Fen Guo: Pork-Shiitake Dumplings in Rice Wrappers

Similar in construction to gyoza, these dumplings have skins made from rice instead of wheat flour.   The rice skins are sturdier and chewier, probably because they have to be a little thicker in order to not fall apart in the absence of gluten.  It was plenty sticky, though.  As the only ingredients in the dumpling dough are rice and water, that part is a bit bland, but a necessary counterpoint to the flavorful filling and dipping sauce.

I made the filling with pork, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, onion, rice wine, soy sauce and cilantro.  The cilantro came from the freezer, and I think it had lost some of its punch.  I will make this recipe again when the fresh cilantro is up - I think it would taste amazing.

The first few dumplings I shaped using the authors' method: roll a ball of dough and then squish it under a flat surface until it attains a certain thickness and diameter.  Then I discovered it was a lot easier just to shape the dough with my hands like clay.  That was much faster and easier than scraping sticky rice dough off of the bottom of a glass bowl, destroying the shape in the process.

After shaping and sealing twenty-nine dumplings, I steamed four them on a bed of lettuce (to keep them from sticking to the steamer) and put the rest in the freezer.

The soy-vinegar dipping sauce will wake you up.  I made it this time with 2 T soy sauce, 1 T Chinkiang vinegar, 1 t sugar (I used Rapadura), and 1/2 t sesame oil.  The other ingredients may be commonplace, but that vinegar sure gets my attention every time.

Pierogi z Kasza Gryczana: Kasha & Mushroom Pierogies

Ahh... my first pierogies.  They were not very beautiful, but so delicious - even without butter or sour cream - that I had difficulty keeping enough on the plate for the photo.

These weren't the typical mashed potato pierogies.  The filling looks and tastes like ground beef but is actually made of porcini mushrooms, kasha and onions ground up in the food processor.  The dough is rich with sour cream, butter and egg.  The most difficult part of the recipe was wrestling the dough, which got pretty springy at times and needed rest now and then (don't we all).

The best part about this recipe is that I now have enough pierogies in the freezer for at least two no-fuss meals - my favorite kind for a weeknight dinner.

Pisari e Faso: Bean Stew with Gnocchi

This recipe might make me a gnocchi fan.  Tender yet firm to the bite, satisfyingly salty and chewy, these dumplings might just make up for the amount of work required.  I think they were supposed to look like cashews, but mine ended up looking more like mini marshmallows or chicklets because the dough was so springy when I was shaping it.  They're just flour, breadcrumbs, water and salt - the same ingredients for any fresh pasta - boiled in salted water until bobbing, and then folded into the stew.

The bean stew alone was stellar.  I started with dried pinto beans (soaked overnight) and simmered them with sauteed onions, celery, rosemary, garlic and water.  This recipe calls for bacon or pancetta, without which it would be perfectly vegetarian; I used bacon.  Normally when I cook dried beans, they never end up with the same texture as canned.  They're always crumbly or falling apart or mushy or crunchy.  This time they ended up perfectly soft, smooth and unbroken.  It may have been because I used a brand new package of beans, whereas I usually use beans that have been sitting on the shelf forever.  I had always thought it was just impossible to get dried beans to have the same texture as canned and I'd very nearly given up and bought canned beans for this recipe.

After simmering the beans I added salt and Pomi chopped tomatoes.  I like Pomi tomatoes because they're only tomatoes, tetra-pakked, without citric acid or any of the weird chemicals on the insides of cans.

I forgot to add the Parmesan (which just means tomorrow night's rendition of this stew will be even better) and there isn't a leaf of basil to be found anywhere.  I didn't miss it, but maybe I'll make this again in August when the basil is growing.

Onde-Onde: Malaysian Sweet Potato Dumplings

Problem: One-hour window to produce something sweet

Materials: Rice flour, sweet potato, brown sugar and coconut

Method: Combine rice flour, water, mashed sweet potato in food processor.  Shape into spheres with 1/4 teaspoon hemisphere of packed brown sugar inside.  Drop in plain boiling water until all bobbing.  Roll in flaked coconut with a pinch of salt.

Results: These were chewy and slightly sweet in a mochi kind of way.  I think some of the sugar fillings may have melted out of the dumplings while boiling.  With a few layers of contrasting textures and a surprise sugar-lined hollow center, they're very fun to bite into.

Conclusion: I think next time I'll use a touch more salt and maybe some sugar in the dough itself, plus a little salt in the cooking water to intensify the flavors.  I'll also take more care to seal the sugar filling inside the dumplings.  I might even try using chunks of palm sugar as the recipe suggests (I used muscovado).  

With their pastel-orangey hue, festive coconut sprinkles and superior grabbability, these treats could be a stellar finger food for Easter, Halloween, or anything in between.

Cauliflower Soup with Bread Crumb Dumplings

Kvetakova Polevka s Knedliky. Say that ten times fast!  Here is a recipe that, despite a long list of blah ingredients (cauliflower, turnips, parsnips, nutmeg, stale breadcrumbs) tastes amazing.  It's a perfect example of a recipe I'd normally never try but am glad I did.

The leftover cornbread crumbs from last post (which did not taste very good when they were cornbread) became delicious when mixed with butter, eggs, milk and seasoning, rolled into balls and then boiled in salted water.  They look like meatballs and have a similar texture - "firm but not chewy"- so I might try them with spaghetti sometime.  (How's that for a carb overload?)  I would like to try making these from different kinds of bread and with different herbs mixed in; I think they'd be an excellent compliment to any soup or stew.

Steamed Cornbread!

It's basically the same as regular cornbread, only cooked in a steamer instead of an oven.  In the absence of sizzling hot temperatures it never develops the crunchy crust many consider essential to cornbread, but rather a soft shiny skin similar to baozi.

Well, at least the steamed version should be moist, right?  That is, after all, a notorious drawback of baked cornbread.  Unfortunately (and this may be my fault for using whole wheat flour instead of white) it was just as dry and crumbly as any baked cornbread, if not more so.

After a few days on the shelf this one went straight into the food processor to become bread crumbs for my next recipe.

Kube Mutli: Clams and Rice Dumplings in Spicy Coconut Sauce

So here is the result of my first clam-buying experience.  I've passed by the shellfish table at the farmer's market so many times, sometimes stopping to look at the giant ice-filled bins overflowing with clams, mussels, oysters, even crabs and lobsters on occasion, but never brought a single one home.  But lo and behold a clam recipe in the March chapter of my cookbook - so last Saturday I brought home two dozen littlenecks from Matunuck Oyster Farm.

I made sure that steaming the clams was the only thing I had to do to finish this recipe as soon as I got home from the market.  I'd steamed the rice dumplings that morning and prepared the spice mix and sauce earlier in the week.

Like many of the other more complicated recipes in this book, this one was easy to break down into parts that I could manage before or after the workday.  I made the curry paste with dried coconut, coriander, cumin, white peppercorns and chili flakes all toasted together and pulverized in a spice grinder.  The recipe says it should be a "coarse powder" at this time but mine was definitely the texture of peanut butter.  Hmm.

The sauce is a luxurious concoction of sauteed onions, the previously-assembled coconut curry paste, garlic, turmeric, creamy organic coconut milk, and a little salt and sugar (the recipe called for tamarind but I didn't have any).

I made the rice dumplings by grinding basmati rice in my grain mill and then cooking it with water and salt until it made a thick paste.  With wet hands I rolled the paste into walnut-sized balls and steamed them for fifteen minutes.  As can be expected they're very sticky and chewy.  Probably a choking hazard.

To bring it all together I slipped the rice dumplings into the bright yellow sauce, added the clams and let them simmer together until all of the clams opened - about ten minutes.  Every single one opened!

The recipe made way more than enough sauce for the amount of clams and dumplings, so it was reincarnated on Monday night with leftover ribeye and Tuesday night with chicken legs.  I think if I were to make it again I'd skip the rice dumplings and just serve the sauce and clams (or chicken or fish) over plain rice.  More surface area = more efficient delivery of yummy coconut sauce.

Chana Vada: Fried Chickpea Dumplings in Curried Tomato Sauce

This dumpling recipe is like an Indian falafel - herbed chickpea batter shallow-fried in oil until crispy and then served in a spiced tomato sauce.

On Sunday I started soaking the chickpeas.  On Monday morning I ground the soaked chickpeas in the food processor with a little water, then mixed in cilantro, salt, baking powder and spinach.  I then attempted to fry the dumplings in palm oil (which is supposed to have a super-high smoke point) and promptly set off the fire alarm.  If you can imagine the most piercing fire alarm ever and then multiply it to such a degree as to make one despair of life, you will have a rough idea of how our fire alarm sounds. And I set it off at 7:30 in the morning while Stephen was sleeping.  It's not the earliest time of day I've set it off, though.

Deep/shallow-frying is a point of frustration for me because the oil always starts to smoke at a lower temperature than it's supposed to.  This time I used organic palm oil, which was supposed to be safe up to 450 F.  It's almost a year before its sell-by date and smells fine.  My deep-fry thermometer was barely pushing 300 F when I started seeing smoke.  What am I doing wrong?

Fire alarm notwithstanding, I finished frying the dumplings and they did have a gorgeous crispy crust.  On Tuesday night I prepared the sauce - sauteed onion, ground cumin & coriander, ginger, garlic, Pomi tomatoes, turmeric, Indian chile powder and salt.  I reduced the salt in the sauce because I thought the chickpea dumplings were too salty.  I let the dumplings simmer in the sauce for about ten minutes and then put it away for the flavors to mingle overnight.  We had this for dinner on Wednesday night with rice, peas and fresh cilantro.  It's so delicious I'm willing to brave the frying step (though maybe with a little less oil at a lower temperature) to make it again.