lougord99 wrote:https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/pork-dumplings/#h-watch-the-full-video-tutorial

Looking good, Lou! Other than the trouble you had locating wrappers, did they take a long time? I think that's often what dissuades people from making dumplings.

Finally breaking in a new wok that I've had for a couple of weeks already . . .


16" Carbon Steel Flat-Bottomed Wok

First, I washed it twice with soap and hot water (the last time it will see any soap) and dried it. Next, I put it on my largest burner, got it smoking hot, wiped it lightly with peanut oil, kept it on high heat for a few minutes, let it cool off and wiped it dry. Then I repeated those steps (minus the washing) two more times. After it had cooled off for the third time, seen above, it was time to cook.


Mise En Place & CCK Small Carbon Steel Cleaver
Fermented broad bean paste, fermented black beans, crushed garlic, freshly ground sichuan pepper, Beyond burger "meat," extra firm tofu, peanut oil, soy sauce, granulated sugar, corn starch (later slurried), leeks, homemade 4x chicken stock, scallion bottoms and scallion tops.

The purists will scoff at me but the Beyond worked out great. I had a feeling it might. With the strong, distinctive flavors in so many of the other ingredients, the main thing the meat, usually pork, brings to this dish is texture. And with the Beyond, that was just about perfect. Of course, one can easily make this dish without meat or a meat substitute but I wouldn't hesitate to use Beyond again in this dish (and will definitely try it in some others). That said, I don't foresee grilling it up straight.


Plated Up - Mapo Tofu & Beyond
Great stuff. The Fuchsia Dunlop recipe is a great starting point and now, after having made this many times, I feel like I have it dialed in pretty well.

=R=

eating while walking wrote:This is barely even a recipe, but it uses pantry staples and it's very good. There are exactly two ingredients:

Canned sardines in oil, and unagi sauce. You can also easily make unagi sauce by simmering together sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar until it thickens.

Drain the oil, brush on the sauce, and broil in the toaster oven for 5-6 min, brushing a couple more times to build up a crispy glaze, and you get:

Sardine "unagi"! Sardines have a dense, meaty texture that reminds me of real unagi, and they taste great with the sauce. Top with sesame seeds and scallions and serve over a rice bowl.

What a great idea!

I'm in too and hope to report back as soon as I find or make the unagi sauce. I pick up a six-pack of those Seasons sardines in olive oil whenever I see them on sale at Costco.

ronnie_suburban wrote:inally breaking in a new wok that I've had for a couple of weeks already . . .

Nice looking dinner, great looking wok. Where did you get the wok, the neighbor is looking for a new wok.

G Wiv wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:inally breaking in a new wok that I've had for a couple of weeks already . . .

Nice looking dinner, great looking wok. Where did you get the wok, the neighbor is looking for a new wok.

Thanks. I got it from Wok Shop (wokshop.com). $40 for the wok, $27 for shipping and 19 days (8 in processing, 11 in transit) between the order date and delivery. So, caveat emptor.

=R=

Morelia Supermarket on Western hot bar had three types of barbacoa, goat, lamb, beef. I went Goat. Made quesadilla with queso Oaxaca, goat barbacoa, chicharonne, onion, red jalapeno and flour tortilla. I prefer flour for quesadillas.

General shopping as well, Morelia's excellent chorizo, veg, etc. As an aside, Morelia consistently has the best red radishes in town for only .99c per bunch.

click to enlarge




Morelia Supermarket, count me a Fan

Morelia Supermarket
7300 N Western Ave
Chicago, IL 60645
773-761-3291

ronnie_suburban wrote:Looking good, Lou! Other than the trouble you had locating wrappers, did they take a long time? I think that's often what dissuades people from making dumplings.
=R=

Not really, especially since we made them for the main course and not an appetizer. I also didn't pleat the wrappers, so it was pretty quick to squeeze them shut. She calls for a fatty ground pork and I can clearly see why. I used grocery ground pork and it was a little dry. Normally I have pork fat in the freezer, but didn't have any. Next time, I will grind my own pork shoulder.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Thanks. I got it from Wok Shop (wokshop.com).

Very cool. Wok Shop is ground zero for all things wok. I've been there a few times, SF Chinatown, its jam packed with woks and associated equipment. Literally hanging from the rafters.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Fermented broad bean paste, fermented black beans, crushed garlic, freshly ground sichuan pepper,

A few basic questions: Do you grind your sichuan peppercorns in a peppermill or in a spice grinder? I have a big sack of them that I rarely use due to laziness about washing the grinder.

And did you soak your fermented black beans or just toss them in?

The easiest way to grind is in a small mortar and pestle. Roast in a dry pan before grinding for most applications.

tjr wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Fermented broad bean paste, fermented black beans, crushed garlic, freshly ground sichuan pepper,

A few basic questions: Do you grind your sichuan peppercorns in a peppermill or in a spice grinder? I have a big sack of them that I rarely use due to laziness about washing the grinder.

And did you soak your fermented black beans or just toss them in?

This time, spice grinder but sometimes, if I need a larger amount, I use the mortar and pestle or just hammer some in a baggie with a meat pounder. In any case, when I have extra, I store it in a shaker-top spice jar and try to use it sooner than later. As for the grinder, after I use it, I usually just throw in a couple tablespoons of uncooked rice, and run it for a few seconds to "clean" it.

For this recipe, per FD, I don't soak the fermented black beans. Nor do I toast the sichuan peppercorns. It changes them in a way that I don't prefer in this recipe (it also amps their numbing effect).

Brunch this morning was a quick omelet . . .


Hard Salami & Cheddar Omelet
With buttered, toasted bread baked by a friend. I found an ancient hard salami in the back of the fridge (had to be at least 14 months old). It was vacuum-sealed and in good condition, so I decided to give it a go. The omelet came apart a bit on the flip but that actually made for a nice, ooey-gooey interior shot.

=R=

Not to take anything away from recently discussed Costco and Jewel pork, dinner was a very nice, fatty Berkshire pork roast that I got from Zier's in Wilmette. Definitely pricier but given the quality, still a great value. Pardon the pun but this is simply a cut way above. The roast was exceptionally moist, tender and flavorful. Per my request, Dave cut it off the bones and tied it back on, which was really nice of him and convenient for me . . .


Bone-In Berkshire Pork Roast
Rolled, trussed, lightly oiled and seasoned.

Decided to try something new for a side dish, creamed kale . . .


Mise En Place & Yu Kurosaki R2 Hammered Gyuto 210mm
Slivered garlic, red onion, rendered chicken fat (recovered from Friday's dinner), flour, milk, kale, black pepper and salt.
Made a roux with the chicken fat and flour, then, with the milk, made a bechamel from there. Separately I sauteed the onions and garlic and also wilted down and squeezed dry the kale.


Creamed Kale Components
Nutmeg, sauteed onion & garlic, bechamel sauce and wilted/squeezed kale.


Creamed Kale Assembled
All mixed together and ready for ~30 minutes in the oven, covered most of the way, at 350F.


"Creamed" Kale
Well, kind of creamed. I baked it a little too long and the bechamel broke.


Pork Roast
After about 2.5 hours at 325F, followed by 6 minutes at 425F convection roasted.


Plated Up
Berkshire pork roast with broken creamed kale (still tasty, though) and some of our weekly slaw. I made a quick pan sauce with the drippings, some leftover 4x chicken stock, a minced shallot, some roux and a sprig of fresh thyme. We also had a few of the bones, which we briefly roasted on their own while we enjoyed our slices of roast. There's still quite a bit leftover, which will be nice for the first half of the week.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Plated Up

Pork looks, and I am sure tastes, amazing!

Tonight was a classic Sunday dinner: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes with pan gravy, boiled asparagus, iceberg lettuce salad.
That's the chicken, roasted in the toaster oven air fryer. I don't know that there was a huge difference air frying vs. roasting in the range oven. Cooked slightly faster, and the fryer has a convenient built in probe thermometer. And the oven was free had I had the eggs and gumption to make popovers.

Muchas gracias, lougord99, for the advice on Imgur pictures.

tjr wrote:Tonight was a classic Sunday dinner: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes with pan gravy, boiled asparagus, iceberg lettuce salad.

That's a really nice looking bird. I can hear the Siren call of the air fryer but I'm trying to resist it.

=R=

♫♬Bravo XL♫♬Bravo XL♫♬♫
(Siren song)

lougord99 wrote:The easiest way to grind is in a small mortar and pestle. Roast in a dry pan before grinding for most applications.

If you use a spice grinder, the easiest way to clean the grinder is to grind a TBSP of raw rice and then dump that out. No need to wash it.

tjr wrote:That's the chicken, roasted in the toaster oven air fryer. I don't know that there was a huge difference air frying vs. roasting in the range oven. Cooked slightly faster...

I've been thinking about this lately, w/r/to using the regular bake vs convection bake settings on my large toaster oven. My thinking at the moment is that you're more likely to see a difference with the convection/air fryer option with items with relatively high surface area-to-volume ratios, like say, chicken wings rather than a whole chicken.

Still breaking in -- and learning the subtleties of -- my new wok, while doing my best to get RID of stuff. Even though I could have used up even more ingredients, I thought this was probably enough, lol . . .


Mise En Place & Masakage Yuki Gyuto, 210mm
Bok choy leaves, slivered garlic, minced serrano, minced ginger, white carrot batons, minced shallots, scallion tops, Sichuan pepper (leftover grind from a couple days ago), mung bean sprouts, tofu noodles, scallion bottoms, Xaoshing wine, green beans, shoyu, peanut oil, mature vinegar, red bell pepper, oyster sauce, soybean sauce, homemade sambal and bok choy cores. It was lots of fun working the Yuki through the large variety of ingredients.

Started the actual cook with an around-the-wok squeeze of peanut oil into the ripping hot wok, then the aromatics and a blob of sambal. From there, I just started adding items based on how long I thought they'd take to cook. Once those were all in (a matter of moments), I added dashes of each of the liquids, about a teaspoon of soybean sauce and a shake of Sichuan pepper. When a sauce came together, I added the tofu noodles, which I'd already cooked separately, and stirred them around for a bit. Once they were thoroughly coated, the last items in were the bean sprouts and the bok choy leaves.


Plated Up
Vegetable and tofu noodle stir fry, garnished with scallion tops. It was pretty good but I wish I'd put the green beans in earlier. They were too firm for me. And I think the sauce could have been bolder.

Normally, this would be where the story ended. But after trying one bite, Mrs. Suburban had smoke billowing out of her head like one of those old-timey cartoon characters. "Too spicy, dear?" I asked innocently . . .

Take 2
So . . . I quickly whipped up a batch of hash, using some of last night's leftover pork roast, a russet potato, a white onion, a couple cloves of crushed garlic and a dash of heavy cream . . .


Leftover Berkshire Pork Hash
Garnished with scallion tops.


Plated Up
Topped with an over-easy egg and some chives.

Everybody happy? Okay, good.

Happy Monday!

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Mrs. Suburban had smoke billowing out of her head like one of those old-timey cartoon characters. "Too spicy, dear?" I asked innocently . . .

Been there. Done that.

G Wiv wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Mrs. Suburban had smoke billowing out of her head like one of those old-timey cartoon characters. "Too spicy, dear?" I asked innocently . . .

Been there. Done that.

Lol! Why doesn't that surprise me? There was only one serrano. I guess my sambal packs more of a punch than I realized! All's well that ends well.

=R=

I'm probably shopping too often, but we were out of milk, so off to the Jewels.
The challenge in this house is eating enough veg - SueF doesn't like many outside of salad. So I'm always looking for something she'll like.
Inspired by some really good-looking parsnips, I asked my phone for "parsnip blue cheese recipe" and grabbed some sage, and a pear to roast with the parsnips. I had blue cheese at home, and rummaged through the freezer meat drawer looking for a chicken breast but found a bone-in pork chop (provenance unknown) first.
Sliced the pear and parsnip, tossed in salt and olive oil, roasted for a half-hour, added some hazelnut and a drizzle of honey for another 15 and started on the chop in cast iron -- lower heat, sliced garlic then the chop for 6 minutes on each side (then a little longer to get it up to 145F), then added some sage to both the pork and the parsnips along with the blue cheese. They both came off the heat at about the same time, finished the chop with a splash of red wine vinegar.

Parsnip and blue cheese is a winning combo -- I'll try that again, maybe in a salad.

Katie, the air fryer vs oven, more difference with greater surface area idea makes a lot of sense. The consideration might be surface area to mass rather than volume, as I've found cakes bake quite a bit quicker in the air fryer.

Was hoping for still-frozen scallops in my WF delivery but ended up with previously frozen, which meant I really needed to use them today. First up, a quick 2-hour marinade in 1 part hatcho miso, 1 part red miso and 1 part sake . . .


Scallops
Rinsed and dried after a 2-hour zipper-bag marination.


Sauce Mise En Place & Masakage Yuki Gyuto, 210mm
Shallots, 2T corn starch (later slurried w/2T cold water), Hondashi (recon with 50/50 4x chicken stock and water) and half a lemon (later juiced).

Decided that after a very hot sear of the scallops in a 50/50 blend of evoo and unsalted butter, I wouldn't want to leave anything behind in the pan, so I prepped for a quick sauce before I started cooking. After the scallops cooked, I drained most of the fat out of the pan and used the shallots and the Hondashi to release the fond. Once that started to reduce, I drizzled in the corn starch slurry, using about half of my of solution.


Plated Up
Hatcho miso-marinated/seared scallops with lemon-shallot-Hondashi sauce on a bed of pureed Christmas lima beans (leftover from last week and repurposed). We also finished off some not-so-creamed kale from earlier in the week. A pretty nice dinner, actually.

=R=

Weekend meals included a nice coq au vin with haricots verts, and Nobu's miso-cured black cod (made a special trip to Wabash, and couldn't resist getting oysters too), with gingery baby bok choi, quick pickles, and rice. That fish is so silken, and the preparation is so easy.

Tonight we did thick Duroc pork chops on the grill (yay 43 degrees!) served with homemade brandied cranberries that were in the deep recesses of the fridge, and scrounged up a Bubble-N-Squeak from some leftover yukon gold mash that was frozen, leftover romanesco cauliflower, and the rest of a load of caramelized onions that had been hanging around the fridge for grilled cheese and other sandwich topping. It may not be orthodox pubfare, but I put some chunked up sharp cheddar in too, and we enjoyed it.

Those scallops look gorgeous Ronnie!

We had a Catalpa Grove pork shoulder in the freezer that needed to be used. I landed upon a Rick Bayless recipe for Slow-Grilled Pork Shoulder With Ancho Barbecue Sauce. The grill is still buried so I needed to use the oven. I ended up going in a pot roast-like direction and threw some carrots and potatoes in for the last hour of cooking. I forgot to take photos before we had eaten but there was plenty of pork left for this shot.



I made the barbecue sauce the next night. Mixed with shredded pork, this became dinner on Taco Tuesday with a julienned sauteed zucchini.



I was happy to get the pork shoulder out of the freezer and use up some of the root vegetables from the CSA. The house smelled great for a couple of nights!

Noodle chicken stir fry inspired by Ming Tsai
Medium wide rice noodles, Boneless skinless thighs rough cut, 2 lemon grass stalks bottom and outsides removed and thin sliced, red onion thin sliced, jalapeno thin sliced, 3 eggs beaten, red bell pepper thin sliced, 2 TBSP fish sauce, 2 TBSP lemon juice, lemon zest.
Soak the noodles in hot water for 15 minutes and drain.
Salt and pepper the chicken and cook on high heat until browned and done. remove.
Cook the lemongrass, onions and jalapenos until onions are sofa, about 3 minutes. Push to the side and add egg. Stir egg until cooked through and mix with other ingredients.

Return chicken to pan and add all other ingredients. Scrape up any brown bits and cook until heated through.

Tonight was Pasta Alla Zozzona, a contraption from Serious Eats (they claim some Italian provenance) that combines Amatriciana with Carbonara. It was fast and tasted fine but not super distinguished.

Nice stuff Anna, Mary and Lou! The grilled duroc is a major go! Pretty sure I'll be grilling again on Thursday, as I reopened the path to my Weber today. The shoulder and noodle chicken stir fry both look great.

I was back at two tasks tonight: getting familiar with my new wok and getting RID of stuff. I managed to succeed at both, without necessarily improving my cooking but hey, it still turned out delicious . . .


Mise En Place & Saji R-2 Gyuto, 210mm
It would probably easier to make a list of ingredients in my kitchen that I didn't use!
Grated ginger, jalapeno, broccoli stem, scallion tops, broccoli florets, extra firm tofu, corn starch, bok choy cores, crushed garlic, boy choy leaves, peanut oil, shoyu, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, 4x chicken stock, creminis, mung bean sprouts, shallot, green beans, yellow carrot and scallion bottoms.

Decided I needed more of sauce this time, so I opted for the stock + corn starch combination. That worked out very well, especially in tandem with the other pantry sauces.


Plated Up
Garnished with scallion tops and chili crisp.

It's a big wok (16") but it was still a bit too full. That's one of the perils of trying to make a big dinner for 3+ in one batch. Still, I was really happy with the texture of the green beans, bok choy cores, carrots and broccoli (stems & florets). I was also happy with the flavor and viscosity of the sauce. I probably added the bean sprouts just a bit early. They were a bit soft but they still had some crunch. Still, looking forward to more cooking time with the wok, especially smaller batches with fewer/different ingredients.

=R=

Inspired by all the curry posts from a while back, decided to make coconut green curry to both marinate and then sauce some Sitka Salmonshares Coho.

Started by combining 1/2 a can of Maesri green curry with 1/2 can of coconut milk, for the marinade. Then built a sauce with the rest of both cans, some fish sauce, Greek yogurt, minced ginger, garlic, cilantro, leek and lime juice. At the very end, added a handful of rough chopped mustard greens, Bok Choy and Gai Lan leaves.



Served with broccolini, mushrooms and shallots roasted with lime, sesame oil and kimchi salt and rice.

Delicious!!

boudreaulicious wrote:Inspired by all the curry posts from a while back, decided to make coconut green curry to both marinate and then sauce some Sitka Salmonshares Coho.

Damn, that really looks great!

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