Couldn't help myself. The packaging was just too cute.
These pancakes are made partially with chinese chives because that's what I have!
3/4 cup boiling water. The hotter the water the chewier the dough!
1 tsp salt
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cold water
butter or sesame oil
salt for sprinkling
6 green onions, chopped into rounds very finely
peanut oil
Whisk salt into the flour. Pour boiling water slowly into the flour, bringing the dough together. Once the dough is a shaggy mass, add the cold water little by little and knead until the dough pulls away from the bowl. Dough should not be excessively sticky, but elastic and smooth yet still pliable. Rest for one hour.
Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll into very thin, practically translucent, scant 1/8 in thick rounds. The thinner you get it, the flakier the pancake. Brush with butter and sprinkle with onions. Roll the dough tightly into a long skinny cigarette. Roll the cigarette into a snail shape, pinching the end closed. Roll the dough out again to whatever thickness you prefer. I like them mostly about 1/4".
Heat a layer of oil to shimmering in a heavy pan. The depth should be about the 1/4 the thickness of the pancake. Fry a tester, browning both sides and flipping only once. Drain on paper towels. If the inside is still too doughy, turn down the heat. If the surface isn't golden brown with a bit of charred green onion, turn up the heat. The finished product should be chewy in the middle, translucently crispy on the outside, with flaky layers sometimes peeling up.
Serve immediately or layer the uncooked rounds in saran wrap and freeze. No need to defrost before frying!
*I like to gradate the onion density mostly from one side - say the right to left - and then roll in a perpendicular direction - bottom to top - so that the onions don't poke out later. You'll see what I mean. You can also saute the onions in a bit of fat before adding to the dough, making a nice aroma.
I've been extravagantly cooking taxing Chinese recipes today. Here is the first test result for baozi stuffed with pork, and a recipe that includes changes I'll incorporate the next time I want to spend all day in a kitchen.
Char Siu Bao
2/3 cup warm water, 150g
2 tsp active dry yeast, 8g
1/2 tsp white vinegar
2 tbsp pork fat, oil or shortening
1 cup all purpose flour
3 cups cake flour, I used two parts Softasilk and one part unbleached King Arthur
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp water *
1/2 onion minced very fine
200g of char siu pork, finely chopped
1 tsp rice wine
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame seed oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp corn starch
Stir together water, yeast and a tsp of sugar. Rest till foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile sift together flour and the rest of the sugar into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. Stir white vinegar and pork fat into the yeast. Pour slowly into the well, stirring in flour slowly with a fork. After the dough becomes a shaggy mass, knead until the dough is smooth and elastic but still soft. Cover and let rise for about 1hour or until almost doubled.
For the filling, dissolve corn starch in water. Sweat onions in a pan, then turn up the heat. Swirling briefly between the each addition, pour rice wine, oyster sauce, soy and sesame oil. Swirl in cornstarch water and add pork. Lower to simmer and reduce till the sauce is thickened.When dough is ready, dissolve baking powder in 4 tsp water. Push out dough for a large surface area and sprinkle baking powder water on top. Knead again for several minutes, just till baking powder is combined. Cut the dough in 16 pieces. Briefly knead each piece of dough to get a smooth consistency in a round ball then roll them into 3" rounds, tapering the edges, about a scant 1/4 in thick in the center. Dollop one generous tsp of filling and make the bun.Shaping pretty buns are a little tricky, but this video helped me get some basics down. Use your thumb to poke down the filling as you go. Create an upright volcano crater at the top by pleating around the edge and gently twisting and pinching the crater closed with your nail. Make sure they are truly closed or they will erupt like a volcano during cooking. Stick each bun onto a 1.5" square of parchment paper. Let rest while setting up steamer and filling, so the buns can rise a bit more, a little less than 30 minutes. The following batches end up waiting longer, so one way to do it is to time them so you are making and steaming at once.
In any case, put a scant 1/2 inch of water into the bottom of the pot. I use a perforated metal circle that lines the rice pot and then a bamboo steamer, lined with muslin or leafed lettuce, on top. Heat to a high simmer but not an angry boil. Place the buns, without touching the sides or each other, into the covered steamer for about 15 minutes and serve immediately.
To reheat leftover buns, wrap in a moistened paper towel and microwave for 10 seconds or however long it takes for your buns to heat up!
The kind of "char siu bao" that David Chang makes at Momofuku are actually not "bao" (noun), although the process of making them can also be called "bao" (verb) - overly pedantic, I know. The dough, however, is the same as a basic "mantou". Mantou themselves are usually a sweet steamed dough (sometimes steamed and fried) shaped into bun or dinner roll without fillings, while a bao has fillings bundled (as opposed to wrapped) in a discrete package that usually bursts with juices when you bite into it. The Momofuku pork "sandwich" style dish is one I usually only have at formal Chinese dinners, like wedding banquets, and I believe goes by a different name than "bao". Platters of tian mian jiang, a sweet dark paste sometimes substituted with hoisin plum sauce, and slivered green onions are brought to the table with lacquered slices of Peking duck skin.Yes, only the skin, fat rendered away, is brought to the table. Guests brush on the sauce themselves and compose the ingredients inside a plain round of mantou that is folded in half. For the Cantonese and Californians, mantou seems to be the standard, but Peking (or really Beijing) Mandarin style mandates a kind of thin flour "crepe" (made unlike a French Crepe as properly performed in Eat, Drink, Man, Woman). To confuse the issue more, these flat pancakes are referred to as "buo bing" or "bao bing", "bao" in this case meaning thin, as in thin as a crepe. Both styles are really good. The duck breast is served in a separate preparation, sometimes noodle or stir fry, while the carcass makes a rich white soup. Some restaurants serve the duck up to 5 ways, so ordering Peking duck should never be taken lightly and is typically done only as a special occasion treat. These are the moments when I miss my estranged relatives, so I can eat some real Chinese food instead of whatever my vocabulary limits me to. Sigh. In any case, Chang's marketing has got my Google search all confused and I'm not the only one. If you don't live in New York, most major cities ought to have a restaurant that serves at least one rendition of this very classic, distinct dish.
*My dough was slightly yellow because of the flour. In Asia, they apparently use a superwhite low gluten mix that I haven't bothered to look for, Hong Kong brand. I like my bao to be smoother rather than whiter, but I suppose that comes with practice. Also, yellow spots in the dough are a sign that the baking powder has not combined properly. I sprinkled it onto the dough this time, but I think I will try knead more or add it earlier.
Before I really started to appreciate Chinese cuisine, this is what my parents ordered so they could get me to eat something when we went to certain restaurants. I have never seen this dish made at home, probably because it requires quite a bit of oil. However, the right balance between ginger and aromatics makes the dish feel lighter. The cooking process for this dish is fast. It is essential that the ingredients are prepared ahead.
Dry Fried Green Beans
peanut oil
3/4 pound green or long beans, ends snapped, rinsed and dried. I use my salad spinner.
4 dried red chili
1" length of ginger, peeled and minced
4 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
3 tbsp preserved vegetable (radish), rinsed and minced. Sometimes I don't bother with the rinsing.
1/2 tbsp dried shrimp *optional
3 green onions
1/4 lb minced pork
1 tsp rice wine
1.5 tbsp soy sauce
sesame oil
Heat wok to med high heat, almost searing temp. Add peanut oil to nearly smoking. If there are too many beans to come into direct contact with the pan, separate beans into batches, portioning the oil. More oil equals more blisters, but using less will just require more time. Constantly, stir and fry until the beans become slightly limp and kind of wrinkly. Remove when they are textured but before they become too charred. Sometimes I pick the early finishers out one by one. Drain on paper towels.
Drop in the red chilis. Turn up the heat to high. Stir in seasonings in order, swirling for 30 sec before adding the next: first garlic, ginger, then radish, white ends of onions. Add pork and wine, breaking up the pieces with the wok shovel. Brown till barely pink. Return the beans back to the wok and stir till blended, then immediately add soy sauce. Continue tossing till the meat is browned and the moisture is gone. The dish should not be sauced and the scallions/aromatics should be a little crispy.
Remove from heat and toss in a very minimal dash of sesame oil. Serve hot, hot, hot with rice!
*Some restaurants serve this dish with tiny dried shrimp, which I always ask to have omitted. This would be a personal preference.
Here's the NPR article with audio.
From David Thompson's book, Thai Food.
The secret to this particular Phat Thai is getting the right amount of tamarind in there. I use a goopy concentrate that is quite strong, so I erred on not enough. I also used half a .14 oz bag of noodle, which requires the rest of the ingredients to almost double. Thompson's recipe is less sweet than typically served in the US, but much closer to how Phat Thai really tastes and looks. If people complain, serve some white sugar with the hot pepper flakes and ground peanuts on the side, perfectly authentic. For some odd reason, Ranch 99 didn't have bean sprouts, so I substituted green beans, which I found was a common ingredient in Thai food stalls.
The Thom Kha Gai was a little trickier. I didn't have any kaffir lime leaves but I zested half a lime with a Microplane and that brought the right aroma out. Thompson also says to soak the noodles for 2 hours. I found that boiling and draining reduces the long wait. The noodles need to be al dente because they do get fried once more. He also says to bruise the lemongrass, shallots and chilies in a mortar, which was a frankly a pain. Perhaps using a strainer for the distracting bits or a very rough whirl in the food processor might be a better solution. I couldn't find any coriander roots either, but I chopped up some of the stems, mortared that, and added it with the lemongrass "paste" step.
The secret to this particular Phat Thai is getting the right amount of tamarind in there. I use a goopy concentrate that is quite strong, so I erred on not enough. I also used half a .14 oz bag of noodle, which requires the rest of the ingredients to almost double. Thompson's recipe is less sweet than typically served in the US, but much closer to how Phat Thai really tastes and looks. If people complain, serve some white sugar with the hot pepper flakes and ground peanuts on the side, perfectly authentic. For some odd reason, Ranch 99 didn't have bean sprouts, so I substituted green beans, which I found was a common ingredient in Thai food stalls.
The Thom Kha Gai was a little trickier. I didn't have any kaffir lime leaves but I zested half a lime with a Microplane and that brought the right aroma out. Thompson also says to soak the noodles for 2 hours. I found that boiling and draining reduces the long wait. The noodles need to be al dente because they do get fried once more. He also says to bruise the lemongrass, shallots and chilies in a mortar, which was a frankly a pain. Perhaps using a strainer for the distracting bits or a very rough whirl in the food processor might be a better solution. I couldn't find any coriander roots either, but I chopped up some of the stems, mortared that, and added it with the lemongrass "paste" step.
I got up this morning and was cold, so I busted out this lounge pant pattern from the November 2008 edition of Burda World of Fashion. The Juki handled everything I tried no problem. I topstitched the seams and made some nice buttonholes on this thick interlock. I'm used to having to adjust for the elasticity of the fabric, so pulling too much on the fabric when sewing the yoke created ripples around the waist. Really, with the Juki I shouldn't because the stitch does the work for me. Hopefully, a good washing will help. I also forgot to shorten the leg and crotch length, so they are sagging round the ankles and higher at the waist then I like, but nevertheless, good for hiding my feet in. Now I'm comfy.
Buttonholer with sensor and extra plate used for light weight fabrics.
Buttonholer setup. According to the manual the button size range is 0.7-3.2 cm and no thicker than 4 mm.
In action and a variety of buttonhole styles. The two on the top left show the difference in narrow and wide selections for the opening width.
More buttonhole styles. I stopped cutting the threads and just moved on to the next. There are 16 total with three opening widths and one manual option. The width of the buttonhole legs and stitch lengths can also be adjusted for a more or less satiny finish. I drew a grid and the machine seemed to follow it pretty well without any help from me at all. I just disconnected the foot pedal, pressed the start button, and let her rip.
Here is the back of the sample with no snipping on my part. The fabric was an unknown content with a linen-like texture and basic Guterman poly thread. Sometimes the back and occasionally the front would have one little loop which stuck out and I'm not sure why that happens. I didn't try adjusting the tension or anything, because I wanted to see all the holes looked at auto settings.
Recipe inspired by a sewing friend and dictated by the contents of my kitchen.
2 cups masoor dal, or lentils
8 cups flavorful chicken broth = 2 quarts
1 scant tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tsp mustard seed
2 dried whole red chilis
1 tsp kala jeera
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp asafoetida
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 small onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 stalk celery, diced
2 small carrots, peeled and diced
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds, freshly ground
1/8 tsp red chili powder 3 tbsp butter or ghee
bundle of greens - kale, chard, collard, etc - roughly chopped
Rinse lentils till water runs clear. Soak while preparing ingredients.
8 cups flavorful chicken broth = 2 quarts
1 scant tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tsp mustard seed
2 dried whole red chilis
1 tsp kala jeera
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp asafoetida
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 small onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 stalk celery, diced
2 small carrots, peeled and diced
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds, freshly ground
1/8 tsp red chili powder 3 tbsp butter or ghee
bundle of greens - kale, chard, collard, etc - roughly chopped
Rinse lentils till water runs clear. Soak while preparing ingredients.
Add oil into pot at medium-low heat. Toast the mustard and kala jeera seeds and finally the whole chilies. Bloom the powdered spices in order, turmeric, asafoetida, ginger. Turn up the heat, and saute onions, then garlic with a bit of salt. Add carrots and celery. Fry till pale vegetables are soft, browned, and moisture dissipates. Toss tomatoes onto the surface of the pot and saute until they have broken down, releasing most of their juices.
Drain the lentils well, then add them to the pot. Pour in the broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and vigorously simmer till lentils are tender and the soup thickens to the preferred consistency, at least 30 min. Add water if necessary.
Drain the lentils well, then add them to the pot. Pour in the broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and vigorously simmer till lentils are tender and the soup thickens to the preferred consistency, at least 30 min. Add water if necessary.
Meanwhile, prepare greens. Brown butter in a hot pan and quickly saute the greens. Add melted butter and greens to the soup along with the ground coriander, ground cumin, red chili powder and salt. Simmer uncovered till the greens are wilted, the soup is heated through and flavors are blended before serving.
* In a pinch, I just substitute some garam masala instead. The finished consistency should be like a medium thick pea soup with some soft lentil bits, but you can make it smoother and thicker with a pressure cooker or leave it brothy and chunky. Sprinkle with a dash of lemon juice and finely chopped cilantro right before serving if desired.
Lentils will make a slightly grainier textured, earthier soup and takes longer to cook than masoor dal, which produces a pleasant sunny color.
* In a pinch, I just substitute some garam masala instead. The finished consistency should be like a medium thick pea soup with some soft lentil bits, but you can make it smoother and thicker with a pressure cooker or leave it brothy and chunky. Sprinkle with a dash of lemon juice and finely chopped cilantro right before serving if desired.
Lentils will make a slightly grainier textured, earthier soup and takes longer to cook than masoor dal, which produces a pleasant sunny color.
Below is a picture of the bobbin winder array. I put the end of the thread through a hole in the plastic bobbin, wind several turns excess in a clockwise direction, insert the bobbin on the spindle and then slide the thread through one of the grey appendages on the winding spool. The grey lever engages manually and stops automatically. Once the spool is full, there's another cutter to the left of the bobbin for easy removal. Fairly consistent results with this method so far. I like the separate motor, which means no more disengaging the flywheel clutch. Perhaps using the second spindle will also avoid having to rethread the needle. Buy two spools and never be lacking. The size is a Class 15 standard plastic.
"Engage." "Array."
I've been watching one to many reruns of Star Trek: Next Gen...
Since, I spent so much money and will be putting off a serger purchase for awhile, I figured that I should try my hand at more knit garments using the new Juki. I found the double layered construction method on a retired White House/Black Market shirt from many moons ago. This technique gives a simple knit tee extra wearing longevity and opacity to white fabric. I found that a heavier jersey and a more substantial overcast at the neck seam allowances gives structure for a crisper edges. This red stretch fabric was super cheap at Fabrix, is probably poly or poly blend knit with a soft, silky, drapey hand.
Mark and cut pattern pieces with 1/4" seam allowance. Cut two at a time of the same pattern piece as a whole rather than folding at the center line (which makes your grain off and possibly your hem. How do I know?!). At the neck edges and armhole, trim a very scant 1/8" off of the seam allowance. Measure and mark a point at the V-neck at center front, 1/4" below the tip. Notch.
Put the front garment pieces right sides together, matching the shorter edges to the longer edges and pin. Sew directionally from along one V-neck edge, by starting several stitches on one leg of the V, picot at the marked point, and continue sewing off the straight end. Repeat for the other side. Snip the seam allowance to the V-neck point, allowing the garment to lay flat. Clip the corners of the jewel neck. Use the reinforced stretch stitch setting for a firm but elastic neck edge.
I was having some trouble with loops in the stitches on the backside, but I dialed the tension and that seemed to help.
On "Auto" or normal tension, the same stitch is fairly neat on a piece of muslin.
Overcast the raw seam edges using presser foot C. There are several to choose from, but the machine/foot only allows a 5.0 mm width, rather than the total 7mm.
Finished seam is light and flexible. Technically, since the top is sandwiched and the fabric doesn't come apart that easy, the seams don't need to be finished at all. However, I find that the added stability makes this particular blouse hold it's shape better.
Using a longer straight stitch length, right hand needle position and the edge stitch foot D, "understitch" from the public side (basically topstitch) through the "shorter" pattern piece and seam allowances along the neck edges at 1/8 from the ditch. Repeat the entire process with the rounded neck edge. Starting from the shoulder corner, stitch at 1/4" seam allowance, overcast, and understitch as far as possible, about an 1" away from the corner. I was having trouble with the understitches coming out wobbly when I sewed with the regular A foot, but simply changing to a slightly longer stitch length and using the edgestitch foot seemed to do the trick.
Sew armholes together using the reinforced stretch stitch setting as above. Overcast but do not understitch.
Match the back garment pieces right sides together, easing the shorter edges to the longer edges. Proceed with the neckline of the back garment and armholes as above. Overcast all seams, but understitch only the neckline and not the armholes.
Lay the back garment on a table wrong side out with the understitched side down. Insert the front garment shoulder strap (right side out with the understitched side down) into the back garment shoulder seams and match the lengths precisely. Pin. Sew the shoulder seam at 1/4" seam allowance with a straight stitch.
On the Juki, the elastic"straight"stitch has left hand default position, so determining 1/4" was a manual process of actually measuring. I still need to determine what those needle positions actually dimension out to, perhaps in another post.
Following the text in the manual, I finished the bottom edge of the blindhem using the edge stitch foot D. Mark the folding line with a long basting stitch and press over to the wrong side. Mark the finished line. Fold the garment and pleat out of the way so only the coverstitched edge is on the right of the needle. The needle needs to barely hit the stack of fabric on the left side of the edge foot and then clear the center bar before going down three stitches or so on the right, thus the -7 setting on the screen. I used my hand crank to test that the needle never hit metal.
I used a Schmetz size 12 ballpoint needle, but perhaps could have gotten away with smaller. All these fancy stitches aren't necessary, since a plain straight stitch and serged edge works very well on the original, but I thought I might as well try them out. The wonky hem is a result of poor cutting as opposed to bad sewing. I added extra seam allowance though, so I can make that plumb no problem.Since the material was so flimsy, this project is an instance where I'm not using the auto cutters. Instead, I pull up the bobbin end and held both top and bottom threads at the start of each stitch. To give the Juki credit, however, even when using autocutters and getting a little snarl ball, the fabric never fully jammed like my Singer.
The main issue I had during this process was tension adjustments for certain types of stitches. At one point, after fiddling with tension and foot pressure didn't work so well, I rethreaded everything and the problem was solved. Strange since that was towards the middle of the project with nary an issue otherwise. The basting stitch on the cross grain, really needed dialing up to get flat (unnecessary fiddling because a looser baste will be easier to pull out anyway). For the most part, tension needed at least a click +.
Finally, I was pretty sure I would settle into a routine for needle up/down position, auto thread cutting, speed setting, etc. but I'm finding that having options helps me in different situations.
I love pork belly in all sorts of permutations and the recipe Nagasaki-Style Braised Pork from Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, by Shizuo Tsuji is pretty ace. The pork belly is braised for 6 hours in okara, rice or bran water. Then the meat is rinsed and simmered again to remove excess porkiness (there's a Chinese word for this which I don't know how to translate, perhaps smelly/bloody tasting). The next day, the pork is brought to simmer in a simple sauce. Separately seasoned and blanched vegetables are added right before serving.
I did not cook the veg separately. Instead I just tossed in green onions and snow peas about 5 minutes before the dish was finished. Most restaurants seem to omit them, but doing it the Tsuji way will result in a nicer presentation and clearer flavor. Next time I think I will cut the pieces into 2" chunks and double the recipe!
Pork belly from Nijiya, cut into 1 inch pieces. I actually have difficulty sometimes finding thick enough pork belly slabs with the right ratio of meat and fat. Where do they all go?
Browned pork pieces go into a pot with crushed ginger. The ginger should be very finely chopped or they will be hindrance later.
"The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term." --Larry Gopnik A Serious Man could be a great dark comedy, but somehow the Coens have infused this fable of Jews, family, faith and values with creepy ominousness that undercuts all the funny and is ultimately an even better film. The script is smart and sharp. The images are so well constructed that each gag vectors effortlessly into the greater narrative, one in which Man, small and meek and feeble, armed only with fallible weapons like Tradition, has to contend with the unknowable chaos that is Life or the wrath of God or whatever. In any case, the enemy is something big and uncomfortable despite any best effort, and the rewards for being "a good boy" are perhaps only tangential. This one belongs on the top ten of 2009 proper.
Traditional Chawan Mushi with shrimp, marinated chicken, ginko and chestnuts. Topped with fresh mitsuba - Aerogarden grown. I wasn't as careful with the stirring and steaming this time, so the surface of the chawan was all bubbled. However, the delicate flavor and internal tenderness of the custard were perfect for the cold winter night.
This thin sliced beef served over rice is straight up Yoshinoya style. I have yet to turn broccoli and carrots neon though. This recipe is adapted from the Tsuji book, which usually has more broth than I'd like, so the below proportions are a little strange.
Gyodon (Beef Bowl)
1/2 lb thin sliced beef
2 long onions or 1 medium round onion, cut into long thin slices
1 tbsp veg oil
1/2 cup water
Generous 1/6 cup dark soy sauce
Generous 1/6 cup mirin
1 tbsp ginger juice (use the pickling water from the pink packaged kind)
Over high heat, saute onions till soft. Add beef till barely cooked through. Pour in sauce and stir-fry another minute or so. Adjust seasoning and add ginger juice before serving.
