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Entries in Asian (8)

Wednesday
Feb242010

Stir It 28 Recap - Lettuce Wraps Two Ways

I'm a little bit late to the table on this, but I wanted to throw out a big thank you to Christy over at Balance for putting together a really fun and successful event this past Sunday to raise money for Haiti relief in conjunction with the Stir It 28 event happening simultaneously in several cities.

The afternoon consisted of way more food and drink than could be consumed by around 30 or more very happy attendees (at least the ones I knew said so!) and another 10 or so food bloggers who got to play in the beautiful teaching kitchen at NYU School of Nutrition and Food Studies.  In the excitement, I only managed to get pictures of my own food and the decorations, but I encourage you to check out the blogs below because everything was really tasty and the bloggers themselves are fun people.

 

Menu (links to participating bloggers courtesy of Balance)

Appetizers
Dumpling Bar:
Veggie Dumplings,Cranberry Mushroom Dumplings, Pork & Cabbage Dumplings
Entrees
Desserts

For my part, I made one of my favorite dishes of all time - Minced Chicken with Lettuce Cups.  Lettuce wraps are considered lucky for Chinese New Year because the word for lettuce wrap in Cantonese (I hear - please Year of the Tiger!correct me if I'm wrong) sounds like the word for 'rising fortune' - a very good thing indeed.  Apparently adding dried oysters makes the dish even luckier, but I wasn't ready to give that a try just yet.  If you do, let me know.

The recipe I used comes from the old stand-by Williams Sonoma Stir Fry Cookbook and represents a very simple basic version which satisfies the craving.  The recipe defies my usual rule which is to substitute more authentic ingredients whenever possible.  The traditional Chinese dish, Gai Soong, is made with pigeon, and while using some Brooklyn pigeon could make this extremely local and authentic, minced chicken is a much better choice for me.As an aside, I still think the best lettuce wraps are at Betelnut on Chestnut Street in San Francisco, but I'm on a constant quest to try more.

As a challenge to myself and in order to help make the dish appropriate for a mixed crowd, I also played with a vegetarian version (it's even vegan!) and was quite pleased with the results.  I've included an either/or set up in the recipe, but feel free to make both (doubling the sauce) and mix and match. 

A note on lettuce: the recipe calls for iceberg lettuce, undoubtedly for its tough structure and cool crunch.  I used butter lettuce for its pretty leaves and marginally better nutritional value.  I urge you to experiment with lettuces keeping in mind taste, texture and strength of the leaves.  Butter lettuce is a bit flimsy, but it's my favorite.

Lettuce Wraps Two Ways (adapted from Williams-Sonoma Stir Fry)

  • 1lb. ground chicken
  • 1 1/2 - 2 blocks extra firm tofu
  • 16 ounces shitake mushrooms, cleaned and stems removed
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce, divided
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar, preferably unseasoned, divided
  • 2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Sauce:

  • 5 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar, preferably unseasoned
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce (available in the Asian section of your grocery store)
  • 2 tsp corn starch
  • 6 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
  • 4 scallions, finely chopped (including green tops)
  • 4 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 2 cups water chestnuts, rinsed, well drained and coarsely chopped
  • 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
  • 1 head lettuce of your choice
  1. Place tofu under a heavy plate or baking pan weighted with cans.  Let water squeeze out while you chop mushrooms and other ingredients. This step may be omitted but helps the tofu absorb the sauce and marinade.
  2. In a bowl, combine chicken and half of soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil.  Stir to mix well. Set aside.
  3. Slice tofu lengthwise into thin strips and chop again into small cubes. Place in a bowl with chopped mushrooms and remaining soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil.  Set aside.
  4. To make the sauce, combine all of the ingredients and stir in corn starch to dissolve.  Set aside. (Note: I transported the sauce in a jar which made the dissolving very easy - shake it up!)
  5. In a large pan, heat 3 tablespoons of oil over high heat.  Add chicken and stir quickly, breaking up any large pieces until no longer pink.  Push to side of pan or remove and set aside. Add half of scallions, ginger and water chestnuts and toss quickly for 1 minute.  Add 1/2 of prepared sauce and stir in cooked chicken.  Stir until thickened slightly.  Remove from heat.
  6. Wipe down pan (or use a second one if maintaining vegetarian/vegan meal is important) and heat additional 3 tablespoons of oil over high heat.  Repeat step 5 with mushroom and tofu mixture.
  7. Stir in half of pine nuts in each finished mixture.  Serve with lettuce wraps.

Note on leftovers: if you run out of lettuce wraps or want to make extra of either mixture, they taste great over rice.  Serve with a vegetable or salad and you have another twist on the meal.

 

 

Tuesday
Dec292009

Family Favorite: Kung Pao Chicken (or Chicken with Peanuts)

As might be evident, there isn't a lot of chicken on the menu over here.  I'm highly skeptical of the quality that can be found in most convenient places and, to boot, I'm just not all that jazzed up about chicken recipes most of the time. 

In these hard times, however, I'm trying to focus on big batch cooking to set us up for the week.  This requires something that can be tolerated for multiple meals and something relatively easy to re-heat. 

Enter Kung Pao Chicken, or, as my half-Chinese husband refers to it, Chicken with Peanuts. 

First, I am able to get relatively inexpensive organic free-range chicken breasts at Trader Joe's with a little advance planning (I do not go there after 11am unless desperate).  Second, the recipe is fool-proof.  I found the original recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Stir Fry cookbook, and have modified it generally where the recipe calls for Western ingredients.  Third, the Chinese substitute ingredients are easy to find in a good Asian store and are part of a well-stocked Chinese pantry.

This is a great recipe to make for the week.  It easily doubles or triples and goes well with a large batch of rice made up on the same day.  Pair with your favorite vegetable (we just steamed some broccoli and tossed it with lemon, sesame oil and fresh minced ginger).

First, I made the sauce: a combination of cornstarch (or cake flour), chicken stock, chili paste with garlic, soy sauce, Shao Hsing rice cooking wine (not sherry! always make this replacement for Westernized recipes), rice wine vinegar (this replaces red wine vinegar, you may have to adjust the sugar based on your choice of vinegar), sugar and sesame oil.  I mixed well and set this aside to rest and communicate (another new family secret term).

Next, it's time to get that chicken ready.  I firmly believe the marinade here is what makes the chicken texture moist and flavorful every time.  The chicken sits for a bit in a combination of Shao Hsing rice cooking wine (did I say no sherry?), soy sauce, an egg white and more cornstarch. 

While the chicken is resting, I minced my ginger, sliced my scallions, and got the peanuts in order.  The peanuts are stir-fried in hot oil with chili flakes and set aside.  A word to the wise - stick to unsalted roasted peanuts.  We used honey roasted thinking that it would make little difference.  Flavorwise, I was correct.  However, honey roasted peanuts stick together when hot oil is added to them.  It is not fun to handle later.

After cooking the marinated chicken in two batches (I made three pounds of chicken which barely fit into my 12 inch skillet all together), the chicken, peanuts, ginger and scallion were added back into the pan.  After tossing these together for a minute or two, in went the sauce.  Now I just cooked the sauce until it was thick "enough" which, I must admit, is different each time.  I do just know it when I see it.

Now we have at least six or seven meals lined up in the fridge next to a tub of rice from the rice cooker.  As I mentioned, a little vegetable side goes a long way to making this a complete meal.  No more take-out for us!

Saturday
Dec122009

Dinner Improv: Thai-inspired Red Curry Meat Loaf


DSC00954
Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Forager

Can something really be Thai and meat loaf at the same time? I might have argued against this proposition at an earlier time, but with a little creativity and a Tim Gunn "make it work" attitude, anything can be done!

The inspiration for this little adventure came from my husband's response to 75% of the American or Northern European dishes that I make - this is good...but I bet it would be better with Asian flavors. While I don't always agree (just as good maybe...but different), I thought I would indulge him this time around which also gave me a chance to play with food. Always fun.

I combined my traditional turkey meat loaf recipe from the Barefoot Contessa with one I found for mini meat loaves on Cooking Light (check reference). From there, I went wild. Rather than Ina Garten's onions with worcestershire and thyme, I sauteed garlic and onions in olive oil with a dash of fish sauce, oyster sauce and lemongrass.

The next step was how to handle the ketchup. It can't be meat loaf without the ketchup, but how Asian is that? Herein lies the genius of my recipe. I replaced a small portion of the ketchup with Thai red curry paste. Some of the ketchup mixture gets combined with the meat and some is spread on top as in a traditional meatloaf.  I combined the onion mixture, the ketchup mixture and panko breadcrumbs to keep with the theme.  I separated the meatloaf into four mini loaves and baked at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

At the end of the day, this was a great experiment.  The flavors were fabulous and it was a great twist on an old classic.  The downside is that the flavors did overpower the really great grass fed organic beef which we've started using.  I know meat loaf was practically designed to make less lovely ground beef more lovely, but that's something to work with along the way.  I might temper the curry flavors a bit the next time around and would definitely keep the flavor levels for a ground turkey version, but here's the basic recipe:

 

Thai-inspired Red Curry Mini Meat Loaves

  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon red curry paste
  • 1 pound ground sirloin (preferably grass-fed, organic, local)
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup sliced leeks (white and light green parts)
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 1/8 teaspoon lemongrass
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
  • 1 large egg lightly beaten
  1. Preheat oven to 400F.
  2. In a large saute pan, heat oil over medium heat.  Saute onions and leeks until soft and fragrant.  Add lemongrass, oyster sauce and fish sauce and continue to saute for another 3-5 minutes. 
  3. Combine ketchup and curry paste, stirring well with a whisk.  Reserve 2 1/2 tablespoons ketchup mixture.
  4. Combine remaining ketchup mixture with beef, onion mixture, salt and pepper, bread crumbs and egg. 
  5. Divide beef mixture into 4 equal portions.  Shape each portion into a 4x2 1/2-inch loaf.  Place loaves on a jelly roll pan lighly coated with cooking spray. 
  6. Spread reserved ketchup mixture evenly over each loaf.  Bake for 25 minutes or until done.
  7. Enjoy!
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