Chinese dumplings, Jiaozi, 饺子

We used to eat these all the time when we had dim sum and these were also available frozen pretty much everywhere in the states, so we didn't miss them until we moved here to the land of cold, ice and NO DUMPLINGS!!!

Apparently the chinese Jiaozi, japanese gyoza and nepalese momos are all cousins in one big, delicious, east asian, meat wrapped yumminess family (sez wikipedia)...with, of course, regional flavour variations. This makes me want to try making momos next. And tho traditionally momos are made with water buffalo meat, something tells me its the spices that really make the momo. 

We tried two different variations of the Jiaozi. The first was the very traditional recipe which uses ground pork and lots of shredded napa cabbage (and ginger and garlic and so on). These were D-licious and probably a lot lighter than the version we finally settled on (all meat, no cabbage), but the napa cabbage released so much water that we had to keep stopping to drain water from the stuffing mixture and I suspect we lost a lot of the soy and other flavor in the water we poured out. These cabbage and pork dumplings were fantastic, but objectively slightly less tasty than the final, all pork version and also more difficult to make (because of the water release). We did find a really good youtube video (thanks runnyrunny999!) in which the cook actually squeezes the napa before using it, and seems to have much fewer problems. We just drained the water by pouring if off, I guess we need to be quite aggressive if we try these again.

We also used the youtube video to learn how to properly fold the dumplings and cook the dumplings, it really is an excellent video. 

The version we finally settled on is apparently more Hong Kong style (Video here recipe here from all recipes). The recipe text and video seem to diverge pretty far from one another in terms of the truth though. The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of chopped garlic chives when the lady clearly adds what looks closer to a cup. So we kind of made up our own recipe based on the video. Below.

Uncooked dumplings to show the shape and pleating

Ingredients

• 500g ground pork
• 1.5- 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 2.5- 3 tbsp minced ginger
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2.5- 3 tbsp sesame oil
• one egg
• 10-12 stalks of garlic chives
• ~50 or 60 dumpling wrappers
• oil for cooking
• chilli flakes in chilli oil or your favourite dipping sauce

Preparation

1. Make sure the dumpling wrappers are thawed. Room temp is probably better but we've frequently microwaved the frozen stack of wrapper in cases of dumpling panic. Repeated nuking at a low to medium power for 45 seconds each usually work out ok. Watch out for the edges of the wrappers drying out. Wet your finger with water and run around the edges of the stack to keep the wrappers from cracking on the edges. Thawing at RT does not have this problem. 
2. Chop the garlic chives finely and add into a large bowl with the minced ginger, garlic, pork, soy, sesame oil and egg. Use your hands to mash all of this together till well mixed. 
3. Take a dumpling wrapper and wet the outer rim with water and add about a teaspoon of mixture to the middle.
4. Fold the two halves of the wrapper together, making pleats on one side and pinching the wet wrapper into the other side firmly so the two sides seal together. runnyrunny999's video demonstrates this really well. This leads to dumplings with one flat-ish side and one curved side. This shape makes it easier to cook (IMHO)
5. Work through till you either run out of dumplings or mixture. 
6. In a preferably non-stick pan, heat up oil and add the dumplings. Cook for a minute or two on medium-high heat and then add in a cup of hot water. Cover the pan and wait for 7-10 minutes or till the water has evaporated.
7. Remove the cover and after about 30sec to 1 minute, shake the pan, the dumplings should move free of the pan. This usually means they are done. If using a non non-stick pan, wait till the water has all evaporated and then give it a minute or two for the skins to crisp up again and then use a spatula to gently coax the dumplings off the pan. 
8. We usually eat them with just the chilli in chilli oil paste, but honestly, any good dipping sauce will do. 
9. These also freeze really well. We just pop a bunch of them into ziploc bags and try not to put them one on top of the other and freeze them. 

Red Velvet Cake

I got this from here, and it turned out quite delicious. Since I only had one pie foil I only made half the recipe (single layer), but it was delish nonetheless.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 330 g oil
• 240 g buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 50 g red food coloring
• 300 g all purpose flour
• 400 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 C.
2. Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans.
3. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
4. Place all the dry ingredients in your food processor and stir together.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
6. Pour into cake pans and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
8. After about ten minutes, remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. I also cover in plastic wrap while the cakes cool.
9. Then make the frosting.
10. Frost!

Wallenbergerare

This recipe for Wallenbergers we got from a Swedish recipe blog, here. It's probably the pinnacle of husman cooking, and even though it's maybe not the leanest of meals it's oh-so-tasty!

Ingredienser

• 500 gram  kalvfärs
• 4 st  äggula(or)
• 4 dl  vispgrädde
• salt
• vitpeppar
• 1 dl  ströbröd
• smör

Tillagning

1. Alla ingredienser till biffarna bör vara väl kylda. Lägg färsen i en matberedare (med kniven monterad). Lägg i äggulor och kryddor. Sätt på locket och mixa färsen en stund. Tillsätt grädden försiktigt, i en fin stråle medan mixern fortfarande går. Se till att all grädde blandas in, men var försiktig så att inte färsen får gå för länge i mixern. Risken är att temperaturen höjs och att färsen spricker, dvs delar sig.
2. Lägg hälften av ströbrödet på en tallrik. Doppa händerna i kallt vatten och forma biffar av den lösa färsen. Lägg biffarna på fatet med ströbröd, strö resterande bröd över biffarna. Ströbrödet ska helst vara gjort på färskt inkråm av vitt matbröd.
3. Stek biffarna i smör på låg värme. Eventuellt kan de behövas efterstekas i ugn en stund tills de är genomstekta, fluffiga och fina.
4. Servera med potatispuré, sockerärtor och rårörda lingon, samt ev en skvätt smör från stekpannan.

Moussaka

This recipe is a variation of Felicity Cloake's recipe in the Guardian. Its a fantastic write up with descriptions of variations to the dish and why she chose the variation she did. We followed a lot of the original recipe, but since I luh-ve an abundance of veggies in my food, I used zucchini instead of potatoes for the second layer. This dish was not a spectacular success, technically speaking, but was absolutely delicious. The caveat is that the zucchini should probably have been processed differently because it is a fairly watery veggie and I suspect it released water when we cooked it with the rest of the components.
I was also not a huge fan of the eggs in the bechamel. Again, this may be because our dish is more watery than the original, but thats probably not a variation we will use again. It was sort of spongy and wet.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 medium or 2 large aubergines, sliced
• 2 large zucchinis
• 1 large onion, finely chopped (I used 2)
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (We used minced garlic)
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 500g minced lamb (We used bländfars, mix of beef and pork)
• 2 tbsp tomato purée, mixed with 150ml water ( we added more puree, I like my meat sauce fairly red)
• 150ml red wine
• Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

For the bechamel:

• 500ml milk
• 60g butter
• 60g plain flour
• 50g kefalotyri or pecorino cheese, grated (We used gratang grated cheese, DON'T JUDGE!!!)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• Nutmeg, to grate (We used pre-powdered, but added almost a teaspoon)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Cut the aubergines lengthways into 0.5cm slices, and put them on to oiled baking sheets. Brush with olive oil and season. Bake for about 25 minutes until soft, golden and floppy.  Two things, 1) I was on the phone with my mum and totally let the eggplant bake for about an hour, whoops! Was still pretty delish. 2) I treated the zucchini the exact same way. Sliced and then baked, will probably alter this as and when I come across a good treatment for zucchini in moussaka.
2. Meanwhile, put 2 tbsp olive oil into a large frying pan over a medium high heat and cook the onion until soft. Add the garlic, cinnamon and oregano and cook for a further couple of minutes, then stir in the lamb. Turn up the heat slightly, and brown the lamb well, cooking until the mixture is quite dry. Stir in the tomato and wine, bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down low and cook for 30–40 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Season and stir in the parsley.
3. Meanwhile, make the bechamel. Bring the milk to just below boiling point, and melt the butter in another saucepan. Stir the flour into the butter and cook for a couple of minutes, then gradually whisk in the hot milk. Cook until you have a thick sauce, then stir in the cheese until melted. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly, then beat in the eggs, salt to taste and slightly more nutmeg than you might think wise (it's a strong flavour, but you need a heft of it in this dish I think - half a teaspoon at least).  We found the bechamel much too thick after this and added more milk and more cheese till it was still quite thick but more "flowy"
4. Arrange a third of the aubergines in the base of an oven dish, and top with half the meat. Repeat these layers, then finish off with a layer of aubergine, and top with the sauce. Bake for about 45 minutes until well browned, and then leave to cool for half an hour before serving. We put in all the zucchini, then all the meat sauce and then all the aubergine topped with the bechamel sauce and then a little of the gratang cheese. We made sure we covered the entire base when we added the next layer. We were used a pretty massive baking pan and thats probably why we could only manage one layer of each thing. We could not wait 30 minutes before eating (pffftt, because normal people cook when they are hungry and are fucking starving by the time stuff comes out of the oven). That said, the moussaka was 25% more delicious after spending the night in the fridge, so there maybe something to this "wait time". 

Mangalorean Fish Curry

aka Masli Kadi

This recipe is from a gorgeous cooking blog "Tiffin Box" written by (after making and eating this fish curry) what I imagine is a godess in the kitchen. Holy shit, this was good. 

I, as usual, made some changes and these are the only changes to the original recipe. The original recipe mentions a lot of different fish, we used fresh herring, this is quite close in flavor to the other fish originally used in this recipe, sardines and mackrel.

Ingredients 

For the curry paste:

• 2 tbsp coriander seeds (I used 2.5)
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds (I used 1.5)
• 1/2 tsp whole peppercorns (I used 3/4 ish)
• 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (I used 1/2 ish)
• 4 long red mild dried chillies (I used 6)
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/2 roughly chopped onion
• 2 flakes peeled garlic (I used 4)
• 1 tsp tamarind paste
• About 50g coconut cream (use the hard packed version, if possible) otherwise, 75 ml liquid coconut cream (We did not have coconut cream, just coconut milk, and I used about a third of the can (400ml can) to grind everything up using the coffee grinder on our food processor.)

For the curry:

• Er...original recipe skipped the fish, we used herring, about half a kilo
• 1/2 onion diced (I used 1.5)
• 1/2 inch piece of ginger, chopped finely (I used 1")
• 2 flakes of garlic, chopped finely (I used garlic paste, 1.5tsp)
• 1 green chilly, slit lengthwise
• Salt to taste (or 1 and 1/2 tsp)

To season:

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used 4 tbsp)
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 sprigs curry leaves (about 10 in total)

Recipe

1. For the curry paste, toast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, fenugreek seeds and red chillies for about a minute and a half on a hot pan. Put into a blender with the turmeric, onion, garlic, tamarind and coconut milk and blend to a paste.
2. In a pan, add some oil and add the ginger, chilli, garlic paste and onion (about 1 minute between each addition). Pour the ground curry paste into the pan, stir and add more water if required to get a smooth curry. I added the rest of the can of coconut milk and about a cup and a half of water. Season. Let the curry simmer for about 25 minutes. The colour changed and the curry became a browner color than the original yellow. Taste and adjust the seasoning, by adding more salt and/or tamarind paste. I added, all told, about a teaspoon and a half of salt, a dash of red-wine vinegar and about a heaped teaspoon of tamarind paste. 
3. Put the fish into the curry and poach until just cooked (about 6 minutes on a low poach).
4. Temper the curry now. In a small pan, heat the oil, and pop in the mustard seeds. When they start spluttering, put in the curry leaves, stir for about 30 seconds and pour the whole lot into the curry and stir gently.

Bittman's Vichyssoise

We got this Vichyssoise recipe from the Times. It's super simple, and really tasty.

Ingredients

• 2 tbs butter
• 3 potatoes
• 3 leeks
• 4 cups of stock
• 1/2 cup of cream
• chives

Method

1. Peel and cube potatoes. Trim and chop leeks.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large pot.
3. Add potatoes and leeks. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring, until softened.
4. Add 4 cups stock. Boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Purée, then let cool.
6. Stir in 1/2 cup or more cream before serving.
7. Garnish: Chopped chives.

Quick and simple buns

Ingredients

• 50 g yeast
• 5 dl warm water
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 9-12 dl flour - wheat/full wheat and a bit of rye (or some other kind, but not more than 3dl of the other flour)

Method

1. Mix all ingredients.
2. Let rise for an hour at room temp.
3. Fashion into buns and let rise for another 30 minutes.
4. Brush with egg yolk if you want nice color.
5. Bake for 10 minutes at 250 ºC.