Dr. Dumpling or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wonton

I love dumplings. Wontons, gyoza or potstickers, boiled, steamed or fried, I love them all. Luckily, dumplings are neither expensive, nor difficult to get...unless you live in Melbourne's northern suburbs like I do. There's no dumpling houses, there's no Asian grocers. For a suburb of such diversity, the lack of culinary choice is frankly astounding and not a little annoying. The solution? Make my own dumplings so that I can stock up the freezer and always have some on hand. It may sound like a daunting task but once you get into a rhythm it's really easy. Just put on a DVD or some music and plough on through.

I happened to be in the city the other day so I picked up some wonton wrappers. The first time I made dumplings I followed Adam Liaw's advice and made my own dough. True to his word, the dough is incredibly easy but the monotony of rolling out each individual wrapper and trying to make them the same size made me want to bash my brains out against a brick wall.
I read a few different recipes for filling and came up with one that tastes pretty damn good:

1kg minced pork
1 bunch of chives, snipped with scissors into little pieces
1/4 of a green cabbage, finely chopped and blanched

100g rice vermicelli/cellophane noodles, cooked in boiling water, snipped with scissors into short lengths and well drained
4-5cm piece ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, grated
3 tbs. cornflour (corn starch)
1 tbs. white vinegar
2 tbs. mirin
2 tbs. soy sauce
Tabasco or chili paste (opt.)
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients and stir to combine for about 8 minutes. It sounds like a long time but don't cop out half way through. All the authentic-looking recipes I've seen say you should only ever stir in one direction. This ensures a juicy filling and helps everything to bind. Once the filling's done let it rest for 15 minutes and then it's ready to go.
At this point I like to fry a little of the filling to taste and make sure that the seasonings are all okay.

Start filling your wrappers with one teaspoon of filling each . If you don't know how to fold dumplings I found this youtube video to be really helpful because it has instructions for folding square and round wrappers.
If you plan on freezing them, freeze them on a tray first before popping them into freezer baggies or else they stick together. I know this from experience.

As for cooking I have two favourite methods: frying and boiling. Both can be done with the fresh dumplings or straight from frozen. Don't defrost them before cooking.

To fry, pour a little oil in the bottom of a frying pan and swirl around to distribute evenly. Lay the dumplings in a single layer, flattest side down. Pour boiling water into the pan to half-cover the dumplings, cover and cook over high heat until the water is all evaporated. Uncover and fry for a minute or two until they're golden brown on the bottom and serve.

To boil, add the frozen dumplings to boiling water and stir a little so they don't stick together. When the water returns to a rolling boil, add 1/2 cup cold water. Once again, when it returns to the boil, add another half cup of water. When it returns to the boil a third time, they're ready to serve.

Serve with your favourite sauce. I'm quite partial to chili sesame oil.


Get it down 'ya!

Ham and Tomato Chutney Pinwheels

If I had to pick a favourite seed I would pick the erroneously named caraway seed. Oh crafty caraway seed, you aren't a seed at all! They're actually the fruits of the caraway plant (twist!) but that doesn't make them any less awesome. They are so aniseedy and good and they make bread taste delicious, especially rye. When I was growing up my grandma used to buy Atlantic Rye With Caraway Seeds and nothing says home to me now like a big slice slathered with cream cheese. Caraway seeds also star in the old English seed-cake which appears in one of the happier scenes in Jane Eyre, one of my favourite books.

[Miss Temple] got up, and unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped up in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.

“I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,” said she; “but as there is so little toast you must have it now” and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.

We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on delicate fare she liberally supplied.

Caraway seeds are also used to make a number of cheeses and liqueurs and in the olden days caraway see tea was given to treat colic, loss of appetite and indigestion. What versatility!!
If you've never cooked with these amazing seeds (or 'flavour explosions') before, I highly recommend giving them a go.
One of the things that goes really well with caraway seeds is ham so I thought it would be jolly to make some ham and tomato chutney pinwheels with caraway seeds in the dough.

Make one batch of my basic bread dough, adding two tablespoons of caraway seeds to the flour before combining it with the other ingredients. Let the dough rise in a warm place until it's doubled in size and punch it down.
Flour the bench, briefly knead the dough again and then roll it out into a large rectangle (sorry, I forgot to measure).
First spread the dough with three tablespoons of mayonnaise leaving a one inch edge on the long side furthest from you. On top of the mayo spread a scant cup of tomato chutney. It sounds like a lot but there were a lot of chunks in my chutney. Chunky chutney....
Sprinkle some shredded tasty or mozzarella cheese over the dough then cover the surface with slices of ham.
Post cheese, pre ham.

Now comes the tricky part. Beginning with the edge closest to you begin to roll up the dough, trying to keep it as tight as you can. I failed at keeping it tight as I've never really made a rolled anything before. If anyone has tips on tight rolling I'd be glad to hear them.
Dab the furthest edge with a little water and seal the roll up, then place it seam side down on the bench.
Taking a very sharp knife cut one inch wide slices and place them lying down on a non-stick or baking paper-lined tray. I got 17 pinwheels in total.
Place the trays in the cold oven and turn it on to 180o C (355o F). Bake them for 30 minutes, flipping them around and swapping racks halfway through if your oven has hot and cold spots.
Eat them straight away. There's no need for hesitation, they get Michael's thumbs up of approval.
Get 'em down 'ya!

Chicken With [51] Cloves of Garlic

Each and every day I count myself lucky that I have a boyfriend who doesn't have a problem with garlic breath. Obviously one has to stay on top of breath freshness in public but I can't honestly say that I have the wherewithal to carry gum on my person around the house and cutting down isn't an option. On this earth is there anything as delicious and versatile as garlic?
Forget about the fact that almost every meal begins with sautéing it and think about all the amazing dishes that focus on it as a main ingredient: garlic prawns, garlic bread, garlic mushrooms, garlic butter, aioli, garlic soup, hummus, bruschetta and, my personal favourite, roasted garlic.
That's why when I heard about chicken with 40 cloves of garlic I knew I had to make it.
I followed the recipe from Nigella's new book Kitchen; maximum deliciousness for minimum effort.
I browned some chicken thighs skin side down and put them in a roasting tray with some fried spring onions, thyme, a splash of white wine, the chicken browning juices and, of course, the garlic. The recipe said that about 4 bulbs would yield 40 cloves but I ended up with 51 and I couldn't really see the harm in using them all.
Cover the tin and roast at 180 degrees Celsius for 1 1/2 hours.
When I announced on Facebook what I had going in the oven a friend commented "I have done the maths, and the probable result is that you will create a garlic singularity so intense as to doom us all."
This amount of garlic can seem intimidating; a lot of people consider 4 cloves to be dancing on the cliff over the abyss of insanity but cooking the garlic in their skins makes them so sweet and melt-in-your-mouth. I could leave the chicken entirely and just go to town on them by themselves.
While the chicken was cooking Michael and I watched Home Alone and I thought about what we were going to have to go with the chicken. I thought about making some mashed potatoes but I couldn't really be bothered. I still had a bit of arborio rice left over from the other day so I decided to make a second helping of oven risotto.
You might remember my thumb-bite at the ceramic ovenware manufacturers of the world earlier this week when I sauteéd onions directly on the stove in a dish didn't say that it was stove safe.
Well, still riding the high I decided to do it again but this time using my older, slightly cracked blue casserole dish. I had turned my back to do something else when I heard a big clunk and turned around to see that a chunk of the dish had just fallen off it. The stove broke my dish!
I'm afraid to touch it because as you can clearly see it's ready to fall apart in other places too. Just call me rebel without a casserole.
So I transferred my sauteéd onions to the red dish and chucked the risotto in the oven and half an hour later everything was ready.
This was seriously one of the most delicious things I've ever, ever eaten! The garlic was bursting out of its skin and it was amazingly sweet and delicious. Oh and the chicken was incredible too; tender and falling off the bone. Too, too good.
Poor Michael didn't know you were meant to squeeze the innards out and discard the garlic skins but he tells me the skins were delicious as well.The French are definitely onto something. Get it down 'ya!

Oven risotto - the provenzal saga continues

Ever since I made that giant batch of provenzal I've been trying to use it as much as I can so that it doesn't go to waste. So far we've had the scalloped potatoes, we've had garlic mushrooms, garlic prawns, it's gone into salad dressing and so many other things that I can't remember them all to write them down.

Yesterday Michael and I were visiting our friends Donna and Moose for dinner and boardgames (yes, we're totally couplesy) and I made up some garlic butter to have with our steak but it also ended up adorning the pumpkin, green beans, mashed potatoes and even the bread.
Today Moose texted me to tell me that Donna had made the rest of the garlic butter into risotto and I thought that was definitely something I should do to get towards my goal of using all that darn provenzal.
For some time I've been feeling enticed by the idea of oven risotto. I love risotto and Michael is mad for the stuff but at times the idea of standing there stirring and stirring is just as exhausting as actually doing it. Plus if I want the risotto as a side for some other main feature I don't feel like I can coordinate the stirring and the cooking of whatever else.
So with pork chops to use and a new bag of Arborio, my path was clear: pork chops and garlicky risotto.
In an act of unprecedented bravery I sauteed some onions in a dish which stated it was "oven safe, microwave safe and dishwasher safe" but not stove safe. I'm a rebel like that.
Once the onions were soft I added two cups of rice, stirred it around a little to get the good flavours going and added a splash of white wine.

I was a little unsure about how much liquid to add because with normal risotto you just have a bunch of stock standing by and if you don't need it all you don't use it. One recipe I read said to use 4 1/2 cups stock for 1 1/2 cups rice. Seeing as that was 3 more cups stock than rice and I was using 2 cups rice I put in 5 cups of vegetable stock. That's the kind of dubious "science" that typifies my particular cooking style.

Not pictured: confidence

I stuck it in the oven at 175oC for 40 minutes, stirring once and at the end it was cooked perfectly. I added butter, Parmesan, provenzal, salt, pepper and a splash of lemon juice. The only problem was trying to stir everything in such a shallow dish. Some of the rice grains got quite squashed in the process but it turned out alright in the end.
Plus, I was able to concentrate almost completely on cooking my chops.

Sadly it wasn't as creamy as real risotto because that's what the stirring does. Still, it was pretty damn tasty and it got rave reviews from Michael so I will definitely keep this method in mind in the future.
Get it down ya!

PCJ- A tradition in deliciousness

I've talked before about the tradition my cousin Nerea and I share of getting together to share the holy trinity: potatoes, bok choy and jelly/o or The PCJ. It's something we really en-choy and I'm sure you're all jelly-ous, something-something-[potato pun].
In the old days the potatoes were always scalloped but on recent PCJ dates we've been dabbling in various other potato-based fare. There were potato salads, hashbrowns, baked potatoes with all the fixin's and I don't doubt that in the future we'll delve deeper into potato experimentation, especially seeing as we each have a different cook book devoted solely to the delicious tubers. Still, I keep coming back to the creamy, melting comfort that can only be found in a big ol' bowl of scalloped potatoes. I decided that tonight was the night to revisit the old favourite.
Nerea always favours a sort of white sauce-based scallop coz it uses milk and is healthier but as we only eat them 2 or 3 times a year I don't mind using cream. Plus, a healthy serving of choy on the side completely balances those calories out, right? RIGHT?!
This is the method that I've come up with:
Layer thinly sliced potatoes in an oven dish. Over each layer sprinkle a mixture of salt, pepper, mozzarella and Parmesan. Usually, once the oven dish is full I just pour a 300ml pot of cream over the top, letting it seep down the layers and bake at 220oC for 1 1/2 hours (it takes a seriously long time to cook through if you're not parboiling first.)
Today, though, I did something a little different. Yesterday, spurned on by my mum both via her blog and in person, I decided to make a batch of provenzal (garlic and parsley). I went a bit overboard though, and made a HUGE batch so now the clock is ticking for me to use it all before it goes bad. After just one and a bit days I've used it in four meals.
So I took the cream for the potatoes and poured it into a measuring jug. I rinsed out the cream container with half as much milk and added that to the jug too. To that I added 4 tablespoons of the provenzal and a generous sprinkling of paprika. Mix together well and pour evenly over the layered potatoes. Bake the same as above until potatoes are tender.
You may need to cover the dish loosely with foil if the top browns too much as you go along.
I think this would have to be in my top 3 favourite scalloped potatoes of all time! They were so garlicky, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven!
I also took care of the jelly. Nerea and I love our jelly to be really really firm, like those cubes of jelly you get at Pizza Hut all-you-can-eats. We used to make up our jelly with less water than stated on the packet instructions but then you get less for your buck. My new strategy is to add extra powdered gelatin to get the perfect al dente dessert. The rule is one tablespoon powdered gelatin to each 85gm pack of jelly crystals. And you know how jelly crystals never quite dissolve completely, there's always floaties on the bottom when you pour the mixture into moulds? Nerea recommends microwaving the jug for a few seconds to dissolve perfectly every time!
Nerea took care of the choy today (always with sesame oil and fish/oyster sauce) but for the first time we got to serve it in the choy-shaped serving dish she got me for Christmas. Eating a food off a dish shaped like that food? Awesome!
Couple that with a glass of icy cold cola and Ferris Bueller and you've got one enchanted evening.
Even our kitten Grover was trying to stick her face in our bowls to lick up the cheesy remnants. Are you dumber than a cat? I didn't think so. Get it down 'ya.

Jambalaya!

This is what we're all thinking about, right?

I've been thinking about making jambalaya for a looong, long time ever since I read a book on Creole cooking a friend loaned to me but it was only today that I decided that it was finally time to make it. I found this blog called I Made That! which is brimming with recipes I'm dying (ie. drowning in my own drool) to try. So I've bookmarked a bunch of things to try soon but the jambalaya could not wait. I called Michael straight away and told him that we were definitely having it for dinner tonight.
I'm not going to copy the recipe over because it would involve translating from ounces to grams and crap like that so if you want to read it follow the link. I followed it pretty much exactly with a few necessary changes: I didn't get pork sausages (because payday isn't 'til tomorrow and I'm a little broke), I couldn't find Andouille sausages (because Epping is a cultural wasteland) so I used chorizo instead, I upped the chicken thighs to five and I used one of those three-packs of capsicums with the red, yellow and green for extra colour.

Look how pretty!

Also, I'd just like to say "FOR SHAME, EPPING SAFEWAY!" for already having closed their deli at 6:30pm. What is this, the middle ages? I had to buy pre-packaged Don chorizo.

So, a word to the wise, don't make this if you're in a rush. It's very easy to put together but chopping all the ingredients took an eternity.
The great thing about this recipe though, is that it smells and looks delicious from the very, very beginning. I could've eaten it at the bacon and chorizo stage, I could've eaten it immediately after adding the capsicum and I was just about ready to chow down on a pan of raw rice towards the end.

Comin' along nicely.

On an impulse Michael went ran out to rent The Princess and The Frog (which was actually really good) to go with dinner and when he came home he was almost floored by the amazing smells that'd filled the whole house.

It was amazingly delicious, so meaty and spicy and paprika-y. I wish I could eat it forever! I've never had jambalaya before so I don't have anything to compare it to but if this is what New Orleans is like then "I want to go to there!"

"New Or-le-uns! Home of pirates, drunks and whores..."

Michael's already gone to bed so he can't give his final word but I think the way he was too busy inhaling it to tell me what he thought speaks for itself.
Seriously, make this. You will not regret it.

The Elvis Burger

There's a 50s diner at Epping Plaza that Michael and I have been to a couple of times called The Juke Joint that has an 'Authentic Elvis Burger'. Having never actually met Mr. Presley, I can't speak for how authentic this burger is. As far as I can tell, all that makes it Elvisy is a bit of peanut butter spread on the bun. Other than that it's just your standard lettuce-pickle-tomato deal. Nothing overly amazing.
Still, there's something great about putting peanut butter in a savoury context.
Staying in the Juke Joint vein, I thought I'd knock it up a notch by making patties with peanut butter in them and top them off with loads of crispy bacon. Mmm-mmm! I'm sure Elvis would approve.

Little Elvis, starving for my burgers, courtesy of my brother, Jeremy.

Here's how you do it:
In a big bowl combine 1kg beef mince (you can use lean mince, the fat in the peanut butter will hold everything together and keep it nice and juicy), 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter, 1 egg, a grated onion, a few shakes of cumin, 1/2 tsp. chili powder, pepper and a little salt (but remember, the peanut butter's already kinda salty) and squish it all together with your hands 'til it's nice and mixed up. Gradually add breadcrumbs until the meat is less sticky and a nice consistency.
Shape your patties, wrap each in Gladwrap and chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, cook some bacon (I did two short cut rashers per burger). I decided to try doing mine in the oven as I'm told that's the best way to get it nice and crispy. Plus, I cooked it on an oven tray with a little rack in it so the fat drains off (and let's face it, we need all the fat-cutting help we can get here, ha-ha!)
Like so.

Cook the bacon for about 15 minutes at 200oC (400oF) or 20 minutes if you want it nice and crispy. When it's done, turn the oven right down to keep the bacon warm.
Fry the patties, laying some cheese right on top after flipping them and once done to your liking, load onto a bun with lettuce, mayo, ketchup and lots of bacon. Enjoy with a glass of cleansing grapefruit juice!
I really loved how this turned out. The peanut butter is there, but it doesn't overpower the taste of beef. Everything works together. The only thing I'd add is some golden sauteed onions, but honestly, what dish doesn't benefit from the addition of onions?
Definitely a meal fit for the King.

Most importantly, this burger get the Michael seal of approval.