Around and Around

Photo by Christopher Silsby.

Groundhog Day. Hmph. The implications leave me uneasy at best, at worst distraught in a seriously dishevelled, crazy-eyed, whimpering spin. Groundhog Day actually makes me feel a little affronted, especially when it comes upon me unawares, as it does, because who remembers Groundhog Day is coming?

Vagaries of fate and fat little varmints aside (and it occurs to me that I'm definitely conflating the movie Groundhog Day, which I've never seen, with Scrooged, which I've seen in fragments), I had some people over for dumplings last week.

No more high-flown talk of fresh starts. Down here in the mud, it is what it is. I don't care what the groundhog thinks of his shadow (though if he wants to bite Bloomberg again, I'm down--UPDATE: Bloomberg's off the hook today for the Planned Parenthood thing. But the biting was still funny). Anyway, what winter? I caught my cousin and sister lounging outside the juice shop yesterday and I won't mention which one of them was rocking Birkenstocks. Welcome to the year of the Dragon.

But the dumplings. That was fun. My upstairs neighbors and I accidentally found ourselves hosting parallel dumpling parties, kept each other up the night before with rampant cabbage chopping, and got so busy that we never tasted each other's dumplings. His method was to prepare all fillings in advance and use his guests as a labor pool for assembly. Mine was a bit messier--I laid out bowls of filling components (including ground pork, shrimp, ginger, tofu, garlic, cabbage, carrot, daikon, mushrooms, scallions, garlic chives, tapioca starch) and bottles of condiments (amazingly, those bottles numbered well above 20, including sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, chili, ponzu, ume plum vinegar, pepper vinegar, etc...), and made it a free-for-all.

As guests arrived, they were encouraged to grab a bowl and concoct their personal blend of dumpling filling. After a slow start, the cabbage started spilling, there was black vinegar everywhere, and a potsticker pan and new 8" steamer were in full rotation. There were vegetable dumplings, there were pork and shrimp dumplings. There was shrimp and cilantro. There were a few little salads of straight filling ingredients (I provided no appetizers). Due to the time-consuming nature of handmade wrappers, I had provided a pile of store-bought ones as well, but my homemade ones were better in every way, easier to fill, tastier, and prettier. I wound up making another batch of dough halfway through because I wasn't enjoying filling and cooking the store-bought wrappers. I think they're better for ravioli, actually.

As I mentioned, there were no appetizers, but there was dessert. As guests drifted in and out, and the steamer sputtered, I did offer two varieties of ice cream, both made with recipes from my new toy, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. The lime frozen yogurt was good, but the Salty Caramel with Smoked Almonds (Jeni calls it Gravel Road), was the heart-stealer, converting even me, dubious about smoky flavors at the best of times. Since then, I've gone a bit nuts with that book, adding Passion Fruit Frozen Yogurt, Chamomile Champagne Ice Cream, and Hazelnut Ice cream to the repertoire.

Life is, as I mentioned above, seriously messy. But at least some of the mess is delicious. The rest...I'll tell you about it when that groundhog heads back under into his hole like the rest of us.

This and That

First, the Heavenly Cake Bakers (Cont.) are making Mud Turtle Cupcakes. Here's the link to mine. Incidentally, I realize I never posted the Lisbon updates to which the post refers. Been a busy spring.


Secondly, a query--I just made some carnitas and allowed the (very charming) butcher to sell me a piece of pork butt with several inches of thick fat on it, which then had to be trimmed off. I now have several pieces of thick, expensive (raw) pork fat in my freezer...any ideas? Render for lard?

Pork & Pickled Ramps - Spring with the Lee Bros.

The last few weeks were hectic. My next-to-last semester was coming quickly to an end, marked by two full-semester projects. I have 2-3 jobs and several volunteer projects. Oh, and we were doing a play on a boat and boatloads of relatives were coming in to see it. Most people, in this situation, might call it a day and order pizza, assuming that 'behind on my homework, exhausted, and missing deadlines right and left,' meant that cooking was out of the question.

Those hypothetical people obviously discounted my insanity, the pleasurably procrastinatory power of my kitchen, and the allure of the Lee Bros. Southern Cooking. This disastrously seductive tome, written by two little Jewish boys from Charleston via New York, has lived in my collection for a few years already, but every now and again I pick it up and am overwhelmed with the desire to make EVERY RECIPE. NOW. The introductory paragraphs are so thoughtful and tempting, the recipes simple and full of things I want to eat. And they usually don't disappoint. Their cornbread salad (adapted here by Smitten Kitchen), was so good I made it for a week straight last summer, and then went on a more generalized panzanella kick for weeks. Their shrimp and grits took all of one rainy Sunday morning, just as it should.

This time around, my attention was caught by something I would have never thought of cooking--pork picnic shoulder. Once I read their three recipes and thoughtfully thrifty introduction, I couldn't get it out of my mind, and couldn't be satisfied until I was lugging home an unusually large chunk of a meat I usually avoid buying. That's how good those Lee Bros. are. For this particular picnic shoulder, I used the third recipe in the book, the one they recommend for a date dinner, North Carolina style. I altered the recipe to use what I had in the house (cider vinegar replaced white, cranberry shrub provided the sweetness of apple cider, etc...) but followed their method closely.

I don't much care for the smell of raw pork.

But the smell of slowly braising and caramelizing pork is quite all right with me, and the finished product, though seriously fatty (I skimmed most of it), looked excellent.

Here is what it looked like once I shredded it and soaked it in its sauce (it was dry without).

I didn't wind up eating too much of it--it was a bit vinegary to complement the black beans with which I tried to pair it, but it was very good--Matt had a lot of soft-roll sandwiches with pickle, and Libby chose to forgo pancakes one morning in order to eat a small pork-pile with a fried egg. I just love when people raid my refrigerator and like what they find there.

So, five hour recipe, huge hunk of meat, smashing success...was I done? No. My foodie soul couldn't rest until I'd pickled some ramps. Ramps don't hold the same fascination for me that say, rhubarb, or strawberries, or other spring harbingers do, but I usually find myself buying a ceremonial bunch once or twice a year, and pickling them is about as artisan-annoying-foodie a thing to do with them as I could think of, plus I thought it would taste good. Plus the Lee Bros. told me to, and they know.

Their recipe calls for brining the ramp bulbs overnight in salt water with garlic and chiles, then draining the combo and covering it with a vinegar brine. They do turn such a pretty color, and I look forward to a ploughman's lunch of sorts soon. (With the ramp greens I made the Lee Bros. recipe for Kilt Lettuce and Ramps, which was all right but not worth the photo).

So, I think I have passed and surpassed the stupid obsessed foodie test in spades, and now that I have a freer schedule, I can't wait to take it to new heights. (I'm thinking teaching classes at the bakery, a possible consignment business or local CSA, or some pay what you can barbeques on the roof. We have to start that summer shack sometime).

And speaking of summer shacks, the ice cream frenzy rages on, and doesn't show any sign of stopping, especially since Lily just bought a freezer and we're talking ice cream sandwiches. Since the last update I've made the Lee Bros. banana pudding flavor, which includes cookie crumbles and bananas caramelized in rum, another batch of caramel (as a tutorial for Miriam--my company should definitely be called 'Edible Tutorials'), and a batch of David Lebovitz's Fresh Ginger, which Matt says tastes like vanilla but I think has a good spiciness to it.

So I'm still not Southern, and I'm still not sure about pork, but my madness clearly extends in all directions of Brooklyn foodie silliness, and I'm having a very good time.

Oh, and we finished the pork shoulder the other day....time for another turkey?

Daring Cooks: Potstickers

I'm a little late with my first Daring Cooks challenge. Of course. What had happened was...I made the recipe three times in the past month because it was so good, and forgot to take any pictures each and every time. So I made them one last time the other night, then had to wait for Matt to get home with my computer charger, and finally, here you are. I strongly suggest making these. The pork and shrimp filling is particularly wonderful. Still working on the best vegetarian options. This month's Daring Cooks recipe comes from Jen of Use Real Butter.

Chinese Dumplings/Potstickers

pork filling:
1 lb (450g) ground pork
4 large napa cabbage leaves, minced
3 stalks green onions, minced
7 shitake mushrooms, minced (if dried - rehydrated and rinsed carefully)
1/2 cup (75g) bamboo shoots, minced
1/4 (55g) cup ginger root, minced
3 tbsp (40g) soy sauce
2 tbsp (28g) sesame oil
2 tbsp (16g) corn starch

OR

shrimp filling:
1/2 lb (225g) raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, and coarsely chopped
1/2 lb (225g) ground pork
3 stalks green onions, minced
1/4 cup (55g) ginger root, minced
1 cup (142g) water chestnuts, minced
1 tsp (5g) salt
3 tbsp (40g) sesame oil
2 tbsp (16g) corn starch

dough: (double this for the amount of filling, but easier to make it in 2 batches - or just halve the filling recipe)
2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (113g) warm water
flour for worksurface

dipping sauce:
2 parts soy sauce
1 part vinegar (red wine or black)
a few drops of sesame oil
chili garlic paste (optional)
minced ginger (optional)
minced garlic (optional)
minced green onion (optional)
sugar (optional)

Combine all filling ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly (I mix by clean hand). Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (up to a day, but preferably within an hour or two).

Make the dough, Method 1: Place the flour in the work bowl of a food processor with the dough blade. Run the processor and pour the warm water in until incorporated. Pour the contents into a sturdy bowl or onto a work surface and knead until uniform and smooth. The dough should be firm and silky to the touch and not sticky.[Note: it’s better to have a moist dough and have to incorporate more flour than to have a dry and pilling dough and have to incorporate more water).

Make the dough, Method 2 (my mom’s instructions): In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch. Add more water than recommended if it seems necessary. (I had to add quite a bit, my flour is dry or my measuring cups generous this month-KS)

Both dough methods: Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes. Take the dough and form a flattened dome. Cut into strips about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. Shape the strips into rounded long cylinders. On a floured surface, cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle (you can shape the corners in with your fingers). With a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper from each flat disc. Take care not to roll out too thin or the dumplings will break during cooking - about 1/16th inch. Leave the centers slightly thicker than the edges. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough in half, pleating the edges along one side (see images in post for how to fold pleats). Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.

To boil: Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add dumplings to pot. Boil the dumplings until they float.

To steam: Place dumplings on a single layer of napa cabbage leaves or on a well-greased surface in a steamer basket with lid. Steam covered for about 6 minutes.

To pan fry (potstickers): Place dumplings in a frying pan with 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil. Heat on high and fry for a few minutes until bottoms are golden. Add 1/2 cup water and cover. Cook until the water has boiled away and then uncover and reduce heat to medium or medium low. Let the dumplings cook for another 2 minutes then remove from heat and serve.To freeze: Assemble dumplings on a baking sheet so they are not touching. It helps to rub the base of the dumpling in a little flour before setting on the baking sheet for ease of release. Freeze for 20-30 minutes until dumplings are no longer soft. Place in ziploc bag and freeze for up to a couple of months. Prepare per the above instructions, but allow extra time to ensure the filling is thoroughly cooked.

To serve: Serve dumplings or potstickers hot with your choice of dipping sauce combinations.