Butter, with a Little Fish

I have always loved to eat fish.  My mother cooked it often when I was growing up and it was usually whole.  She cooked it all kinds of ways, but my favorite was when she pan fried the fish.  It had a nice clean flavor and the skin got crispy.

Now that I have to cook my own meals, I usually shy away from cooking my own fish.  Partly, it’s because I am afraid of ruining it and fish is not cheap.  The other part is that I have difficulty finding fish that I trust.  Those fishy fillets sitting in the grocery store case on their bed of ice, how do you know they are fresh?  You can’t see their eyes and they are hard to smell.

But I love fish and I love that it is one of the healthiest foods out there.  So, I was really excited to make this week’s FFWD recipe: Almond Flounder Meuniere .  I did not want to drive all over town looking for the baby flounder fillets that Dorie calls for, so I went to the closest place where I trust the fish:  Trader Joe’s.

I know, almost all the fish at Trader Joe’s is frozen, but so is a lot of the fish sold in the grocery store.  They just thaw it for you.  I’d  rather buy the fish frozen and thaw it when I want it and skip the upcharge.  I could go all the way downtown to the fish market or drive 40 minutes to the asian grocery store where they have tanks of fish, but I don’t have that kind of time.  Plus, I like that TJ’s labels the fish wild or not.  I like to eat wild, not farmed fish.  At TJ’s I found what I thought would be a great substitution for the flounder: wild caught Dover Sole.

The hardest part about this recipe was waiting to cook it.  I had everything prepped and ready, but I had to wait for the husband to get home from work before I started cooking, because it takes less that 10 minutes to cook each batch.  I doubled the recipe since I was feeding the four of us and we all like fish.  And, since butter was to be a big part of the flavor, I used salted Kerrygold butter.

I had to cook my fish in two batches and I think the second batch came out better.  I followed the instructions to lower the heat on the first pan and they came out really pale.  I like a little more color on my food, so for the second pan, I kept the heat on medium the whole time.  We all really liked this dish.  The oldest said it was the best fish ever.

The lemon juice really helps to cut through the richness of the butter, but the husband and I both thought that the fish had a little too much butter and my youngest does not really like the flavor of butter (I know, weird, but he will eat buttercream icing).  Next time, I will not use as much butter.  We really liked the Dover Sole, though.  It was a nice tender fish that took very well to the cooking technique here. I think snappper might also work well or maybe a thicker fish fillet, such as sea bass would be better and would develop a better crust with its longer cooking time.  Hmm…maybe I’ll see what they have in the tanks when I go to the asian market today and try this again.  I think I see more fish on our dinner tables in the future.

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Turnips and Love Them

If your kids are like my kids, they are reluctant vegetable eaters. My youngest, especially, dislikes almost every vegetable except carrots and green beans. I try to serve a variety of vegetables very often, thinking that he will get used to them. We have even taken to putting vegetable juice in his morning fruit juice to make sure he is getting some of that veggie goodness. He knows it’s in there (we are not believers of concealing veggies in our foods so as to “trick” them into eating them) and he eats what I give him, but he doesn’t like them.

However, this week, he and his older brother were begging me to cook some turnips. Now, normally, they wouldn’t go near a turnip if their life depended on it, but during the Chinese New Year season, this turnip dish is their favorite thing to eat.

Steamed Turnip Cake.

This cake, like the Red Bean Cake from last week, is really not much to look at. They are both basically steamed rice cakes, but that is where the similarity ends. The turnip cake is a savory creature, with shredded, cooked turnips mixed in along with a generous helping of bacon, sausage, and bacon fat. Yes, bacon fat.

I suspect it is really the bacon fat that makes this treat so delectable. That, and we serve them sliced and fried, just like the red bean one. It gets this really great crispy crust on the outside and it’s soft and fluffy on the inside. In every bite, you get a little bit of bacon or sausage that lends a great textural contrast to the softness of the cake. Finally, the soy sauce dip gives this treat a salty hit that any kid or adult would love.

This recipe makes a fairly soft rice cake that can be a little tricky to slice. You will need to grease your knife between slices to make it easier. I just use a vegetable oil spray. Alternatively, you can make this stiffer by adding more rice flour.

Steamed Turnip Cake

2 pounds Chinese turnips, peeled and shredded

5 quarter-sized slices of ginger

3 garlic cloves, peeled

3 Tablespoons rice wine

1 cup water

12 ounces rice flour

6 ounces glutinous or sweet rice flour

1/2 Tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

3 Chinese sausages, diced

4 ounces or 6 slices of thick cut bacon, sliced crosswise into 1/4 inch strips

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

1/4-1/3 cup bacon fat or lard

3 cups water

1. Line 2 – 8 inch cake pans with plastic wrap. Spray with vegetable oil spray.
2. Combine turnips, ginger, garlic, wine, and 1 cup of water in a large dutch oven. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat to low. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the turnips are soft. Remove the ginger and garlic and discard. Mix in the bacon fat.
3. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl until evenly mixed. Pour into the pot with the turnips and combine thoroughly.
4. Place over medium heat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly to keep the mixture from sticking to the pot.
5. Divide the mixture between the two cake pans and smooth the top. Place in your steamer and steam over boiling water for 40 minutes. A toothpick should come out relatively clean.
6. Set aside to cool. Wrap tightly and refrigerate overnight.
7. Slice the cake into halves and then cut them crosswise into 1/2 inch slices (as many as you want to serve). Fry in a nonstick pan over med-high heat for several minutes per side.
8. Serve with soy sauce dipping sauce (see below).

Soy Dipping Sauce

Mix together in a small bowl:

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

1 Tablespoon rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

a few drops of red pepper oil

a couple dashes of coarse ground korean pepper powder

Steamy Magic

Do you Dim Sum?  We love Dim Sum food.  It’s like the Chinese version of tapas:  lots of little dishes to share and as much tea as you can drink to go with it.  Many dim sum dishes are steamed.  If you go to one of those restaurants that specialize in dim sum, you’ll see people pushing carts around with lots of little steamers in them.   There is always a huge sense of excitement as the cart draws near to your table.  What will it have in it?  Will my favorite dish be there?  Will the cart even make it to our table before everything is gone? (On a busy day, your best bet is to try to sit as close to the kitchen doors as possible so you get access to all the carts coming out.)

The most anticipated steamed dish in our family (and usually the first one to run out at the restaurants) are the steamed buns, especially if they have barbequed pork or red bean paste in them.  I have tried making steamed buns at home, but have not really come close to the texture of what you get at the restaurant.  Usually, mine are too fluffy or pasty.

But, this week, with the help of a secret weapon, I think I may have finally got it, or at least closer to it.

What is my secret weapon?  Well, wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe I should just say it’s an ancient Chinese secret?  Haha!

Actually, I am happy to tell you the secret because I was kind of skeptical when I tried it, and surprised when it turned out so well.  The secret to great Chinese Bao (buns) is sourdough.  Really!

I did not get this idea myself.  I have an old Wei-Chuan cookbook called Chinese Snacks that has two recipes for steamed buns.  One uses yeast and the other uses old dough as the base.  I made the recipe and substituted my sourdough starter for the old dough.  The dough was nice and soft.  I had no trouble at all working with it.  It was easy to stuff and puffed up nicely in the steamer.

before steaming

As a bonus, the dough was really easy to work with–probably because I used a lower protein flour and I think also the sourdough starter made the dough especially elastic and soft.  I made two different buns.  The rounded ones are the red bean buns and the ones with the wrinkled tops are barbequed pork or char siu bao.

after steaming

Now, we don’t have to trek for over an hour to get a good steamed bun.  Today I made 48 buns.  That ought to last us, oh maybe a week!  Luckily, I have a starter that always needs to be fed, so buns can always be made.  They make a great addition to our lunches.

Steamed Bun (Bao) Dough

4 ounces 100% hydration liquid sourdough starter

6 ounces water

10 ounces unbleached all purpose flour

Mix above ingredients and let stand for 8 hours or overnight.  It should double in size and become very bubbly.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, stir to combine:

6 ounces water

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons shortening

15 ounces Bleached, All Purpose, Self Rising Flour (yes, you read that right)

When you have a rough dough in the bowl, mix in the starter and knead with the dough hook of your machine for 5 minutes.  The dough should be smooth and soft, but not sticky.  Try not to add any extra flour.  I found that with dry hands, the dough was only slightly sticky and I had no trouble filling the buns with my bare hands.

Cut 24 3 inch square pieces of parchment.

Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces–about 2 ounces per piece.   Flatten each piece and place about a tablespoon of your filling of choice in the center.  Gather the dough together at the top and pinch to seal.  Or, you can make plain buns by just rounding the dough into little balls.  You can place them seam side down on a piece of parchment for a rounded look or seam side up for a rougher look.  Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 45-60 minutes.  Place in your steamer tray at least 1 inch apart and steam for 10 minutes for plain and 12 minutes for filled.

A Day Late and Lots of Dishes Short

Happy Lunar New Year/ Chinese New Year!  Happy Year of the Dragon!

Usually, at this time of year I am very busy making lots of special treats for Chinese New Year and for a party that we usually have to celebrate this holiday.  I must have used up all my energy in December for Christmas, though, because I just have not been able to get up the gumption to get prepared for Chinese New Year.

In fact, yesterday, we almost had no Chinese food at all!  A Chinese New Year’s dinner often includes many, many dishes:  noodles, steamed fish, some kind of pork, dumplings, spring rolls, turnip cakes, etc.  Well, we did not have all that, but I did manage to make a little treat for us to have.

Red Bean New Year’s Rice Cake

Sweet red beans are really popular in Chinese desserts and snacks.  Actually, a lot of different Asian countries use it in their traditional desserts.  Japanese mochi often contains red bean paste and there’s a Korean pancake thing that has red beans in it.   The bean paste is really easy to make once you get the red beans–and much cheaper than paying $5 a can for it like I saw at the Asian store the other day.

You take a pound of red beans, soak them for several hours or overnight.  Then, simmer them in 8 cups of water and 12 ounces of sugar until they are all soft and most of the water is gone. Watch them closely at the end to make sure they don’t burn.  I had to add extra water because I did not soak the beans as long as I should have (there I go being impatient again) and they were still hard after the water was all gone.  Then, you mix in a couple tablespoons of your fat of choice.  Most people use lard.  I have used vegetable oil in the past and I considered using butter, but I decided to go with the duck fat I had in the fridge.  It definitely gave it a different flavor–it tastes a little more savory, but still good.

Half of the red beans went into the rice mixture to make the cakes.  I’ll show you what I plan to do with the other half later this week.  The cake couldn’t be easier to mix up.  Twenty ounces of hot water is mixed with 14 ounces of dark brown sugar.  Then, you whisk in 24 ounces of glutinous rice flour (did I mention this treat is gluten free?).  The red bean paste is the last to be mixed in and then you put it into the pans (that have been lined with plastic wrap and sprayed with oil) for steaming.  I used two 8 inch cake pans because that’s what fits into my steamer.  The steaming is the longest part–2 hours!

Once the cake is done, you can slice it and eat it while it is still a little warm.  OR, wait until it is cool to slice it and fry it in a little oil, which is our favorite way of eating it.  The frying makes the outside a little crispy and the inside stays warm and gooey.  Yum!

The Sharper, the Better

When the husband and I first got married, we read somewhere that a set of knives has a life span of about 10 years.  We kind of planned to replace our knives after 10 years had elapsed.  Well, we are going on 17 years of marriage this year and we still have not replaced our knives.  Here is one reason why.

The Chef’s Choice 1520 Electric Knife Sharpener

It is said that a dull knife is the most dangerous tool in the kitchen and that is really true.  When your knife is dull, you have to use a lot more pressure to cut things.  This means you are more likely to slip and cut something you would rather not be cutting, such as your flesh.  It’s also a lot harder to cut things evenly and quickly.

For years, we used just the honing steel or a little handheld sharpener that you can buy anywhere for about $20.  Then, I borrowed the machine shown above from someone and we tried it on our knives.  It was an amazing difference!  There are three grinding surfaces that you pull your knife through in order from coarsest to finest.  The knife only goes through each slot once or twice.  The noise is really loud, but only lasts for a few seconds at a time.  The sharpener leaves the knives as sharp as they were when we bought them and we only need to sharpen the knives once or twice a year.  It has a hefty price tag, but it is cheaper than buying a whole new set of knives every 10 years.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind a new set of knives, but it’s nice to be able to buy something when you are ready to buy, rather than when you need to replace something.  In the meantime, I highly suggest you come over with your dull knives and give this a try.  Your lives will be safer for it, I promise you.