Wonton Soup

Wonton soup is probably best known Chinese soup in North America. There are many versions of not only fillings but also shape of the dumplings. I usually make the simple traditional triangle wontons. If you have a stock and ground pork on hand it is very simple and fast comfort food to prepare and can be a whole meal in itself, just fill the soup bowl with wontons is all it takes.

Filling:

3/4 lb. lean ground pork

4 green onions, finely chopped

3 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tbsp. sake

1 tsp. sesame oil

1/4 tsp. white pepper

2 tsp. fresh grated ginger

2 tsp. crushed garlic

4 medium shitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. sugar

wonton wrappers

Broth:

10 cups of chicken stock (canned or carton is fine)

1 tsp chopped ginger

1 tsp. crushed garlic

1 Tbs. soy sauce

1 green onions, chopped diagonally for garnish

Dumplings:

Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until thoroughly combined.

Working on a flat work surface, lay out a few of the wontons. (Keep remaining wonton wrappers covered with plastic wrap.) Fill a small bowl partially with cool water and set aside. Using a teaspoon measure, place a heaping teaspoonful of the meat filling in the center of each wonton. Using your fingers or brush, lightly wet the edges of the wonton. Bring 2 opposite corners of the wonton together to form a triangle and enclose the filling, pressing edges firmly around the mound of filling to eliminate any air pockets and seal. Assemble the remaining wontons in the same manner. When the wontons are all assembled, set aside.
Soup:

In a sauce pan or soup pot bring stock, soy sauce, garlic and ginger to boil. Carefully drop wontons into soup and stir to separate them. After dumpling come to surface, simmer additional 5 minutes and serve with chopped green onions.

Ready for assembly.

Pres two oposing corners together...

and press around filling to squeeze out air.

Ready for a soup.

Liver Dumpling Soup

Yes, another dumpling recipe. This comfort soup is one of our favorite soups to go to when it is miserable outside. It is too bad that many people would never give a second look at anything that has a liver in it. I use very fresh calf or baby beef liver for these dumplings and you can’t detect any liver taste or smell at all. As is the case with most soups you can easily control how substantial the soup is just by modifying ratio of stock to solids, in this case number and size of dumplings and amount of egg noodles and vegetables.

For dumplings:

Baby beef or Calf liver, 1 slice

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. salt

Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped

1/2 tsp. marjoram

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup bread crumbs mixed with 1 Tbs. flour/

Breadcrumbs, as required

Soup:

8 cups beef or chicken stock, carton or can is fine

1 large carrot

1/2 medium onion

1 stalk celery, all finely chopped

Marjoram

Garlic, finely chopped

Fine egg noodles
Parsley

Remove all traces of membrane on liver, roughly chop and then run through grinder or food processor to make a coarse paste. Remove to mixing bowl and add beaten egg, milk, salt, pepper, baking powder and marjoram and mix till well combined. You will now have fairly thin batter. Add 1/2 cup of bread crumbs with flour, mix well and let it rest for 10 minutes or so for bread crumbs to absorb moisture from liver mixture. Remix and add adjust with more bread crumbs or milk until you can form a ball. Form walnut size balls and set aside.
To make soup, pour stock  into a soup pot, drop in all chopped vegetables and bring to boil. Cook for 5 minutes, lower heat to simmer and drop in all liver dumplings, being careful not to splash hot stock. Gently lift dumplings with spatula from bottom so they don’t stick. When all of them are floating on top, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add fine noodles and stir to prevent noodles from sticking together. Cook additional 5 minutes, add marjoram, taste and  adjust seasoning. Serve with chopped parsley sprinkled on top.

Our Gardening Season has Started

I know, it looks quite early to talk about garden when we still have about 6” of snow and 13 weeks to official Last Frost Day but some flower take long time to grow from seeds. Last month I bought Trailing Snapdragon from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, among many other vegetable and flower seeds. This particular plant takes it’s time to full trailing stage – 120 days, that’s FOUR months! Next to be started is my last year favorite, Salpiglossis (Painted Tongue). It is a long blooming and beautiful plant. My rough guess is that I will grow about two dozen plants from seed this year. Yup, Spring is coming even though it doesn’t look like it.

Snapdragon

Salpiglossis (Painted Tongue)

Photo courtesy Johnny’s Selected Seeds

After 6 days it looks like most seeds have germinated. So far it looks a lot better then 60% that Johnny's Seeds printed on their seed packet. I will post exact germination rate after 3 weeks from planting the seeds, February 15th.

Also, today I have planted another Snapdragon, this time Rocket Mix.

Snapdragon Rocket Mix

Photo courtesy Johnny’s Selected Seeds



Ham, Sauerkraut and Potato Dumplings

This is a true comfort food and once you have made dumplings it is a cinch to put together. Just cook ham any way you prefer, boil, bake or braise, cook sauerkraut and serve with potato dumplings.

I bought shank end of bone-in smoked ham that came in at 4.5kg or 10lb, put it in large cast iron Dutch oven and poured in water about half way up the meat. It took 3-1/2 hours at 350°F to braise, covered, for a fall-off-the-bone done. Nice no-work method. Not only did I end up with great, tender ham, but now I have 2-1/2 quarts of fantastic ham stock for pea soup as well. Nice bonus. One thing I will change next time is that I will not cut the skin in diamond pattern, I will leave the skin whole. Since I like the nice chewy texture of the pork skin but not all that fat underneath, it will make the job of removing extra fat much easier.

Even though this meal looks fairly light, is quite filling. It will become a Winter standard.

Potato Dumplings - Chlupaté knedlíky (Czech)

(Chlupaté knedlíky) Czech

Potato dumplings are somewhat similar to Gnocchi in that main ingredients are potato, flour and egg except these dumplings are made either with grated raw potatoes entirely or cooked and raw combined. Also, some use only flour as a binder while others use only farina (cream of wheat), then there are recipes that use both in all sorts of proportions. There are literally hundreds of recipes in Czech Republic for potato dumplings. Every region, city, village and family has their own. Actually, I think that same is true about any peasant dish in any culture. Since I’ve been making gnocchi for a while now and am comfortable with potato based dough I came up with my own version.

1 raw Russet potato, peeled and grated fine

1 Russet potato, “baked” in microwave (see Gnocchi recipe)

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c. farina (cream of wheat)

1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Salt and white pepper to taste

Peel and rice cooked potato in food mill. You can grate cooked potato using box grater or, to be more rustic put it in heavy plastic bag and smash it with heavy frying pan J.

Mix raw and cooked potatoes together with the beaten egg. Sift together farina, flour, salt, pepper and baking powder and fold in potato mixture. The dough should be stiff enough to form a small ball.

Bring salted water in a large pot to roiling boil. With soup spoon form balls little smaller then golf ball. When all dumplings are ready drop them gently into boiling water. Dumplings should loosely cover the bottom in one layer. When water comes back to boil lower the temperature to gentle boil. Release dumplings that stuck to bottom of a pot and boil for 15 minutes.

When done, remove with slotted spoon to preheated frying pan with some bacon fat or lard and coat lightly.

Sprinkle with dry toasted bread crumbs and serve.

Potato dumplings are traditionally served with sauerkraut and smoked meat.

Release dumplings that stuck to bottom

Once on surface boil for 15 minutes.

Drain and fry in bacon fat.

Frittata with rice vermicelli leftover

I consider this the best way to recycle leftover of “Rice vermicelli with vegetables”. The ratio of leftover and eggs was about 2:1. I used 5 eggs and 2-1/2 cups of vermicelli, veggies and meat. Just beat the eggs with little salt, mix thoroughly with leftovers, pour in fairly hot non-stick frying pan and cover. Lower the temperature and cook till top of frittata is set. Now you have two options: slide it on a plate and turn over back to frying pan or slide frittata on steel preheated pie pan and place under broiler (my option, using toaster oven set at 450 °F broil). When eggs are cooked through it is ready to serve. As with any frittata this one is even better at room temperature.

Almost ready for broiler.

Barbequed Chinese Pork Ribs

Char Siu Ribs

Barbeque pork is used in many Chinese recipes from soups, appetizers, stir fried rice and noodle to on their own with a bowl of rice. I used same marinade for my pork back ribs. After 3 hours of slow roasting in sealed aluminum bag at 290 °F and hit of open broil at 400 °F for 30 minutes they came out nice a sticky, fall-off-the-bone done. What a treat! Maybe I should file it under Dessert, really.

Makes about 2-1/2 cups

The sauce:

Hoisin sauce, 3/4 cup

Soy sauce, 1/2 cup

Rice wine or dry sherry, 1/2 cup

Honey, 1/3 cup

Sugar, 1 tablespoon

1 Tbs. minced garlic

1 Tbs. minced ginger.

2 tsp. Chinese 5-spice powder

Put all ingredients in small sauce pan and simmer, covered, for 10 – 15 minutes stirring frequently. Strain through strainer to remove any solids and save in a jar.

Ribs:

Remove membrane covering the rib side of rack.

Preheat oven to 350 °F.

Take a piece of heavy aluminum sheet that will generously cover the ribs in a sort of sealed bag.

Place ribs meat side down at one end of foil and brush with Char Siu sauce. Turn over rib side down (be careful not to pierce the foil!!!) and rub meat generously with the sauce. Fold over the foil and seal sides by folding over the foil several times. Through the remaining open side pour in about 1/3 cup rice wine, fold the foil over several times to make airtight bag and place on baking sheet.

Place in middle of preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 290 °F without opening oven door and cook for 2 hours.

After 2-1/2 hours in the oven raise the temperature to 375°F and remove the ribs.

Cut “X” in the aluminum bag being careful about steam that will inevitably escape. Roll or bend foil to open the bag, brush with more sauce and return to oven for another 30 minutes or till golden brown.

When golden brown, remove and cut into individual rib sections.

Serve with rice but we always eat ribs with rye bread. Don’t ask, just try it, you will like it. Excellent combo, just like a rye bread, chocolate and beer. Best dessert ever J !

 

Cut the bag open after 2 1/2 hours

Fold over the foil, brush with more sauce and return to 375°F oven for another 30 minutes.

Ready to be cut and plated.

Using Whole Side of Atlantic Salmon

Every time one of our supermarkets has a good special on fresh New Brunswick salmon fillet I buy whole side and break it up myself. Also, I always call the store and ask exactly when the will receive new shipment and buy it as soon as it is available. I never buy from display case because when I get to the fish counter the salmon is still in a box fresh from a truck.

First thing I do is wipe it clean and remove any bones left behind.

This time I wanted to make more Gravlax so two big chunks went there with skin on. Next 2 pieces were cut for dinner that night (Pan Seared Fillet of Salmon) and tail section and belly were used for sashimi and 3 Sushi Rolls cut into 18 pieces, enough for two of us to munch on whole day! The two fillets and tail were skinned.

For me, this is a way to go when it comes to salmon. I have to mention that salmon freezes extremely well. I usually freeze it in serving pieces and when frozen solid I vacuum pack.

Left to right: Gravlax, 2 fillets, 2nd side for Gravlax and tail for sushi roll and sashimi. Very frugal way to buy salmon.