Kitchen Wench — Page 46

The long-awaited dumpling post!

March 4, 2007 | 4,031 views

in Beef,Korean recipes,Pork,Vegetables & Vegetarian

There are many different kinds of dumplings, but here I’m going to concentrate solely on the Korean kind, called mandu. Here are some little tidbits of information regarding these treats:

Wahng Mandu are ‘king’ dumplings about the size of your palm with a slightly thicker and fluffier skin (called ‘pi’)

When served on their own, they are usually served either steamed or fried. Steamed dumplings are called ‘jjin mandu‘ and fried ones are called ‘goon mandu‘, but they are both still mandu.

Another way these dumplings can be served is in a slightly thickened soup with rice cakes (dduk) called ‘dduk mandu gook‘.

Whilst the fillings are usually similar/the same, there is a distinction drawn between regular mandu and kimchi mandu (mandu which has also got diced kimchi in the filling)

This recipe is purely for the filling as we no longer make the skins ourselves – whilst my grandmother used to handroll hundreds of these, you can get packets of fresh dumpling skins from the freezer of most Chinese grocery stores and we find that these work fine. As with any recipe, you’ll need to adapt it to your own tastes, and the recipe below will turn out roughly 60~80 dumplings, so you may want a friend on hand to help with the filling and folding part Now, onto the recipe!

Korean dumpling (Mandu) recipe

Ingredients (makes approx 60~80)
500g pork mince
300g dried tofu
2x medium-sized eggs
100g garlic chives
1 heaped tsp minced ginger
4-6 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup chinese rice wine
250g mung bean shoots
6 large leaves of napa cabbage (also called chinese cabbage) *
2-3 tsp beef dashida (substitute with powdered beef boullion)
1-2 tbsp dark sesame oil (Asian sesame oil)
1 pk dumpling skins (preferably gowzee/gowgee or gyoza)
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2x non-stick baking trays
Muslin cloth/bag

* To make kimchi mandu, replace the napa cabbage with 1 cup kimchi, then get rid of the liquid and chop up as per step 2.

1. Blanch the mung bean shoots till slightly softened (but still retains majority of its crunch), then squeeze out as much liquid as possible using the muslin cloth/bag. By working in small batches (1/2 to 1 handful at a time), you will be able to get rid of more liquid effectively. Once you’ve finished, set these aside for now.

My brother squeezing the liquid from the blanched mung bean shoots

2. Blanch the napa cabbage (make sure that the thickest part of the leaf is soft enough to poke with a fork without too much resistance). Squeeze out the liquid from the cabbage using the muslin (remember, smaller quantities work better), then roughly chop into 1cm pieces and set aside.

3. Thoroughly wash the garlic chives to get rid of all dirt, then remove any wilted or yellow bits and finely chop the rest into pieces no more than about 5mm in length. Set these aside with the mung bean sprouts.

4. Mix together the pork mince, ginger, garlic, rice wine, dashida and sesame oil and rest for 30 minutes. This is in order to give the meat time to absorb the other flavours and lose it’s ‘porky’ smell.

5. While the pork is resting, mince the dried tofu using a ricer or food mill (you can also use a potato masher, but make sure you get the tofu finely minced).

Dried tofu is just tofu that has been strained – it is extremely firm in texture (as firm as well-cooked meat) and has the least liquid of all tofus available. The surface is usually rough as it retains the pattern from the muslin used to strain it.

6. Combine the mince mixture, mung bean shoots, cabbage, tofu, chives, eggs and add salt and pepper to taste, then mix thoroughly till everything is evenly and well combined.

The mixture should be fairly dry (moist but not very wet), and well combined so that every teaspoon has an even amount of chives, cabbage, tofu and mince.

7. Take one dumpling skin and place in your hand, then take 1 tsp of mixture and place it in the middle:

These are the skins I like to use. I find that these skins taste a lot less floury and tastier than gyoza skins.

The mixture sitting on a dumpling skin in my hand

8a. Dip your finger in the beaten egg white, then run it around the outer edge of the dumpling skin, then pinch it together in the middle so it resembles a tube:

8b. Right next to the joined section, grab a bit of dumpling skin from the edge facing you and fold it over and join it to the other edge. Repeat this action two more times till the side of your dumpling looks like this:

8c. Do the same to the other side of the dumpling, working from the middle to the outside, and then the dumpling should look like this:

9a. If the previous method of folding seems too fiddly, you can try this simpler method. Once you’ve run egg white around the outer edge (step 7), fold the two sides together to form a half circle:

The half circle, as demonstrated by my brother

9b. Dab a little egg white on one of the outer corners of the dumpling, then fold the two edges together (the bit with egg white should be under the other edge):

10. Place the dumpling onto a non-stick baking tray and once you’ve filled the tray, pop them into the freezer and start placing them onto the other tray. Leave the dumplings on the tray till frozen solid, then remove from the tray and divide into plastic bags (1-2 serves per bag).

To make the dipping sauce for mandu, use the following:

2 tbsp white/rice vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp dried red chilli powder (gochugaru)
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Combine and serve either drizzled over the dumplings or on the side.

As the dumplings are quite time-consuming to make, it is a good idea to make a large batch (this recipe will give you quite a few) and keep them in the freezer for when you need a quick meal. They can be cooked straight out of the freezer:

To steam them, cut out a round of baking paper that will fit into your steamer, and poke it full of holes. Line your steaming basket and then operate as per usual with the frozen dumplings (or the fresh ones if you’ve just made them!)

To fry them, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a non-stick frying pan that has a lid, then fry till golden. Once they’re golden, pour about 1/4 cup of water into the frying pan (you want them to be resting in the water, not swimming in it) and put the lid on, cooking till the water has absorbed.

The “dduk mandu gook” (rice cake & dumpling soup) recipe you’ll have to check back for. My camera has actually died (this is a very old post) and I can’t take any pictures till I purchase a new one – which won’t be till later this month if I decide to go with the Nikon p5000!

[tags]mandu, Korean cuisine, recipe, dumplings, Korean[/tags]

People who have tried this recipe:

Kristine at Web-Goddess

{ 8 comments }

Swiss roll bliss

February 3, 2007 | 830 views

in Cakes & Brownies,Fruit Flavour

With the success of this humble yet untried (by me) recipe, I get to mark yet another food-to-try off my list!

The humble sponge roulade – otherwise known as a swiss or jam roll. It seems simple enough, nay, in it’s barest of forms it almost seems a bit plain-jane or boring! Nonetheless, I had put it down in my diary as another one of those recipes to try.

The reason I wanted to try making one of these is that I have only eaten them once in my life – just once, when my mother tried making it when I was a little kid. I was only about 8 years old and the fact that ma had rolled this cake up seemed absolutely magical to me. As soon as the jam inside had set, she cut me a slice from the still warm cake, and I still remember staring at the swirl of ruby-red jam encased in the soft, fluffy cake.

And then, for reasons unbeknownst to both my mother and myself, I proceeded to smush it into a mountain of sticky, jammy cake before devouring every crumb.

Kids do the darndest things!

At any rate, whether it was the memory of my destruction of her masterpiece that meant she would never make this again I’ll never know, the only thing I can say for sure is that the memory of that pillow-like cake was stored lovingly in my brain, hopeful that one day I’d get to taste it once again.

As the years passed, my hopes of my dear mother making this slowly vanished, as the baking duties had fallen onto my shoulders (I made my first cake all by myself at the age of 10!), it looked unlikely that my mother would ever recreate this swirly dessert of goodness again.

Many times before on this blog, I have trumpeted on about the marvels that is ‘The Cook’s Book‘ – and guess what! I’m about to do it again! When I purchased it and did the cursory flick-through, I was delighted to see a recipe for a jam roulade, but felt hesitation about giving it a try. Would it live up to the memory, which had been polished so much by the passing of time that it now glowed like a beacon in the darkness? Would it crush that fond recollection, like the time I rewatched an episode from the original Chronicles of Narnia tv series as an adult (Lucy, I hate you.)

This year, I decided that it was about time to find out! So, I pulled out my book, all the requisite ingredients and set myself a-stirring! The result was beautiful, a light-as-air sponge only just cooked and beautifully soft to the touch, and combined with the sweet strawberry jam and freshly whipped cream, a deliciously simple dessert which made me pretty happy. BUT – the question remains…did it live up to my expectations? Well, the answer would be no, but that’s hardly a surprise considering the fact that the memory was built around an experience I had as an 8yo little girl trying something for the very first time! Don’t let this put you off, it’s still a delightful cake to have on a sunny Satuday afternoon, especially with that freshly whipped cream

Strawberry Sponge Roulade (adapted from The Cook’s Book)

Ingredients
50g all-purpose flour
55g potato starch, sifted
100g egg yolks (approx. from 5 medium-sized eggs)
115g egg whites (approx. from 4 medium-sized eggs)
2 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
Grated zest from 1/2 lemon
75g caster sugar
Icing sugar, for dusting
150g raspberry jam, strained and warmed

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a 40cm x 28cm baking tray with baking paper.

2. Using an electric mixer, whisk together the egg yolks, vanilla paste and 2 tsp caster sugar till the mixture is light, pale, creamy and falls in ribbons. Stir in the lemon zest and set aside.

3. In a clean, dry bowl whisk together the egg whites, 75g caster sugar, 30g of potato starch and a pinch of salt till the mixture is white and creamy and forms soft peaks, and is at least doubled in volume.

4. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in 1/3 of the egg egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture and gently mix together to lighten. Then, fold this mixture into the remaining egg whites – be sure to do this carefully to not lose any air. Once this is folded together, fold in remaining 25g potato starch and all-purpose flour, being gentle as to not knock out any air.

5. Empty the mixture onto the lined baking tray and spread lightly to within 2cm of the edges of the tin. Bake for approx. 10-15 minutes, till lightly golden and springy to the touch.

6. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the surface with caster sugar, cover with a clean sheet of baking paper and turn the roulade out onto a clean tea towel. Gently peel away the baking paper it was baked on, then spread the warmed jam on to within 2cm of all edges. Support the roulade with the paper underneath and begin to roll with slight pressure.

7. Lay the roulade with the seam down, and use a ruler or knife to fold over the parchment and tuck just under the seam, holding it in place. Leave it for a few minutes to set, then remove the paper and refrigerate for 1-2 hrs.

8. Once the cake is cooled and the jam completely set, remove from the fridge, trim the untidy ends (lop off about 3cm at each end) and serve with freshly whipped cream.

I found that I really quite enjoyed eating then by cutting myself a 1cm thick slice from the end, and lathering it with the cream before biting into it’s fluffy heavenliness Note, pictures don’t do the recipe justice as I didn’t have a baking tray big enough, so the sponge ended up being a bit too thick – but it was still delicious!

[tags]roulade, souffle, sponge, cake, baking, recipe, dessert[/tags]

{ 0 comments }

Bittersweet beauty

January 30, 2007 | 306 views

in Candies & Sweets,Chocolate

Dark, dusty, misshapen lumps – what secrets do these homely brown nuggets hide?

Sometimes, you find that you come across something and you seriously understimate it. Like that Jamie Oliver recipe that you came across that seemed simple enough, but left you standing in the middle of an exploded kitchen asking “what went wrong?”. Or perhaps, more like the time you decided to post some homemade marshmallows to a friend, only to discover that the postage cost 4x the cost of actually making them, making them the most expensive marshmallows you’ve ever come across.

Or perhaps it’s more like that time when you woke up with a hangover and a rumbling stomach, and went to fix a bowl of cereal for breakfast and since your eyes were blurry, you mistook the carton of buttermilk for regular milk, and after taking a big mouthful, you were left worshipping the porcelain gods for half an hour afterwards.

Not that I’ve done any of the above, mind you. Ahem, moving on…!

I first came across these treats a few years ago at Max Brenner, when I sampled some of these treats instore, and fell so deeply in love with them that I rushed to the counter straight away to purchase a little aluminium box which contained these little lumpy chocolates. However, after taking them home and devouring them, I began wondering how one might replicate them. I mean, how difficult could it be to create nut pralines dipped in bittersweet chocolate??

Underneath their dusty exterior lies an absolute world of flavour – the soft nutty meat of a pecan, the sharp sweetness and crunch of the candy, all contained in a thin layer of super-smooth bittersweet chocolate.

Now that’s food porn right there!

The making of these little morsels was not exactly easy – by the end of the process I had multiple heat blisters on my hands from handling hot sugar, multiple stabs from sharp and pointy shards of sugar, as well as a runny nose from sneezing thanks to all the cocoa in the air (all part of the learning curve, right?). However, when I popped the first of these darlings into my mouth, I knew that it had all been worth it – forget your after dinner mints, this is the perfect way to end a meal.

Since my family and I have now devoured almost the entire batch, I think I’m going to have to make them again. Will I put myself through that torturous process again? Well, thankfully it won’t be necessary as I’ve learnt from my mistakes, and I pass these nuggets of knowledge onto you, my readers, in case you’d like to join me in beautiful nutty bittersweet heaven

Bittersweet Chocolate Nut Pralines

Ingredients
200g white sugar
1/4 cup liquid glucose (substitute with light corn syrup if necessary)
1/4 cup water
250g nuts *
250g dark chocolate (I used 75% pure dark Lindt chocolate bars)
1/4 cup good quality cocoa powder

* Use nuts that you’d use with chocolate – I used raw pecans, walnuts and almonds

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C and put in a a large baking tray, lined either with non-stick baking paper or a silicon baking mat. Leave to heat up.

2. Combine sugar, water and liquid glucose in a pot and slowly bring to the boil, swirling the pot occasionally to mix things up. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, leave it to cook till it turns a nice golden colour (around 150 – 160 degrees C).

3. Once the sugar has reached the right colour, remove from the heat and dump the nuts in and stir quickly to ensure they’re all coated (no more than about 30 seconds of stirring as this caramel is going to harden – fast!).

4. Open the oven, pull out the tray and dump the sugar-coated nuts onto the baking tray, using a silicon spatula to spread them into a single layer as much as possible. Don’t worry if there are some overlaps, it only affects the look and not the flavour

5. Remove the baking tray from the oven and leave to cool till the sugar is still soft but pliable, then, working quickly, pull off the nuts one by one and give them a quick roll between your hands (if you have silicon baking mitts, use them here as they are unbelievably useful!) and put them onto another tray to cool. Remember – be careful! Hot sugar burns, so make sure the sugar is cool enough to handle, as well as having a bowl of ice water next to you in case you need to plunge your hands in!

6. Once the nuts have been seperated out as much as possible, take your chocolate and place it in a metal bowl (non-reactive), and put that over a pot of simmering water, making sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.

7. Melt the chocolate, mixing till it is smooth and glossy. Once glossy, remove from the pot and take over to your nuts. Dip each nut in the chocolate, shaking off any excess and placing onto some baking paper to cool down. You can do this with two forks to create a cradle (use one fork to drop the nut and scoop it up again, place another fork on top and give a quick shake before placing on baking paper), or if your skills are proficient, with a pair of chopsticks

8. Once all the chocolate covered nuts have cooled down and the chocolate has become firm, tip them into a container with the cocoa, close the lid and give a good shake so the cocoa dusts the chocolates in an even layer Shake any excess cocoa powder of the nuts with a sieve, then place them in a clean, dry container and consume as you please!

These beauties should keep up to a week or two (if it is hot, leave them in a cool dry place in your pantry, if you refrigerate chocolate it will sweat ). I dare you to try and make them last that long though

[tags]nuts, sweets, praline, chocolate, candy, recipe[/tags]

{ 0 comments }

Choc-a-riffic!

January 27, 2007 | 867 views

in Cakes & Brownies,Chocolate

Is this enough chocolate for ya?

So, I may have missed the deadline for Sugar High Friday: The Chocolate Sessions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t post about this cake now, does it?

Despite my numerous claims that I’m not a chocaholic (I’m not – promise!), I find myself drawn to cooking with it again and again. I prefer cooking with dark chocolate so even if the end result is something far too rich for my tastebuds, there is something to be said for the allure of creating a chocolate concoction – the glossy sheen as it melts, the warming scent that permeates the kitchen as it cooks, and finally, the intense flavour and sugar rush experienced as you devour a bite of your chocolatey friend.

Mmmmmmm…

This is by far one of the most intensely chocolatey things that I have ever made, bar none. Being flourless, it is a fairly compact cake and I think that just serves to make the chocolate flavour even stronger! I’d even contemplate calling it orgasmic, as a few bites of this may send your senses reeling and render you incapable of doing anything but grinning like an idiot with a goofy smile pulled across your face from corner to corner.

Heed my warning, folks. This is not a cake for the timid or soft-hearted.

Even a few days after this has been made, it’s still obscenely moist and fudgy

This recipe was pulled directly from ‘Totally Simple Food‘ by Jill Dupleix and has not been changed in a single way as I think this is utterly perfect as it is. If a chocolate mud cake and a chocolate brownie eloped into the sunset, this cake would be their love child as it combines the best of both worlds – its crumb is slightly like that of a dense chocolate cake, but has the sticky fudginess that you get with a brownie. And, as an added bonus, it’s safe for coeliacs as it’s flourless – how good can this get???

At this point I’m going to stop gasbagging and just give you the recipe, with a recommendation and a warning. This is one heck of a chocolate hit. Beware.

Little Chocolate Cakes (from Totally Simple Food by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients
200g dark, bitter chocolate
100g caster sugar
120g butter, plus extra for buttering moulds
100g ground almonds
4 eggs, seperated
pure icing sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and lightly butter a tray of large muffin moulds.

2. Roughly chop the chocolate and melt in a bain marie. Then add the sugar and butter to the chocolate in the bain marie and stir till well combined and you have a smooth, glossy sauce. Remove from heat and cool for 5 minutes.

3. Add the ground almonds and stir in till evenly mixed in, then beat in the egg yolks one at a time till combined.

4. Place the egg whites in a large dry bowl and beat till you have stiff peaks. Stir a large spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten it, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites with a large rubber spatula.

5. Spoon the mixture into the muffin moulds, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

6. Leave to cool for 10 minutes (don’t worry if they sink a little in the middle, this is perfectly natural) and serve at room temperature with a light dusting of icing sugar.

Enjoy these slowly, savouring each chocolatey bite!

[tags]chocolate, cakes, muffins, flourless, coeliac, recipe[/tags]

{ 0 comments }

Not-so-blackberry smacks

January 27, 2007 | 731 views

in Cookies & Slices

When I first saw the recipe for these brombeerbusserl by Nicky over at Delicious:Days, I knew that this was one recipe that needed to be made. How could something so tiny and cute and biscuitty possibly be denied? Now, though I’ve never really been much of a girly girl (you should’ve seen my childhood collection of matchbox cars!), I’m finding that as I get older, I’m really starting to dig cute things a whole lot more. This means that my collection of knee-length ‘flouncy’ skirts has exponentially increased and is threatening to take over my wardrobe, but also means that I’m wanting to make cute little biscuits and mignardises.

What can I say about this recipe except that it is almost a walk in the park. If you’ve stronger hands than I am then you probably won’t as difficult a time as I did when piping out the cookies, but don’t worry too much as it’s not too stiff a batter, and after holding the piping bag for a few minutes the batter warms up even more so it does get easier Not having any blackberry jam, I just went for a strawberry jam that I had in the pantry and I suspect they’d taste great with any berry jam that you had handy!

Sorry folks, I’ve got to keep this entry short as I’ve got to dash off to uni, but I promise I’ll post something more substantial over the weekend!

Berry Jam Butter Biscuits (adapted from Delicious:Days)

Ingredients (yield: ~50 cookie sandwiches)
250g butter, at room-temperature
120g pure icing sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla paste
1 egg
125g ground almonds
250g flour
approx 1/4 cup berry jam
Pure icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C and line a baking tray with a silicon baking mat or baking paper.

2. Beat together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla paste till well combined, then add egg and beat till mixture is smooth. Add egg, flour and ground almonds and beat till mixture is smooth.

3. Fill a piping bag with a medium-sized star nozzle with the batter and pipe onto the lined baking tray, keeping them about 2-3cm in diameter and about 3cm apart from each other.

4. Bake in the middle rack of your oven for about 5-10 mins, keeping a close eye on them and removing them once they start to go golden around the edges. Once they’re done, remove them from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. To sandwich the cookies, run the jam through a fine sieve to remove seeds and break up any lumps, then heat the jam in a small pot or in the microwave till it is very warm and runny.

6. Use a pastry brush to brush the underside of one of the cookies with some jam, then press another cookie against it to ‘sandwich’ the two together. You want to get enough jam in the cookie sandwich to make sure you can taste it, but not so much that when they’re put together the jam leaks out over the sides.

7. Leave the sandwiched cookies to cool for about an hour, then store in an airtight container. You can dust a little pure icing sugar over the top before serving to make ‘em look particularly pretty

[tags]recipes, cookies, German recipes, biscuits, jam, baking[/tags]

*EDIT – To those of you who have come across this blog from the food blogging article in Tuesday’s edition of the Herald Sun, welcome and thanks for dropping by!

{ 0 comments }