All Recipes Archives - Page 5 of 7

Chilled Cucumber with Garlic Recipe

All Recipes, Chinese recipes, Dumpling Sides Recipes, Gluten Free Recipes

My friend Katie Sullivan Morford of Afghan Cooking Unveiled is a writer and mom to three beautiful girls. She recently asked me , “So if you’re planning on making a meal of Asian dumplings, what can you serve on the side?” A whole host of goodies was my response. This little cucumber salad is one that I frequently whip up. It’s crunchy, tangy, and has a garlicky bite that’s perfect alongside the chewy richness of dumplings such as pot stickers, poached water dumplings (jiaozi) and fried spring rolls. The cucumber provides nice textural contrast. Plus, it’s served cold so there’s a cooling effect as well.

I first ordered this dish as an accompaniment to Shanghai soup dumplings. The restaurant’s preparation was kind of crude in that they left the seeds in the cucumber and there was so much garlic that suffice it to say, I was glad that my husband and I had been together for decades! This isn’t quite a dish for first dates. At home, I researched the recipe in my library and came across a similar dish called “Smacked Cucumbers” in Fuschia Dunlop’s inspiring Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province. Her Hunan recipe called for whacking the cucumbers with the side of a heavy cleaver so as to open up the pores in the cucumbers and help them soak up the flavors. Interesting but not attractive is what I found out when I tried the technique. And the seeds were never removed in Dunlop’s recipe just like at the restaurant.

Slanted Door’s Hue Rice Dumplings Recipe (Banh Xep Chay)

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I know you’ll think me crazy, but to mark the release of Asian Dumplings this week, I made a new dumpling. It’s one that I can’t get out of my mind. Every time I’ve ordered the Hue rice dumplings at Charles Phan’s Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, I’m tickled by their dainty appearance and rich mung bean and caramelized shallot flavor. The garnish of rich scallion oil and spicy soy sauce imparts extra plush and savory qualities. The dumplings are slightly chewy and soft and a bit translucent, a result of the wrapper being made from rice flour and tapioca starch. Slanted Door names these morsels Hue rice dumplings as they are similar to a tapioca-based Hue dumpling called banh bot loc, a classic dumpling from the central region of Vietnam, which many associate with the former imperial city of Hue. (For a banh bot loc recipe, see Asian Dumplings, page 147).

But the restaurant’s dumpling is actually more akin to a rice and tapioca starch dumpling called banh xep (“baan sehp”), which literally means “folded dumpling,” or turnover. Semantics aside, the Slanted Door’s rice dumpling is a delicious Vietnamese and vegan snack. Meat lovers won’t feel shorted whatsoever.

Japanese Octopus Dumpling Balls Recipe (Takoyaki)

All Recipes, Asian Ingredients, Japanese Dumpling Recipes

Let me just say this upfront: Many dumplings are spherical in shape and can only be described as balls. Go ahead and giggle like I did during the four-day Asian Dumplings photo shoot when photographer Penny De Los Santos repeatedly said “balls” to break up the tension. But seriously, round shaped dumplings have a large presence in the Asian dumpling repertoire. Consider classic Asian dumplings such as fried Chinese sesame balls (jin duei) and Indian gulab jamum (once referred to in a recipe as cakey balls). I’ll stop with the innuendos.

What got me hooked on making Japanese takoyaki is not their shape, nor the fact that their name literally means octopus balls, reflecting that they are traditionally filled with chunks of cooked octopus. Takoyaki resemble French profiteroles but they combine an unusual array of savory ingredients – dashi stock hydrates the wheat flour batter, the filling includes raw, cooked, and pickled items, and garnishes comprise mayonnaise, seaweed, shaved bonito flakes and tonkatsu sauce, which tastes like Worcestershire sauce. All of these seemingly disparate ingredients give donut-like takoyaki a savory, rich, tangy, sea-like taste. These dumplings remind me of Japan’s quirky culture and its penchant for building layer upon layer of subtlety to create wonderful foods.

Almost Meatless Pork and Vegetable Pot Stickers Recipe

All Recipes, Books, Chinese Dumpling Recipes

Asian dumplings are generally not meaty affairs. Even when a dumpling is filled with pork and Chinese/garlic chives (a classic northern Chinese approach), the quantity of pork used is stretched over a lot of dumplings. Eating eight of such kinds of jiaozi dumplings would never be like eating a steak! Because of limited resources and large populations, the Asian diet is one built on consuming little meat. There just isn’t much to go around. Without doubt, things are different nowadays in urban centers in Asia and in countries such as the United States where we have a relatively plentiful supply of food. In well-off countries like America, there’s a growing movement to cut back on meat consumption for health and ecological reasons. In the long run, it’s better for our bodies and planet if we consume less meat.

But just because you’re trying to cut back on eating meat, it doesn’t mean that you have to suffer through eating bland food. These pot stickers filled with a savory vegetable-and-bit-of-meat filling prove just that. The recipe comes from Almost Meatless, a terrific new cookbook by Tara Desmond and Joy Manning. Tara and Joy held a virtual potluck party today and as a guest, I brought these dumplings, prepared from recipe in their cookbook. They named their preparation “Pork Pot stickers” but it’s the vegetable combination that steals the show. The dumplings are scrumptious and I have to admit that there wasn't much left before I 'officially' go to the potluck by publishing this post! To graze on all the contributions, visit their sites: Crumbsonmykeyboard.com and Whatiweightoday.com

Vietnamese Rice and Pork Pyramid Dumplings Recipe (Banh Gio)

All Recipes, Gluten Free Recipes, Rice Dumpling Recipes, Technique Videos and Photos, Vietnamese Dumpling Recipes

If you’re enamored by dumplings at all, you
probably have a list of comforting favorites. I’m partial to this Vietnamese
dumpling wrapped in banana leaf as it was part of my childhood. My mother
prepared dozens of these northern Vietnamese bánh giò (“baan zaw”) for our
family to enjoy for breakfast or an afternoon snack. Commonly found at
Vietnamese delis and sandwich shops, these dumplings are best when made at home
and eaten fresh from the steamer, when they are soft and redolent of the
tealike fragrance of the banana leaf wrapper. Inside, the firmish-soft rice
dough encases a savory pork, shallot, and wood ear mushroom.

After my siblings and I left home for college, my
mother stopped making them on a regular basis. I missed them dearly and last
month, I put in a request for a batch and a lesson. She obliged and the recipe
and video below showcase her nifty Viet-American technique that involves
banana leaf (traditional) with aluminum foil (New World). It’s totally simple
to master, even for novices.

Indian Rice and Lentil Dumplings with Coconut Cilantro Chutney Recipe (Kuzhi Paniyaram)

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You don’t have to have all the proper, culturally specific equipment to make authentic Asian dumplings. For example, I use a Mexican tortilla press as a shortcut to preparing many dumpling wrappers. One late night while watching TV, an infomercial for a cast iron pancake puff pan (round baseball-like pancakes similar to Danish abelskiver/ebelskiver) caught my eye. “That pan is perfect for Indian kuzhi paniyaram, Japanese takoyaki, and Vietnamese banh khot,” I said to myself. The pan’s semi-spherical wells were bout 2 inches wide at the top, so not too big and not too small, versatile enough for many kinds of Asian dumplings. I bought one from Bed Bath and Beyond (one of the “As Seen on TV” pancake puff pans) but later noticed that they’re available online and at shops such as Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table, etc.

My friend Shiyam Sundar, a chef from South India, introduced me to these kuzhi paniyaram — light, crisp dumplings made from a rice and lentil batter studded with spices and aromatics. Shiyam was sous chef at Amber India in San Jose, CA, but was unable to renew his visa and thus forced to return to India last month. I was feeling sad as he very much wanted to remain in America and cook Indian food with fresh California ingredients. Thinking of him, I took out the pancake puff pan and made kuzhi paniyaram.