Char Siu Bao

This started as a pretty basic bao zi recipe, but we kind of went overboard with the filling.
Ingredients

• Filling
• 2lbs pork shoulder
• soy sauce
• sriracha
• black vinegar
• ginger
• garlic
• brown sugar
• scallions
• salt and pepper to taste
• Dough
• 1tbsp yeast
• 4c flour
• 1c water
• 2tbsp sugar
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp baking powder

So for the filling, you place the pork shoulder in a crock pot. Add some of all the other ingredients except scallions and salt until it looks right. You just need something for the meat to marinate in that will give it some flavor, though most of that actually comes later. Anyway, turn the crock pot on low and cook for 10-12 hours (overnight).

When you come back to it, use a slotted spoon / tongs to fish out all the pork shoulder (it should be falling apart at this point) into a bowl. Place that bowl in the fridge. Place all the remaining liquid into another bowl (we use a pyrex liquid measuring cup, actually), and place that bowl in the fridge. When it's cooled, all the fat should congeal on the top, so you can scoop it off with a spoon (for later use?).

Put the sauce sans fat in a sauce pan and proceed to cook down, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about 50-75%. Once reduced, adjust the salt. Now pour the sauce over the pork that's in the fridge. Add chopped scallions (about 3 big ones, or to taste), and toss the filling. It could be done at this point if you want OR you can chop the filling into little centimeter chunks if you prefer. Either way is fine.

Now you make the dough. Combine all the ingredients and stir together, then turn out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5 minutes (or just do it all in a kitchenaid / cuisinart). Oil the dough lightly (we used sesame oil) in the bowl, cover, and let rise for 2-3 hours. When rise is complete, divide dough in half. Take each half and roll / drag it into a 14-18" log. Using a knife, divide the log into 8 pieces. flatten each piece into a 4-5" diameter circle. Put about 2tbsp of the meat filling into the dough and fold up the sides, clasping them at the top. This is important: place each bao zi on an individual square of waxed paper or parchment paper (or cabbage leaf or SOMETHING) as you finish them.

Repeat this exercise with the other half of the dough. If you have leftover filling, bonus - use it in an omelette or something. Anyway, set the bao zi to rise for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, set up your steamer, either a steamer basket or a rice cooker with steaming tray or whatever you use. We actually use both. Once risen, steam bao zi for about 15 minutes (you can go 20 and it doesn't hurt 'em, though). Enjoy!

Thoughts:

• Dan: "I think we've done something really smart here."
• Claire: "A+++. Would eat again."

Disaster Index: 1/10

Homemade Sauerkraut

Whoo! You know you want it.

Ingredients

• some green cabbage
• some salt
• some water
• jars

There's not much to this recipe. Slice as much cabbage as will fit in your jars/containers. Into an empty jar, put in one handful of cabbage, followed by one tsp kosher salt, followed by one handful cabbage, etc. until the jar is full. Fill it with water. Make sure that the cabbage is all beneath the water's surface.
Seal jars and keep on counter (or in a cabinet, away from the light) for 1.5 weeks. Then put in the fridge. Then eat.
You can add 1tsp of caraway seeds to make "Bavarian-style" sauerkraut. We haven't tried ours yet.

Thoughts: Well, looking over the original recipe that we took this from, I noticed that we may not have followed it QUITE right. I think you're supposed to let the kraut ferment for much longer than we did (one recipe says 5-6 weeks! Not 1.5 weeks!). But our stuff is great and salty and crunchy and it goes awesome on reubens. But it might not be real sauerkraut? It might just be pickled cabbage right now. So we're going to try again and actually follow the recipe and see if it yields more proper-looking sauerkraut. Stay tuned. But this stuff is delicious on its own. I just eat it out of the jar. NOM NOM KRAUT.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Cashew Brittle

We make it look easy.
Ingredients

• 1/2c granulated sugar
• 1/4c light corn syrup
• 1/8c water
• 1/8tsp salt
• 1/2c cashews, broken up
• 1/2tsp baking soda
• 1tbsp butter

BE SURE TO MEASURE EVERYTHING OUT AHEAD OF TIME and have it ready to go. A lot of the steps here have to be done pretty quickly - it's not a problem, but if you are busy measuring things out, you'll be too slow. Also have a pan with parchment paper waiting nearby before you start.

To a small saucepan, add the sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Once sugar is dissolved (or the mixture starts to get bubbly), add the cashews. Continue stirring until the mixture reaches 300 degrees (the hard crack stage). We used a digital thermometer - a candy thermometer is best, though.

When it reaches that hot, add the butter and baking soda (we had them both sitting in a measuring cup by the side and just dumped them in all at once) and stir vigorously until the butter is melted. Spread mixture across the parchment paper (with a spatula) as best you can. Let it cool, then break into pieces.

Thoughts: This was so easy - we were both surprised. Claire says the cashew flavor wasn't very strong, and that we should break up the cashews into smaller pieces. Maybe we can sprinkle them with salt? Claire suggests we could sprinkle the top when we spread it out. Or just add more at the beginning, I guess.

A lot of recipes say not to stir vigorously the whole way through - why didn't ours seize up?

Disaster Index: 1/10

Thousand Island Dressing

Oh my God we're SO BEHIND but this recipe is easy to blog so I'm doing it. We'll get to the other stuff eventually.

Ingredients

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp dill pickle juice (we used the brine from our home-made pickles because it's BETTER THAN STORE-BOUGHT YEAH)
• 1 hard-boiled, pickled egg, chopped (other recipes just call for a normal hard-boiled egg, but guess what? We had jalapeno pickled eggs in our fridge because we're awesome like that. If you don't have a pickled egg of your own, a normal one will do)
• 1/2 tsp white onion powder (but 1 tbsp finely grated onion would also work. We just didn't have any)
• 1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
  

Mix everything together and refrigerate it. Put it on your reubens.

Thoughts: Easy and good. We might add more spices to it next time. I don't know -- like cumin? Or dried dill? Some recipes call for green olives, which would be AWESOME. We might also chop up some pickles and put them in. The texture of ours was a little thin. How do you thicken it? Hm. Maybe if we substitute chopped pickles for the pickle juice, this would solve our problem. WE'LL REPORT BACK.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pumpkin Soup with Mole Sauce

This was kind of made up, but it worked.

Ingredients

• Soup
• 1 small pumpkin, peeled, insides scooped, chopped
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 4c chicken stock
• pepper
• a couple of small, hot peppers, chopped
• Mole Sauce 
• pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin
• one onion, chopped
• garlic
• about 1tbsp dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4c raisins
• 1/4tsp cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cayenne, ancho chili powder, oregano, anise seed
• 2 dried chilies, seeds included
• 1-2 tomatoes (in our case, actually, about 3tbsp tomato paste)
• 1c chicken stock
• salt to taste
• water as necessary
• Some honey (optional - I like my mole a little sweeter)
• olive oil

First, scoop the seeds out of the pumpkin. Peel and chop the pumpkin. Toss with olive oil and some pepper and roast for about 30 minutes at 350, until soft.

Meanwhile, toast the pumpkin seeds in a pan with some olive oil until lightly toasted. Add onions and saute until translucent. Throw in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Put the onion, garlic, and pumpkin seeds in a blender with all the other ingredients, and blend until mostly smooth. At this point, I put the sauce on the stove and boiled for 15 minutes or so with some extra water, but I don't know if this is necessary? Anyway, press through a sieve into a bowl. Season to taste. DONE WITH MOLE.

The soup is so easy, it hardly counts as cooking. Add the pumpkin, apples, stock, and peppers to a pot. Cook until the apples are soft (about 20 minutes?) and blend (we used an immersion blender). Season to taste.

Serve soup with mole drizzled on top.

Thoughts: The soup was easy, but the mole took a while. Next time I would use almonds instead of pumpkin seeds, since I failed to hull the pumpkin seeds, I guess, and they were very tough. Anyway, the flavor combination worked, which I think we were all a little surprised about, since this was completely made up. But awesome! Claire says "interesting texture on the soup" - it's true, it was pretty thick, but velvety.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Borscht

Even Claire likes it!
Ingredients

• 4 beets, cut to matchsticks (ish)
• 1 russet potato, cubed
• 2½c green cabbage, thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, sliced
• 5c beef stock
• garlic
• splash of red wine vinegar
• about ¼c chopped fresh dill, optional

Put the onions in a stock pot with some olive oil and saute until translucent. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant. Then add the remaining vegetables. Cook, stirring frequently, for something like 5 minutes. Deglaze with the stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15-25 minutes, until veg are tender. Using an immersion blender, partly blend the soup (to taste). add the dill and splash of vinegar. Serve with optional plain yogurt or sour cream.

Thoughts: This was our first successful attempt to make borscht. It was great! Even Claire liked it, and she doesn't like beets. Future versions might include trying to get a meatier flavor from the stock. Not sure about this yet. Hm.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Ginger Beer

OK, fine, I'll post something.

I made ginger beer. Ingredients include:

• about 1" ginger, finely grated
• juice of a lime
• 3oz simple syrup
• 6oz water
• 6 more oz cold water
• a pinch (like 1/16tsp) yeast

In a saucepan, heat the lime juice, simple syrup, ginger, and 6oz water to boiling. Simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, clean out some vessel to put the ginger beer in. I used empty soda bottles, cleaned with warm, soapy water. When the ginger mixture is done boiling, strain through a fine meshed strainer (or cheesecloth, or paper towel, or coffee filter) into another sterile container. Add the 6oz cold water, then pour into the bottle (when it's no longer hot enough to melt the plastic). Add the yeast. Screw the cap on VERY tightly and shake. Leave on the counter for about 36-48 hours, returning to shake periodically. Be careful, though, because that stuff gets carbonated. When it's carbonated enough, put it in the fridge.

Thoughts: I didn't know you can make your own ginger beer. We have to try this with other stuff, like adding spices to the boiling syrup mixture to impart other interesting flavors. I should probably get glass bottles for a more sterile/professional method of bottling, but it's expensive. The fizz that you get from this method isn't like your standard coca-cola carbonation - the bubbles are much smaller. It has a great texture and flavor.

Disaster Index: 1/10