The Arm of the Queen (Brazo de la Reina)

File this under Morbid Recipe Titles.  While a brief Google Image search shows that the Arm of the Queen can also refer to a harmless jelly-roll style cake, this one is supposed to look like a cross-section of zombie flesh and bone, sort of like those eyeball meatloaves moms make for Halloween.
The batter is made from masa harina, broth, palm oil, salt, baking powder, ground-up roasted pumpkin seeds and chopped spinach, giving it a delightful flecked green hue.  This is wrapped around a row of boiled eggs resembling a bone and marrow.  The Arm is then rolled up in a banana leaf, steamed for an hour, and then topped with a thick red homemade salsa (tomatoes, onion, chiles, oregano).  I was supposed to steam it for two and a half hours, but was reluctant to learn what that might do to the eggs.
The Arm was delicious, especially with the salsa.  It's best if you eat it without thinking of a bloody green-fleshed monster missing an arm.

Steamed Rice Canapes with Mung Bean and Shrimp Toppings (Banh Beo)

I was reluctant to make this recipe because it required (a) my food processor and (b) steaming batter in little bowls.  But I decided today was the day and discovered that each of the steps was quite simple despite being equipment-intensive.
First I cooked a third-cup of sprouted mung beans, pureed them in the food processor, and mixed in some oil and shallots.  Then I steamed four ounces of shrimp and pureed those in the food processor as well.  I sliced some scallions and prepared the addictive Vietnamese sweet-sour-spicy fish sauce (slightly modified from the original recipe): a clove of garlic, a teaspoon of chili flakes, two tablespoons of brown sugar, two tablespoons of rice vinegar, a tablespoon of fish sauce and a tablespoon of lemon juice).  Finally I whisked together one-third cup of stone ground rice flour, the remainder of my packet of tapioca starch (about two and a half tablespoons), and six ounces of hot water.  I poured this batter into three little dessert cups in my steamer basket and steamed them for ten minutes.  And repeated twice, wishing I had a larger steamer or smaller dessert cups.  I slid the gelatinous patties out of the dessert cups onto a plate and topped each with a spoonful of mung bean paste, shrimp, a sprinkle of scallions and a drizzle of awesome fish sauce.
In the end, one bite lets you know it's all worth it.

Pork Tamales with Green Olives and Chipotle Sauce

This is one of those recipes that looks complicated, but is actually simple enough because it's made from a few components that you can prepare ahead.  The tamale batter on the bottom is made from masa harina, palm oil, broth, baking powder and salt all whipped together.  The next layer is a mixture of pork, raisins, and a sauce of tomatoes, chipotles, onion, garlic and salt.  On top of that goes a dollop of this sauce all by itself, topped off with - not a cherry - a green olive, followed by a bit more batter.

This all gets wrapped up like an envelope side-to-side and then top-to-bottom in a banana leaf and steamed for an hour and a half.  I decided to try cutting down the steaming time by fifteen minutes this time because in the past I've found it excessive - the pork is pre-cooked after all - and they came out just fine.  I also cut down the fat in the batter from 1/3 to 1/4 cup and they were still too greasy.  

All of the flavors blended beautifully.  The raisins contributed a welcome sweetness without drawing attention to themselves, while the tomato sauce was bright and just a bit spicy.  The corn dough was moist and earthy, rounding off the other flavors.

 

Peruvian Rice Bundles with Chicken and Peanuts (Juanes de Arroz)

So I finally made my way downtown to get banana leaves.  I had purchased them on one prior occasion in Philadelphia, because I thought they looked cool, but never used them.  I found these at the Laotian market on Reservoir Avenue which, by the way, is a really neat store.
I set aside Thursday morning to make these.  The recipe starts with a tomato sauce made with onions, chiles, garlic, turmeric, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper (instinctively I reduced the salt by a third because I have found the recipes in this book over-salty).   I cooked two chicken legs in this sauce, then removed the chicken and cooked 1 1/4 cups of rice in it.  After the rice absorbed all of the sauce (plus some extra water), I set it aside to cool and then mixed in two beaten eggs.
To assemble the dumplings, I cut a couple of rectangles from the banana leaf (which was more flexible than I'd expected, though prone to splitting along the leaf veins) and laid them flat.  I spooned a third-cup of the rice mixture onto one of the leaf rectangles and spread it into a circle.  I topped that with a quarter of the shredded chicken meat, a tablespoon of peanuts, followed by another two-thirds cup of rice.  Finally I shaped it all into a little bundle, drawing the banana leaf around the filling on the sides like a letter fold, and then folding down the top and bottom, wrapping the second leaf around that, and tying it all up with string and a bow.  These steamed for one hour - which I think might have been too long.
I remember reading about banana leaves smelling bad as they cooked, but I thought they smelled like pumpkin.  These dumplings were tasty, still a little too salty, a bit dry (because I used long grain rice instead of medium) but I think the negatives were balanced by the coolness of being served on banana leaves.

Sticky Rice Dumplings with Mung Beans, Pork and Shrimp (Banh It Tran)

I had forgotten how much I love Vietnamese food!  It is so flavorful.  These dumplings are made with a bland rice dough wrapped around mashed mung beans, pork, shrimp and garlic scapes (!) seasoned with sugar, salt and fish sauce.  The best part is a magical sweet-sour-hot sauce that gets drizzled over the dumplings right when they come out of the steamer.  It's made with rice vinegar, fish sauce, sugar, chile peppers, lemon juice and green onions.  The rice dough soaks it right up and it makes the other flavors in these dumplings simply pop.

Iroquois Leaf Bread

This recipe is super simple as dumplings go, but if you're going to eat corn on the cob, things could be a lot simpler.

I started with three cobs of corn.  I shucked them, saved the husks, and cut off all of the corn kernels into a bowl.  I pureed the kernels in the food processor with 1/3 cup of cornmeal.  I resisted adding salt and butter to the batter - though it begged for it - for the sake of authenticity.  I spooned about two ounces of this batter onto each of six pairs of husks, tied them up, and steamed them for an hour.

Our apartment smelled like creamed corn for the rest of the day.

I wasn't sure what to expect when we opened these up.  They came out like soft, creamy cornbread.  We ate them warm, slathered with butter and salt the way we'd have corn on the cob.  It was delicious, but seemed like a lot of effort compared to dropping the whole cobs into boiling water for two minutes.  I'm guessing that this tradition arose from a time when corn wasn't as sweet to eat off the cob as it is today.  Today's fresh sweet corn I'd eat raw.

Flat Rice Dumplings with Coconut (Palitao)

These are about as simple as dumplings get. The dough is just (freshly ground) rice flour and water, shaped into little patties, boiled, and then sprinkled with coconut and cinnamon sugar.  Okay, the recipe called for anise sugar, but no matter how hard I try I can't abide the flavor of anise.  These are also frequently made with sesame seeds on top, but I really wanted to try cinnamon as a substitute for anise.

These are so easy to eat, especially while warm.  Apparently they're best made with freshly grated coconut... I can only imagine.

Fish Ravioli in Cream Sauce (Ravioli di Pesce)

One of the benefits of using farm-fresh eggs is extremely yellow pasta.  This fresh pasta was made with just two eggs and shone like the sun because of the gloriously orange yolks that come from pasture-fed chicken eggs.
The filling is made from cod poached in white wine, lemon juice, garlic, thyme and a pinch of salt.  The poaching liquid gets mixed with butter, garlic and cream and cooked down into a rich sauce.  It sounds (and smelled) very delicious but I'm surprised to say that it could have been creamier.  The filling was a little dry, perhaps because I used frozen cod and perhaps because I overcooked it.  The problem with making each recipe once is that they often don't come out perfectly the first time.  The good thing about making each recipe once is that I try things I otherwise wouldn't and have a better sense of what I should do differently next time.
So next time I would use four or six ounces of white fish instead of twelve, because I ended up with more filling than dough to put it in.  I might also try using fresh tilapia instead of frozen cod.  I might start the sauce with a roux instead of plain butter because it separated and I had to skim a layer of yellow off the top - possibly another reason it didn't taste as rich as it looked.

Lebanese Lemony Lentil Soup with Bulgur Dumplings (Kibbet Raheb)

Here we have one superlatively healthy recipe!  I think if there were prizes for fitting the most nutritious foods in one bowl this would win.  (Okay maybe not, but I'm sure it tastes better than a blueberry-salmon-kale-flaxseed shake.)
The dumplings were absolutely delicious and very easy to assemble.  They're made from rehydrated bulgur mixed with a little flour, sauteed garlicky onions, and chopped cilantro.
The soup is made from brown lentils cooked with chard, salt and pepper.  When all the cooking was done, I added in one-third cup of lemon juice mixed with more sauteed garlicky onions and cilantro.  I hadn't realized just how lemony the soup was supposed to be.  Caution: It is very lemony!  I may have made a mistake using bottled lemon juice instead of fresh (it's much cheaper and we can't exactly get locally-grown lemons in New England).  The lemon overpowered the cilantro and most of the other flavors.  Just now, on doing some further research, I realized it's supposed to be served cold like gazpacho or a savory summer lemonade.  Now there's a new concept.
When we have the leftovers for lunch today, I think I'll add some more cilantro, strain off some of the sour liquid, add a dollop of sour cream and serve it over rice with soy sauce.  Am I breaking tradition?  Probably.  I prefer to think of it as cultural fusion.

Canary Pudding (English Lemon Cake)

It's taken me a while to get started on the June recipes, and there are more of them than any other month so far, so we'll see how this goes.  I sense a flurry of dumpling-making in the upcoming weeks.

So I prepared the pudding basin (a 1-quart bowl) with butter and slices of lemon.  I then poured in a thin batter of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, lemon juice & zest, nutmeg, and baking powder.  I snuck about half a teaspoon of vanilla into the batter because it just does amazing things to lemon.  I put a circle of parchment over the batter, tied it all up in a piece of cloth, put it in a pot of boiling water, covered it, and let it simmer for two hours.

I'm not usually one to jump for lemony desserts - I usually opt for something chocolate or creamy first - but when I do try them I'm often pleasantly surprised by their freshness and zing.  This pudding is no exception.  The lemon gets your attention right away, while the buttery foundation gives it depth and richness.  It has contrasting layers of flavor and texture; the top layer, which started out as raw lemon, was bright, tart and juicy.  The middle layer was dense like pound cake, not too sweet, and almost gummy.  It had some large air pockets like an overmixed muffin.  The bottom layer was light, spongy, and the sweetest of all.  I don't know why exactly it came out that way, but it was a delight to eat.  I would love to have had some double cream...