Italian movie star to do the robot while simultaneously doing an impression of Julia Child. I was officially living the life. Continue reading Pappardelle con Cinghiale
Meatballs have been getting a lot of play lately. From the incessant features on the Meatball Shop in NYC, to the meatball entrepreneur Joey on America’s Next Great Restaurant and his “Saucy Balls,” it’s as if ballmania has struck and there isn’t an end in site. For me, though, meatballs have always played a part in my collective food memory. Although I never got to know my Sicilian side of the family in person, their customs and traditions were passed down to me through my grandmother and mother. Making a sauce, or gravy as it’s truly called, involved frying off scores of homemade meatballs, and I’d stand close by for the chance to snag a taste. Apparently the tradition of searing all of the meatballs but one, and then cooking the last one through to give to someone you love came from my grandmother long before I learned it from my mother. I like to think of my mom as a kid, indulging in the perfectly seasoned and seared meatball as the most loving of gifts in that it was rooted in tradition. No kids of my own, I have been known to carry on the tradition with my husband – he himself grew up in a part-Sicilian household as well, and where my fam was doling out tastes of meatballs, his was doing the same thing with his mother’s expertly cooked chicken cutlets. It’s only fitting that we’re together and I can carry on a legacy of culinary “sharing means caring” traditions.
For those in the know, the secret to a good meatball is a good crust on the outside and a tender, juicy center. Although I’ll still sear off a meatball or two in a pan with olive oil, I’ve since converted to the baked meatball camp. You still get the lovely outer crust and it’s a whole hell of a lot less messy since you don’t have to tend to these over a greasy stove top. Because these babies were a part of my dinner party, the Feast of the Seven Boars, I used a combination of traditional ground beef and the less traditional but gloriously flavorful, wild boar. If you can’t get your hands on any boar, feel free to substitute ground pork or veal. Depending on how much time you have, you can simmer these the normal way on the stove in a lovely bath of San Marzano tomatoes OR you can take your sweet time and allow them to bubble away in a crock pot for a few hours OR you can be impatient and cook them in a pressure cooker for a mere 20 minutes. Any way you cook them, you’ll be treated to a perfectly tender treat meant to be served atop a delicious mess of pasta – maybe some bucatini with a heavy dose of crushed red pepper. Or you could just eat them straight away and skip the pasta. It is tradition, you know.
Ingredients
3 lbs. of ground wild boar (or pork or veal)
1 lb. of ground beef
1/2 an onion, finely minced
6 cl. of garlic, finely chopped
1 c. of grated locatelli
1/2 c. of chopped parsley
1 c. of bread crumbs
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of black pepper
1 tbs. of crushed oregano
1/2 tablespoon of crushed red pepper
3 large cans of whole san marzano tomatoes
1/2 c. of chicken stock
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
salt to taste
handful of torn basil leaves
1 tbs. of olive oil
1 tbs. of butter
1 lb. of bucatini, perciatelli or similar long pasta
Preheat oven to 450°. In a large bowl or a standing mixer, blend the meat, onion, garlic, parsley, eggs, crumbs, salt, pepper and oregano until thoroughly mixed. Wet hands and form 1/4 c. of the meat mixture into round balls. Place on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
In a large pot, add the tomatoes and crush gently with a spoon. Add the garlic, chicken stock and salt and stir. Add the meatballs and allow to simmer for at least 30 minutes – longer if you can stand it. When the meatballs are just about finished, cook the pasta according to the package directions. Toss with a cup or two of the meatball sauce, olive oil and butter. Toss the basil leaves in the hot pasta to wilt and top with some of the meatballs. Serve with grated cheese and extra crushed red pepper.
