"The Asian Slow Cooker" - Lemon Chicken and Classic Fried Rice - Feeding a "yen" for Asian food

Date I made these recipes:  January 15, 2017 – In an Asian food kind of mood!

The Asian Slow Cooker – Exotic Favorites For Your Crockpot by Kelly Kwok

Published by Page Street Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-62414-290-1; copyright 2016

Purchased at Bibelot Shops

Recipes:  Lemon Chicken – p. 25 and Classic Fried Rice – p. 66

A friend of mine and I walk frequently at a local mall containing several fast-casual restaurants.  There's a yogurt place, a hot dog place, a burger place, a wing place, a soup place and an Asian place – Leeann Chin.

So we're walking by Leeann Chin and I smelled Kung Pao chicken and other Asian delights, and wished I could have grabbed something to go, but my schedule did not allow for it that day or for several days thereafter.  And this is terrible when one has a yen for something, is it not? 

Then this past Sunday, it was time for another [Green Bay] Packers playoff game and if you read my last blog, you know that now that we are in the playoffs, making a Wisconsin or football-related dish is out lest it jinx my team, and so why not Asian instead?

And people, it worked!  It was a very close game but with my crazy strategy, I am now  two for two and I'm liking those odds.  That said, food alone does not "save" a team:  I have a whole anti-jinx system for my clothing, even down to which one of my eyeglass frames (I have two pairs) to wear on game day.  Let's just say I take "lucky socks" to a whole new dimension!

But I digress so let's get back to this cookbook.

I purchased this book at a local store called Bibelot.  The name "bibelot" means "a small, decorative ornament or trinket" and Bibelot, the store sells that and more.  Although Bibelot doesn't carry a huge stock of cookbooks, the ones they carry are great and I am happy to add them to my collection.

This cookbook has a lot to offer, both with recipes and mouth-watering photographs.  Unlike many of the cookbooks in my collection, I pretty much could have made every single recipe save for those that I knew were going to be "Danger, Will Robinson" on the heat index.  I don't know about you, but the phrase "add several tablespoons hot sauce," and/or "add several Thai chilies finely minced," is a big clue to upcoming pain and so I avoid those recipes like the plague.

And while this cookbook is geared for a slow cooker, it contains also a chapter titled "One-Pot & Skillet" from which the fried rice recipe (made in a wok) came.  In fact, many of the recipes in this chapter are for easy stir fries and I love stir fries!

Other chapters are: "Ditch the Takeout;" "5 Ingredients or Less;" "Skip the Stove-Top;" "Fiery Favorites;" "Meatless Mondays;" "Sensational Soups," and "Delectable Desserts."  And honestly, if you can't find something to make in this book, I'll be amazed and just say that you probably should not have purchased it.

As these things go, my husband selected an entirely different list of potential recipes than I did but that was before my waltz by Leeann Chin at the local mall.  After that, I axed his list (sorry, honey) and decided on Lemon Chicken as that is one of Leeann Chin's signature dishes.

For those who aren't from around here, Leeann Chin was a Chinese immigrant who, after moving to Minneapolis, founded an Asian food [restaurant] empire.  In addition to her signature Leeann Chin restaurants, she started a fast-casual restaurant chain of the same name – Leeann Chin – and several remain in operation today.  She also started another restaurant chain, Asia Grille, which featured a variety of Asian foods.  Alas, that chain went away but while in operation, her company hired the consulting group I worked for to work on branding and expanding this concept.

And just like the kid in the Shake-N-Bake commercial said, "I helped!"  I did!  The consulting group at the time consisted of the owner, a friend of mine, and me, his project manager.  Among my many tasks for this project was to set up some focus groups to get feedback about the concept, and Leeann and her daughter attended.

Well, naturally, we were a little stressed out about this because around here, this woman was a legend, but she was very nice and liked what we were doing with "the 'place.'"

Still, I have a story:  so it is usual and customary to offer participants coming to these focus groups (for hours at a time) a snack and so I always arranged that with the focus group facility I selected to "host" this thing.  But we also arranged food for the back room, i.e. the people behind the mirrored wall ("Hi!  "Hello!  "Yes, that's us waving at you!  Just pretend like you can't hear us back here!") and that menu was always different  - no mere "snacks" for the client, oh no!

Well, knowing that Leeann herself was coming to the focus groups, the pressure was on me and therefore on the focus group facility, to offer a knock-your-socks off dinner to our guests.  And I could not emphasize enough to them who our guest of honor was and the focus group facility staff, all of whom were familiar with Leeann Chin and her food, assured me that "they got this."

Shall I just tell you that they didn't "got this?"  In fact, it turned out to be the absolute worse food we ever offered to the clients, bar none.  I cannot recall exactly what we had except if memory serves, the meat (likely a steak) was rubbery and cold and the potato?  I cannot go there with you.  Can Not.

Well bless her heart, Leeann was very gracious about it but I had a very strong "Come to Jesus" with the facility after which, a considerable portion of that meal cost came off our bill.  And when we ran more focus groups for this project, we switched facilities.  Of course, the perfect food to have served to the client would have been her food, but it's pretty ticky tacky to ask her if she could swing by one of her retail operations and BYO fried rice, am I right?  Exactly.

If Leeann was alive (she passed away in 2010), she likely would have asked for a refund on the lemon chicken dish but not for reasons you might think.  It was delicious and didn't take long to cook, but the lemon sauce wasn't anywhere close to the recipe she served at her two restaurants.  I'm noting specifically the restaurants (as opposed to the fast-casual stores) because like many restaurant operators, when she moved into mass production at the fast-casual stores, the lemon sauce was too goopy for me to enjoy and the breaded coating on her chicken, too heavy.  (That said, her food is still very good, made fresh and replenished often so don't let my comment on the chicken stop you.  J'adore many of her other dishes which do not suffer as much in the translation.)

But ah, the "original" lemon chicken and sauce was a delight!  And by all rights, my concoction should have been the same because it sure looked the same in the picture, but it was not.  Instead, it turned brown and gloppy and that was disappointing.  So I tell you what, if I were you, I'd slow cook this dish as directed (3-4 hours) and then stop.  Stop the insanity! The chicken was just fine and most delicious before I went down this rabbit hole a/k/a the lemon sauce.

As with most Asian recipes, this dish was to be served with rice and we could have gone with just white rice which I enjoy, but Andy loves fried rice.  And so fair is fair:  since I selected the main dish, I let him choose the rice accompaniment and he wanted Classic Fried Rice.

You should know that you need to cook the rice for this dish the night before and then refrigerate it.  And I did that but I tell you what, I created a monster because we had rice coming out of our ears!

Our rice cooker is old.   "Old" as in it was made in Japan and all the instructions were in Japanese and we don't speak or read Japanese.  And this likely begs the question of why we purchased the thing in the first place and the answer is because at the time, it was a new, cool product offered by Cooks of Crocus Hills (a local cookware store)  and it was on sale so we bought it, thinking that we were so ahead of the curve as rice cookers were just on their way to becoming all the rage. 

And the thing works great but there are issues and somewhat hilariously, they are the most important ones:  how to measure the rice, what amount are we measuring really, and how much water to add?  And years later, I am unhappy to report that we have still been unable to figure out the answers to these burning and important questions.  There are all kinds of markings on a plastic cup that appears to be a measuring cup that came with the cooker, and all kinds of markings on the inside of the rice cooker, but without translation assistance, we remain in the dark.

So prior to today, here's how I made rice and let me add that it usually ended up working out just fine:  I filled the plastic cup to the top, then poured it in the cooker, filled it with water to the "1" line indicator (there is also a "2" indicator and a "3" indicator and I assume this is for the water but we don't know because again, Japanese instructions), depressed the "on" tab to cook the rice and then ate it all when it was done.  I know for sure that this method makes more than 1 cup of cooked rice but I've never really had to care and so I didn't.  (By the way, there is only one switch on this cooker:  if you depress it, it starts cooking the rice, and when it is done, the switch pops up and your rice is done and your cooker is turned off.)

So anyway.  Since this recipe called for 3 cups of cooked rice, I measured out three cups with my little plastic cup, and then filled the (alleged) water level to "3" and cooked my rice.  And it cooked all right, but it cooked its way to yield nearly 6 cups of rice!  Good thing I like the stuff!  Side note:  I am a huge fan of the I Love Lucy show, and during one of their more famous shows," Job Switching," Ricky and Fred attempt to make rice for dinner and it was, of course, a disaster.  Happily, my "episode" did not end like theirs!

At any rate, once all your ingredients are assembled, all you have to do is stir-fry them and you are in business.  I have a wok and I love my wok and so I went to town and within minutes, we had prefect fried rice but this can be made with a skillet as well.

All told, this was a good meal but I had to laugh that Andy and I both woke up the next day totally starving.  Well, it's an old adage that Asian food is not necessarily filling and I don't know why that is but it is.  But it sure was tasty save for the goopy lemon sauce which I think you can do without.

So there you have it – craving cured and I didn't have to go stand in line to get take-out to do it.  And if Lemon Chicken and Classic Fried Rice are not your thing, you should be able to find easily something that is.  Good luck!

This concludes week #2 of "Non-football, non-Wisconsin" (not to be confused with "On, Wisconsin!," the state song) food.  The Packers are playing this coming Sunday, January 22, so expect another food blackout from me.  Until then, enjoy your Asian meal.

 

Lemon Chicken – Yield:  4 servings

1 cup plus 1 ½ tbsp cornstarch, divided

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes

2 tsp cooking oil (Ann's Note:  No way is that enough.  No way.  See below)

½ cup low sodium soy sauce

1/3 cup low sodium chicken broth

¼ cup honey

3 tbsp rice wine vinegar

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp sesame oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ tsp fresh ginger, minced

3 tbsp cold water (to be added to the cornstarch)

Cooked rice, for serving

Sesame seeds, for garnish (optional)

1 green onion, thinly sliced, for garnish (optional)

In a large zip-top bag, toss together 1 cup cornstarch, salt and black pepper.  Next add the chicken to the bag, and give it a little shake until well coated.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Ann's Note:  as mentioned above, there is no way two teaspoons of oil will brown that much chicken.  I had to keep adding oil so that the chicken didn't stick but even then, it kept sticking.  I was not very happy at all.  So I would use 2 TABLESPOONS and see how that goes. Cook the chicken, about 2 to 3 minutes on both sides, then transfer to the slow cooker.

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

• Soy sauce
• Broth
• Honey
• Vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Lemon zest
• Sesame oil
• Garlic
• Ginger

Pour this mixture over the chicken.  Cover and cook on low for about 3 to 4 hours. (Ann's Note:  I cooked it for 3 and it was perfect.)

Ann's Note: Now here, reader, is where I urge caution with the next step.  Truth be told, I forgot about this step and so served us up the lemon chicken without the additional cornstarch sauce and thought it was very tasty.  And then I did as directed and added the cornstarch slurry to the crock pot and thought the result was an ugly mess and not at all as pictured.  It's up to you, of course, but I would stop with the directions above.  If not, here's how to "finish" the dish:  About 30 minutes prior to serving, whisk together the remaining cornstarch with water in a small bowl and stir into the slow cooker.  Turn the heat to high and allow the sauce to cook and thicken up for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve over hot rice.  Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions, if desired.

Classic Fried Rice – Yield:  4 servings

1 cup cubed lean beef, chicken or pork (leave out for meatless version)

1 ½ tbsp low sodium soy sauce, divided

½ tsp cornstarch

¼ tsp black pepper

1 tbsp cooking oil, divided*

3 garlic cloves, finely minced

1 cup frozen mixed vegetables

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 cups cooked, day-old rice, chilled with clumps separated

1 tsp fish sauce OR 1 tbsp oyster sauce (vegetarian or regular)

1 tsp mirin, Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry

¼ tsp sesame oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 green onion, thinly sliced, for garnish (optional)

Sesame seeds, for garnish (optional)

In a small bowl, combine the meat with ½ tablespoons soy sauce, cornstarch and black pepper. (Ann's Note:  I skipped this part, poached some chicken instead of stir-frying it and then cubed it to add to the dish when required.)

Heat 2 teaspoons of cooking oil* on medium-high heat in a non-stick wok or pan.  Toss in the garlic and sauté until fragrant; about 10 seconds.  Add the cubed meat and stir-fry until almost cooked through, around 2 to 3 minutes.  Stir in the mixed vegetables and cook for another minutes, then push all the ingredients to the side of the pan and pour in the beaten eggs.  Scramble into small pieces and cook, then transfer the entire contents of the pan to a large plate.

Return the pan to the stove and add another teaspoon of oil*.  *Ann's Note: I have a feeling that these oil measurements are wrong as in "not enough."  I used a bit more than directed.

Stir in the rice and break up any large chunks with a spatula while tossing until heated through, around 2 minutes.  Add the plate of cooked meat and vegetables back to the pan and drizzle in the remaining soy sauce, fish sauce, mirin and sesame oil, tossing to combine everything evenly.  Keep stirring the fried rice until slightly toasted, about 2 minutes.  Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Transfer to bowls and serve hot.  Garnish with green onions and sesame seeds, if desired.

Ann's Note:  If you want to make the fried rice in a crockpot, the recipe for it is on p. 43 of this book or below:

3 cups cooked, day-old rice
1 cup fresh or frozen chopped mixed vegetables
2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp mirin

Add the rice and vegetables into a 4- to 5-quart slow cooker.  Stir in the soy sauce, fish sauce and mirin.  Cover and cook on high for 1 hour or low for 3 hours.  Stir well before serving.

"The (Martin) Yan Can Cookbook;" "The Pot and How to Use It;" "Vegetable Love" - Lemon Chicken, Tangy Sushi Rice and Lemon Light Carrots

Date I made these recipes – January 17, 2016 – still cold

The Yan Can Cook Book (As Seen On National Public Television) by Martin Yan

Published by:  Doubleday

ISBN: 0-385-17606-6; © 1981

Purchased at local library used book sale

Recipe:  Luscious Lemon Chicken – p. 93

The Pot and How to Use It – the mystery and romance of the rice cooker by Roger Ebert

Published by:  Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

ISBN:  13: 978-0-7407-9142-0

Purchased at Barnes and Noble Used Books – Roseville, MN

Recipe:  Tangy, Stick Sushi-Style Rice By Devin Chalmers on November 2, 2008 6:18 A.M. – p. 95-96

Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka with Christopher Styler

Published by:  Artisan

ISBN:  10: 1-57965-168-2

From my late friend Carol's collection

Recipe:  Lemon-Light Carrots – p. 188

For the record, it's still cold.  In fact, probably colder.  When I last peeked through my fingers at our indoor thermometer, I think it said -4 and that was midday.

You should also know that our kitchen, added after the house was built (1904), is not insulated.  Every single window displayed indoor frost.  Yes, that's right:  indoor.

So by all rights, I should have and could have made another comfort food dish just like last week's "fancy" chili except I decided I had held off on making my Asian meal long enough.  Besides, the use of lemon and lemon juice temporarily tricked me into thinking I was in a warmer climate.  Dream on.

In an "amazing but true fact" moment, all three of the dishes here worked well with each other.  And honestly, the Vegetable Love book just fell open to the right chapter to reveal a delicious carrot recipe. It was a sign, no?

Let's start with Martin Yan of The Yan Can Cook Book.  In the 1980's, well before the Food Network emerged, PBS hosted a number of shows from previously unknown chefs like Yan.  His book is named for his show.  As I found with his other books, Yan delivers a wide variety of Chinese dishes, all of which sounded pretty yummy to me.  The dish I selected was really tasty and the lemon sauce was light instead of cloying.  Sometimes I think the American versions of Chinese sauces come with instructions along the lines of "Make thick and goopy and by all means, add lots of sugar."  This is not that dish.

As I was making this dish, I thought about the first time I had lemon chicken and that was at LeeAnn Chin's, named after local Chinese restaurateur and cookbook author, Leeann Chin.

I've written about Leeann Chin before and how she turned a few family recipes into a culinary empire.   Back in the early 80's, she operated a couple of Leeann Chin restaurants before expanding the business to include several quick-service/take-out sites, and one of her famous signature dishes at all locations was lemon chicken. 

Leeann's lemon chicken is different from Martin Yan's as it is breaded and fried and then the sauce, containing sugar and corn syrup, is poured on top and not mixed in with the stir-fry.  If it's made fresh, it can be pretty divine.  But after she went the quick-service/take-out route it wasn't so divine.  If left to sit too long, the breading gets soggy and the lemon sauce recipe seemed to morph over the years from light and delicate to almost syrupy, at least to this palate.

And so even though I loved most of her other dishes, I feared my lemon chicken days over.

But then I found this recipe and I would make this again 1,000 times over.  The only small frustration with the ingredients – and it is small – is that the marinade calls for 1 teaspoon of "ginger juice."  Let's discuss!

A quick Google search told me I could buy a bottle of "ginger juice" at a grocery store but I'd be paying close to $5 for the bottle and that was ridiculous considering I only needed 1 teaspoon.

And so I then Googled "make your own ginger juice" and came up with several recipes.  My version was undoubtedly not the right one (dice up ginger, add water, voila!) but it worked for me.  Besides, it was for the marinade so it didn't need to be spot on.  At least this is what I told myself; purists may differ.

Luckily, you'll only have to marinade this for a half an hour and then you can get going cooking it in your wok.  I love dishes like this.

So that's Martin Yan's recipe and now let's discuss the book The Pot and How to Use It – the mystery and romance of the rice cooker by Roger Ebert.

I do so hope you remember Roger Ebert.  He became a household name to many when he and the late Gene Siskel, both film critics for competing Chicago newspapers, starred in the TV show, Siskel and Ebert At the Movies. 

When this show started up, I remember thinking that it was kind of quirky but it soon became incredibly popular, with viewers tuning in to watch the two guys throw down against each other.  I don't recall Ebert liking too many movies and the fact that Siskel usually liked something Ebert hated spurred them on into near fisticuffs.  Still, it was an entertaining show and I learned a lot about the movies.

After Siskel died, Ebert took on a new movie critic partner and all was well until Ebert was diagnosed with cancer.  He wrote this book while undergoing treatment (he died in 2013) which is amazing to me because a mere headache can wipe me out, never mind cancer.

It appears that this book was prompted by Ebert's desire to eat relatively healthy after his cancer diagnosis as well as a love of cooking things in one pot.  Others favor soup pots or casseroles but for Ebert, it was a rice cooker.  The beauty of this book though, is that it includes more than just basic recipes such as  "Seafood Jambalaya (p. 85)," "Chicken Spaghetti (p. 85)" and even "Oatmeal (p. 97). " And these were all fine and well and good but at day's end, I opted for the sushi rice to accompany my lemon chicken.   Yes, that was a totally predicable choice but it worked out really well.

This recipe – Tangy, Sticky Sushi-Style Rice (submitted by Ebert fan, Devin Chalmers) – could not be easier and yet, finding white sushi rice, as opposed to brown sushi rice (OMG – ugh!) turned out to be harder than I expected. Actually, let me clarify:  I could have easily gotten my hands on several pounds of sushi rice but I didn't need that much and so finding just the right amount proved to be the challenge.  Inexplicably, at least three stores I visited had brown sushi rice and I must confess that never, ever did I think that sushi was made with brown sushi rice.  Seems like a sin against culinary nature to me!

Happily, Whole Foods had a small package of white sushi rice containing just about the amount I wanted and so all was well with the world.  And, considering that Whole Foods' nickname is "Whole Paycheck," we got out of there for only a couple of bucks – score!

For the record, all of the recipes in this quirky book sounded great and Roger's commentary is hilarious so it was a total win-win purchase on my part.

This leaves us then, with our third cookbook, Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka.  This thing is a "tome," containing 667 pages of vegetable recipes and then several more source lists.  Naturally, it weighs a ton and so do handle carefully!

Normally, selecting a recipe from a book this large would overwhelm but as I mentioned previously, the book just seemed to fall open to just the recipe I needed to round out my Asian meal:  Lemon-Light Carrots.   This dish – basically, slow-cooked carrots – is freshened up by lemon juice, lemon zest and Chinese five-spice powder.  We loved it.  But if carrots are not your thing, then by all means peruse the rest of the book for alternatives, broken out into the following chapters:  "Vegetables of the New World;" "Vegetables of the Mediterranean Basin, Europe and the Arab World;" "Vegetables of Asia and Africa," and "Citizens of the World."  The carrot recipe, found on page 188, was part of the "Mediterranean Basin, Europe and the Arab World" section and yet it fit perfectly with my Asian theme. 

And as with the other two books by Martin Yan and Roger Ebert, Vegetable Love's author, Barbara Kafka, is very well-known in culinary and cookbook circles.  Her cookbook, Roasting, is probably the most well known and yet you know what?  I don't have it.  I must rectify this forthwith!

Luscious Lemon Chicken – serving size not given but there was enough for two decent servings

½ pound chicken or 2 breasts, boned

2 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons green onion

¼ cup soup stock

1 tablespoon wine

1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar

½ lemon, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon cornstarch solution (Ann's Note:  I guessed at the ratio and thought my solution was a bit too thin i.e. too much water to cornstarch but it worked.)

For the marinade

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons wine

Dash black pepper

1 teaspoon ginger juice (Ann's Note:  you can buy this premade or make it like I did – finely chop or grind some fresh, peeled ginger, then add water.)

Cut the chicken into 1 ½ inch squares; marinate for 30 minutes.

Heat oil in wok over high heat and stir-fry chicken for 1 ½ - 2 minutes. (Ann's Note:  The chicken pieces were still pretty raw after 2 minutes so I cooked them for a few minutes more.)  Add the remaining ingredients except cornstarch and lemon.  Mix well and reduce heat to medium-low.  Cover and simmer for 1 ½ minutes.  Add lemon slices and continue to cook for 1 minute.

Thicken with cornstarch; garnish with extra lemon slices. 

Tangy, Sticky Sushi-Style Rice – serving size not given but I made about 2 cups (Recipe with notes from Devin Chalmers)

2-3 cups white sushi-style rice (short-grain) (Ann's Note:  Use the plastic measure that came with your rice cooker pot as the measure for your rice and not a regular measuring cup.)

5 parts rice vinegar to 1 part sugar with a bit of salt

Rinse white short-grain rice carefully.  The water should be clear, and long-grain rice is for Communists.  (Ann's Note:  I'm sorry to say, I feel the same way about brown rice!)

Add a little (maybe a third by volume) more water than rice.  Let it soak for a good half hour or so.  (Ann's Note:  I barely covered the rice and it cooked perfectly!)

Cook in the Pot.

While the Pot goes, prepare a solution of approximately 5 parts rice vinegar, 1 part sugar, and a bit of salt.  Call it a third of a cup total for 2 to 3 cups of rice.  Microwaves can help with this, or you can cleverly harness team from the Pot to assist dissolution.

Remove the rice to a large, shallow bowl-like thing.  Have a friend fan the rice while you drizzle the vinegar concoction and gently turn the rice.  (Fanning helps with the stickiness.)  (Ann's Note:  I put Andy in charge of the vinegar/sugar/salt mixture as well as the direction to "remove the rice to a large, shallow bowl-like thing."  Upon reading that, he snorted and then got out a large, plastic, not-so-shallow bowl-like "thing" a/k/a/ Tupperware and that was that!)

For extra fun: (suggested by Devin)

• Add (low-sodium? Perhaps) soy sauce and wasabi for a cheap cheap cheap alternative to waiting in line at a sushi restaurant.  All you really wanted was the soy sauce and wasabi, right?
• Make rice balls!  You can put thing inside them.  I suggest using a piece of plastic wrap to keep your hands clean if you're making more than a few.  Make a hole with your thumb to insert fillings – maybe something sweet, bits of pickle, anything.
• For added points shape your rice ball into a fat triangle and wrap with seaweed.  Eat while the nori is crispy.
• Rice balls are notoriously hard to keep more than a day; they dry out in the fridge very quickly.  I've had some limited luck microwaving them a bit.

 Lemon-Light Carrots – makes 5 cups; serves 8 as a side dish

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

10 medium carrots (3 pounds), peeled, trimmed and cut into 3 x ¼ x ¼ -inch matchsticks (Ann's Note:  OR—you can do like I did and buy carrots that have already been cut into smaller matchsticks for salads and then just keep an eye on your cooking time.  Worked like a charm!)

1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced

Zest of 2 lemons – removed with a vegetable peeler and thinly sliced into long strips (about 3 tablespoons)

1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Melt the butter in a nonreactive 4-quart pot over low heat.  Stir in the cayenne pepper.  Add the carrots, onion and lemon zest and mix well.  Cover the pot.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are tender but not mushy and the onions have softened and turned light yellow, about 45 minutes.

Stir in the five-spice powder, lemon juice and salt and cook for 30 seconds more.

"Everybody's Wokking" by Martin Yan - Vegetable Fried Rice featuring locally-grown King Oyster Mushrooms from Mississippi Mushrooms

Date I made this recipe:  August 18, 2013

Everybody’s Wokking by Martin Yan (From the national Public Television series YAN CAN COOK)

Published by:  Harlow & Ratner

ISBN:  0-9627345-0-0

Recipe:  Vegetable Fried Rice – p. 137

“And today’s secret ingredient is….Mushrooms!”

Given that this blog focuses on my cookbook collection, my usual MO is to select a cookbook I like and then select the recipe from that book.  This time around, I had an ingredient and just needed to find a recipe within one of my cookbooks in which to showcase it.  The ingredient?  King oyster mushrooms.  The recipe?  Vegetable Fried Rice.  The cookbook?  Everybody’s Wokking by Martin Yan.  (And no, the title is not Working but Wokking –as in stir fry.  And yes, it took me a minute as well!)

But wouldn’t you know that “working” (with an “r”) is exactly how I came to find today’s ingredient.  By day, I provide business and legal consulting services to small business clients of a St. Paul-based nonprofit – Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) – and NDC recently asked me to work on a marketing plan for one of their new clients, Mississippi Mushrooms (www.mississippimushrooms.com).  After our last meeting, the guys gave me some of their product – king oyster mushrooms – to take home with me and of course, I couldn’t resist finding something to make with these mushrooms from my rather large (1,692 cookbooks…and counting) cookbook collection.

This though, was not as easy as you would think.  First, I may have a huge cookbook collection but only a small portion of it covers Asian food, a cuisine I think makes the best use of mushrooms.  Second, many of these cookbooks did not do much with fresh mushrooms (dried mushrooms, on the other hand, was a prevalent ingredient) and those that did utilized button mushrooms and button mushrooms are okay, but they are not and should never be confused with king oysters.  Worse, many recipes called for canned mushrooms and I’m sorry, they have their place (like in a casserole buried under a can Cream of X soup), but not for this dinner.

So after careful consideration and perusal, I selected the Martin Yan cookbook (given to me recently by my friend, Melissa Embser-Herbert) because it had what I was looking for:  a recipe that called for fresh mushrooms – nothing more, nothing less.

At this point, I must confess that I felt like I was on the Food Network Show, Iron Chef America, a show that pits one of the show’s previously-ordained Iron Chefs against a chef competitor in “kitchen stadium” where both must create fabulous dishes using a “secret ingredient.”  I love this show unless they feature a secret ingredient that I detest in which case, I hate this show.

So the two chefs meet in front of a table hidden by a hood that contains the secret ingredient.  Tension builds as they wonder what the secret ingredient will be.  And then on cue, “The Chairman” (the show’s primary judge), demands the secret ingredient be revealed, the chefs either groan or giggle with glee at the thought of the creative dishes they will make for the judging panel and then The Chairman yells (…“in the words of my uncle”…) “Allez Cuisine” (which roughly translates to “Get Cooking”) does a karate chop (Why, I don’t know) and with that, the chefs gather up the no-longer secret ingredient, race to their stations, yell orders at their sous chefs, and begin the battle (during the course of the show, this will be referred to as “Battle Mushroom” – I love it!). 

So today’s secret and only ingredient was king oyster mushroom (currently the main focus of Mississippi Mushroom’s business) and while normally the Iron Chefs and contestants create dishes to showcase the secret ingredient, here I just wanted to make sure it got incorporated into something tasty that most everyone would feel comfortable making.  I’m not into sous vied (cooking in a water bath food that is sealed in plastic pouches) or emulsions or extrusions or anything else.  Here, it was chop, wok and serve.  Easy!

That said, I did adjust the recipe just a tad, decreasing some ingredients (for example, I ran out of onion – how inconvenient) so that I could showcase the mushrooms.  And I must say, I think even a panel of food critics would have approved.  Was it Iron Chef America-worthy?  No.  Did I care?  No.  Should you?  No.  What you’ll get is very flavorful fried rice, loaded with chopped vegetables, featuring the wonderfully nutty-flavored king oyster mushroom, and kicked up a notch on the flavor wheel by the addition of fresh minced ginger. 

Although this recipe is titled “Vegetable” Fried Rice, it is not vegetarian; for that, substitute vegetable broth or water for chicken stock.  And when Martin Yan said “Of course, you can add meat or seafood if you like,” I did indeed “like” and so after I stir-fried the vegetables, I removed that mixture from the wok, added more oil and stir-fried some chicken bits in the same sauce that I fried the vegetables:  oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil.  Once cooked (this takes minutes) I then placed my chicken on top of the fried rice.  The result was very yummy and we pretty much polished off the rice in two easy sittings.

So the good news is that the king oyster mushrooms were delicious in this recipe but the bad news (well, not that bad) is that this company is just getting its product to market and so right now, you can find them at the Fulton Farmer’s Market (at 49^th and Chowen in South Minneapolis) through fall and (soon) Linden Hill’s Co-op in the Linden Hill’s neighborhood of Minneapolis.  If all goes according to plan, they will be in a lot more local co-ops and local restaurants – stay tuned!  But if you get a chance, head to these locations and talk, if you can, to the three guys who put this business together – Ian Silver-Ramp, Nik Prenevost and Michael Melander – because you will get the very cool back-story of their mushrooms as follows: 

Once upon a time, three guys figured out how to grow really fabulous mushrooms indoors, year-round from (and you will love this) a concoction of (beer) brewer’s after-products, sourced from local brewer Boom Island Brewery, and sawdust from Wood from the Hood, a company that fashions very cool furniture out of fallen trees.  Add those ingredients together, mix with some agricultural know-how, “bake” in a special growing area and voila!  Fabulous mushrooms.  Actually fabulous “fertilizer-free” mushrooms since most mushrooms are grown using fertilizer.  Ew.  These mushrooms are fresh and clean and healthy for you to boot, containing lots of dietary fiber and iron and other essential vitamins.  But essentially, the thing you need to know about them is that they just taste good.  In fact, as I am wont to do, my manta in my kitchen today was “one [slice of mushroom] for the recipe, one for me…one for the recipe, two for me…”

Now, it is not uncommon on Iron Chef America for one of the culinary world’s celebrity judges to say something like “I’m normally not a [in this case] mushroom fan” but this recipe is delicious!”  After today, count me as one of the converted and start demanding these mushrooms from your local favorite vegetable “supplier.”  And remember, you heard it here first:  Mississippi Mushrooms!  (And let’s not forget Martin Yan, who I also think is very cool and is frequently a judge on Iron Chef America—so there!)

Vegetable Friend Rice – Serves 6

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced ginger

½ small onion, cut into ¼-inch cubes

1 small carrot, cut into ¼-inch cubes

1 stalk celery, cut into ¼-inch cubes

2 tablespoons chicken broth or water (or vegetable broth)

1 can (about 8 ounces) baby corn, drained, rinsed, and cut into ½-inch pieces

1 green onion (including top), thinly sliced

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

½ cup sliced fresh mushrooms (Ann’s Note: try to use my clients’ king oyster mushrooms if you can)

4 cups cooked brown rice (Ann’s Note:  healthier yes, but I prefer white rice)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 teaspoons sesame oil

¼ teaspoon white pepper

Shredded lecture for garnish

Place a wok or wide frying pan over high heat until hot.  Add the vegetable oil, swirling to coat the sides.  Add the garlic, ginger, and onion; cook until the onion is soft, about 30 seconds.  Add the carrot, celery, and broth and stir-fry for 2 minutes.  Add the baby corn, green onion, peas, mushrooms, and rice, separating the grains of rice with the back of a spoon; mix well.  Stir in the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and pepper; cook until heated through.  Garnish with shredded lettuce.

Notes from Martin Yan:  Most Chinese do not eat brown rice; we get plenty of fiber in our diets from vegetables and fruits, and in the quantities in which we eat rice every day, using the whole grain would be too much.  But brown rice is popular in the West, especially among vegetarians, so here’s a way to use it along with assorted vegetables.  Of course, you can add meat or seafood if you like. 

How the rice is cooked in the first place affects the texture of fried rice.  If you want the rice to be separate and chewy, use slightly less water; if you prefer it more tender and sticky, use more water.

"Cooking from the Heart - The Hmong Kitchen in America" - Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken

Date I made this recipe: October 31, 2010

Cooking from the Heart – The Hmong Kitchen in America by Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5326-3
Recipe: Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken – p. 114-115

Today, class, many of you are going to get a geography/sociology lesson. This book is about Hmong (pronounced “Mung”) recipes and depending on where you live in America, you may not be familiar with this culture.

The Hmong people are mountain people from China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. My husband says that they are basically a people without a country and that’s because they haven’t really settled in one place.

During the Vietnam War, the Hmong assisted the United States in fighting the Laotian Communist government. Although many Hmong settled in camps in Thailand during and after the war, many were brought to the United States by religious groups offering them refugee status.

Today the highest concentration of Hmong is in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In Minnesota, they primarily live in an area of St. Paul called “Frogtown” and a drive by the Hmong Market the other day (a cross between an outdoor farmer’s market and a grocery store) prompted me to use this cookbook (recently issued, I might add).

For those familiar with Asian foods, Hmong food is pretty similar. This dish was something I had never had before and seemed like a good thing to make on a Sunday.

And speaking of making this…you might be tempted, like I was, to chop your veggies in a Cuisinart. Resist that temptation. I went a bit overboard and pulsed the entire stuffing mixture and let’s just say that had to be the most unattractive stuffing I have ever seen. Luckily it tasted better than it looked. My husband really liked the flavors but I am not a fan of mint and felt like I was sucking on a Mojito. I suggest adjusting your ingredients accordingly.

Before I leave you with the recipe, let me pass on a few recommendations for books and movies that do an excellent job of providing a peek into Hmong life.

A book that is just absolutely outstanding is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. This book chronicles the life of a Hmong family dealing with a young daughter who has epilepsy. The family doesn’t know the Western term for this affliction and so they dub it “the spirit catches you and you fall down.” This book highlights the challenges of Western medicine in dealing with traditional Eastern methods of treatment, including the sacrificing of animals and the summoning of a “witch doctor” to eliminate the evil spirits. It is enlightening as it is moving and I’m sure you will be blown away.

The movie that I highly recommend is Gran Torino, starring (and directed by) Clint Eastwood. Here’s the best thing about this movie: the screenplay was written by local boy, Nick Schenk, who happens to be a friend and former writing collaborator of my brother-in-law, Ben Martin (Ben and his buddies had a retrospect of their cable shows many years ago at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis’ modern art museum. This was a well-deserved high honor). Ben was just busting his buttons with pride on Nick’s behalf when this movie came out. Although the story is based on experiences with the Twin Cities Hmong community, for various and sundry reasons, the movie was made in Detroit. Oh well.

Gran Torino is the story of a grizzled old Korean War veteran (Eastwood) who is having a hard time dealing with the “Huh-mong” people who live next door. At the beginning of the movie, Eastwood’s prejudice against the Hmong ring out loud and clear. But of course things change and his attitude takes a complete 360 after a series of events take place. It’s a great movie and to Nick I say – “Well done!”

One a final note, you will need more time that the recipe calls for when roasting this chicken. The recipe said to roast it for 40 minutes, then baste with coconut milk and then cook approximately 30 more minutes. Nuh uh. The meat was pink and we had to put it in the microwave. Be sure to use a meat thermometer (although note, ours was not much help!)

Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken – serving size not indicated
(A note at the end of the recipe indicates that this recipe was adapted from the Hmong Recipe Cook Book, edited by Sharon Sawyer. (First Presbyterian Church, South St. Paul, 1986).

1 young frying chicken, at least 5 pounds
3 teaspoons salt (you will reserve some of this for later)
½ pound lean ground pork
4 to 6 hot Thai chili peppers, minced (more or less, depending upon desired heat)
1 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 cup toasted peanuts, coarsely ground
1 cup mint leaves, chopped
1 cup fresh cilantro sprigs, chopped
5 green onion, white and green parts, chopped
1 can coconut milk (14 ounces)
1 tablespoon fish sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash the chicken well with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Remove the giblets and refrigerate for use in another dish. Sprinkle the chicken inside and out with 2 teaspoons of salt.

In a large bowl, mix the ground pork, chili peppers, pepper, and the remaining teaspoon of salt. Add the peanuts, mint, cilantro, green onions, and half of the can of coconut milk and mix well. Stuff the chicken with about two-thirds of the pork mixture. Put the chicken in a baking dish, breast side up. Tuck the wings underneath. Loose the skin over the breast and push the rest of the stuffing under the skin, patting the surface to distribute the stuffing equally. Sprinkle the chicken with the fish sauce, and cover.

Bake for 40 minutes. Remove the lid and pour the rest of the coconut milk over the chicken. Baste several times with the pan drippings while the chicken continues to cook. It is done when a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the stuffing registers 170 degrees and the chicken is golden brown (about 30 more minutes). (NOTE: as I stated before, use your meat thermometer religiously during this process. I recommend using it on the stuffing and the meat or you will get wacky results!).

"Pasta - a passion" - Hot-and-sour shrimp pasta

Date I made this recipe: March 28, 2010

Pasta – a passion by Nina Dreyer Hensley, Jim Hensley and Paul Lowe
Published by: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 0-28195-08106-2

Recipe: Hot-and-sour shrimp pasta – p. 28

“And now let’s turn to the weather….”

People, the weather in these parts has been unbelievable—no snow, no cold, just mostly sunny with highs in the 50’s—in March! And not to jinx it, but it appears we are set to cruise into April in the low 70’s—unbelievable.

But this unbelievable weather snap has wrecked havoc into my “spring” menu planning. Normally I’d be up to my eyeballs in soups and stew recipes as we have often had basketball tournament snowstorms to contend with but not this year. So a major rethink was in order.

And so I toyed with lighter foods – maybe something Middle Eastern or even chicken but nah, too boring. And then I fixated, and I mean fixated on pasta. I don’t know why (except I had the TV commercial of old “Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day” on the brain). So then I pulled out my battery of Italian cookbooks and leafed through and contemplated and considered and then settled on an Asian pasta dish. So much for red sauce!

This cookbook had such yummy-sounding recipes that I almost felt guilty about going for something Asian but I tell you what, it was the right choice. This recipe is delicious and easy. In fact, I prepared it just after my husband and I got back from a walk around our neighborhood. It wasn’t the warmest walk we’ve ever taken (as evidence by my freezing cold ears) but the sun was out, the snow was gone and ahhhhh….

Hot-and-sour shrimp pasta – serves 6
1 pound large shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 tablespoons sake
1 ½ tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 pound tagliatelle (or fettucini)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, cut into thin slices
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red pepper, crushed (or use red pepper flakes)

Hot-and-sour sauce
2 cups chicken broth
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sake
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Put the shrimp in a bowl with the sake, ginger, and sesame oil. Let sit for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted, boiling water until al dente. Drain.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a saucepan. Add the shrimp and cook until pink. Transfer the shrimp to a plate. (Note: I purchased already-cooked shrimp and it didn’t seem to make much difference as to taste. Just make sure you don’t overcook the shrimp.)

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil to the pan. Add the red onion, garlic and red pepper. Saute until the onion is soft. Set aside. Mix all the sauce ingredients together and stir into the vegetables then stir constantly until the sauce boils. Cook the sauce for 2 to 3 minutes, until it thickens. Gently mix in the shrimp and pasta. (Note: these instructions just didn’t make sense! Why set the vegetables aside then turn around and say add the sauce to the vegetables and then stir until the sauce boils? Am I right? So I added the sauce to the vegetables and then cooked as directed and then added the shrimp and pasta and all was well with the world and with my stomach!).

"Chinese Refreshment" & "Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood" - Fried Dumplings and Savory Bean Thread Noodles

Date I made these recipes: August 24, 2008 – The Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics

Chinese Refreshment edited by Li Yung
Published by: Wan Li Book Co., Ltd. Hong Kong
© 1979
Recipe: Fried Dumplings p. 35-39

Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood by Ken Hom
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 0-394-58785-8 © 1997
Recipe: Savory Bean Thread Noodles – p. 251-2


So the Olympics are in China, thus the Chinese recipes for today’s blog, but let’s be serious: the entire thing could really be called The Michael Phelps Show.

In case you haven’t been watching (and sadly, I didn’t have time until the first weekend), Michael Phelps is a young man (kid, really) who won eight gold medals in this Olympics. Eight. Whoa. The last event, the 4 x 100-meter medley relay was a heart-stopper and even though I knew the results in advance, I still leapt out of my chair. And sure, part of it was the excitement of number eight, but part of it was my own walk down memory lane when once upon a time, I swam that relay on my high school team.

Despite the fact that my school was tiny (about 120 students per class), once Title IX came out mandating equal sporting opportunities for women, my school got on the bus and never looked back. I was on the tennis team for a couple of years and in 1975, was on the women’s swim team, a team that lasted all of one year for reasons I cannot remember, prompting a fellow swimmer to call the phantom 1976 team “The team that wasn’t.”

But for one, glorious season we swam and people, we did so under interesting conditions…which is to say that we had a pool but it was built in around 1940 and therefore not regulation. This short pool required us to swim double laps to prepare for meets, and the drain was such that every once in a while, it would clog up causing the water to turn from chlorine blue to an emerald green. I kid you not. Of course, the students complained but we were made to swim anyway and at that time, no parent ever spoke up about any adverse conditions. Today, I can about bet the farm that this would be an outrage.

Despite having orange and black as our school colors, we had green and gold swimsuits and while that was fine by me, Packer fan that I am, it seemed a little silly. We didn’t have warm-up jackets (I don’t think anybody ever even thought of that) and often had to take the short buses to meets, the long buses being reserved for men’s sports.

Now I wouldn’t say that our team wasn’t motivated but we were so outnumbered at most meets and so not in tip-top shape (we never worked out and more than a few members were a little on the chubby side), that I think we unconsciously adopted an attitude of “We don’t care because we don’t have to.” Clearly we were not destined for Olympic glory. That’s not to say that we didn’t do okay for ourselves because we did, often surprising the opposing teams, but for the most part we were fish out of water at these competitions. Hahaha.

Since we were a small school, most of the men were engaged in basketball or wrestling and therefore not interested, but we did have one, lone male represent the men’s side of things at a meet. Now, this guy’s name was George but our coach must have abbreviated it for roster purposes to “Geo” and sure enough, when the announcer called the lane assignments, he said “And in Lane 1, Geo Cowell.” Poor Geo, he never lived that down.

As far as competition went, I ended up swimming the backstroke simply because – go figure—not every swimmer could swim the freestyle, our collective favorite stroke. These silly officials seemed to think that some of us should do other strokes and I tried but I never could get the hang of the breaststroke kick and was too wimpy for the butterfly so backstroke it was. But people, I hated that stroke. I swam the 100 backstroke, as well as the backstroke in the 400 medley relay but the 400 meter freestyle relay was more my style and I often anchored the women’s team to a respectable finish. Not quite an Olympic-proportion finish but a decent one at that in pools that seemed endlessly long compared to our kiddie pool back home. Oh well, in my next life, it would have been in China.

And so okay, now back to China (you were wondering, weren’t you). Finding recipes in the Chinese Refreshment book was challenging because the recipes often weren’t clear if the meat should be cooked first or not, plus many of the dumplings required Chinese flour that I didn’t want to buy (and lard, which I also didn’t want to buy!). In the end, my attempt at cooking a recipe from this cookbook turned out to be my own Olympic event!

Let’s start with the Fried Dumplings. I should have known I was in trouble right away because all recipes were printed first in Chinese then translated into English. I about had a headache when I was done. (“What do you think they mean by this?!”)

As an example, the main ingredients for the fried dumplings consisted of 12 oz. of pork and 5 ½ shrimp. The recipe didn’t say what kind of pork or whether to cook the pork first and seriously – 5 ½ shrimp? Seemed odd but that’s what it said. I asked a butcher at my grocery store what he thought I should do and he thought I should cook everything first (as did I) and that I couldn’t go wrong with pork tenderloin. And in fact, I didn’t go wrong with pork tenderloin or any of the other ingredients…at least until we got to the dumpling dough.

Oy, the dumpling dough! What.a.mess. I have a sneaky feeling that we should have used Chinese flour because regular flour combined with all the water the recipe required created one gloppy mess such that we ran to a local market for wanton wrappers!

And then there was the cooking thereof of the dumplings. The recipe said to use pork fat but didn’t say how one obtained the pork fat so I used peanut oil. The directions also said to fry with a “bright fire” until golden brown (are they kidding me??) and I did but the frypan was very hot and a few of them were scorched. Yikes.

And let me just say a word about working with wanton wrappers; they tell you to use a triangle method to fold the wrapper over the filling but don’t do it. Instead, do what my husband did—instead of fighting with that design (which proved hard to do), he worked with it instead and so we produced very lovely wanton rectangles! You’ll thank me later.

By comparison, the other recipe for Savory Bean Thread Noodles was a piece of cake. No fuss, no muss and more importantly, no guessing as to the method of preparation.

As for taste, the dumplings scored about a 7 (I’m not a big fan of salt and they were slightly salty) and the savory noodles about a 9. Neither hit the perfect score, but that’s okay because we had athletes like Michael Phelps to do it for us with his big eight win.

Enjoy this small taste of the Orient. As for me, I’m already gathering my British Isles cookbooks to get ready for London four years from now. Kidding! That’s a little early even for me but the 2010 Winter Games, to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, aren’t. Let’s see, what do I have in the way of Canadian cooking?

Fried Dumplings (good luck!!)

For the filling:
12 oz pork (I used pork tenderloin, then browned it on all sides and then finished it off in the microwave)
5 ½ shrimps (yes, that’s what it said. Buy cooked)
1 lb. cabbage (the recipe says use Tientsin but unless you live in a very Asian part of the country, substitute Napa).
6 mushrooms, soaked (not to be confused with 5 mushrooms or possibly 4!)

For the seasonings:
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons sesame oil
3 teaspoons soy sauce
Dash of monosodium glutamate (I didn’t use this)
Ground pepper, a pinch

For the dumpling wrappers, the recipe said you’ll need 2 ½ cup flour, 2 ½ cup boiling water and 1 ½ cup cold water. As I mentioned, we used wanton wrappers and they were okay but not quite what we were looking for. But definitely use them versus the flour mixture.

Rinse cabbage and then cut into very thin slices. Cook in boiling water for 10 minutes. Take out from pot and dry. Then add salt and monosodium glutamate. (I highly recommend using very little salt; 2 teaspoons was too much).

Cut pork, shrimps and mushrooms into tiny bits. (I diced the hell out of these ingredients and you should, too!). Add the sauce mixture. Now let’s pause here a minute: the recipe lists ingredients for the filling and then “seasonings” and the outer layer but no where did it mention “sauce.” Since I used the salt for the cabbage, as directed, I didn’t add it to the sauce I made, composed of the sesame oil, soy sauce and a pinch of pepper. And still the recipe was salty!! (And so the quest for the perfect instructions continues…)

Once you add the “sauce” mixture, stir the filling and sauce mixture in a big bowl until the ingredients thicken, then add cabbage and mix well. Put in refrigerator for about half an hour.

I’m going to skip the directions for the outer layer and just go right to the end! Place about a ½ teaspoon to a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the wanton wrapper, fold, seal and then fry in about two teaspoons of fat (and if you have pork fat, go for it!) with a “bright fire until dumplings get golden brown colour (Note: the author used the British spelling of color).” Spray a little water and sesame oil and vinegar on the dumplings, then cover the pan until the moisture is rather evaporated.

This is supposed to make about 40 dumplings but we made about a dozen or so and called it a day.

Savory Bean Thread Noodles
2 2-ounce packages dried bean thread (cellophane) noodles (look for the words “Vermicelli Green Bean Thread” on the wrapper)
1 teaspoon peanut oil
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic
½ pound ground pork
1 cup homemade chicken stock or reduced-salt canned broth
1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Asian sesame seed oil
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped scallions (for garnish. Optional)

Soak the noodles in a large bowl of warm water for 15 minutes. When they are soft, drain them and discard the water. Cut the noodles into 3-inch lengths, using scissors or a knife.

Heat a wok or large frying pan over high heat until it is hot. Swirl in the peanut oil and when it is very hot and slightly smoking, add the garlic and stir-fry quickly for 15 seconds. Then chuck in the meat and stir-fry, breaking up the meat, for 3 minutes. Then pour in the stock, rice wine oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Cook the mixture over a gentle heat for about 5 minutes. Now toss in the drained noodles and the sesame oil and cook for a further 10 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Ladle onto a platter, sprinkle scallions on top and serve at once with rice.