Pork Loin with Pomegranate Sauce and Roast Broccoli with Jalapenos

Like most of the pictures we take of our food for the blog, this picture doesn't look very appetizing.  Actually, this picture is worse than most because the sauce looks like a pool of blood so it makes the whole experience a little... gorier than usual.  But notwithstanding how the sauce looks, it is damn good.  It is the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness, but nice and rich.  Adding the butter to the sauce at the very end made it glossy and rich.  Reducing the pomegranate juice in the porky cast iron pan made the whole dish that much porkier and more flavorful.  It also pairs really nicely with the spice rub on the outside of the pork, which isn't spicy but it does have a lot of flavor.  I would love to make this dish for a more casual dinner party - it is easy to make but it is pretty distinctive and delicious.  I think with bread, a nice salad and some veggies (roast brussels sprouts would be lovely) it would make a really nice meal that is elegant and flavorful, but not fussy.  Tonight we served the pork with broccoli we roasted with jalapeno, shallots and garlic.  Roasting broccoli is easily my favorite way to prepare it -it gets all nutty and crispy around the edges, but tender on the inside.  Sauteed broccoli tends to be a little mushier and the flavors aren't as concentrated.  The thinly sliced shallots were crispy and reminded me of onion straws or fried shallots - we usually mince or chop up our onions or shallots rather than tossing in thinly sliced rings but I will totally do the ring thing more often.  I thought they added a really nice flavor and texture to the dish.  It never would have occurred to me to add sliced jalapenos to the broccoli (that was all Alex), but they worked really nicely.  The broccoli picked up a surprising amount of flavor and heat from the jalapenos, without being too spicy.

Recipes after the jump!

Roast Salmon and Broccoli with Chili-Caper Vinaigrette

I always have my eyes peeled for new salmon and chicken recipes.  I have my favorite recipes, but I can't help thinking that there might be something better (or just different, but still worth trying) out there.  When I have a really nice thick wild salmon fillet I want to sear it and eat it medium-rare, but when the salmon doesn't seem quite as fresh or it's not quite as thick, I like to roast it. This time the salmon was a little too skinny for searing so I decided to roast it.  And then I poked around online for a bit.  The thing that really drives me nuts about salmon is how many people seem to love it lacquered or glazed with some sort of random and quasi-Asian sauce.  I feel like every third recipe I found either called for teriyaki sauce or sugar/maple syrup/honey in the marinade or glaze.  I have been suckered into one or two of those recipes and regretted it every time.  I don't want my salmon to be sticky sweet - sweet fish just doesn't do it for me.  I also don't want dairy with my fish (unless it's lox and cream cheese on a bagel).  I will make an exception for creme fraiche (on rare occasion) and butter is always fine, but I can't understand the combination of mayonnaise and salmon.  It just weirds me out.  

This recipe, which I had considered making a few times in the past, looked both easy and intriguing, which is a really nice combination for a meal mid-week.  More importantly, it didn't trigger any of my instinctive aversions (i.e. there was no mayonnaise, teriyaki or sugar required).  When we were making dinner and I saw the chili-caper vinaigrette I was a little worried that the elements of the dish wouldn't really work together.  The combination of jalapenos, rice wine vinegar, capers and evoo just seemed (and looked)... strange.  But once you put it all together the flavors worked surprisingly well together.  One commenter on Epicurious called the combination of flavors "surprisingly delicious" and that's exactly how I felt.  I thought it would be interesting at the very least, but I didn't have high expectations.  I used the vinaigrette pretty sparingly because I didn't want it to overpower the flavor of the salmon and I thought that the bright, briny and slightly spicy flavor worked really nicely with the richness of the salmon and the slightly nutty flavor of the roasted broccoli.  This recipe won't replace my favorite Salt and Pepper Salmon, but I can definitely see us making it again - it's easy and tasty.

Recipe after the jump!

Blasted Broccoli with Fish Sauce

This recipe has quickly become my new favorite broccoli recipe.  I know it doesn't look (or sound) like much, but it's the perfect side dish.  It is insanely easy to make and very tasty.  I'm not ashamed to admit that we have made it twice in the past week.  Last week Alex and I were making one of our favorite quick and easy meals (Stir-Fried Eggs with Cellophane Noodles) for dinner and I wanted a really simple side to go with the eggs.  We had some nice broccoli that we picked up at the farmers' market and I looked through a few Asian-y recipes we had made in the past with either broccoli or Chinese broccoli but none of them looked quite right.  So I Googled "broccoli fish sauce" and found this recipe on Andrea Nguyen's blog Viet World Kitchen.  And I love it. The broccoli is perfectly cooked - tender, but crispy and toasty.  Somehow it avoids the pitfall of high heat roasting - overly charred and slightly bitter veggies, as well as the pitfalls of steaming, sauteing or otherwise cooking broccoli so that it ends up kind of mushy and blah.  Beyond all that the saltiness from the fish cause provides good flavor, without obscuring the flavor of the broccoli.  I should note that we have used nice fresh broccoli from the farmers' market both times we have made the recipe, so I don't know how well this recipe would suit out of season grocery store broccoli that has less inherent flavor and tenderness.  But I am sure that at some point we will give it a try.  I might also try this with broccolini and just adjust the cooking time as necessary or try it and modify the ingredients slightly.  I bet it would work nicely to blast the broccoli in a combination of oil, s&p and then toss in a thinned out harissa paste mixture for some heat...

Recipe after the jump!

Asian Glazed Salmon and Aaron McCargo's Broccoli Slaw

Sometimes I am really creative in the kitchen - the creative juices get flowing and I start conceptualing dishes from seemingly out of nowhere.  Sometimes I have a case of cook's block.  We had wild Coho salmon from Whole Foods in the fridge and while I am generally pretty excited about wild salmon, I literally couldn't think of a single recipe I wanted to make.  My fallback recipe for wild salmon is this Salt and Pepper Salmon by Tyler Florence, but I wanted something new.  We had just made the Salt and Pepper salmon two weekends ago when we had Alex's brother over for dinner.  Plus these fillets were on the thin side so they weren't exactly ideal for the recipe.  I briefly considered making a variation on Rachel Ray's Roasted Salmon with Lemon-Herb Matzo Crust, but I wasn't really feeling it.  I halfheartedly proposed it and Alex shot it down.  So then we were back to having salmon in the fridge with no idea how to cook it.  So I decided to back into the recipe by deciding on the side dish and then figuring out what to do with the salmon.  I knew I wanted to make a broccoli slaw at some point so we settled on the broccoli slaw recipe (which, I kid you not, is called "Packin' A Punch Broccoli Slaw") and then went back to finding a simple salmon recipe to go with the slaw.  In the end we settled on an Asian Glazed Salmon recipe from the New Legal See Foods Cookbook that I found online.  I'm not typically a fan of glazed salmon (it's generally too sweet for me) but I literally couldn't think of anything else that sounded better.  And this glazed salmon was no different, even though we cut back on the amount of brown sugar in the glaze (partially because we ran out).  I think I should learn to stay away from anything with "glaze" in the title.  Beyond being a little too sweet from me, I just thought it was kind of blah.  And that is as much my fault as the recipe's since I was never really that excited about it in the first place.  It didn't do much to highlight the flavor of the salmon so it was probably not the best recipe to use with nice wild salmon.  It might make more sense with farmed salmon that doesn't have quite as much flavor or to those who don't particularly enjoy the flavor of salmon.  As for the broccoli slaw, I thought it was ok.  I liked it more than the salmon, although I wouldn't say that I loved it.  I liked the hint of heat from the jalapeno and the red pepper flakes and the acidity from the cider vinegar and lime, which I thought contrasted nicely against the sweetness of the salmon.  What I enjoy most about broccoli slaw is the crisp texture.  I think I will buy another bag of broccoli slaw mix from Trader Joe's and go with some sort of Asian-inspired slaw and see how that turns out.  I know that if I played around a little more I could come up with a kickass broccoli slaw.  Perhaps I will add some slivered almonds for additional crunch and then go from there...

Recipes after the jump!

(Belated) Chinese New Year Meal #1: Cold Chicken with a Spicy Sichuan Sauce (Liang Ban Ji) and Stir-Fried Broccoli with Chili and Sichuan Pepper (Qiang Xi Nan Hua Cai)

Look everyone - I finally put together our first (belated) Chinese New Year meal!  And we have a bunch of other meals planned so stay tuned.  I am trying my best to not just cook from our new Fuchsia Dunlop cookbook, but there are so many recipes that I want to cook that it is difficult.  But I had to start off with two recipes from the cookbook that I have been dying to make.  As you can see, I am still squarely stuck in my broccoli phase.  And I threw in some chicken because why the heck not?  You can't have Chinese New Year without chicken.  Granted, the chicken is usually served whole and not shredded for New Year, but I'm taking a little creative license here.  Don't worry - the dumplings and noodles are both coming, but it's going to take a little time so you are going to have to be patient.  Whole fish is also traditional but as of right now the only concrete plan we have for seafood is for shrimp.  We might still make a whole fish because our plans aren't set in stone yet (and I have a few recipes set aside in case I switch things up), but I'm just giving you a sense of what is to come.  There will also be tofu, some more veggies, another chicken dish...  And then we will have to see what we decide on for our final Chinese New Year meal.  We went to Chinatown today for ingredients and noodle inspiration (more on that later), so we should be on track to post 3-4 more (Belated) Chinese New Year meals by the end of the week!  We might need to re-stock a bit or pick up a few minor ingredients along the way, but we are now re-stocked with the essentials.

As for the chicken and broccoli, if every dish we make from this cookbook turns out as well as these two, I will be very happy.  These recipes were not the best Chinese dishes we have ever cooked, nor did they particularly stick out amidst the other Chinese New Year meals we have prepared.  However, they were so easy to make that I really can't complain and I think they totally lived up to the premise of the cookbook (i.e. simple Chinese home cooking).  The broccoli was incredibly simple and it had really nice flavor.  I liked the combination of Sichuan peppercorns and whole chilis.  The broccoli was nicely cooked and lightly perfumed with sesame, heat and the sour, numbing flavor of the Sichuan peppercorns.  It's the perfect easy (and vegetarian) Chinese side dish.  As for the chicken, I have always been a fan of cold Sichuan chicken salads.  I love the combination of luscious poached chicken, spice, slight sweetness and scallion.  I have had better versions of this salad (and worse versions if we're being honest).  But I have never made a better version at home.  And that makes me happy.  We made a few minor modifications to each recipe - an extra dash of sesame oil here, a little extra sugar there, but isn't that what all home cooks do?  I would totally make both of these recipes again and bring them into the office for a fantastic lunch at my desk.  Or just make them for dinner again sometime - perhaps a potluck?  That's another totally viable option.

Recipes after the jump!

Noodles with Tofu, Broccoli and Mushrooms

I love highly flavored, exotic dishes but sometimes I need "boring" food.  When planning tonight's dinner all I could think of was broccoli and tofu.  A large part of that was provably due to the fact that we didn't have much in the fridge other than broccoli and tofu, but that's beside the point.  This isn't the first time that I have had a broccoli and tofu craving.  Back in January I demanded a broccoli-tofu stir-fry in homemade black bean sauce over brown rice.  The recipe never made it onto the blog because (1) the dish sounded far too healthy to be good (although I thought it was quite good) and (2) it was one of those dishes where I just kept throwing a little bit of this, a little bit of that into the wok until it tasted good.  So I had no real idea what quantities of each ingredient I had used or any way to backtrack and figure it out.  Oops.  Oh well.  But it seems that broccoli and tofu have become my go-to healthy food craving in 2013.  We will see how long it lasts, but I'm thinking right now that it is going to last until spring rolls around and I start craving asparagus and salad.  I didn't feel 100% virtuous while eating these noodles, but I felt a lot more virtuous than I would have if we had made dan dan mian or another spicy, meaty noodle dish.  I briefly considered abandoning my noodle idea and making something else with the broccoli and tofu, but since we had fresh Chinese noodles in the fridge I decided to stick with it.  Once again we threw a little bit of this, a little bit of that into the wok but I tried to keep up with it this time.  And if we're being 100% honest, I was too hungry and lazy to fuss around trying to make dinner perfect so I didn't really even taste it before we plated it to see if it needed more seasoning.  The dish could have used a little something more to make it pop, but such is life.

Recipe after the jump!

Indian-Style Broccoli with Spiced Yogurt

For some reason I have been talking about broccoli all weekend.  Alex finds it totally mystifying when I get so fixated on vegetables but I can't help it.  Apparently he never craves vegetables.  All I can think about right now is broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts.  Don't get me wrong - I am happy to eat other things along the way, but I need some veggies in my life ASAP.  Luckily, Sunday is farmers' market day.  I also wanted delicata squash, but they didn't have any so I ended up getting a nice spaghetti squash along with my broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and fresh bread.  I also thought about getting green tomatoes, but Alex shot me down.  I admit it - sometimes I need to be reined in a little.  We already had more produce than we can easily eat in a week.  Anyway, since I have been babbling about broccoli all weekend I decided that the first order of business would be to make some broccoli for lunch.

It is pretty easy to sum up my thoughts on this dish.  The flavors are fantastic - I thought the spiced yogurt worked beautifully with the broccoli.  And the slight gritty-ness of the coarsely ground spices added some nice texture and little bursts of flavor.  We were both a little worried at first that the spices should have been more finely ground, but I actually really enjoyed biting into the occasional toasted cumin seed or fennel seed.  My one complaint/modification would be to the cooking method - instead of blanching and then pan-roasting the broccoli in the future I would just roast it in the oven.  There is no point in boiling something and getting it kind of soft and soggy before trying to sear it up and crisp it around the edges.  It doesn't make sense.  So in the future I would totally toss the broccoli florets with a little evoo and s&p and throw it in the oven at 425 degrees F for roughly 25 minutes - until the broccoli is crisp-tender and starting to brown around the edges.  And then I would drizzle it with the sauce.  I think that would be a better (and easier) variation on the dish.  As an added benefit there would be one less pan/pot to wash!

Recipe after the jump!

Spanish Tortilla with Broccoli, Chorizo and Onion

You might not know this, but eggs are kind of my thing.  If you have read this blog at all in the past (or gone to brunch with me) then it should be fairly obvious.  Then again, Alex does try to curb my egg obsession so there aren't as many egg recipes on this blog as there might otherwise be...  So maybe it's not as obvious as I think it is.  Actually, I tried to add eggs to our dinner last night and Alex shot me down.  Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make this recipe to use the broccoli I picked up from Fairway last week along with the eggs from the farmers' market.  And for those of you not familiar with Spanish tortillas - they are essentially heavier frittatas with thinly sliced potatoes inside. used As we started to make the dish Alex told me that I had selected two of the things that we are worst at in life - flipping eggs and homemade mayonnaise (or aioli in this case).  We have tried to make mayonnaise three times in the past - once with the food processor, once with our immersion blender and once with the blender.  All three times we failed.  Epically.  We ended up with thin, runny, greasy messes each time.  And it happened again.  Apparently we really suck at making mayonnaise.  But this time we Googled how to rescue a broken aioli and found out that we are not the only people who have this problem.  There were several articles and blog posts citing Julia Child's method for saving a broken aioli or mayonnaise.  We used her method and it totally worked!  Hurray!  But our tortilla didn't flip too well...  It broke into a million pieces and chunks got stuck to the pan.  So we failed there too.  And there was really no rescuing it because it's not like you can put a frittata/omelet/Spanish tortilla back together.  But in the end it's the flavor that matters and the flavor was good.  It didn't really occur to me until we put the ingredients in the pan, but I think you should either add more eggs or cut down on the amount of broccoli and chorizo in the future.  The ratio of filling to eggs is a little off and the broccoli is heavy, which makes it hard to flip the tortilla successfully.  It was still pretty heavy (partially due to the ratio of eggs to filling and partially because of the combination of ingredients and flavors), but I knew that was likely to happen going in because Spanish tortillas always strike me as heavy.  I thought that the absence of potato would make more of a difference and make it taste a little lighter, but not so much.  Either way, it was a tasty dish and we finally made a (semi-)successful aioli!  Yay!

Recipes after the jump!

Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli

This dish represents everything that I love about Ina Garten (aka the Barefoot Contessa).  She makes the best simple variations on classic dishes that I have ever seen.  None of her recipes are earth-shattering or particularly inventive, but they are the types of recipes that you love to make and eat at home.  And I don't mean to be insulting when I say that her recipes aren't earth-shattering or inventive.  It's like she takes the recipes that you know and love - like cheese grits, biscuits and steak sandwiches, and just makes them that much better with a few tweaks here and there.  She really is just that good.  I used to scoff at her show on Food Network because it all seemed so boring, but I can admit now that I was totally wrong to do so.  There is nothing wrong with cooking really simple, but delicious food.  Those two adjectives are not mutually exclusive.  Take this broccoli for instance.  There's nothing groundbreaking about it - you roast it with evoo, s&p and then top it with lemon zest, lemon juice, toasted pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano and basil.  Done.  Simple, right?  And yes.  It is very simple.  But it is also very very good.  It's the type of dish I can see myself eating years from now with my grandkids (which really is years and years away since I don't have kids yet and don't plan on having them anytime soon), loving it just as much then as I do now.  I might try a few tweaks here and there (like adding a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes), but I think I will always return to her base recipes.  Ina Garten writes the type of recipes that you would never outgrow because she doesn't buy into all the gimmicks and trends like most younger chefs.  Her recipes never call for things like sous-vide or immersion circulators.  Nor does she throw together terribly random combinations of ingredients that somehow work together and yet make you question the sanity of the chef behind the dish.  Instead she relies on simple techniques (like oven roasting) and great ingredients and creates really delicious dishes that anyone can make at home, no matter their skill level.  And you have to respect that.

Recipe after the jump!

Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin and Broccoli with Toasted Bread Crumbs

 We're back from St. Thomas!  I meant to warn everyone that we were going in the first place, but I was so busy at work clearing off my desk before the trip that I forgot all about it.  Oops.  But we are back now and I promise that more posts will be coming soon.  Luckily I have one queued up and ready to go!  We made this pork tenderloin and broccoli dish last Thursday night before we left for St. Thomas, but seeing as we left bright and early Friday morning I haven't had time to post about it yet.

This recipe was an attempt by me to use up some of the proteins in our freezer, along with the herbs and vegetables left in our fridge before we left for vacation.  I'm on a massive project to empty out our freezer, so our next few meals are going to be dictated by what is already in there (chicken breasts and swordfish are up next).  We had some broccoli left over from one of our last grocery shopping trips so we decided to serve that as the side.  We used to make this broccoli all the time, but for some reason we haven't made it in awhile.  Actually, we haven't been making broccoli very much at all lately.  I'm trying to change that.  But I love the addition of toasted panko bread crumbs and garlic to the broccoli.  It really livens it up a bit.  Anyway, back to the pork.  Marinating it in the lemon, evoo and herb mixture overnight left it very lemony and moist.  The pork had really good flavor - you could definitely taste the oregano, thyme and garlic.  I thought it was really nice.  If you wanted to you could use a different mixture of herbs - I think rosemary and thyme would be nice, or you could easily substitute dried herbs instead of fresh.  All in all, it's just a really nice American family meal.  There are no bells and whistles, but sometimes simple is the way to go.

Recipes after the jump!

Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry

I periodically feel like Alex and I should make more of an effort to eat healthy.  It's not that we are terribly unhealthy eaters, but everyone could use a few diet tweaks from time to time.  Our current diet tweak is to try and eat more vegetables and maybe a few less carbs.  Don't get me wrong, I love carbs and I refuse to cut them out of my diet entirely.  What self-respecting Asian (or half-Asian as the case may be) refuses to eat rice or noodles?  I mean seriously.  But if I can substitute one or two servings of pasta or bread a week with some veggies, then why not?  The tweak actually has a dual purpose.  We end up wasting so much produce every week and I am hoping that this diet tweak will help us stop wasting produce so we can save a little money on groceries.  Groceries are expensive.  We have been pretty good this week with our squash blossoms, sugar snap peas, pea shoots, salads, etc.  And then tonight we had broccoli.  I'm actually planning on cooking more broccoli later this week because I bought two bunches.  My plan right now is to roast the second bunch of broccoli, but I will figure that out later.

The inspiration for this recipe came from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young.  She had a recipe for beef with broccoli and it occurred to me that I had a massive chicken breast defrosted in the fridge.  I briefly considered just substituting the chicken for the beef in that recipe, but decided it sounded a little heavy.  The cookbook also has a bunch of recipes that call for velveting chicken (marinating the chicken in a mixture of egg white and cornstarch before stir-frying) and since I had never tried that before I decided to give one of those a try.  So this recipe is actually an adaptation of another recipe in the book for Chinese Indian Chicken Manchurian, which we tweaked a bit before adding some broccoli.  And it was a total success.  The chicken was very moist from the velveting and it had a very tender, silky texture.  It also had a surprising amount of flavor.  Chicken breast is usually the most disappointing part of any stir-fry, dry and bland.  This was the exact opposite.  Not only was the chicken delicious, the broccoli was perfectly cooked and flavorful.  I loved the hint of heat from the chili and the fresh flavors of the scallions and cilantro.  The combination of chicken stock and soy sauce made a really simple and nice stir-fry sauce.  I might use it on future stir-fry variations in the future.  We usually add sesame oil to stir-fry and some rice vinegar, but I didn't miss them at all in this recipe.  It was all a lot fresher and brighter than our normal stir-fries and made me think that maybe simple is better.  A stir-fry made of chicken and one fresh vegetable might just be better than chicken stir-fry with a variety of canned and fresh vegetables.  Just a thought.  In the name of healthy eating we served our stir-fry with brown rice.  Go us.

Recipe after the jump!

Asian Winter Slaw

Our Japanese-Style Hamburgers demanded a vegetable side, with some crispy/crunchy texture to contrast with the tenderness of the hamburgers.  I have been considering making this recipe for Asian Winter Slaw ever since I happened across a bag of broccoli slaw at Trader Joe's.  Have I mentioned recently how much I love that place?  Anyway, the slaw seemed like the perfect accompaniment to the burgers so we went ahead and threw it together today.  It's light and crunchy, and the flavor of the white miso in the dressing is really nice.  It has never occurred to me to make an Asian-inspired slaw using miso paste, nor did it ever cross my mind that you could make a broccoli slaw.  That is partially due to the fact that I don't typically like coleslaw all that much, although I do make an exception for good Asian versions of coleslaw.  I thought that the very crunchy texture of the broccoli slaw was perfect with the burgers.  A more traditional cabbage slaw just wouldn't have provided enough textural contrast.

Recipe after the jump!

Black Bean Orecchiette with Spicy Pork and Broccoli

Sometimes I think that particular cookbook authors and I just aren't meant to be.  There are a few authors (and I hate to name names) whose recipes I have tried a few times and none of them really impressed me.  And then there is Ming Tsai, whose recipes I either tend to really enjoy, like his Crazy Chicken Rice Noodle Stir-Fry, or I tend to find mediocre at best.  I'm not sure why that is.  Maybe I'm just picking the wrong recipes because I have friends whose palates I trust who love Ming Tsai.  Clearly I am doing something wrong here.  Anyway, I saw Ming demonstrate this recipe on TV one morning while running on the treadmill.  And I thought "huh, we like orecchiette and spicy pork - we should make that."  So to celebrate having the day off today for President's Day I decided to go ahead and finally make the recipe.  I tried to convince Alex to sneak home for lunch (as a PhD student he doesn't get the day off), but when he couldn't make it, I decided to go ahead and make it for myself anyway. 

I just felt like the dish never really came together.  And calling it "spicy pork" is a total misnomer.  There is no heat to this dish whatsoever.  I even added more Korean chili flakes than the recipe called for (both mixed into the pasta and as a garnish on top), but there was still no heat.  To get some heat you might want to add some crushed red pepper flakes to the onion, garlic, and black bean mixture before adding the pork and then garnish the finished dish with the Korean chili flakes.  I know that I have a serious love of heat (and a higher tolerance than most people), but I really don't see how anyone could find this dish at all spicy.  I also wasn't sure that I liked the combination of flavors here - white wine and fermented black beans just didn't seem to go together at all.  I just felt like it was missing something (or maybe a lot of things).  Like I started cooking and then omitted a few key ingredients/steps but decided to eat the dish anyway.  Oh and I adapted the recipe to go from a one pot meal to a two pot meal because I thought it was stupid to use a pot and wash the pot just to use it again.  If you're going to have to wash the pot twice, might as well use two pots and watch each one once.  In this instance you're not cutting down on the amount of work by using one pan so why bother?  Actually, if you follow the instructions for making a one pot meal, you actually use more dishes than by just using the two pots.

Recipe after the jump!

Chinese New Year Meal #6 - Sichuan Dumplings in Chili Oil and Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

For our sixth Chinese New Year meal, I decided that we had to make dumplings.  I was going to make potstickers (fried dumplings), but I decided that Sichuan dumplings sounded like more fun.  Plus I didn't want to go to the trouble of making the dumpling wrappers for my potstickers and I didn't think that the dumpling wrappers you buy at the grocery store would withstand being fried very well.  But I promise to make the potstickers at some point.  Maybe not in the month of February as part of my series of Chinese New Year meals, but definitely by the end of the year at the very least. 

My one problem with the dumplings was the that filling was a little dry.  After the ridiculously delicious dumplings we had in Flushing these just couldn't compare.  I wish that instead of adding kosher salt to the dumplings we had added soy sauce to give the filling some moisture.  I might also add some more herbs and things to the filling to freshen it up a bit.  We made some Pork and Chive Dumplings awhile ago and they were much juicier and a little more flavorful.  So these are the changes I think I would make to this recipe if I were to make it again: use fattier ground pork, add some finely grated gingerand a tbsp soy sauce (instead of the salt) to the filling.  To go with the dumplings I wanted to use up the rest of the gai lan (Chinese broccoli) that we bought in Chinatown.  Luckily, we had a recipe from The Asian Grandmother's Cookbook: Homecooking from Asian American Kitchens.  I was a little nervous about the recipe because it seemed to have serious potential for being totally bland - blanched gai lan topped with oyster sauce, sesame oil, and fried shallots.  But the gai lan was actually quite tasty and not bland at all.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Alex and I disagree about where this meal ranks against the other five Chinese New Year meals that we have already made.  I said that these dumplings were my least favorite.  Alex maintains that the Red Braised Beef Noodle Soup (Hong Shao Niu Rou Mian) was his least favorite.  Both were good, but some of the dishes we made earlier were phenomenal so they have some pretty steep competition.  As a side note, we have now made noodles, dumplings, chicken, beef, lamb, and pork belly.  Next we either need to make tofu or duck...  Since we will be out of town this weekend, I think we're going to have to wait until next week to plan what we should make next!

Recipe after the jump!

Chinese Greens, Thai Style

I needed something light, but still flavorful to eat with dinner tonight.  And whatever it was, I wanted it to not be spicy to balance out the heat in the laab.  While in Chinatown this weekend I picked up all kinds of vegetables - baby bok choy, large bok choy, Chinese broccoli, scallions and leeks.  I am planning on using the baby bok choy at some point for a stir-fry, and the large bok choy for potsticker filling.  So that left the Chinese broccoli, because who really eats a side of just scallions or leeks?  Luckily the same cookbook that provided the recipe for the laab provided me with a recipe for a simple sauteed Chinese broccoli. 

I have never thought of adding Chinese fermented black beans to sauteed greens.  Generally when I think of those fermented black beans I think of Cantonese clams with black bean sauce and ma po tofu.  So I generally bust those beans out about...  once or twice a year.  And you really only use a tablespoon or two at a time, because those bad boys are seriously funky and salty.  So I have a ridiculously large bag of beans sitting in my cupboard waiting for me to come up with more uses for them.  Anyway, I thought they were a really interesting addition to the greens.  Without the beans I think the gai lan would have been a little bland, but those beans pack some serious flavor.  I was a little worried about the lack of ginger in the recipe, but with those fermented black beans in there you really don't miss the ginger at all. 

Recipe after the jump!