pork and shrimp dumplings

pork and shrimp dumplings
Originally uploaded by d_fornear

When I was a little girl, I used to crawl under the table and sneak raw wonton wrappers while my mom folded pot stickers and watched Young and the Restless. I loved the flour-y dough.
I had a strong craving for these, pork and shrimp were both on sale. What better time to make dumplings than when your six-month old is trying to nap, you have three loads of laundry to do, and a bathroom to clean?
I made the dough, too, because I envy the chewy, delicious mouthfeel of the dumplings at my favorite dim sum place, Jade Garden. I used whole-wheat pastry flour, which gave the dumpling skins a nutty, rich flavor. The skins were so easy to make, I might never buy "alimentary paste" again...although maybe to snack on for old times.

With the whole-wheat flour (which, admittedly, is a little old. I haven't been baking as much since Boone entered the world.), I had to add more water than the recipe called for.  I let it rest for a little over an hour while I made the filling.

Rolling out the dough. Some recipes call for splitting the dough in half, rolling it out and cutting circles out.  I find you waste less if you divide the dough in half, then each half into twelve pieces.  Roll out each piece into an circle-ish shape.  Make sure you have a sheet pan lined with parchment or paper towels dusted with flour.  I fit about twelve skins on the sheet and then add another layer of paper towels for the rest. 

Pleating the tops takes a little practice, but with the thicker, handmade dumpling skins, a little wonkiness adds to their charm!

Shrimp and Pork Pot stickers

Adapted from Gourmet

For the Dumpling Skins:

1 1/2 -1 3/4 c whole-wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose)

1/2 c lukewarm water

All-purpose flour for kneading and rolling

For the Filling:

3 ounces of canned water chestnuts, rinsed (about 4 large)

1/2 lb raw shrimp (peeled, deveined)

1/2 lb fatty ground pork (preferably from shoulder)

1 bunch of scallions, rough chopped (white and green parts)

1 clove garlic, rough chopped

2t peeled ginger, chopped

1 1/2 T soy sauce

1t Maggi Sauce

1t toasted sesame oil

Black pepper to taste

1T peanut oil, for frying

For Dipping Sauce:

1/3 c soy sauce

2T chinese black vinegar

2T water

1T chile-flavored sesame oil

1t ginger, peeled and grated on a microplane

Make dumplings:

Stir together 1 1/2 c flour and 1/2 c water until a shaggy dough forms.  Add water a teaspoon at a time if necessary.  Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Dust dough lightly with flour and cover with an inverted bowl. Let stand 10 minutes to an hour at room temperature. 

While dough is resting, put chestnuts, scallions, garlic, ginger, pork and shrimp in food processor. Pulse briefly until uniformly chopped.  

Remove filling to a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and mix until combined. Cover and chill at least 10 minutes.

While filling is chilling, line a sheet pan with parchment or paper towels lightly dusted with flour, then dust work surface with flour.  Halve dough and cover unused half with inverted bowl. Shape remaining half into a ball.  Use bench scraper to halve dough and halve again until you have twelve small pieces.  Roll out each piece with a lightly floured rolling pin.  Sprinkle dough with flour as needed. Transfer dough circles to lined sheet pan and cover with additional paper towels.  Repeat with remaining half of dough.

Line another sheet pan with paper towels and lightly flour.  Put one circle of dough on clean work surface.  Put a tablespoon of filling in the center of the dough.  (It helps to wet the spoon before scooping filling.) With a wet finger, moisten the border along the bottom half of round. Fold the unmoistened top half of round against the wet border.  Moisten outside border and pleat 5 or 6 times along the top. Press pleats together.  Stand on lined baking sheet. Form the rest of dumplings and cover loosely with paper towels.  You may place them in the freezer at this point.  Once frozen, they can be placed in a freezer bag. 

Make dipping sauce:

Stir together all ingredients in a small bowl. Restir before serving. 

Cook dumplings:

Heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until it's almost smoking.  Arrange dumplings, seam side up,  in a tight spiral pattern quickly.  You should be able to fit all dumplings in the skillet.  Fry dumplings until bottoms are golden. Do not move or check bottoms for 2-3 minutes.  Add 1/2c water, tilting pan to distribute evenly. Cover tightly with a lid until liquid is evaporated and bottoms of dumplings are crisp and dark golden brown. 

Serve immediately with sauce.

tis the season for botulism!

we've been experimenting with christmas pickles. the spicy okra are so addictive. unfortunately, a few of the jars have developed some white cloudiness. it hasn't stopped me from eating them! pictured clockwise from far right: pickled okra with fresh dill, korean peppers and mustard seed green papaya with lime, chles and crushed black pepper, pickled in rice vinegar sweet and sour gherkins and little jars of red onion and red wine vinegar marmalade the okra recipe is from alton brown. green papaya are a traditional filipino flavor profile, achara. they'll be perfect on bahn mi. sweet and sour gherkins are a combination of a saveur and a joy of cooking recipe. red onion marmalade is from joy of cooking. they were supposed to take thirty minutes, and took three hours. i still wasn't happy with the outcome. 

 in the works: 

 cherry tomato and ginger marmalade 

green apple and cabbage saurkraut 

chow-chow 

pickled ginger and galangal 

 canning and pickling resources: saveur article ball-mason the COMPLETE canning guide pdf from university of georgia

enraptured

breakfast at ferry terminal market.

lunch at the french laundry. 

more to life than meat

i talk about meat an offal lot. i really love meat. i want to be a part of the cycle of life. don't get me wrong, i'm not hating on the veggies. i spent the morning in the garden, planting tomato starts that have been flowering on my windowsill...the heat in Thailand withered them when they sprouted. i trying making like a bee and using a q-tip to pollinate the flowers, which may or may have not worked. between third and fourth grade, i spent summer in oklahoma "pollinating" my mom's vegetable garden, catching crawdads and playing with my pet catfish. seriously, i made my mom buy me a live catfish at the farmer's market. he lived in a kiddie pool with some bluegills i caught (mom used to take me fishing, too). i would dig night crawlers out of the compost pile to feed them, and taught the bluegills to jump out of the water for worms. i would put on "fish shows" at the family barbecues. (when i came back from camp, they had unlearned that particular skill.) i also caught tadpoles and kept them in the pool which my mom promptly pickled and jarred. good on sticky rice, she said, but i digress. butter lettuce from our garden was the only lettuce other than iceberg i had ever tasted. i couldn't understand why they were so different, and why we couldn't have butter lettuce all the time. the thought of lettuce made of butter really appealed to me, and  it's still my favorite. i haven't been to my garden in two weeks and it's out of control. favas and orca beans (my term, i think they're technically called calypso beans), radishes, spring onions, beets and huge heads of lettuce. the micro greens have turned to macro greens, due to neglect. and i planted the tomatoes, although it seems a little early. i'm really excited about the Mexican Midget tomato plant. i imagine it sprouting fat, juicy little luchadores. i guess my thought process hasn't changed much from lettuce made of butter... i also planted Black Krim tomatoes. they make me think of a Yugoslavian woman in a babushka, picking tomatoes as dark as the black sea. and Beaver Dam peppers? just plain funny. i've harvested beets, pounds and pounds of kale, snail-laden leeks and one beautiful head of cauliflower. i wish i had some chickens or quail. i wish i was a farmer.

roast beef

after reading angela's eat and tell about the whopper jr. and a recent discussion of arby's with a minnesotan friend of mine, i got to thinking. while i love a whopper, burger king's fries are a travesty. 

i harbor a secret love of chicken fries, and i am guilty of flexcar-ing to ballard when luke is at work to have some, with honey mustard, while publicly denouncing the bk advertisements that urge you to substitute the chicken for potato fries. since leaving the u.s., i have guilty sought refuge in the mall, ordering chicken nuggets at Mcdonalds, but my true love doesn't exist here.

 my perfect fast-food meal is arby's. it brings back memories of mom working late; dad would get the two-times the 5 for $5 sandwiches and we'd eat arby's for a week. i was oddly repulsed by the iridescent, slightly green-tinge of the meat(from the slicer, says my dad). the sweet, wonder bread bun would be steamy warm, soft and soaking with roast beef juice by the time we opened them at home. when i was old enough to my own ordering, i tried the GIANT (double the meat), SUPER (tomatoes, lettuce, special sauce), Beef & Cheddar (onion bun, cheez sauce), but i always came back to that paragon of beef, the Regular. The double messes up the perfect meat to bread ratio. The super is superfluous. and cheez sauce? need i explain? 2 Regulars (2 packets of horsey, 1 of bbq sauce for each) and curly fries (ketchup and horsey sauce to dip). a medium orange soda; i've discovered orange soda is the only pairing for arby's and subway. and if you're in the money and not hating your thighs, a small jamocha shake and a coke. You cannot order the shake without the coke. Shakes especially, and ice cream, too, require a coca-cola palate cleanser. it'd be like ordering a Regular and no curly fries. the biggest crime of all, the closest arby's has no drive-thru. 

here comes the bride...

when they make a wedding dress, i will have a bacon-themed wedding. prosciutto bouquet, coppa garter...something old (cured bacon), something new(pig veal?), something borrowed (angela's lomo) and something blue??? i can sub bacon fat for the butter in the buttercream icing on my cake.

speaking of sour...

this story by sara dickerman, on the cookbook Memories of Philippine Kitchens. 

read the first comment about how the food isn't all that because the flavors aren't strong. maybe your co-workers thought you couldn't handle the funk?  maybe they childhood memories of being made fun of for weird lunches came back to haunt them.

can one find the necessary ingredients in this country? outside of a major city? can we give people a break because, like many asian nations, their cuisine is the result of a colonized people just being resourceful and making delicious food with what they have.

  Pan Asian Peanut Sauce (adapted from)Cendrillon's Recipe 1 cup peanuts 1 lemongrass, minced 3 shallots, minced 2 inch ginger, minced 1T peanut oil 1 cup coconut milk 1T chili sauce 2T soy sauce (or 1T soy and 1T nam pla) 1T mirin 1t chili flakes, or to taste Hard toast peanuts in oven. Buzz in food processor until coarsely chopped. Reserve 2 tablespoons. Lightly brown the lemongrass, shallots, and ginger in a small pot with peanut oil. Add the peanuts and coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes. Season with the chili sauce, soy sauce and mirin. Let cool to room temp. Pulse in the blender until smooth. Fold in reserved peanuts. i love this with brown rice and pan-fried tempeh (don't forget to splash on some patchouli and change into your PETA shirt). it's good on lumpia, vietnamese summer rolls and your finger. Cendrillon's website p.s. The photos in the book are by Mika's papa, Mr. Neal Oshima. Mika did Cendrillon's website, by the by.