Bon Appétit Series Background Recap: I was tired of reading the magazine each month, saying, “Oh that looks great, I’ll make that”, then the magazine ends up in the cupboard or trash, never to been seen again. Never more! Now I’m holding myself publicly accountable; each month I will cook at least one recipe from Bon Appétit and post it on here.

<>

The small gap between dreamy, pillow-like gnocchi with a creamy interior and lump, dense, potato bombs is the epitome of the dichotomy between simplicity and perfection that exists in Italian cooking. Traditional gnocchi are potato and flour, shaped into a dumpling, and boiled. Definitely sounds easy.

But just like pasta, gnocchi is an Italian art form, a deliberate process all the way through. It’s easy to make bad risotto. It’s even easier to make crappy gnocchi. My suggestions for making decent gnocchi are the same as I would offer for risotto – respect the process. Keep the potato mixture light and don’t overwork it. Add flour until the dough is that perfect balance of workable and sticky. Take great care to not under or over cook the gnocchi. And keep at it. Similar to pizza dough, pasta, or risotto, I really think an experienced hand makes a difference, and I need much more gnocchi experience. I think my next purchase will be a ricer to get even lighter potatoes. Have you tried making gnocchi? Any good tips you’ve accumulated along the way?

I started by cooking my russets in an oven, then I scooped out the flesh and pushed it through the food mill attachment of my food processor. Avoid gummy potatoes (read: NO stand mixer) at all costs. Then gently mix in the potato with the egg and flour using an fork.

After kneading the dough for as little time as possible, I started forming my gnocchi. I highly recommend purchasing a dough scraper for this part if you don’t have one. You can buy a board to form the impressions on each gnocchi, or just use a fork like I did.

An industrial baking sheet really comes in handy sometimes, even though this guy doesn’t fit in my oven. It’s perfect for holding dozens of dumplings.

Prior to forming the gnocchi, I made the mushroom ragu, sans the pork because of a particular vegetarian. The sauce would have been much more savory and balanced with the slow simmered pork, but the addition of the porcini and crimini mushrooms made it a nice variation from a simple marinara.

I plated it with an obligatory sprinkle of parmigiano-reggiano, from @timthecheeseman, of course.

The gnocchi? Not the best ever. More on the dense side than the mushy side. I need a lighter dough, more uniform sized gnocchi (for even cooking), and to probably boil them even less than I did.

Enjoyably, each moment spent in the kitchen is an education, every new experiment an edible work in progress.

Included in the photo set: Taqueria Mi Pueblita II, Paul’s Philadelpha Eatery, Taqueria Jasmine, and Baan Sawan. Baan Sawan is the coolest Thai restaurant I’ve been to in a long time. The bartender and proprietor (and obvious wine geek), Sam, says he runs a “fine dining restaurant, that just happens to serve Thai food”. A comprehensive post on Baan Sawan can be found here.

tea rose dumplings

Thai food is interesting to me. From the time the first Thai restaurant arrived in Greenville in the late 90’s, ubiquitously named “Bangkok”, I’ve been in love with the flavor combinations. Salty soy sauce, sweet chili sauce, funky fish sauce, and fiery curries, garnished with lime and cilantro. It’s a flavor lover’s dream.

But lately when I’m feeling like getting adventurous with some Asian food, rarely do I end up eating Thai food. I think the problem for me is that 95% of Thai menus are all the same, with the exact same presentation, preparation, and taste as a dozen other Thai restaurants in town. It’s as if the food is dumbed down for us, catered for the American palate that can’t handle the heat, that isn’t familiar/comfortable with the street food, and just looooooves to order Pad Thai every time, just like when ordering the General Tso beef every time from Chin Chin.

I don’t mean to be holier than thou, and I’m not saying I don’t ever eat these same dishes – I love some spicy as hell Penang curry, with tons of sauce for spooning over my rice, but it doesn’t excite me so much any more. It’s my Thai “safety order”. What I order when I call for delivery and I haven’t even looked at a menu.

My taste for Thai food may have developed, the offerings seem to all be the same, and I don’t think I’m alone in this interpretation, which is why I think Kokai Thai Bistro and Tuk Tuk have become successful. Am I over thinking this or does anyone else feel the same way?

This post really isn’t a review of Kokai (there are plenty of reviews here), I was just curious about what people think about Thai food. Is it tired to you? Do you order the same thing every time you order Thai? Are you clamoring for more?

ginger chicken – whoa intense ginger flavor!

beef jerky

chicken larb – common dish, but done better than I’ve had elsewhere

boat noodles

kee mao noodles

Thanks to Chloe for meeting me for this lunch. No one else knows this part of town and cuisine like she does.

I am definitely guilty of taking on more projects than I actually have the time to complete. You may have noticed I am constantly coming up with new ideas for a food series, which is my way of holding myself accountable when I want to learn something new. Hence, the Atlanta Pizza Days, the Bon Appétit series, and the Land of Plenty series.

These obviously take a lot of time, and the projects loom over me, and I end up with long delays between posts. With the arrival of some new cookbooks last week, I think it’s time to put a couple of these to bed. I will continue to eat pizza, and post my findings, but it’s not going to be a series where you can expect a certain frequency of posts. The Land of Plenty series will also be discontinued. This cookbook has taught me more than any other. I’ve learned so much about Sichuan cooking concepts, methods, and ingredients…they have been added to my cooking repertoire on almost a daily basis. I won’t claim I’m an expert, and I am far from putting this cookbook away to collect cobwebs, but I have a large laundry list of cuisines and dishes that I want to tackle. If you do want to keep up with Sichuan cooking in the future, I’ll be posting them as Land of Plenty tagged photos on my Flickr page.

Here’s a summary of the individual Land of Plenty posts:

• Land of Plenty – Announcement post
• Sichuan 101 & Ingredients
• Xie Laoban’s Dan Dan Noodles
• Zhong Crescent Dumplings
• Fried Peanuts, Cucumber Salad, Bean Curd Noodles
• Boiled Beef & Cookbook Challenge Announcement
• Dry Fried Greenbeans
• Gong Bao (Kung Pao) Chicken
• Spicy Cold Noodles with Chicken Slivers
• Dry Fried Chicken
• Red Cooked Pork (Hongshao Rou)
• Challenger #1 – Spicy Cold Noodles/Dry Fried Greenbeans
• Challenger #2 – Dry Fried Chicken/Stir Fried Vegetables w Lotus Root
• Red Braised Beef
• Cold Sichuan Chicken, Hot and Numbing Beef, Fried Lotus Root with Tomato Sauce
• Steamed Pork Buns (today)

With that, here is my last entry in the Land of Plenty series.

I started by stir-frying pork and bean sprouts in spicy fermented Sichuan bean paste, with a splash of soy sauce, and rice wine at the finish.

The dough for the dumplings was similar to many pizza dough recipes. I waited for it to rise for an hour or two.

Then punched it down and waited another 1/2 hour for it to rise again.

I prepared my steaming basket with a layer of cabbage so the dumplings wouldn’t stick to the wood while cooking.

I cut the dough into thirds and floured heavily; the dough was quite sticky.

This was the first attempt, which was a small dumpling. I ended up making them a bit larger than this – maybe a 2” portion of each dough log per dumpling.

Poor form on the first few…

Aaron made a lot of the dumplings, and I think he got very good at it. All the pretty looking dumplings below were his creations.

Three to five dumplings per layer. The hole is purposely left in the top to let the steam escape.

Here’s what they look like 10 minutes later.

Close-up of a nice one.

And the guts…

For a first attempt, this worked out well. Aaron and I probably each ate 10 of them, with each batch getting better than the last. While not nearly as well-formed as any steamed bun I’ve had at a restaurant, the texture and flavor was on point. I liked the larger dumplings as they had more filling to bread. I served these with a dipping sauce comprised of aromatic soy sauce (made with ginger, Sichuan peppercorn, cinnamon stick, and star anise) and red pepper oil.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to read Tami’s Day 3 post on Running with Tweezers. She talks about Project Open Hand, a local Atlanta charity which offers a variety of food related services, including meals on wheels. I’ve really enjoyed reading the posts from the other participants in this challenge, but not just for their buying strategies and the dishes they create. Many of the bloggers have touched on the hunger issues that affect us locally and nationally, and I need to give this more attention as it’s the basis of the Eat on 30 challenge. I would like to do some more research on this when I get back home, particularly in regards to how it affects people in Atlanta and the various ways to help. I will be sure to pass along what I find.

For now, I have to get to bed, I have another long day ahead of me, including waking up a bit early to cook my lunch for tomorrow. Below are my photos from today.

I had a banana for breakfast ($0.28) and hit the road. Before I left I printed a coupon for QT from coupons.com which offered a free sandwich or wrap with no other purchase necessary, not a bad deal at all for $4 sandwich.

For lunch I had chicken noodle soup, using the broth from yesterday. Nothing fancy, just some egg noodles, chicken breast, celery, and carrot. The cost came to $1.64. I had half the soup with lunch, along with my average, but welcome QT sandwich.

lunch 3: chicken soup + turkey/roast beef gas station sandwich – cost: $1.65

For dinner I ate the rest of the soup, then made some pot stickers. I had never made the wonton dough from scratch before, but it was technically easy, I can’t say I will be making them myself very often, as it’s fairly time consuming and the $1 packs of wrappers from an Asian market are pretty good.

The filling was a small amount of ground pork + blanched/chopped cabbage and zucchini.

They weren’t bad at all, but it was very sticky and I had a hard time getting the dough thin enough.

dinner 3: pork + zucchini + cabbage pot stickers – total cost: $0.72

Also, my family has a Slovak background, and though generally considered a Polish dish, dumplings are also native to Slovakia. I’m pretty sure I’m genetically predisposed to loving dumplings filled with some sort of mixture of potato and cheese, often fried and served dripping in butter. Then again, who wouldn’t like that? Now, I can’t imagine that Paula butters up her pierogis, but I don’t actually plan on eating pierogis on my ride tomorrow.

I had never made pierogis from scratch, so I did a quick search online, found a variety of recipes, and quickly came up with a plan.

First I started the filling – I cubed a russet potato and boiled the pieces for about ten minutes. Once they were drained I mashed them with jack cheese and Fage yogurt. There was way too much filling for the amount of dough I made, but hey, extra mashed potatoes.

Making the pierogi dough is very similar to making traditional pasta. I had two cups of flour, two eggs, a splash of olive oil, and 1tsp of salt. As I started mixing in the flour into the egg, I also worked in 1/2 cup of warm water into the mixture. Once the dough was smooth, it was wrapped and put into the fridge for thirty minutes.

Then I cut the dough into fourths…

Then again into 1” pieces.

The pictures are inconsistent here because I had to play around with the contrast as I was taking the photos late at night. Anyways, to make the dumpling I would flatten out the piece with my palm, then take the flattened piece and pull it from the outside like I would with pizza dough until I could get it as thin as possible. The pieces would tear on occasion though and I think using a pasta roller would be much faster and more consistent.

I sealed each pierogi by pinching the ends, then using a fork to make the impressions on the edge, really just for aesthetics.

Once your water hits a rolling boil, add the dumplings, and turn down the heat just a bit so it won’t reach a rolling boil again. You don’t want the dumplings to tear apart.

The next set of photos are from the the following day, because these photos came out much better. I’ve been saving bacon fat lately…

…so I warmed some up in a cast iron skillet and started frying chopped bacon. When the bacon was almost done I added the pierogis.

Below are the pierogis plated with some bacon and some hot bacon fat poured over.

They were delicious, with my only complaint being that the dough was a little too thick. Using the pasta roller should help. I look forward to making these again. One great thing about this recipe is that you can really use the “kitchen sink” approach and use almost anything in the filling. Cabbage, beef, or onions all come to mind.

But one benefit that I had not planned on is that I’ve met a handful of bonafide foodies who have been kind of enough to guide me in my on-going food adventure, particularly in the area of Korean and Chinese cuisine.

Shamefully, my previous residence was right by Buford Highway (slightly ITP), yet I rarely took a chance and tried anything new; Penang and Little Szechuan was pretty much it. I’m doing my best to make up for it, any chance I get. So when Chloe agreed to take me along to Wan Lai, which she and Bliss have both written up recently, I was pumped.

We met up for lunch, which had drawn a large crowd – always a good sign. I would have been lost trying to order from their large menu, but Chloe quickly suggested a few items, “Jimmy – congee or three dumpling soup?” Before I could answer, she answers herself, “Let’s get both!”. (please watch that video, it’s awesome!)

Chloe placed our order, after which the waiter counted out all seven dishes, then looked at us with a quizzical and sarcastic look. Move it along. We’re hungry.

With my recent Sichuan experimentation, I was interested to see how Cantonese differed. While writing this post, I did some research, and discovered that many of the dishes/ingredients we ate at Wan Lai are Cantonese mainstays – congee, century eggs, and beef chow fun are all staples. Similar to Sichuan, stir-frying, braising, and steaming are the primary cooking methods, but Cantonese sauces are often much lighter and less intense and full of heat as Sichuan. The most often used spice is Chinese 5 spice, which can actually vary and have more than 5 spices, though anise, fennel, and cinnamon are almost always going to be included.

So there’s a small bit of knowledge. But how did it taste? Well, it was one of the best all around Chinese meals I’ve had. I love the heat and boldness of Sichuan, but Wan Lai is rocking. You need to get out there and try it. Order a ton like we did, and you’ll be left with enough leftovers for 3-4 meals. Lucky for me, Chloe doesn’t like leftovers.

<><><>

Dish #1: Century egg congee. The eggs looked like mushrooms to me at first, but read the century egg link and you’ll understand. Much like porridge, this wasn’t bad, but can be very plain tasting if you don’t get a big bite of pork and egg. Worth a try if you haven’t had it.

Dish #2: Three dumpling soup. This was ridiculously good. Chinese cabbage (appeared much like broccoli rabe to me), amazing broth, and firm, crunchy (from the shrimp) dumplings. I had to pace myself at this point.

Dish #3: Beef Chow Fun. I loved the beef and the delicious noodles in this dish. The beef was soft, succulent, and texturally awesome. The flavor of the whole dish was overpowered by bean sprouts to me, but this is definitely something to try.

Dish #4: Fried Rice. Eh, it was fried rice, not bad, but too filling for me to waste valuable stomach space on, except for the wonderful pork mixed in with the rice.

Dish #5: Ong choy water spinach. Tubular and leafy greens, sautéed with garlic in a light sauce. I loved this, please try it. 

Dish #6: Pork belly and taro casserole. This was one of the casseroles that takes 20 minutes or so for them to prepare, but I didn’t even notice the wait with all the other food on our table. The sauce was rich, very sweet, obvious 5 spice flavor, and there was tons of pork belly and taro. I thought taro is a root vegetable, but you actually eat the “corm”, which is like a root, but it’s actually an underground stem.

Dish #7: Garlic fried chicken – Ridonkulous. Perfectly crispy and covered with garlic, you are going to want to savor the skin on this bird.

Continuing through the Land of Plenty cookbook…

Today is just a quick post, but I get to gleefully delve into one of my favorite Chinese snacks, dumplings. There are roughly 22,632 ways you can prepare dumplings, but this preparation just happens to be the “Zhong” Crescent Dumplings. Fuschia says this is a traditional New Year’s dish in Northern China, but did you know you are allowed to make them whenever your little heart desires? It’s true.

I’ve made dumplings a few times in the past, always using the wonton and dumpling wrappers you can buy at most any grocery store. I plan on making my own dumpling dough soon, but I made these along with the Dan Dan noodles and using pre-made wrappers is a big time saver, and the taste/texture is great as far as I’m concerned. These wrappers are from Super H but you can usually get them near the refrigerated produce at any Kroger or Publix. I bought these frozen so you can stock up and just pop a package in the refrigerator earlier in the day when you need to use them, they defrost very quickly.

I don’t have many pictures, but here’s the quick run-down of preparing the dumplings:

First create the filling for your dumplings. I used almost 1lb of ground pork, 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine, 1 egg, salt and pepper, and almost one cup of water in which I had soaked a large piece of ginger. The filling was very paste-like, per the recipe.

Next, setup your dumpling prep station. Have your wrappers ready to go, your filling bowl next to that, a small bowl of water for sealing, and a plate to put the finished dumplings.

Lay the dumpling in your hand, add a tsp of filling, then seal the dumpling by dipping your finger in water, then run your finger around the edge, fold the dumpling over, and ensure a tight seal. If you fold the wrapper over and create some dimples you have the standard crescent shape. I did this with a few of them, but I also chose to try another folding method I saw here (pictured below).

Put the finished dumpling on your lightly floured plate (you may not need flour if they aren’t sticky). Repeat for what seems like eternity.

Now that you’ve finished folding a million dumplings, you are ready to cook. I’ve always cooked my dumplings in the pot sticker style, pan frying for a minute or two, then steaming them. This recipe calls to boil the dumplings, so I was interested to see how they would turn out.

Boil a pot of water, as soon as the water is close to a rolling boil, add as many dumplings as you can to your pot without overcrowding. As soon as the water reaches a rolling boil, pour in one cup of cold water. This keeps the water from boiling too hard, potentially breaking the dumpling. Repeat this boil/cold water step two more times. After the third cycle your dumplings should be done. Gently remove them from the water (a metal strainer works perfectly), shake off the excess water, then serve immediately with your dipping sauce.

What dipping sauce? A dipping sauce of aromatic soy sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, and crushed garlic is recommended. You can use regular soy sauce, but the cookbook has a recipe for the sweet, aromatic soy sauce which you can create ahead of time.

Creating the soy sauce is easy and it’s really tasty. Simmer 1/3 cup of soy sauce and 2/3 cup of water, add star anise, red chilies, ginger, Sichuan pepper, cinnamon bark, and 4 tbsp of brown sugar for about 20 minutes.

Strain the solids from the liquid, then you are left with a deeply aromatic and flavorful soy sauce. This stuff is worth the effort and you will have plenty leftover to use for a variety of dipping sauces.

With the dan dan noodles and dumplings I drank a bottle of 2005 Carl Schmitt-Wagner Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Spätlese. A sweeter wine like this goes nicely with the spicy Sichuan food.

It had a faded gold color with some aromas of sweet cantaloupe and orange cream. The wine coated my tongue well, it was not overly sweet, and it kind of had a “Sprite” effect going on. The finish was fairly long and tasty, ending with a frothy cream texture. It could use a bit more acidity for me but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was even better the next day.

The dumplings themselves were the best I’ve ever made. The texture was perfect, soft, and slightly sticky, not gummy or rubbery at all. The filling was fairly bland, but that’s what the dipping sauce is for. I could have happily eaten 20 of these things. Too bad I had to share. :-(

[nggallery id=35]

Today I have another quick bite post, this time from my lunch with Aaron this past Saturday at Chef Liu on Buford Highway. I used to live over near here, and I was also recently nearby at Delicious Kabob, but I have never noticed the small restaurant in the middle of a strip mall parking lot. The restaurant itself is like a glorified shack/sun room. There is a sliding glass door, with two eating areas, each just having a handful of tables. You might not guess there is good food here when driving by.

Aaron has been on a mission to find Xia Long Bao (soup dumplings) since he recently discovered them at Joe’s Shanghai Restaurant in New York, claiming that the mixture of soup and dumpling is the shizz, like whoa. I’ve read about these in Bon Appetit so I was savvy to the dish, and it sounded pretty cool. A rich stock/soup is turn solid using plain jello, then put inside a dumpling and steamed, then when you eat it, you bite the dumpling to pierce the exterior, slurp out the soup, and eat the dumpling. It kind of makes me think of inside out won ton soup. Speaking of which, remember “Inside Out Boy”? Good show.

I have no baseline for comparison, but these Xia Long Bao were pretty tasty. There wasn’t a whole lot of soup, and Aaron said the same thing, but they are definitely worth a try. The dumpling itself was tasty, slightly chewy, with a nice sweet filling.

My favorite was the fried pork dumplings, basically what I know to be a pot sticker. They were served bottom side up, perfectly crispy, not burned at all, and not runny or soggy on top. Little known fact – I could eat pot stickers every day.

Above is a spicy cold noodle salad. I’m not sure of the type of noodle, but they were very doughy and filling. It tasted fresh and was a good side dish, but I couldn’t eat too much of it.

The shoddy picture above is the infamous leek pie. This was fantastic. Clear noodles, egg, leeks, maybe pork?, all fried up with some other fantastic flavors. We wish we had ordered more than one.

We also ordered a won ton soup, which was decent. The broth wasn’t too salty, which I like, and though it had seaweed and cilantro in it, it wasn’t all that flavorful. The actual dumplings in the soup were tasty though. We split all of this food and we definitely did not finish it all. Liu’s is a good value and I recommend heading over that way for a casual snack/meal.

Yelp: Chef Liu

Yesterday I continued to use the dumpling wrappers I used for yesterday’s wonton post, this time for my favorite ever….pot stickers. 

I did some research on the interwebz and below is the recipe I sort of created using many sources of inspiration. I guess that makes it somewhat original.

Pot Sticker Ingredients – Makes 30-35

•  1/2 cup Napa Cabbage, chopped
• 1/4 lb ground pork
• 1/4 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped
• 1 stalk green onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
• 1 tsp soy saunce
• 1 tsp ginger, minced
• 1/4 cup canned bamboo shoots
• 3/4 tsp corn starch
• Round dumpling wrappers
• Dipping sauce – 1 tsp garlic chili sauce, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tsp sesame oil, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp rice wine vineger

To start, place all of the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl, and toss to coat. Ensure that your cabbage has been drained of excess water. Using a tip from one site, I put the chopped cabbage in some cheese cloth with some salt and squeezed out the water. If you do not get the water out, your dumplings will be soggy on the inside. That’s also the reason for the corn starch – it acts as a binder and sucks up excess liquid. 

Once everything is mixed well, give it a few twirls in your food processor. 

Place roughly 1/2 to 3/4 tbsp of filling in each wonton, wet the edges with finger (I set up a bowl of water to dip my finger into), and seal it up. I have a picture of my ready-to-cook pot sticker at the top of this post. There are plenty of videos online showing you how to pinch/seal a pot sticker but I didn’t make the time to watch one yet. Don’t judge me. 

Then, heat 1-2 tbsp of canola oil in a pan which has a top to it. When it’s hot, but not smoking, add your pot stickers. If you crowd them, you will have sticking problems later. Let them cook in the oil for a couple of minutes while you go fill up a glass with 3/4 cup of hot water. 

Get your pan top ready, then pour in the water and quickly seal the pan with the top. Reduce the heat to medium and let them steam for 5 minutes or so. At 5 minutes, take the top off, let them cook for a minute or so more, then do your best to remove them from the pan. 

Here is how mine came out. 

Pros: The filling was great (the small amount of shrimp added great flavor), the pot stickers were satisfying, so overall I was happy with attempt #1
Cons: A few of them stuck and the dumplings tore open. Also, I would like them a little crispier on the bottom even though I steamed them. Maybe I need to play around with the amount of water I use and also the cooking time. They kind of came out more like Gyoza. 
Other:  The dipping sauce was just average. I am going to have to play around with the recipe and do some online research.