Selective Palate

Last Friday was M and I’s 7th anniversary. We have a tradition that dates back to our first anniversary of a feast of chinese take-out. Back then we had just moved into our very first apartment and we had next to nothing plus new nothing of the area. To celebrate we made a picnic on the floor (no furniture either!) and ate chinese take out. I think back then it cost a total of $18 and for us that was about as far as our new budget could stretch. Ever since it has been the tradition to do that every year. This year for some reason was special to me. 7 years is a long time, at least for me and the whole 7 year itch people always talk about. So I decided at trying my hand at making a Chinese feast myself.

I made our appetizers just like we would order, pan-fried dumplings or pot-stickers, scallion pancakes, and a napa and cilantro salad we had tried at A Single Pebble and loved.

I have made dumplings before but M really likes gyozas and I had gyoza wrappers on hand. So I made a traditional pork dumpling mixture and filled the wrappers. I had never folded in this style before so I You Tubed a video on the technique of folding gyozas. Very helpful! Over all for my first try I think I did well. M even jumped in and folded a couple. He was actually better right of the gate then I was. I jump right in and pick it up as I go and am speedy, M on the other hand studies it then meticulously proceeds; its the perfectionist in him!

Here is the quick recipe of the filling:

1/2 lb ground pork
1/2 cup scallions
1/2 tsp. minced ginger
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. rice wine

Mix everything well and refridgerate for 30 minutes. Then fill dumplings. You don’t have to do anything special, you can pleat them if you like or make little beggers purses, or even just a good seal will work fine. I followed this video for a tutorial and It was very good. I made a simple dressing out of Chinese balck vinegar and soy sauce with a tad of minced ginger. It was nice combination. To cook I fried them in very little oil then added a spoonful of water to the very hot pan and quickly covered. You can do that or steam entirely, deep fry or even boil.

For the pancakes I had never made them before at all and I took a little help for a fellow blogger. What is weird is that I had planned this out, googled and ended up on a site I have been to many times. Then later while surfing Tastespotting this exact post from Appetite for China was featured, how serendipitous! I took her exact recipe but I tried to short cut the pancakes by using a method I had read on a Ming Tsai recipe. Next time I will follow her instructions exactly! They came out good but in trying to make it easier I ended up making it harder I think.

The napa salad was an after thought but a good one. We have had this a few times out and I thought with all the heavy food a nice light salad would be a good idea. It is simply sliced napa cabbage and torn cilantro in a dressing consisting of 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 1 T. sugar, 1 T. light oil (I used coconut), a pinch of salt and about 5 drops of sesame oil. I nuke it for 30 seconds to dissolve the sugar/salt and when cool and ready to eat I dress the salad. Its that easy and very tasty; I can eats bowls of this stuff!

We took a brief intermission from eating to clean up, relax and prepare for the next course, Chinese Red Cooked Beef (Chinese Braised Beef) with noodles. Basically its Chinese pot roast. It takes all day to braise and makes the house smell wonderful! It’s a perfect fall dish.

Recipe:

1 1/2 lbs chuck roast or any cheap cut of meat, cut in to bite size chunks
1 cup sliced shitake mushrooms - I used a combination of dried and fresh, the dried I soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and squeezed out the excess water (save the liquid!)
2 carrots sliced on the diagonal
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 inch (or so) nob of fresh ginger, minced
1 onion chopped
2-3 cups stock, I used a cup of the mushroom water and 1 1/2 cups of beef stock
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine or dry sherry if you can’t find rice wine
2 T. brown sugar
2-4 red chilies
2-3 whole star anise
2 cinnamon sticks broken in 1/2
1 T. 5 spice
salt and pepper (minimal)
oil for browning, I used coconut

Start out by prepping all your vege and set aside. Now prep your meat by cutting into chunks and seasoning with salt, pepper, and 5 spice. Set aside. In a large dutch oven heat the oil and stir fry the garlic and ginger for a few seconds until you can smell it. In batches add your meat. You want the meat evenally on 1 layer without crowding the pan. This should take about 2- 3 batches once done remove all meat. In the same pan add more oil if needed, but you shouldn’t, you should have more than enough fat from the beef. To the pan add your onions and mushrooms and saute until you see some color, about a minute or 2. Now add the beef and the remaining ingredients. Make sure the liquid just covers everything. Turn the heat to medium low and bring to a boil then turn the heat all the way low and cook uncovered for about 3 hours or until the liquid has almost completely reduced and the meat is tender. When almost done, about 30 minutes out, add your carrots. What I did here was since I knew I was going to serve it later, when it was done I turned off the heat and added the carrots gave it a good stir then covered until ready to serve. This cooked the carrots just perfectly.

You can serve this over steamed rice but really it is a noodle type of meal. Traditionally you would serve it with thick wonton noodles which are chinese egg noodles. Living in the mountains of Vermont I could not find them so I used fresh parpadelle which worked perfect! I also served this with seared bok choy seasoned with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce and to top everything off a seasonal hard cider that is produced for fall and had a hint of cinnamon in it; it was Woodchuck Draft Fall Cider. It was a perfect pairing.

It was a very nice dinner and definitely a step up from take out, though I did kind of miss it in a nostalgic kind of way.

I know, I know where have I been? It s a long story but I am back now with a new game for you. I was having a case of the dinner blues and just could not think of what to make. I was surfing the web and nothing was inspiring me, so I commissioned M to help. I told him to surf randomly through Tastespotting.com and find something that seemed interesting and no matter what it was; providing it was not dessert, I would make it for dinner and then post about it. I thought it would be fun to try out some of my fellows foodies creations or finds, plus it would solve the whats for dinner question. Leave it to M to settle on a spicy burger! The Bloody Mary Burger by Culinary Cory. These were mini burgers but I wanted something more substancial so I modified them for a normal burger.

Here is what I did:

1 lb ground beef, I used a 90/10
2 Tbsp Ketchup
1 Tbsp Tabasco (we like spice so I uped the amount from 1 tsp.)
1 1/2 tsp. Worchestershire sauce
2 tsp. Horseradish
1/2 small yellow onion, minced
1 tsp. celery salt
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Mix it all together and make 4 patties. Grill up until desired doneness, I like my burger medium-medium rare. I topped these with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and a cucumber, avocado salsa.

The Salsa was super easy, 1 whole english cucumber, sliced in half , seeds scooped out and large dice, 1 diced ripe avocado, and 2 scallions sliced. The dressing is the zest and juice of 1 lime, a splash of red wine vinegar, 1 T honey, 1 T olive oil, a handful of chopped cilantro and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk everything together and stir in to the cucumber, avocado and scallion mixture. Serve chilled! It was perfect on the burger as is and for chips later with some hot sauce!Next time I will mince up some jalapeno and through it in.

It was a perfect spring day that day so I became inspired to do picnic sides but updated.

Healthy Potato Salad -Courtesy of Martha Stewart which I really enjoyed. I served it room temperature and it was a perfect side to the burgers. I also served up a healthy slaw of crisp tart apples, fennel and carrots; this too courtesy of Martha Stewart and her Real Simple Team! This was made with yogurt and celery seeds and I thought it would be a great compliment to Bloody Mary Burgers. To be honest this was not my favorite. I thought it was a little heavy on the celery seeds. But M liked it enough. I think I liked the idea alot and will most likely try this again with some tweaking.

Well over all this was fun. I like playing the Tastespotting game! Thank you Culinary Cory for a great recipe and tasty burgers!

After a busy day of shopping were happen to find ourselves on Church Street in downtown Burlington. I decided I wanted chinese food so we walked ourselves over to a nice restaurant called A Single Pebble. Now I had been there once before with a large group of women and I remember the food being good. I also remember not paying a lot, but I will get to that later.

We had been running around all day and had worked up a bit of an appetite so lets just say we enjoyed ourselves and I fell into a food coma on the ride home!

A Single Pebble is a nice sit down chinese restaurant that serves up everything family style. I love family style places that way I get to try a little of everything!

To share we ordered 4 small plates and 1 large entree. It was PLENTY of food for M and I. I thought we would have leftovers but no such luck this time around.

A Single Pebble is great for speed. Once you order within a few minutes the food starts coming out. They do not wait for everything to be done at one time instead they just bring each dish out as soon as it flies out of the wok and is served to you piping hot.

First out was the Imperial Spring Rolls. Every asian restaurant I visit I have to order spring rolls. I tend to measure the quality of the place by how good the spring rolls are. These came out piping hot filled with shrimp, scallops, and squid and served with a sweet soy dipping sauce. They were very tasty and not greasy. M who is not a seafood fan even liked them. My only complaint was for the price, $7.50 I thought we would get more than 2 spring rolls!

Next to the table a simple yet delicious salad of shredded nappa cabbage and cilantro dressed with a sweet rice wine vinaigrette. Again very good and refreshing but for $7.50 I felt ripped off.

Scallion Pancakes were the next to make an appearance. We got quite a few of these and they were crispier than I have had them before but that is not to say they were not good. They were very good. M commented that he would love to stuff them with something, I think he said something creamy would be great. Yes you could fill them but I really liked them plain with the sweet soy dipping sauce. They had a really good, fresh scallion taste that I really enjoyed not to mention a satisfying crunch. These were I believe $7.00 and they did give us a lot so I didn’t feel they were TOO expensive comparatively speaking.

For the last small plate we got the special of the night which was called Momofuko. A shredded pork covered in a spicy version of a korean BBQ sauce topped with a giant fried oyster and rolled in a lettuce cup. These were a big portion but if we were getting them for a larger table they would not have been able to share. I liked these quite a bit though the BBQ sauce was not like any Korean BBQ sauce I have ever tasted and I love Korean BBQ! At first bite I thought the oyster itself was lost but its crunch was welcome. However, I tried it with and with out the oyster and the creaminess of the oyster really cut through the BBQ sauce nicely. These too were expensive, some where around $9.00 for 3 wraps.

The main course of the night was Empress Beef. Thinly sliced beef cooked in a Cantonese “gravy” with assorted mushrooms set atop braised baby bok choy. I am a sucker for bock choy and between that and the mushrooms I was sold. Unfortunately, we only got 6 leaves, yes leaves of bok choy. The entree itself was nice and again another tasty dish but I felt it was missing something, maybe a little spice. M really enjoyed it and he polished off the majority of. I must say the vegetables, including the bok choy where cooked perfect. But as in all the previous dished the $19.00 price tag was a bit much to take for what we received.

Over all the meal was very good. We could not find much to complain about with the food. They did offer a full bar, wine list and sake menu which was nice though we were not in the mood to imbide much that night. The atmosphere is also very welcoming. Most tables have a lazy susan in the center for easy sharing and the tables are not extremely smashed together. The decor is very typical asian restaurant with a bit less tackiness and due to the structure the noise is kept at a minimum. So we enjoyed ourselves and the food but we did not enjoy the $100 price tag at the end!

So lately it seems that everywhere I look people are making braised short ribs. I turned on the TV there is Ina braising away, hop on the internet and its a featured recipe, go out to eat and its a special! So when I saw them on sale at my local meat market I decided to give it a go. I read a few recipes and they all seemed pretty similar so I winged it when I got in the kitchen. Its really was not that hard to make, a little prep of what you have on hand and then in the oven it goes for several hours. I have to admit for my first try it was not perfect but thanks to M we were able to rectify that.

Ok so here is what is did…..

First I seasoned the ribs heavily with salt and cracked black pepper. Then I rendered some pork fat down (I used salt pork rinsed with a little vegetable oil, but bacon would have been great if I had had it on hand). When the fat was nice and hot I removed the crisp pork fat and laid the ribs in the pot in a single layer to sear. I seared on all sides about 10 minutes or so and removed to a plate. To the pot I added 1 onion chopped, 1-2 carrots diced, 3 stalks celery diced, 2 small leeks sliced and rinsed, 4 cloves garlic smashed, and about 1 cup quartered mushrooms. Sauteed until translucent. Added some fennel seed (about 1 T.) and dried rosemary (about 1 T.) then 1 T. tomato paste when all was incorporated I added a few glugs of balsamic vinegar then 2 cups of a heavy dry red wine. I let that all cook down a bit then added some fresh thyme sprigs and the ribs back to the pot and covered with water. I would have used stock but I was all out and really I don’t believe it would have mattered much; it makes a pretty rich sauce as it is. I covered the pot and transferred to a preheated 250° oven for 4 hours.

Now it smelled great and after 4 hours I was hungry and I thought “4 hours it has to be done!” It was “done” but not “done” if you know what I mean. But instead of putting it back in the oven I decided to listen to my stomach and took the ribs out of the pot and put the pot on the burner set to med/high to reduce the sauce and skim the fat. This took too long for me (again the stomach) so I added a mixture of cornstarch and water to thicken it. This made a nice gravy but not too thick. When I served it it was still not perfect, the meat was not tender enough and the gravy just not thick enough for us. So this is where M came in and saved the dish. He took the meat out and cut it up in big chunks added them back to the pot and put the pot on a medium flame covered for about 45 minutes. This second cooking made the dish! It was perfect, the meat was very tender and the gravy thick and hearty with all the flavors concentrated wonderfully. All it took was a little patience, which incidentally is not my strong suit. Well without further ado here is the finished product. Here it is served with rice, we also had buttered noodles, and mashed potatoes! Not really all at once, just that we didn’t know what we wanted (potatoes were the favorite with this!)