Poet's Potstickers

A poet gave me his potsticker recipe after I heard him tell Arthur Sze that Neil's recipe is often called, "better than my grandmother's" by his various friends. And after I told him how much I love potstickers. I had not gotten the recipe from my dad for his own potstickers which he made once. We all sat at the round white breakfast table on Meadow Road and he floured the wrappers. I'm pretty sure his filling was chives, Chinese spinach, pork, egg, garlic and soy sauce. But that is something we can never have again. The recipe below, though, is really really good.

Into a food processor with a regular blade put:

1 pound ground pork (we used 1/2 pound fatty ground pork plus two lean chops because we were in the Real Asian Grocery where ground pork is half fat, so don't feel obliged about the pork being lean).
2t garlic powder
1/4 cup plain flour
an egg+ one yolk (save the white for the assembly of the potstickers)
1/4 pound stir fried shrimp*
1 T soy sauce (less if you fear salt)
2 t sesame oil
1 t ketchup
1 t rooster sauce
1 t Better than Bouillon Organic Chicken Base (or powdered cube is fine)
small bundle of fresh chives
quarter cup of water, more if it looks like it needs it
generous crackings of white and black pepper: (We happened to have a grinder of Frontier organic smoked peppercorn blend)
dash of anise powder (optional)
one 16 oz. pack dumpling skins (Wonton Specialist, 317-325 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn NY 11206, (718) 418-2911).

*the shrimp are supposed to be pan fried in sesame and peanut oil, garlic chili paste (Lan Chi brand Garlic Chili Paste is what Dad used) and a little ketchup but this didn't happen, so I put the condiments in separately for taste and it was good. I used rooster sauce, which was tasty, but there's a very particular Chinese garlic chili paste you should use).

Blend all this until the dumpling mix is fluffy.

Watch a youtube about how to make potstickers. Use the egg white mixed hard with chopsticks and a teaspoon of water.



Get a non-stick pan or cast iron pot with a tight fitting lid very hot with a generous amount of oil.

Fry dumplings on both sides. Add 1/2 to a cup water and keeping the heat high clamp on lid and let them steam until most of the water is gone. I personally want to pan fry future batches them put them in a bamboo steamer to get the wrappers soft.



Serve with dipping sauce of: soy, vinegar, sesame oil, some chopped chive. (Juliette's roommates had made a more Southeast Asian dipping sauce of lime juice and fish sauce which was also good: then she dumped it in with the Chinese sauce and that DID work).



Juliette made Korean pancakes too and watched an Ozu movie while I watched half of it and dozed. Then we talked until 2:15AM while the rabbits ran under the bed and the cats asked for pats. Girls with some fat luck.

This whole thing makes me think back on my dad eating fermented tofu out of a jar. If a meal was kind of bland or involved a lot of rice (especially a bed of rice with sardines on it), my dad would say, "Get me the bean curd" which he pronounced kind of like "been kirk". It is basically the worst thing I ever ate. I might be more okay with it now that my taste buds have matured, but then again, do an image google of "fermented tofu": on the first page there are three photos of people (two asians, one white guy) looking like they are going to hurl. Ah. You should try it.

Gluten Free Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake

Basically I made this cake but with many tweaks. This is a record of the tweaks in case this turns out okay and I want to make it again.

1. ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTION FOR BUDGETARY REASONS

Instead of 4 pints of ice cream ($14) I used a 1.5 quart box of Breyers Coffee and one pint Hagen Daz Five Coffee flavor ($6.50 total). You might like to have the two flavors, coffee and espresso suggested in the original recipe.

2. Don't use 9 by 9 PAN: USE 10" SPRINGFORM PAN INSTEAD COS IT WON'T FIT (hm, won't drip though in the 9 by 9 pan).

Make a vanilla sponge cake in a 10" springform pan, substituting buckwheat flour when the recipe calls for regular flour. Be careful not to burn. Let cool for ten minutes. Pop open spring-form pan, peel off bottom of pan and parchment paper. Cut round cake in half horizontally so you have two layers. (i.e. don't use a 9 by 9 by 2 pan, it's too small and hard to slice the cake if it's in there).

3. COFFEE SYRUP

Martha Stewart loves it when I correct her.

While the cake is baking, make the coffee syrup. I read in the comments for the original recipe that the syrup didn't quite work, so I made it a little differently:

1 C sugar
2/3 cup water

Get this to a rolling boil for a good ten minutes until it reduces slightly and pours thickly from the spoon, gets a little golden colored.

Brew one cup of unbelievably strong coffee. I used about 3 heaping tablespoons of French Roast grounds. You can buy a little sleeve for 99 cents. I know, you have buckets of coffee grounds, but I don't drink coffee and this was pretty economical.

Put this in with the syrup and let it simmer another 3-4 minutes.

Let cool and add a 50 mL bottle of Kahlua (the tiny airplane size). Stir.


4. ASSEMBLING THE CAKE

Wash spring-form pan. Snap the ring back to the bottom round part. Line it with plastic wrap, two pieces that are big enough to go up the sides (don't put the plastic down before you snap the sides back on -- won't help).

Put the bottom layer of cake back in the pan, fluffy cut side up.

Get a teaspoon and pour little spoonfuls of the coffee syrup evenly on the cake to soak it in until about half the syrup is gone.

Sprinkle 2 T grounds over the first layer.


5. SOFTEN THE ICE CREAM IN A BOWL WITH A BIG SPOON

Put half the soft ice cream on top of the syrup soaked layer. Repeat, adding the next layer of cake, rest of syrup drizzled over it, then coffee grounds, then the rest of the coffee ice cream.

Let this puppy freeze until hard or overnight. Let it thaw a little before you serve it, obv.

Kahlua, the www tells me, is gluten free.

Enjoy!

Lentil Mint Salad

1 1/4 C lentils, rinsed and picked over.
half a yellow pepper, cubed
five radishes, sliced (can be left out)
1/3 C minced mint
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
half a cup of crumbled feta
half a cup of oil
3 T lemon juice
1/3 C minced kalamata olives (can be left out)
salt and pepper

Boil the lentils in plenty of water for 20 minutes. Drain.

Mix everything in a bowl. In the original recipe, you're supposed to saute the yellow pepper in oil first. I have never done this because I prefer to eat things raw if possible and also, who wants to turn on another burner for a summer dish?

Serve room temperature with rye bread and maybe some La Tur. Mmmm.

Serves 6?

Pasta Arrabiata

Okay, it's easy to make this into a vegan pasta dish. I just learned about it this morning and it meets all my insane demands: It's super simple, has a complicated flavor and feels like someone's gramma made it, all at the same time. It means angry pasta, and there are a ton of recipes out there that are excellent, but tonight I made a version consolidated from this Pasta Arrabiata and this Pasta Arrabiata which looks like it requires that you baby the frying garlic cloves and an entire bundle of fresh basil.

1 box Penne Regate De Cecco brand
olive oil
1 box Pomo tomato pieces
1 bay leaf
6-10 slugs of Red Hot (I know, this is not Italian; I couldn't find a red chili in the fancy bodega).
1 t crushed italian seasoning
6 minced garlic cloves
1 t lemon juice, fresh
1 t sugar
salt and pepper

Boil the pasta in salted water. Really salted. Not too salted. Oh, you know. Salted.

While that's happening, get the oil really hot in the bottom of the pan, enough to cover about a hands breadth. Simmer the garlic on medium for a minute, then add the tomatoes, the bay leaf, spices, Red Hot, lemon, sugar, salt and pepper. Put in the pasta when it's truly al dente, then let it soak in the sauce for about 5 minutes. Pick out the bay leaf. Serve with parmesan, or fake parmesan if that's your style. Top with fresh basil. (I did not have fresh basil (all sold out at the fancy bodega) and I lived. Also, no real red chili with the seeds scraped out; Red Hot makes everything better).

I think the second recipe calls for you to gently fry an entire bundle of basil and then stick it back in the sauce towards the end. That has got to be summery and amazing and more distracting flavor-wise.

BEST GLUTEN FREE BROWNIES IN THE WORLD

I have to say, this does not taste like gluten free material. I would eat this and never know the difference. Also, it's based on the most popular brownie recipe on Martha Stewart's site, and you should treat yourself to the comments, because they are hilarious.

Follow Martha and her minions' recipe here and substitute a cup of organic buckwheat flour for the regular flour and add a quarter teaspoon of xanthan gum. Heck, that might not even be necessary.

WARNING. The baking time on this recipe is incorrect. Only cook the brownies for 30 minutes, then let them cool for as long as you can stand it, maybe an hour. A really really big knife is in order for the slicing of these brownies as they are, as the commenters remarked, pretty crumbly.

Heaven and Hell Cake

There are certain things I might have eaten when I was 12 but that I'll probably never eat from here on out. I mean, the Cadbury Creme Egg deep fried in funnel cake batter. Bacon, cheese and sour cream on a baked potato. Something wherein the "soup" is really "melted pork fat" (I tried to let it drain out, but I was being watched).

But this cake, this cake gives me pause. Layers of peanut butter mousse, angel food cake, and devils food cake covered in chocolate ganache. It's more of a concept cake, and I'm pretty down with that most of the time. But it seems to cause a kind of insanity or ruckus. I mean, it's a cake that causes TROUBLE.

***

In other news, I made a gluten free blueberry breakfast cake with garbanzo flour and the batter tasted like a dog's ass. I think I was supposed to roast the flour first. Or it will not have that bitter grassy aftertaste after baking. This is the birthday cake of someone who can't eat wheat. But Lord, I am already thinking about the back-up cake I will bake, and I don't have time for a back-up cake. If I did, it would be gluten free one-bowl chocolate cake. I hate that gluten free baked goods are so freaking sweet. But that chocolate cake recipe describes and links to a home mix of gluten free flour and I feel like if the inventor claims it can be used cup for cup as a substitute for flour, Ima try it.

***

Yesterday, I made Martha Stewart's Jewish Apple Cake. Let's be serious, it was the apple cake recipe of Arthur Schwartz' Jewish Home Baking as passed on by Martha Stewart. It reappeared on a different site as Passover Pareve Apple Cake. To be safe, I'm putting it here. For five minutes I couldn't find it and panicked.

INGREDIENTS

• For the topping
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, or a combination of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and ginger
• For the cake
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup matzo cake meal
• 5 medium apples, peeled, cored, halved, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups), preferably Golden Delicious, Crispin (Mutzu), or other apples that keep their shape when cooked
• 1/3 cup raisins (optional)

DIRECTIONS

• 1. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly oil an 8-inch-square glass baking dish.
• 2. Mix together the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside.
• 3. In a bowl with a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed until well mixed. Beat in the sugar, about 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until the mixture is thick and foamy. Beat in the oil, adding it in a steady stream. Scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the spatula, stir in the matzo cake meal, blending well.
• 4. Pour half of the batter mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle about half the topping mixture evenly over the batter. Top with half the apples and all the raisins. Scrape the remaining half of the batter over the apples, spreading it out to cover the apples. Arrange the remaining apples on top of the batter. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining topping mixture.
• 5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the sides of the cake pull away very slightly from the baking dish and the topping has begun to caramelize. (A cake tester is not reliable. It will not come out clean due to the moist richness of this cake.) Let sit in the baking dish for several hours, until completely cool, before cutting into serving portions. This cake is yet another Yiddish food that improves with age. Keep the cake in its dish, covered tightly with plastic, and the next day the topping will have become a moist, candy-like coating.

***

Me: I'm making the apple cake for Passover.
JW: Oh really?
Me: Yes, a Martha Stewart recipe, so you know that it's been tested, that it will work, and that feelings were hurt to get there.
JW: (Wistful) Yes, feelings were definitely hurt.

Also:

Me: Got any plastic wrap?
S.: No. Should we go get some?
Me: No, it's just supposed to be airtight. It'll get better over the course of two days, supposedly.
S.: (Crimping the foil top over the foil pan of cake).
Me: Also, if an intruder breaks into your apartment, you can just hit him with this cake. Seriously. You're more important.
S.: That is a heavy cake.
Me: That's ten apples my friend. (And nine eggs...and I hammered the walnuts while they were in a Ziplock, oh the therapy).

***

Next: garbanzo cassoulet...

Apple Walnut Whiskey Cake

When I was a kid, my mom used to make a German Apple Cake. Our recipes mostly came from neighbors trying to help out a lady from France who could barely speak a lick of English but had two hungry non-stop sons. It was stiff batter with apples, sugar and cinammon on top. It absorbed more milk than a black hole, almost. Dense, plain, you could taste the salt in some bites of the bottom of the cake, and she burnt it sometimes, so it felt like a kind of penance to eat some, save for the apples being still good.

I tried to make a healthy apple cake from Heidi Swanson's blog, but it was too dry and healthy for us, probably because we are not from California or used to cakes so crumby and dry. I mean, 2.5 cups of whole wheat pastry flour! I think she undercooked it, said she undercooked it, and then gave a time for it to bake that was *not* undercooking it. My mistake.

So then I took my standby Martha Stewart Saffron Pear Cake and made some serious adjustments. To avoid confusion, here's the recipe in its entirety:

9 X 13" ceramic or metal pan (aluminum makes a more caramelized topping for some reason -- hotter).

3 apples sliced thin and put in lemon water
a bag of crushed walnut pieces
1 stick of butter
1.5 cups sugar
1 7/8 cup flour
scant 2 t baking powder
3/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves/nutmeg
3/4 t salt
7/8 C buttermilk
1/3 C vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Let butter be very soft. Mix it with 1/3 C of the sugar, a third of the cinnamon, and dashes of cloves and nutmeg. Mix until fluffy.

2. Put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. The strip of it can be a little narrower than the pan.

3. Spread this butter mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan.

4. Sprinkle walnuts in a pretty thick layer over the butter and sugar mixture, but leave about an inch free of nuts all the way around the edge of the pan. Move a nut if you have to. If you don't do this, the apples will slop out when you flip the cake: it'll look like a dog got to it.

5. Layer apples thinly over walnuts. Leave that perimeter of butter alone.

6. Mix the rest of the sugar and everything else together. Pour carefully over the nuts and sugar/butter mixture.

7. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Make sure toothpick comes out pretty clean, maybe a little crumb or two on it.

8. Let cake sit for 10 minutes. IMPORTANT.

9. Find a platter big enough to turn the cake over on. Do it. Peel off the parchment.

10. Let this cool.

11. Then, while it's cooling, drizzle some Jim Beam on it somehow. Poke little skewers in it and soak it through or give it a Jim Beam IV. Whatever it takes, maybe even the way they get whiskey into a drunk fruitcake. You wouldn't want it to cook it off either.

I'd serve with plain whipped cream, or if you can't imagine drizzling Jim Beam directly on the cake, put it in the whipping cream where it can be present more subtly.

The top should be between a sugar syrup and a carmelized sauce.

Someone else thought apples and whiskey were a good idea: Butterscotch Whiskey Sauce. Indeed.