Tex-Mex Breakfast Dumplings

This makes roughly 20 dumplings.

You will need:

1/2 pound mushrooms
Roughly 1 medium bell pepper (note: I used only the tops from a green, yellow, and red pepper, with the rest of the peppers left behind. I estimate this to be roughly a bell pepper worth of pepper. )
1/2 a giant onion
2 eggs
50 g Swiss cheese (roughly a chunk about 2 inches x 1 inch if you use one of those grocery store bars of cheese)
Dumpling wrappers

Everything needs to be sliced and chopped pretty thin. Slice and combine the onions with the peppers. Slice the mushrooms and set aside.


Over medium-high heat, Sauté the onions and peppers with a sprinkling of black pepper and sweet paprika until they are all soft and dry (there is a focus on dryness in this recipe). Pour them into a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, sauté the mushrooms with a little bit more black pepper. Because the mushrooms are chopped fine, and the pan is very hot, their moisture comes out and evaporated very rapidly. Instead of getting the more stewed-type mushrooms, they slowly caramelize and get reddish-gold. These will be quite dry. Once they have reached that point, the bottom of the pan will have some nice caramelization stuff. Add a little water to the pan and quickly scrape the bottom to get the mushrooms coated with the fond.

Once they are dry again, add the onions and peppers back into the pan. Let the flavors mingle for a few minutes, then pour everything into a bowl and set aside.

Crack and whisk two eggs, then add the still-hot vegetables. This will not cook the eggs but they will thicken and coat the veggies. Shred the cheese finely and add and mix it all. You should not need to add salt to any of this. The salt naturally present in the cheese and such once it has melted from the hot vegetables will be enough and will also help leach more moisture out.

Set the mix aside for ten minutes or so and pour out the liquid which has pooled. Scoop into dumpling wrappers and steam for ten minutes. I think they would be nicer being subsequently fried. As a dipping sauce? Either a hot sauce of some description, or a sweet chili sauce.

New twists on dumplings

I'm trying to lose weight, but have also found out about some...pretty restrictive dietary restrictions. But I also like my food to be delicious. How can I have something unctuous but still healthy? I think one way is to have something full of flavor and texture so that you feel satisfied with a smaller amount. That means for both meals and desserts. And you know what does all of that? An amuse-bouche.

An amuse-bouche is a one-bite expression of an idea. Nowadays, many cooks use it as a one-bite expression of themselves and their heritage. It's not enough to just take bits and pieces of something you like and put it all on a spoon- you are trying to distill the essence of the idea- the proportion of ingredients, flavors, textures, all in a tiny, tiny portion.

Part of who I am is a New York Jew. And that means I love dumplings. And you know how many bites it takes to eat a dumpling? One or two.

So I made typical dumplings, but started to experiment with some things. All of these recipes call for being steamed for 10 minutes in a Chinese bamboo steamer that sits atop a pot. For added bonus, after steaming set aside for a couple of minutes to cool and for the wrapper to dry a little bit, then put into a hot pan with a little oil (avocado works nicely) for a couple of minutes to crisp up. Most of the time, I think this is optional, but one recipe below I think it is required. I tried all of these both steamed and fried. Here are the recipes and some thoughts:

Dumpling Sauce: This is just my take on classic dumpling sauce. Use low-sodium soy sauce, a little sugar, a little minced ginger, some green onion, mix and dilute to half with water.

Kasha Varnishkas Dumplings:
Buckwheat groats are a BIG no-no for me now, as it turns out. But I can have arguably one dumpling worth once in a while. I made kasha varnishkas as I usually do (I'm not going to write the recipe here) and stuffed it into the dumpling. I would suggest instead to make the kasha but leave out the egg noodles, and just put the cooked buckwheat and onions into the dumpling; the dumpling wrapper will act like the noodle. Steam 10 minutes and enjoy.

Baby Bok Choy Dumplings:
Clean and separate boy choy leaves. Cut to separate the white from the green, cut the whites smaller if you got bok choy too large. In a pan, saute the white parts with minced garlic, minced ginger, and green onions. Add a dash of low sodium soy sauce and Worcestershire, salt, and pepper. When the bok choy whites are toothsome, throw in the green parts. They will cook down and wilt very rapidly, they only need 1-2 minutes to cook, or else they will overcook. Wrap in dumpling wrappers and steam.

 Above, you can see the bok choy dumplings on the left and the kasha dumplings on the right.

Salmon Croquette Dumplings:
Chinese broccoli (sometimes also known as Chinese kale), new potatoes, canned salmon, rinsed capers, salt, pepper, sweet hungarian paprika. If you are not on a restricted diet, spinach would work great for this, or any soft green with a little bitterness.

Wash, separate, and set aside the leaves of the Chinese broccoli. Peel the new potatoes, slice thin on a mandolin (note, may be able to use large shreds, but they are more likely to disintegrate I think) into a bowl of water while you wait for the next step. Put a large pot of water up to boil. Once it boils, dump the greens in, then drain the potatoes and pour those in too (why not just dump them in directly? Part of the point of this is to leach out soluble forms of oxalic acid, so we want to change the water, in effect). Boil for 15 minutes, then drain. Once cool enough, separate the potatoes into a bowl and put the greens onto a chopping board. Chop medium fine (it's going into a dumpling, but no need to liquify it) and set aside.

Separately, take a tablespoon of capers and give them a good rinse under cold running water. Set aside.

Finally, take that can of salmon that you bought because it seemed like a good idea at the time but now have no idea what to do with it, and open it. Drain the water (don't squeeze the salmon, you should be able to just pour it out). Into a bowl add the salmon, some pepper, and some sweet Hungarian paprika (the salmon is already salty and does not need more salt added). Using a fork, gently break up and toss the salmon until it has mixed with the spices. It is okay to let it become small flakes, but don't make the salmon a paste, this should be a gentle crumbing. We want delicate and flaky, we do not want the godawfulness that is the salmon burger.

Prep your dumpling wrapper and add a slice of the new potato, some of the Chinese broccoli greens, a little bit of the salmon and 3-4 capers. Seal the dumpling and steam.

Once it is done, set aside for a minute to let the skin dry a touch, and meanwhile heat a pan with a touch of oil (I used avocado, but it's really up to you what flavor you want it to impart or not impart). Once hot, add the dumplings (you'll know it's hot enough when they sizzle on being added). It should only take about 3 minutes to get golden brown and crispy. While you don't have to fry these dumplings, I think that you need that crispiness to bring this dumpling together to emulate the traditional crispy flakiness of a classic croquette. Serve immediately.

After steaming, you can eat immediately, as seen above. However, the frying is what brings it all together. Note the texture of the salmon in the dumpling- that is the kind of flakiness you are looking for.

See how nice and crispy they were? In the one cut in half, you can also see the individual elements, as they have not been made into a paste.

Note: on reflection, I think you may be able to leave the potato out altogether. I'm just not sure it really adds anything to the dumpling except more steps, more calories, and more oxalic acid. You may also need to increase the number of capers, but that's a matter of personal taste- I did mostly one caper and a couple with two in them, but would have liked it a bit more prominent so I wrote three here. I knew something was off- I left out the lemon juice, it needed a touch of acid. I would use a wedge or two worth of lemon and squeeze on the salmon in the bowl along with the spices. Or even better, make a nice, buttery, lemony hollandaise sauce to dip the dumplings into as a dumpling sauce.

Dessert Dumplings. That's right, I went there. My wife thought I was completely crazy with these, but they turned out spectacular. Read on to learn more.

Creme Brulee Dumplings:

See my earlier recipe on this blog for creme brulee. I halved that to limit how many dumplings I would make for an experiment, it turned out just fine. The steamed custard in the dumpling somehow tastes eggier and reminded my wife and myself of a really nice don tot, the Chinese egg custards you can get at dim sum.

Make the custard as usual, but don't pour into ramekins- we want it in liquid form. Take a dumpling skin and carefully pleat it as usual, leaving a gap in the middle. When you are almost done, take a turkey baster and carefully pipette the liquid custard into the skin. Do not worry about filling it all the way, this can be very tricky. The custard will happily leave through the tiniest hole, so what is more important is to have a good seal. You WILL lose some to leakage, but with practice it will be fine. Steam 10 minutes. Once done, place into some tupperware and place in your refrigerator for 30-60 minutes. You want it to be cool at least.

Pour a couple of tablespoons of white sugar on a plate. Take the now-cool dumpling and gently press the flat bottom or side into the sugar and shake off the excess. Place on a heat-safe surface and use your blowtorch to caramelize the sugar on the skin of the dumpling. Place on a plate and stick in the refrigerator another 30-60 minutes. Eat immediately.

Fruit Tarte Dumplings:
Strawberries, blackberries, banana. Note: kiwi may work but I had none. I had bought raspberries then learned I can't have those any more but should work as well.

Make the creme brulee custard from the creme brulee recipe and set aside while still liquid (before the liquid would be poured into ramekins).

Cut the green off of the strawberries, then cut in quarters lengthwise. Blackberries may be used as-is. Banana should be peeled and sliced into thin circles. All should be dry (if the berries are wet from washing, pat them dry with a paper towel). Add all to a mixing bowl and add a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch, then toss so that each piece is well coated; they will release moisture on cooking, but this will prevent there being a separate liquid layer and just having berry juice and instead being a nice thick sauce.

Into the dumpling wrapper add one round of banana, one piece strawberry, one blackberry. Here is where a few options occur:

If you just want the berries (which can be very nice) seal and steam as usual. I would suggest chilling and eating cold, but it can be eaten hot as well. As an option, follow the steps above from the creme brulee dumplings to chill, sugar, torch, and re-chill.

If you want a fruit tarte type, after adding the berries to the wrapper, close most of the way, then use a turkey baster to add the custard liquid into the dumpling wrapper. Don't worry about underfilling, you don't need to go crazy on this. Seal and steam. To replicate the crispiness of the classic tarte, follow the steps above from the creme brulee dumplings to chill, sugar, torch, and re-chill.

 Above you can see the steamed berry dumpling with some of the custard in the bottom.

Above you can see the after-blowtorched dumplings. On the left is the creme brulee, on the right is the fruit tarte.

One final note: I accidentally bought dumpling wrappers made with pumpkin in them, so everything mentioned above, I made with both regular dumpling skins and the pumpkin wrappers (which is why you see orange and white). I really don't taste a difference, I think it's more color than anything, but you do you.

 Bon appetit!

Chocolate Tapioca Pudding

I wanted to make some tapioca pudding, and my wife asked me to make it chocolate. How on earth am I going to....

This is how I did it.

You will need:
1. 1 cup tapioca pearls
2. 4 cups whole milk
3. 1/4 cup cocoa powder
4. 1/2 cup sugar
5. vanilla extract
6. 1/3 cup water
7. big pinch salt

Pour the tapioca pearls into a large mixing bowl, then add cold water until a couple of inches above the top of the pearls, allowing them plenty of water to soak- don't be worried about adding too much water. Leave in refrigerator at least overnight, but you can absolutely take them out the next evening as well.

Combine sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and the 1/3rd cup water in a large saucepan. Heat over a medium heat, stirring, until boiling. Boil for about three minutes. Add the milk and stir together, continuing to heat. Once the chocolate mixture has reached a temperature that it starts to scald slightly, add the drained tapioca pearls. Continue to stir, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan (you may want to lower the temperature to medium-low to prevent too much from sticking to the bottom). As the mixture heats, it will slowly thicken and the tapioca pearls will begin to pop up, transparent. When enough have, add the vanilla extract and pour the whole thing into some tupperware and stick into refrigerator to chill.

Let's talk about what I have, and what I would suggest as changes.

Normally, I cook the pearls until they all float to the top, clear. That did not happen here. I continued to cook the mixture for a long time, hoping it would help, but it did not. The longer you cook tapioca, the thicker the resultant pudding it- mine became an extremely stiff gelatin. Which is fine, I enjoy that too. But the pearls were a mixture of clear and cloudy, which means that not all of the pearls were completely done, affecting the texture and the taste in a slightly chalky way.

What would I try next time to address this? I think that I would have the four cups of milk in a separate saucepan, heating with the tapioca. This is not exactly the same as typical tapioca (they would normally have eggs and such) but I am guessing that the cocoa powder is interfering with the diffusion of moisture into the pearls or whatever. Cook the pearls until they are all clear and floating on top, then add that to the chocolate mixture, cook together for a couple of minutes to make sure everything is friendly and intermingled, then decant.

Traditional tapioca pudding has eggs. I left the eggs out with this because I was afraid that adding them would at best result in a mousse-like chocolate, which I did not think would be nice, but that was only if everything worked out nice. If things went wrong, some weird eggy-chocolately concoction sounded disgusting. But you could absolutely make essentially a traditional tapioca pudding (see the previous tapioca recipe posted on this blog) and then add the chocolate. It might work.

I'd like to experiment with this more, but the sheer amount of space it requires in the fridge plus the time takes an eternity. So I will come back and update this recipe as I continue to experiment.

Creamsicle/Dole Whip

Orange Sherbet

Notes:

1. I haven't tried this with pineapple, but I believe you can just swap out the freshly squeezed OJ with juiced pineapple. Update: Have now tried with pineapple. Make the following changes: drop the vanilla. Replace orange and lemon with zest and juice of 1 lime.

2. Different oranges will really affect the flavor. I used naval oranges, which was nice but a tad too sweet for my taste; I would have preferred something sharper.

3. I like to drink orange juice with pulp. For this tho, I filtered mine through a sieve.


Ingredients:
1. 1 1/2 cups whole milk
2. 2 cups freshly squeezed OJ
3. 2/3rds cup sugar
4. juice of 1 lemon
5. zest from 1 orange and 1 lemon.
6. pinch kosher salt.
7. 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Whisk together all ingredients except milk and mix until sugar has dissolved. Whisk in the milk slowly. Quickly add to your ice cream maker, because every second freshly squeezed orange juice sits out, it loses some of its magic. Process until thick and creamy, then freeze immediately.

Edit: Decided to try this out with lemon-lime. Two notes: 1. leave the vanilla out of the lemon-lime. It works for the mellower orange and all, but not for the sharper lemon-lime. 2. 2 cups of lemon and lime juice made a sherbet tart enough that it was like licking a 9 volt. I think next time I'll try 1 cup lemon and lime juice, and add an extra cup of milk to make up the volume. The flavor is excellent, but it is just too strong.

Sweet Cream Vanilla

Ingredients:
1. 3 eggs
2. 1 cup milk
3. 2 cups heavy cream
4. 3/4 cup sugar
5. 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Whip the eggs until homogenous, then add the sugar. Whisk together until homogenous, then add the rest of the ingredients. Add to your ice cream maker, then process until done and freeze.


I'm too lazy, but if you have a popsicle maker, you can freeze the sweet cream on the stick first, then cover with the sherbet. I just scooped a scoop of each into a bowl and enjoyed that way.

Algarve Carrots

A great party nibble -I admit I went a bit insane with the garlic - but utterly yummy next day snack after cleaning up all the leftover party rubble.


There's a recipe in the blog for this already but here's a quick easy take on that for the holiday weary:

Peel and cut up carrots. Simmer until al dente 5-8 minutes for tender carrots, more for the huge old style ones.

Meanwhile measure 4T extra virgin olive oil and 2 T white wine vinegar into a bowl. Slice or mince 1 or 2 cloves of garlic (no need to be insane like me and use 4 or 5 huge ones). Add garlic, a good pinch flaked sea salt or kosher salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper to the bowl. Vigorously mix with fork or whisk.

When carrots are cooked, drain and then dump them into the oil/vinegar mix and gently mix. The boiling hot carrots will absorb the tasty mix and with only an hour or so to rest, absorb, and cool down, they will be ready to serve.

Yum!

Chicken Matzoh Ball Soup

This recipe can be one or two days long, depending on your choices.

You'll need:

1 whole chicken

celery

carrots

onions

salt

pepper

matzoh meal

eggs

Prep your chicken for roasting- sprinkle the skin with some salt and pepper, then put in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes per pound. If it's a little underdone, that's okay, it'll finish cooking in the soup anyway. Take the chicken out of the oven and set aside. Remove all the fluids and put into a pyrex cup in the fridge for an hour or so.

By this point, the chicken should have cooled. Set up two bowls, one for the meat, and the other for everything else- bones, skin, everything. Put the meat aside, and dump all the bones and scraps into a pot. They'll be the base for your stock.

Roughly chop carrots, onions, and celery into the stock pot. These are used for flavoring, not for eating (unless you really want to...) so don't worry about anything more than a rough chop- quarter the onions with the skin on, half or quarter the carrots and celery. How much is up to you- I recommend being restrained with the carrots, as they have a lot of sugar, and the sweetness can overwhelm the soup. For a large soup pot, one of those giant costco onions, 4-6 stalks of celery, 3 carrots should be fine.

Add cold water until it is an inch below the top, then put the pot on to heat. You'll want something like a hard simmer/light boil, so a medium heat usually works. Let it keep going until an inch or so of water has evaporated- roughly speak, boiling for an hour or two. Give it a taste- the flavor won't be hugely strong but you'll know it when it's ready.

Separate the solids. If you really want to go crazy, you can use fine filters and such, but I tend to use a slotted spoon to get all the big stuff and a wire mesh ladle I have to finish.

You have an option now. If you want, you can stick the stock in the fridge overnight to solidify the fat and scum to scrape away. If you want to do this, now is the time, it's easiest. Otherwise, you can continue, but when uneaten soup is put int he fridge, it'll develop a layer on top. Not a big deal, but a little trickier to deal with to remove if you want to when there are soup components inside. If you do refrigerate overnight, put the meat you set aside into a ziplock bag and keep in the fridge overnight.

You now have your chicken stock- this is incidentally a great way to make stock for all kinds of things, so any time you roast chicken or something, it's a nice little something extra to do to make your own stock for dishes.

Set the stock pot on the stove to start heating, again to a light boil. Ready your chicken and vegetables (the same carrots, celery, and onions, but now cut for eating sizes) in amounts you feel comfortable with. While the stock pot is heating, prep your matzoh meal.

Now, I've had difficulty with this in the past. I always used to use manischewitz, but it got hard to find and I switched to streitz. I got leaden balls- sinkers, not floaters. Tonight I had a box of each and I ended up going to manischewitz, but in case it made a difference, I also added an extra egg. The balls came out perfectly- whether it's the brand or the extra egg, I couldn't say. I don't see any harm in adding the extra egg tho. If you like sinkers, that's fine too, but my family has always been firmly in the floater party.

You'll prep the matzoh ball mix similar to how it says on the box. Typically that will mean one pack of the meal, two eggs, and some oil or butter. We're going to make a couple of changes though. As I said before, add an extra egg. For the fat, instead of butter or oil, go to that pyrex cup I told you to put aside earlier. There should be a nice layer of fat on top, 3-4 tablespoons worth. Scrape that off and place in your small bowl and give it five minutes to come to room temperature. Then add your matzoh meal. Then add your three eggs. Whip together with a fork until uniform, then place in the fridge for 15 minutes.

By now, the stock pot should be boiling. Lightly salt and pepper the stock. You can add the rest of your solids now (further flavoring the soup) or wait until the matzoh balls are done, up to you.

Take the matzoh ball mix out of the fridge. Take enough to roll a ball about the diameter of a penny- they blow up to several times their size, so don't listen when the box says to make them an inch in diameter. You want maybe a half inch. Roll and drop into the rolling stock, roll and drop. This should be pretty quick, when you're done, you may see that not only have they started to balloon in the stock but that some of the first ones you did are darkening. Give them a gentle stir to turn them all over (that discoloration is from them drying out on that side, then cover the stockpot with a lid. Cook for 20 minutes, then uncover and add the rest of the solids if you haven't already.

Dump your solids in and add a little salt and pepper- you aren't done yet, so undersalt and underpepper. It will concentrate and develop and it's too easy to oversalt and overpepper.

Let it all cook for another hour or so, then do your final salt and peppering. Serve immediately.

You also have the option to cook the matzoh balls in a separate pot of water, sometimes salt water. I prefer to cook them in the stock so they take up the flavor of the stock. It's personal preference, but some folks find it easier to deal with and prefer the taste.

Also, this freezes really well. I always like to have some in the freezer, because when I'm sick is when I want and need it the most, but I'm least able to make it. Wheras when frozen, you can easily just dump the frozen block into a pot, add a little water and cover, turn the heat on low and have nice hot soup ready to go.

Cream Cheese

About a year ago, I moved away from New York to Virginia. Virginia has many things to recommend it, particularly over what New York has become in recent years. However, there is one thing Virginia doesn't have (although it's become damn hard to find in New York too): TempTee Cream Cheese.

If you've never had it, it's a completely different creature from Philadelphia (named for the city in New York, not Pennsylvania, incidentally). Even Philadelphia isn't quite what it used to be, and mostly you find the stuff in the tubs which has kind of a greasy feel and taste to it. I always thought of Philadelphia blocks as good cooking cream cheese, but not eating quality (just as you wouldn't pour a glass of cooking grade wine into a glass to drink).

In any case, I got a delivery of bagels and bialys (at an exhorbident price- going to need to start baking soon, it's just not worth it, and they're already old by the time I get them) and just had it up to here with the garbage cream cheese options. So, hell with it. I would make my own.

This recipe has gone through many rounds and tweaks. As I tasted this last iteration, I found myself thinking it was just a little too rich for my taste, trying to think what else I could do. It was at this point that I realized that I had licked the spatula clean and wanted more. So, while I do think it could use a little bit more tweaking, I think you'll still get a tasty product from it. A little bit of salt, sour, sweet, and creamy all nicely balanced together.

That said, this recipe is one of the rare ones that I would recommend you tweak very carefully- it is highly sensitive to proportion changes and believe me, it doesn't take much to turn something nice into something almost inedible.

You will need:
1. 6 cups whole milk
2. juice of 2 lemons (note: you can use the concentrate stuff if you have to, no shame in it- but be careful in adding it as you will tend to need to use less than the fresh stuff).
3. 1 level tsp kosher salt.
4. 1/4 tsp sugar
5. 3 tbsp heavy cream
6. 1/2 tsp egg yolk
7. 3 tsp whey (you'll make it yourself, don't worry- see below)

You will also need:
1. medium saucepan
2. rubber spatula
3. strainer (preferably the wire kind with the little metal tabs that let it rest atop a bowl)
4. large bowl
5. food processor

Add the milk to the saucepan and put on stove on a medium heat. Stir gently as it comes up to temperature. You want the milk scalded- just below simmering.

Set up your drying/filtering station. Bowl on bottom, strainer above, cheesecloth lining the strainer. I like to separate the layers of cheesecloth and lay one layer in one direction and the other 90 degrees in the strainer. This lets me make sure the whole strainer is covered by the cheesecloth (always a hair too narrow...) and doubles the filtration fineness. The strainer should be a couple of inches off the bottom of the bowl. If it isn't, you'll have a rough time of it.

Add 3/4ths of the lemon juice (you may want to just juice 1 1/2 lemons for now to make this a little easier, up to you, but reserve 1/4th of the lemon juice for much later) in halves- half the amount, stir for a few moments, then the rest of it. The curds will form very rapidly. How do you know when you've added enough? When the whey is clearly a green color and not just clear.

Carefully pour the saucepan into the cheesecloth-lined strainer. You may need to let some of the whey go through before you finish pouring it all. Make sure you get all the bits and blobs in the pot. Let the curds sit and drain for 15-30 minutes. You do not need to press or squeeze the curds, just leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.

Once the curds have drained, dump into the food processor. Add the salt, sugar, heavy cream, egg yolk, remaining lemon juice, and take three teaspoons (1 tbsp) of the green drained whey and add it too. Pulse the food processor and occasionally use your spatula to push everything back down again. Process until smooth. Taste.

If you plan to add chives, this would be the time to add them and process a little bit longer until they are well integrated.

As I said, I think it's a touch rich, but I'm so used to commercial stuff. The egg yolk is added because the fats don't entirely suspend in the mixture otherwise, leading to a grainy cream cheese. Egg yolk contains lecithin, which emulsifies the fats. Do not add the whole egg yolk, it will turn the cream cheese disgustingly eggy and suppress a lot of the delicate flavors you've created and added. If you follow this recipe, you'll have something smooth and tasty to put on your bagel. Enjoy!