A bitter melon canoe

There is something amazingly seductive about bitter melon. Appreciating its bitter taste is itself a culture, comparable to the tea culture in China and that of wine in Italy. Having been eating it stir-fried for a while, I am beginning to crave for a change. What about making a toy out of the food! This time, I decide to make a canoe out of the bitter melon. To keep the melon juicy, I'd give it a thin coating of meat spread and Genovese pesto. Pesto is an Italian sauce of fresh basil, garlic, olive oil and salt. By itself, it already has a rich flavor, so the dish does not need extra seasoning.


Recipe: Bitter melon boat with pork and pesto (make 4)


Ingredients:
- 1 small bitter melon, quartered longitudinally and removed of seeds
- 2 tablespoon (TB) lean minced pork
- 1 TB fine bread crumbs (optional)
- dash of sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
- water
- 2 TB pesto sauce
- 2 cherry tomatoes


Procedure:
Mix minced pork, 1 TB pesto sauce and bread crumbs with equal portion of water. Add cornstarch and sugar. Mix well to form a smooth paste. Spread very thinly on the interior of each slice of bitter melon. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes or until pork is cooked. The bitter melon should be semi-cooked and juicy. Spread a thin coat of pesto sauce on the meat. Top with half a cherry tomato. It's unbelievable how the sweet and sour taste of that tiny cherry tomato strikes a contrast with the rest of the flavors!

Kale and cheeses

Of course I like fine food and classy eating. But I like some of the recipes with lowly ingredients even better. These are recipes that make wonder out of the most earthly and ordinary resources available. So often, they were developed during times of hardship, when people were forced to sharpen their culinary skills to make for the scarcity of resources. Such are dishes that reflect the fine art of eating that is universal to all, not just limited to the elite. Recently, I decided to explore the potential of the big rough kale, which is still cheaply available in this season when many other vegetables are becoming expensive because of seasonal change.

Recipe: Baked kale and cheeses (for 2-3)


Ingredients:
- 1 bunch kale, finely chopped to 3 cups
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 2 oz polska sausage, very thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup fat-free ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoon mozzarella cheese, shredded
- a little oil
- water


Procedure:
Boil kale in water and garlic until very soft, about 45 minutes. Drain of liquid. Mix ricotta cheese with egg. Then add in kale and mix well. Pour into a small baking pan coated with oil. Spread sausage slices to cover the top. Then sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350F covered for 30 minutes. Then turn off oven, uncover pan and keep in oven for up to 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Stir-frying a colorful mix

It took me a while to find out what to do with a purple cabbage that I just bought out of curiosity. Apparently, most of the recipes I found on the web were either salads, or sweet-and-sour dishes which de-colorize the cabbage. I would like to have a dish that highlights the purple color of this cabbage. So once again, I turned to stir frying, which often gives the hard vegetables a chance to shine.



Recipe: A colorful stir-fry of pork, purple cabbage and carrot (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 5-6 oz pork, cut into long thin strips of 1/4"x1/4" thick
- 1 small carrot, cut into thin strips of 2" long
- 4-5 leaves of purple cabbage, cut into long strips of 1/8" thick
- 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
- 3 tablespoon (TB) oil
- 1 TB sesame oil
- 2 teaspoon (tp) light soy sauce
- 1/8 tp sugar
- 1/8 tp salt
- 1/8 tp cornstarch
- dash of pepper
- 1 stalk spring onions, thinly sliced

Procedure:

Mixture pork with 1 TB oil, 1 TB sesame oil. Then add soy sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper. When well mixed, add cornstarch and mix thoroughly. Let set for 10-15 minutes. Heat a pan on med heat. spread the pork on pan and spread out evenly. Loosen any pieces that attach to each other. Turn up heat to med-high. Let sizzle for 1/2 minute. Stir to cook all sides evenly but only briefly. Don't overcook. Take pork out of pan. Add 2 TB oil and chopped garlic. Once garlic sizzles, add carrot and purple cabbage to stir fry for a few minutes. Add back the pork and stir well. Add spring onions and serve right away.

Thanksgiving is special

Thanksgiving often brings back the fond memory of a special friend who made this festival truly a time of thanksgiving. It was few years back when I was still in graduate school. As with most international students who had no homes to return for a festival, I was planning to work all day on research in the office. Lunch time drew near. My friend called and said she was going to come over to my office. I was surprised that she wasn't at her parents'. Shortly she showed up with a whole big package of food, all fresh and warm from the kitchen. It was her mother's cooking for the day. She came just to deliver this special meal. After she left, I opened the containers and found myself dazzled by the array of traditional Thanksgiving dishes. There were meats, squash, sweet peas (so sweet that, to date, I still feel it in my mouth!), desserts and much more. Though I was munching alone in the office, I felt as if eating this meal at my friend's home with her family. So warm! This Thanksgiving, I find myself doing the same thing as she did. After each day of busying and running around, I find my night lovely and my dream sweet with new thoughts of food. Thank God for such a gift of joy.

Seafood dinner

Ever since I saw scallops on sale in the market, my thoughts had been lingering on how to cook a fresh seafood dinner. Finally a day arrived that the dream materialized. I got a simple recipe from the man who sold me the scallops at the grocery store. The sample he offered me tasted great. So I came home and tested it.


Recipe: Poached fresh scallops (for 1-2)

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb scallops
- 1 cup drinking white wine
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 3 tablespoon (TB) Dijon mustard


Ingredients of sauce:
- 2 teaspoons (tp) olive oil
- 2 tp hoisin sauce
- 1 TB light soy sauce


Mix white wine, chicken stock and mustard in a pan and boil. Then poach the scallops until translucent. Mix hoisin sauce, oil and soy sauce on heat until integrated. Pour onto scallop and serve.
(If to be eaten without the sauce, then use 1/2 cup Dijon mustard instead of 3 TB when poaching the scallops. That's the original recipe from the man who sold me the scallops.) 

I served it along with a dish of baked crab meat balls that I bought from a grocery store. They made a special little dinner. In this Thanksgiving week, it's first for me to thank my husband for the past whole year of love and encouragement. 

Yu Choy? What's that!

It took me a little while to figure out that "yu choy" (or "choy sum") and Chinese broccoli are two different things, though they always seem to be put together in the international markets. It's through experiments that I discovered that yu choy does not fry the same way as Chinese broccoli. Yu choy is more tender, with more water content. So it withers on heat in less than no time. Just a little cooking is enough to bring out its best. So I decided to blanch it this time. The stems of yu choy can be served as a dish by itself, while the leaves can go to a soup.


Recipe: Blanched Yu Choy stems (for 2-3)


Ingredients:
- 1 lb yu choy
- 2 quart soup stock, or hot water with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 tablespoon oil
- 2 tablespoon Chinese shacha sauce (also called Chinese BBQ sauce)


Procedure:
Break the leaves and the stems off a yu choy. Wash carefully to remove sand. Separate stems from leaves. In a 3 quart pot, boil soup-stock (or hot water with salt and oil) on med-high to high heat. While liquid is boiling hard, dip a few yu choy stems into pot and let cook for 20 seconds or until its green freshens up. Take out immediately. Set on a plate. Repeat for the other stems until all are cooked. Serve with Chinese sesame BBQ sauce.

Now the leaves of yu choy are even more tender than the stems. So you could add them to some soup at the very last minute before serving. In fact, what I do is to cook the soup first, use it to blanch the yu choy stems and serve them separately. Then add the remaining leaves to the soup and serve.

Veal for a king's evening

Someone has said that a man could work like a horse all day, as long as there is something that he feels worth laboring for at the end of the day. When I see my husband labor all day, even after work hours and during weekends, I feel the deep urge to make things a little more comfortable around him. At least, let there be something that he could enjoy. One weekend, I decided to cook out a feast, and let him be served as a king. Kings are not idle people. On the contrary, they are very busy, which is why they need to be so well taken care of.


Recipe: Breaded veal with spicy tomato sauce (for 2-3)


Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb of 1/2" thin veal chop, de-boned and trimmed of fat
- 1/4 cup fine bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup white flour
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoon (TB) oil
- about 7 cherry tomatoes
- 2 TB unsalted tomato sauce
- 1 teaspoon spicy salad oil
- dash of italian seasoning
- parsley (for garnishing)
- 3 cherry tomatoes (for garnishing)
- 1/2 lime (for garnishing)


Procedure:
1. Spread bread crumbs and white flour separately in plates. Beat an egg and put it in a bowl. For each piece of veal, first coat with white flour, then dip into egg, lastly coat with bread crumbs. 
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a flat non-stick frying pan. Place breaded veal pieces in pan to lightly brown each side on medium heat (about 3 minutes). The breaded veal should like bright golden. Place browned pieces on paper towel for 5 minutes to absorb any excess moisture or oil. Then place all browned pieces in a baking tray. Bake in oven at 350F for 30 minutes or until the golden color has deepened to light brown.
3. While veal is in oven, prepare the spicy sauce. Cut 7 cherry tomatoes into halves. Heat spicy salad oil, and unsalted tomato sauce on medium heat. Add a dash of italian seasoning and the tomato halves. Stir to prevent sticking. After 5 minutes, turn off heat and let set. The tomatoes will slowly soften.
4. When veal is ready, serve with spicy tomato sauce. Garnish it well with lime, whole cherry tomatoes and parsley. A well presented dish makes up half the joy of fine dining, especially in day-to-day life.

The joy of sharing a homemade corn bread

This is one of those grey saturday mornings of slowness. My husband was busily working at his desk while I was getting the freezer organized. A bag of cornmeal reminded me of the homemade corn bread that my friend made. How sweetly delicious... Sometimes I'd lament over my body's intolerance to carbohydrates. But then, a thought crossed my mind. Though I cannot eat too much carbohydrates, how nice it would be to share it with those who can. This way, it won't rob me of the joy of cooking, and them of the pleasure of eating. So I took out my friend's recipe and quickly worked out a mixture for the corn bread. Shortly, our house started to be filled up with a romantically sweet smell of baking. Just when the corn bread came out of the oven, and I was preparing to deliver half to our neighbor, our postman arrived. So he got a fresh share of it, too. Here is my friend's recipe of the homemade corn bread, which I modified a little. How much I love my friend's excellent recipes! 

Recipe: Homemade corn bread (for 4-6)


Ingredients:
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup white flour
- 2 tablespoon (TB) sugar
- 1 TB baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 TB butter
- 3 TB oil
- 1 cup evaporated skim milk
- 1 egg


Procedure: 
Combine dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and mix well. Cut butter into 1/4" pieces and mix in. Add milk, oil, and egg. Mix thoroughly. Pour into a 8x8 baking pan coated with Pam. Bake at 425F for 20-25 minutes.

Life is so abundant when it is shared.

A spicy tofu and vegetable pot

I have a huge appetite for vegetables. Since we were married, my husband has started getting into vegetables too. Being the cook of the house means daily looking out for new types of fresh greens, and imagining new ways to cook familiar ones. What I've discovered is that many people like vegetables that are tasty but not soggy. For this reason, the kappa cabbage is great, particularly when it's cooked with Chinese sausage in a soup pot. The kappa cabbage acts like a sponge to suck up the flavor of the soup. One popular type of Korean kimchi is made with this cabbage. Here is a tofu and vegetable pot I tried. The flavor of the dish comes primarily from the Chinese sausage, dried shrimps and kimchi. It's not too spicy or salty, and can be eaten in huge quantities.


Recipe: Tofu and vegetable pot with kimchi (for 2-4)


Ingredients: 
- 1 package of soft tofu, cut into cubes
- 6 large leaves of a kappa cabbage, sliced to 1" pieces
- 1 Chinese sausage
- 1 teaspoon dried shrimps
- a few fish balls
- 3 slices of ginger
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoon (TB) kimchi
- 2 TB sesame oil
- 1 stalk spring onion finely chopped
- 1 stalk Chinese parsley finely chopped


Procedure:
Boil Chinese sausage, dried shrimps, fish balls, ginger, garlic and kimchi in a pot with 2 cups water for 20 minutes. Then use a sieve to dip kappa cabbage into the soup to boil to cook it lightly. If there is not enough soup to cook all the cabbage at once, then cook in batch. Take out the cabbage before it's fully cooked, and set it in a serving bowl with lid. It will continue to soften in the bowl. After cooking the cabbage, add tofu to the pot. When tofu is done, pour the soup and everything from the pot to the serving bowl. Cover lid to keep warm (for no longer than 10 minutes). Serve with sesame oil and garnish with spring onion and Chinese parsley.

An unusual breakfast with bitter melon

You can tell that I really love bitter melon. It's just something special, with no parallels among all vegetables. Here is a bitter melon omelette, made with 1 small melon (very thinly sliced) and 3 eggs, plus a dash of salt, pan-fried in 2-3 tablespoon oil. It makes an exciting breakfast treat to start a good day!

Serving one another

One morning while I was cooking a meal for a family, many fond memories floated up. Everyone has some days that simply need a helping hand. During graduate school, there was a time that I was too occupied to even feed myself. For 10 days, I was working non-stop on a paper. Amazingly, throughout that whole week, every day there was some friend stopping by my office to provide me dinner. Sometimes, it was an classmate who was on his way to buy his own dinner; other times it was a friend or housemate with fresh homemade food. I never asked them to, nor did they coordinate among themselves. By divine providence, I simply did not starve a single day. Therefore, now it's such a joy for me to join the ladies in church to arrange a meal plan for a family who just added a newborn member. This family are Korean, so I thought about something Asian for them. What came to mind was a beef rice dish I made that many have liked. This recipe uses a rice cooker. In this recipe, the raw beef is cooked in the heat and the steam of the rice, so it is very tender when served right off the cooker.


Recipe: Douchi beef with jasmine rice (for 2-3)


Ingredients:
- 12 oz lean beef, cut to thin 1" long strips
- 2 tablespoon (TB) oil
- 2 teaspoon (tp) sesame oil
- 1.5 TB Garlic black bean paste (douchi sauce)
- 1/4 tp sugar
- 1 TB dark soy sauce
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 spring onions chopped
- 1 TB cooking wine (optional)
- 1.5 cup jasmine rice uncooked
- water


Procedure:
1. Marinate lean beef with oil, sugar, cooking wine, garlic and douchi sauce for 20 minutes.
2. Cook 1.5 cup jasmine rice in equal amount (1.5 cup) water. When the rice cooker is still on "cooking" but water in the rice has mostly evaporated, add in the marinated beef and mix with rice. Let cooking continue until cooker automatically jumps to "keep-warm". Sprinkle dark soy sauce and sesame oil on rice. Replace cover and let it keep warm for 15-30 minute, during which the aroma of sesame oil will fill out the kitchen and announce to everyone that food is ready. Serve with fresh chopped spring onion on top.
Note: If half the portion size is cooked, then add beef immediately after rice cooker has jumped to "keep-warm". Cut short the keep-warm period to about 15 minutes.

First encounters with shrimps

Shrimp is one of the simplest to cook, provided they are fresh. As with most other seafood, it is very sensitive to heat. It takes only a few minutes to get done. One more minute, and it will be overcooked. My first shrimp experiments have been generally successful. The shrimps are fresh, though not alive. So I marinate them with a little sugar (1 teaspoon sugar to 1/2 lb of shrimps) and let them sit in the fridge for 2 hours. The sugar helps make the shrimps more crisp instead of rubbery. Before cooking, I drain the water from the shrimp. Then just pan fry them in a little oil. It's better to shell the shrimps before frying. This enables faster and better cooking. I also clean the interiors of the shrimps while shelling. In the first minute of frying, the shrimps sizzle a bit in the water they give out. Then the bottom side turns pink. It's time to flip to the other side. When the other side is done, take it out. Sprinkle a dash of salt and pepper if desired.

Homey congee of pork

Nothing comforts the heart half as much as a thick savory soup in a wet and chilly day. Some years ago, when I was a student, I was boarding with a family. They were a very energetic and loving family that made me very at home living with them. One day, when I came back from school, the whole family was resting in the dining dinner. The mother just had an operation. The others were down with a cold, or just too exhausted. After some thought, I decided to go to the kitchen and cook them a congee for dinner. A congee is a Chinese comfort food for kids, and for adults when they feel weak. The cooking took a while. By the time the congee was done, the household was teeming with life again. Everyone had been awakened by the aroma and the warmth. We had a lovely dinner together that night, filled with joy. Here is my congee recipe. If it is too simple to make any sense, I have a detailed one below the picture.

Simple Recipe of Pork congee with preserved duck egg (for 2)

Ingredients:

- 3 quart water

- 2 pieces of pork chop

- 1/2 cup jasmine rice

- 1 preserved duck egg (the black type), chopped

- 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

- 1 cup mixed sweet peas and sweet corns (frozen)

- 1/2 teaspoon light soy sauce (or dash of salt)

- dash of pepper

- 1 tablespoon finely chopped spring onions

Procedure:

Boil pork chop in water until fully cooked. Add rice and chopped egg. Let boil for 1 hour on med-high heat, followed by 1 hour on low heat, or until the rice is half dissolved. Stir to prevent sticking. Break pork chop to fine pieces and return to pot. Add sweet peas and sweet corns and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve hot with spring onion, sesame oil, soy sauce and pepper.

A detailed recipe: Congee of pork and preserved duck egg (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 3 quart water
- 2 pieces of pork ribs 
- some bones (optional)
- 1/2 cup jasmine rice
- 1 preserved duck egg (the black type)
- 1/2 tablespoon dried shrimps
- small dumplings or fish balls (optional)
- 1/3 cup sweet corn ears (fresh or defrosted)
- 1/4 cup sweet peas (fresh or defrosted)
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon light soy sauce (or dash of salt)
- dash of pepper
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped spring onions

Procedure:

First, the preparation

• Boil pork ribs (and bones if any) in 2 quart of water for 45 minutes or until the meat is almost detached from the bone. Skim fat and de-bone the ribs. Save stock and meat for use. When de-boning the ribs, try to keep the meat in big chunks if possible, so that more tenderness of the meat is preserved to the end of cooking. 
• Meanwhile soak jasmine rice with a little cold water and 1/2 tablespoon olive oil (and a dash of salt, if desired). This soaking helps brings out the aroma of the rice.

Second, to cook the congee

• When the stock is boiling, add the soaked rice, one shelled preserved duck egg, dried shrimps and de-boned meat. Keep the stock boiling on medium high heat for 1/2 hour, so that the water circulation in the pot prevents the rice from sticking to the bottom.
  
• Turn down the heat to low and let cook for 1 hour or more. Stir occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom. Whenever the congee thickens too much, add 1/2 quart of water, stir and keep it boiling. Repeat adding water if necessary. 
  
• The most tricky part of cooking congee is to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom. If this happens at any point of cooking, just stir to help loosen the rice. Alternatively, to avoid sticking altogether, cook the congee in slow cooker on high for 4 hours. The rice needs to be half-dissolved to qualify as done.

Third, at serving time

• 15 minutes before serving, small dumplings or fish balls (if any), turn to medium high heat, and stir often to prevent sticking. (If congee is cooked in slow cooker, boil the dumplings and fish balls and add to the congee.)
  
• 5 minutes before serving, add sweet corns and sweet peas. If the meat in the congee is still in big chunks, break them gently. 
  
• Serve in bowls. Add finely chopped spring onions, sesame oil and soy sauce on top. Sprinkle with pepper.

The fun of a breakfast plate

I was chopping up vegetables for breakfast this morning, and was very amazed by their colors, shapes and textures. There is so much wonder in every one of them. I decided to toy with my breakfast plate a little, in celebration of a crisp morning.

Two green jewels for autumn

In the chilly days of autumn, two vegetables are at their prime --- the asparagus and the Chinese broccoli. I love them in the fullness of their green. I love them even more when they come fresh out of the pan, glistening like emeralds. These two vegetables are particularly good for stir-frying. They cook fast in very little oil. They do not turn soggy when done.

There was once, a friend came with me to shop in an international market. When I introduced her to the Chinese broccoli, she was puzzled to see how little bunch of flowers it produced on the stalk. Unlike the American broccoli which people eat only its flowers, the worth of a Chinese broccoli is in its stem and leaves. The two are very different in their texture and response to cooking. In fact, I even doubt if the two are indeed related. To fry Chinese broccoli well, it is important to cut the stem into thin slices. The stem needed to be fried separately from the leaves, which cook much faster. The leaves cook faster when cut into medium sized pieces, so that after they shrink, they are about the same size as the stem slices. This vegetable fries well with garlic.

The asparagus is another fine jewel of autumn. Frying heightens its flavor. I like it fried with mushroom in a spiced oil. To fry asparagus with mushroom, the mushroom must be fried first since it takes longer.
Now asparagus and mushroom have very different shapes. So I slice up the mushroom and cut the asparagus into shorter sticks. To make the frying effective, the pan must have enough room for both to lie flat on the pan surface. This really means that your frying pan can only cook as much as its bottom can handle. So the pan does not cook as much as it looks! But why does it have to look so big? That's so that you can whack your spatula around without sending the vegetables off to outer space. Asparagus is especially prone to flying around. Keep your stirring under restraint. This is a quick fry. You can tell the asparagus is done when its green freshens up.

Homemade honey pork chop

I've cooked a dish that no one has yet resisted so far.

Recipe: baked honey pork ribs cut (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 1 lb lean boneless pork rib cut (baked to 12 oz)
- 3 tablespoon (TB) BBQ sauce
- 1 TB honey
- 1/2 tp dijon mustard
- 1 tp salt
- 2 tp onion powder
- 1 tp rosemary oil


Procedure:
Cut stripes of 1/2" deep on one side of pork. Rub salt and onion powder on all surfaces and inside stripes of pork. Then rub rosemary oil. Bake at 350F covered for 30 minutes (if tender meat is desired, bake at 275F for 2 hours instead) until it smells cooked. Remove cover and brush BBQ sauce on the top side. Set oven to broil at 350F for 20 minutes or until there is baked smell of BBQ sauce. Flip. Brush BBQ sauce on other side. Broil for another 20 minutes or until sauce on top is brown. Liquid in pan should dry out. Take out from oven. Mix 1TB honey with 1tp dijon mustard. Paint on the top side. Keep warm at 150F until served, but no longer than 30 minutes.

Wrapped up in corn husk

I owe my food curiosity to my father, who tried out eating papaya with mustard and, for a change, dipped his mango into dark soy sauce. My kitchen is full of things that I've bought without knowing what they are, at the time of purchase. These things often bring surprises to an otherwise ordinary daily life.


Yesterday, when I was planning the dinner menu, I suddenly found myself run out of ideas on how to cook a big bunch of vegetables. We've already eaten casseroles, stir-fries and vegetable eggs throughout the week. It's time for a change. I opened the cabinet to browse around. Then the corn husk fell down from the shelf. It was through buying it that I found out corn husk is used in a Southern American dish called tamale. My first tamale was from a boiling recipe. It did not turn out that well. The flavor of the ingredients was lost to the liquid during the boiling. Later I found out that corn husk is like paper, it can survive high heat even when dry. So I decided to try out baking it this time. Since baking will take shorter time than boiling, I improvised a more sticky filling to speed up the caking process. This filling caked very well this time and tasted perfect, especially if eaten the next day after baking!


Recipe: An impromptu wrap with corn husk (4 wraps)
Note: corn husk can be obtained from Latin American specialty stores. In the recipe, the corn husk need to be about 8"x8" big.


Ingredients:
- 6 (tablespoon) TB soggy cooked rices
- 2 TB cream of mushroom soup paste, low salt and fat
- 4 slices honey ham
- 4 TB ricotta cheese
- 4-8 oz baby kappa cabbage, chopped to pack 2 cups
- 4 corn husk, softened with boiling water


Procedure:
1. To prepare the soggy cooked rice: cook 1/2 cup rice in 1 cup water until it is cooked and soggy. 
2. Mix 6 TB of cooked rice with 2 TB cream of mushroom soup paste. Chop baby kappa cabbage finely.
3. On a corn husk. spread one slice of ham. Add 1/4 cup of chopped cabbage, about 2 TB rice and 1 TB ricotta cheese. Roll up and fold. The wrapping part is needs some elaboration. The corn husk has veins that stretch into a fan shape, so I roll up the filling perpendicularly to the veins, like rolling up a fan. Then fold both ends. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes or until corn husk is browned. You can smell the aroma of corn bubbling in a little juice of the filling when it's done.

 

Guess what! I always pronounce "corn husk" as "horn cusk", and people give me a funny look when they hear that!

Rice cooker adventure

When one is away from one's native land, it's not always possible to find the exact ingredients and tools to produce the exact dishes back at home. But a new land opens up new doors to a new way of living. Authenticity becomes "being true to the new identity".

I have been fascinated by an Iranian friend's ways of cooking rice. I explored one of her own recipes, estamboli rice, with jasmine rice and electric rice cooker, both being more easily available to me.

Jasmine rice is short and thin. Unlike basmati rice, it needs less water and cooks fast, especially in a rice cooker. To keep the rice grainy, the ratio of precooked rice to water is about 1:1. If less water is used, the rice remains hard and absorbs liquid rapidly (best when served with stew). With more water, the rice becomes soggy (used in congee).

To make my friend's rice dish (see her recipe), I cook the beef separately first, along with all the seasonings. It already makes a tasty stew even by itself. To maximize the flavor of the rice, I boil off the liquid in the stew until just enough is needed for cooking the rice. The ratio of liquid to precooked rice is happily 1:1. I use this liquid from the stew to cook the jasmine rice in the rice cooker.

When the rice is almost done (at which point, you see plenty of steam coming out), I add the remaining ingredients of the stew into the rice and mix everything. Mix it well. Then add some sweet peas. I let the rice stay in the cooker for a while, until served. This way, the jasmine rice sucks up the flavor of the stew without turning soggy. It also prevents the meat from overcooking.

It's such a lovely treat for a wet and cold evening! Oh well, I wouldn't call it estamboli polo, lest it becomes a laughing stake to the Persians, like the American pizza to the Italians. I've yet to think of a new name for it. Meanwhile, lets make it a tribute to the creator of the original recipe.

An exotic encounter

One morning when I was browsing around the marketplace, there was some weird-looking item at a fishmonger's stall. There was the sign "skate wing on sale", and exactly two pieces in the tray. It looked like the fishermen had caught an exotic fish by accident that morning, and decided to sell it away at a lower price since it's not popular. The meat and the skin was very fresh. I do not believe in hunting species to extinction just because they are exotic. But this particularly one was already slaughtered and would head for the trash anyway, if not sold by the end of the day. So I decided to rescue it from its undeserved fate. The fishmonger was not willing to help me fillet it, since it was a cheap sale. I came home with this huge thing, wondering what it was. Its skin was very thick and slummy, totally inedible because of the small hooks all over it. I asked my father what to do. He reached for his encyclopedia to find out what is a skate, and then blissfully told me how to skin the wing. After that, he said, it could be eaten just like any other fish.

The skate skin was tough like rubber. It took me some hours to work on it, while trying to keep it chilled at the same time. After removing the skin, what was left was a few pounds of fillet, very fresh and muscular. Such meat would do very well pan-frying. The skin was another few pounds. It's such a waste to throw it away. So I boiled the skin with an onion. As it turned out, the skin dissolved into a gel with heat. After filtering away the small hooks, I got a thick fish stock jelly, that provided us a few days of seafood soup.

That evening, I told my husband our dinner was to be pan-fried skate wing with butter sauce. He nodded with a smile, though his eyes were speaking: "Skate? What's that!" At the dinner table, he took a few minutes to examine his dish. It smelled great, but looked strange. Then he took a bite. Wow! It was a rare treat. To this day my husband still boasts about that dinner. We like it, though I am also glad that I've never seen another skate since then.

A fresh imagination from the oven

The Sicilians have a sweet called the cannoli. It is a roll of pastry, stuffed with chilled creme and other flavors. In Italy, they keep the pastry and the creme separate, and put them together at the point of purchase, so that the cannoli remains crispy. What I reminisce about the cannoli is its mix of a crispy crust and chilled sweetness in one bite. So I decide to try making a sweet of such personality, not a cannoli, just a tart of my own imaginations.


Recipe: Sweet ricotta tart on a flaky crust (for one)


Ingredients:
- 1 oz of flake pie dough from recipe in "Baking with Julia"
- 3 tablespoon (TB) ricotta cheese fat-free
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- dash of confectioner's sugar
- 1 drop of vanilla extract
- dash of cardamom
- 1 sweetened cranberry


Procedure:
Roll out dough to 1/8" thick, and cover the bottom of a small tart tray (about 4TB big). Bake at 350F until golden brown (about 5-10 minutes). Crust will bubble a little while baking. When done, the crust will alert you by its inviting smell. Meanwhile, mix 3 TB ricotta cheese, 1/2 tp sugar and vanilla extract into a smooth paste. Don't over stir. Keep it chilled. When the crust is done, take it out from oven and let cool for 5 minutes or until your mouth can handle it. Fill with the cheese mix. Sprinkle a dash of cardamom, and a dash of confectioner's sugar. Top with a sweetened cranberry, which goes very well with cardamom. Serve right away.

Ever since I learnt to bake the flaky pie crust, my imaginations have grown wings! It only takes a few dough balls in the fridge to make a crust at anytime for anything. It's said that "if you could have only one pie dough in your repertoire, it would have to be [the flaky pie dough]".

Dreaming of Cornish game hen

The other day when I saw a small Cornish game hen, I came home that night dreaming about the warmth it would bring to the dinner table in a chilly day like this. So I tried out my second experiment on bird baking. I was going to stuff it this time. 

Recipe: A very simple stuffed Cornish game hen for two


Ingredients:
- one small cornish game hen 1.5 lb
- 2-3 tablespoon bread crumbs
- 1/4 small onion, finely chopped
- 3 small mushrooms finely chopped
- water


Procedure:
Mix the crumbs, onion and mushroom together. Add some water to make sure the crumbs are moist. Remove any gibbets from inside the hen. Then fill the interior with stuffing until fully packed. Bake uncovered at 350F on a rake with a drip pan for at least 1+1/2 hours. After the first 30 minutes if the top side of the chicken is too dry, rub a few drops of vegetable oil on the top side. Liquid will slowly come out of the skin as the chicken cooks. When the top side is golden brown (about 45 minutes from the start time), flip the chicken to bake the other side. Again, rub a few drops of oil on the top side when it appears too dry. The bottom side is always fine because drippings flow pass it regularly. After 1+1/2 hours, the stuffing should be really well cooked and has absorbed the fat from the chicken. This small hen does not have too much fat. It tastes very good.