Dumplings, Dumplings, and More Dumplings

Dumplings: Photographic Evidence of Delicious

As it is 10:20 and we started making them at 7:00, I am too tired to write. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
Now Frying: Tofu/carrot/water chestnut/five-spice
Spinach/egg
Chicken/leek/water chestnut

Done, and ready to eat with Chinese black vinegar and homemade and dangerously spicy la jiao

Mine were steamed, for super healthiness!

And they ended up chewier, which I actually liked a lot!

We had some red bean paste in the house, so I made dumplings, pan-fried them, then mixed coconut milk, cow milk, and almond extract for a dipping sauce.

Next entry: Dumpling Hangover

Mangosteen Clafouti: Sounds like a disease; Tastes like a custard.

When my husband, mother-in-law, and I were traveling in China, she was obsessed with this fruit called a mangosteen. A friend had told her to make sure she ate a mangosteen in China. They're really rare in the states because they only grow in a certain region at a certain specific time. Chances are you haven't eaten one of these. For a long time, they weren't allowed into the US because of the fear of fruit flies. They're still rarely found fresh, but we found cans of mangosteen in a Chinese supermarket this weekend and surprisingly, there was a recipe on the web. The canned sections of mangosteen look rather like garlic, but thankfully they do not taste like it. See what I mean?
Anyway. So we went all over Chengdu looking for someone selling mangosteens. Finally, we found a woman selling them out of her baskets and excitedly ate them. They aren't nearly as exciting as the cross-continental buildup, but they have a pleasant taste and they are truly a bizarre visual hybrid of eggplant, tangerine, and shot putt.

But the dessert. Mangosteen Clafouti sounds like a disease and tastes like custard. It's a wonderful mix of mangosteen, which has a citrus-y peach mild flavor, coconut milk, and eggs. Delicious! Here's a finished product, before we poured more coconut milk on top:

Here's a link to the recipe!

Dosas!

I love these beautiful South Indian savory-sweet lentil-rice pancakes with potato-coconut filling. I have eaten them twice this week. They are a salty, sweet, sour, crunchy dish. They're low-fat and filled with protein and unusual flavors. They're not especially prep-intensive but it takes foresight, as the grains need to soak overnight then ferment for a day. What's fascinating is how well the lentil and rice crepes stay together despite having absolutely no binding agent. I improvised the filling and chutney based on dosas I ate around the corner. The key was a spice mix I picked up at an Indian market. It's called Panch Puran, or Bengali spice mix, and contains fenugreek, fennel, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and nigella seeds. It's really pretty, too, with black and yellow seeds and greenish pods.

This recipe awakened my love of fenugreek and fennel. As a self-confirmed Enemy of Licorice, I never thought I'd enjoy either of these spices, but they really made the dish. It also reaffirmed my love of tamarind. You may think you've never eaten it, but it's the runny reddish-brown sauce that comes with samosas.

So, without further ado, here it is!

Dosa Batter:
Dosa batter is made of rice and lentils and can be bought in Indian markets like Shalimar in Central Square. I made my own and when I ran out, I used the store-bought kind too. Opinions were divided. My husband and I loved the sourness of the store-bought, which probably fermented more than we let ours ferment. This recipe doesn't have as much sourness but tastes somehow richer. It's absolutely essential (I learned the hard way) to make the batter much runnier than pancakes if you want a truly thin dosa.

Here. They look like crepes, but they're sour and crunchy:


3 cups rice
1 cup black lentils
water to cover
2 tsp fenugreek seeds (optional)
Soak rice and lentils overnight in a bowl with enough water to cover by about 2 inches. Blend mixture in blender until liquid. Let it ferment in a large bowl (it will increase in size) for about 8 hours. Add water to make it a runny consistency. To make pancakes, oil or spray pan lightly and ladle in. Swirl pan around to spread batter. There will be holes and that's ok. When you can see it browning and peeling from the pan, flip it with a spatula and cook another few minutes.

The Filling:

1 can chick peas
3-4 potatos, peeled and cut into very small chunks
onion to taste
kosher salt
panch puran
vegetable oil

Fry potatos in a few tablespoons oil and salt until they start to soften, about 20-30 minutes. Add onion and cook until soft. Add spices and chick peas and sautee several minutes.

Coconut Chutney
Mix all ingredients in bowl to form a thick paste:

approximately 1 cup dried unsweetened coconut
drizzle of water, for texture
2 tbsp tamarind paste

We tried all kinds of condiments with this: lime pickle, pepper jelly, papaya, and more.
Here's my friend Andrew loading it all on his dosa. He's several seconds away from dosa perfection.

Asparagus and Pasta with Egg-Lemon Sauce

I've already mentioned my love of asparagus. I finally got Jonah into it, and now he can't get enough. My friend Beth (of the pizza dip recipe, see February) got us a wonderful vegetarian Jewish cookbook called Olive Trees and Honey. We've made a couple of the recipes, including Cheesy Stuffed Eggplant and the abovementioned asparagus, and although both have benefited from our tinkering around, I'm sure they're quite good as is.

Here's the asparagus recipe. The sauce is essentially a hollandaise. The first time we made it, we found that it makes wayyyyy too much sauce for the asparagus, so we put the rest on pasta. It won't keep for more than a day since it has partially cooked egg and can't be reheated, so make and eat. It's so good there won't be leftovers anyway.

1 bunch asparagus, cut into 2-3" pieces.
2 tsp flour
2 eggs
5 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped

2 cups pasta, cooked

Sautee garlic in oil. After several minutes, remove and add asparagus. Sautee several minutes, then add water to pan. Bring water to a boil and let cook until asparagus is softened. Meanwhile, beat 2 eggs. Add flour and then lemon juice. When asparagus is done, remove from pan and pour cooking liquid into egg mixture. Pour both back into the pan and cook about 3 minutes on low heat, until the sauce starts to thicken up. Remove immediately from pan and pour over pasta and asparagus.

This is a great side dish!

Savory Hamentashen

Every Purim I find myself kind of disappointed by the hamentashen at the Jewish day school where I work. The school orders about 1000 huge, doughy, dry pastries and this year they were filled with chocolate. Not a bad idea, but I really prefer jam. They were delicious when dipped in tea, but after two of them I was so sugared out that I really needed an anecdote. So, I went home and improvised some savory hamentashen. You can invent your own, too- I sauteed onion and garlic in oil and white wine, put in nearly equal parts vegetable and cheese, and added an herb and an egg or two. A formula that works every time.

For the dough, I made a pie crust that my husband found on Cooks Illustrated. It was pretty easy and astoundingly delicious. Please note that the recipe contains vodka. This cooks off, and my husband the alchemist insists that it has something to do with preventing glutinous formation. I don't know what that is, but I don't like the sound of it. Anyway. I, Erica Smiley, will never use store-bought pie crust again. Here's the recipe for this wondrous pie crust. One recipe makes enough for one recipe of one filling.

Fillings:
















Mushroom Parmesan Sage

1 package mushrooms, chopped
olive oil
cooking wine
1/4 cup or so parmesan cheese
3-4 dried sage leaves
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
Sautee onion and garlic in oil and wine until onions are translucent. Add sage and mushrooms and cook until mushrooms shrink. Remove from heat and let cool. Add parmesan and egg. Nibble.
















Spinach Feta Rosemary

1 package pre-washed spinach
1-2 tsp rosemary
olive oil
cooking wine
2 eggs, beaten lightly
3/4 cup feta, crumbled
1/2 cup chopped onion

Sautee onions and garlic as above. Add rosemary and sautee several minutes. Pile up the spinach and cook until wilted. Let cool and then chop and add cheese and egg.

Coat your hands with flour and flatten small handfuls of dough into patties. Place about a tablespoon of filling in each one and pinch three corners. Bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes, until browned.

Spinach Patties with Orange-Cumin Raita

First, an apology. I was so hungry when I was making these, I didn't even take pictures. And I couldn't put down my fork long enough to take pictures when they were done.

These hot, crunchy, chewy, salty spinach patties are from the cookbook Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons- but we always tweak her recipes a bit. We add eggs to this one to make the dough stay together a bit better. They're not altogether easy to make because there are a lot of steps, but they're all easy steps. They have lots of protein and don't taste spinach-y.

Raita is a yogurt sauce that is amazingly refreshing on top of the hot spinach patties. It's usually made with cucumber; go ahead and add some if you want. These would probably be excellent over rice, but it's not necessary. Just a thought.

12 oz spinach
1 cup chopped onion
8 slices bread
olive oil
20ish almonds
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup lentils
2 eggs

3/4 cup yogurt
2 tsp cumin (or more, to taste)
1 tsp orange zest

Combine lentils and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer until lentils are soft.
Meanwhile, toast the bread and put it in the food processor to make crumbs. Sautee crumbs in a dry pan until toasty. Transfer them into a bowl.

When the lentils are done, put in food processor with almonds and form a chunky paste. Add to bowl with breadcrumbs.

Chop onion and sautee in olive oil until soft. Add cider vinegar and sautee one more minute. Add to bowl with breadcrumbs.

Now it's time to wilt spinach. Just pile it in the pan and watch it shrink. Cook spinach in a dry pan. Chop it up when it's all done and add it, plus the 2 eggs, to the bowl and stir everything.

Prep a plate with flour. Put flour on your hands and make about 8 patties. Dredge each patty in some flour and lightly fry in olive oil until they brown.

To make the raita, add all the ingredients together in a bowl. It's as simple as that.

Toasted Coconut Homemade Marshmallows

These are so superior to store-bought, chemical-tasting marshmallows, and the flavor possibilities are endless. I'm planning to experiment with different extracts like peppermint, orange, and almond. While eating these with friends tonight, I thought out loud and came up with homemade marshmallow rice krispies. I shall experiment with this very soon. Orange flavored marshmallow with cocoa krispies mixed in.... Can you imagine?

Ingredients:

• 3 envelopes of unflavored Knox gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2/3 cups corn syrup
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• Confectioners' sugar for dredging

Preparation:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes.

Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Here is an entertaining video about how gooey the marshmellows get as you approach minute 10:



Scrape into a 9 x 9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly. (Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper). After pouring marshmallow mixture into the pan, take another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan.

Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners' sugar and cut into 12 equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef's knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners' sugar.

Yield: 12 large marshmallows

I used this basic recipe, then coated them in toasted coconut. I toasted about 2 cups unsweetened coconut in the oven for about 10 minutes at 350. Then, after oiling the bottom of the pan, I sprinkled in a layer. I spooned in the batter and then sprinkled it on top again. When I cut the pieces apart, I rolled them in more coconut.

Recipe Source: French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller (Artisan)
Reprinted with permission.

Shakshuka

The first time I ate shakshuka was at Sofra in Belmont. It is a wonderful dish involving eggs poached in tomato curry. It's sweet, salty, warm, chewy, mushy, and satisfying for any of the three meals of the day. At Sofra they serve it in a beautiful engraved metal bowl.

I breathlessly told my Israeli cousin about this amazing dish and he was slightly unimpressed: it turns out it's pretty commonplace in Israel. I found some recipes online and adapted them to create this:


Have you ever seen a lovelier mess?

28 oz diced tomatos, canned
4-6 eggs
2-6 cloves garlic
1/4 cup (4tbsp) oil
1 tsp paprika
2 pinches sugar
2 tsp salt
pita bread

In a medium sized frying pan, sautee oil, tomatos, garlic, and spices for 15 minutes on low, or until softened. Pour hot liquid into blender and blend on low speed until smoother but still chunky. Pour back into hot pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 more minutes on low. Crack eggs on top of tomatos and let cook for 5-10 minutes, or until eggs are set. Meanwhile, toast pita until crunchy and then crumble. Scoop tomatos and eggs with a ladel into bowls and top with pita and an extra shake of paprika (optional).