Dumpling Night

If anyone's interested in learning to make dumplings from scratch, join us on Saturday! Albert will be teaching us how to make dumplings, from the dumping wrapper to the actual dumpling filling. We'll start prepping at 5pm, and we plan to eat by 7pm. E-mail me if you're interested! This Dinner Meet will be held in South San Jose.

Garlic Noodles with Roasted Crab

Never again! Never again will I pay an exorbitant amount of money at a restaurant to have delicious garlic noodles and roasted crab. What inspired me to find this recipe in the first place is because of all the rave reviews I'd read of the infamous garlic noodles and roasted crab from Thanh Long in SF. I googled that and stumbled upon this recipe. What was difficult about the recipe the first time I attempted it wasn't the recipe itself - it was the crab killing part. Dear lord, what a traumatic experience! I reviewed this tutorial on YouTube and thought I had it covered, but... yeah. Traumatic. This time around, I got smart and visited my local 99 Ranch supermarket and asked them to chop up the crabs for me. That seafood butcher was cool and efficient. Thus, the dish was made, and it was easy and delicious. Give it a try! By the way, I got the recipe from this site . I followed the recipe almost to the letter; I've added my comments in brackets below.

Ingredients:
1 lb fresh noodles
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic (pounded)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 1/2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder
2 1/2 teaspoons oyster sauce
5 teaspoons grated parmesan cheese

Method:
1. Rince the noodles with cold water and set aside. Heat up a pot of water and let it boil. Boil the noodles in the hot water until they are done, drain the water, and set aside to cool down the noodles. [Just for a little though! I like having the noodles warm.]
2. In a pan, sauté the garlic with the olive oil in medium heat. The purpose is to infuse the olive oil with garlicky flavor. Discard the garlic and then add in 4 tablespoons of butter and turn the heat to low. [I actually prefer to keep the garlic in; the taste of the garlic after it's been cooked in the butter is super delicious. You could also choose to mince the garlic and leave it in instead.]
3. Add in the chicken bouillon powder, garlic powder, oyster sauce and blend well. Set aside to let it cool. [I don't actually let it cool that much because I like the noodles warm.]
4. Once the garlic mixture is cool and the noodles are cool at room temperature, pour the garlic mixture over the noodles and toss them together to blend well. Add in the grated parmesan cheese, toss well, and serve immediately. [Again, ignore the first part if you prefer warm noodles.]

Note: Sometimes, I need to reheat the noodles a bit because the crab's not ready yet. In that case, I put the noodles in an oven-safe dish and put it in the oven at about 150-200 degrees F.

Crustacean-inspired Roasted Crab Recipe
Ingredients:
1 Dungeness Crab (about 2 lbs) [I bought 2 crabs totaling a bit over 3 lbs. The rest of the ingredients is enough to cook this much crab.]
1 stick unsalted butter/8 tablespoons
3-4 cloves garlic (chopped coarsely)
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder
2 teaspoons black pepper (cracked using a mortar and pestle)
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Method:
1. Clean and chop the crab into small pieces.
2. Heat up the butter in a wok (between medium to low heat) and saute the garlic until aromatic, but not brown.
3. Add in the black peppers, chicken bouillon powder, and then add in the crab and stir well.
4. Add in the sugar and cook the crab until half done.
5. Dish out and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes. Serve hot with garlic noodles.

Curried Pork Noodles

One of the main reasons I use Google Reader is because I get to consolidate a whole bunch of food blogs to read at my leisure. I happened across this recipe as I was browsing from one linked blog to another. You should check out this blog sometime; I like the blogger's writing style, and the recipes are tasty. I've adapted the recipe to what you see below. This serves 4.

Ingredients:

1 package of dried rice noodles (I used thin rice sticks, but you should try using pad thai noodles if you find them.)

Vegetable/olive oil

1 pound ground pork

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 small fresh green chilis, deseeded and minced

1 small onion, chopped in long slices

1 large red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

2 tablespoons curry powder

3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce

¾ cup coarsely chopped cilantro

¾ cup coarsely chopped basil (optional)

Instructions:

1. Cover the rice noodles in boiling water and soak until soft but not mushy for 7-10 minutes. Reserve ¼ cup of the soaking water. Drain the noodles, flush with cold water, and transfer to a bowl.

2. In the meantime, cook the pork, garlic, and chili in 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat in a wok or large skillet, breaking up any chunks, until just cooked through (a little pink is okay as it will cook through later). Remove with a slotted spoon to a small bowl.

3. Add the remaining oil in the skillet or wok over medium-high heat and add the pepper strips. Cook for 1 minute, then add the onion. Continue cooking until the pepper is almost tender but with a little crunch and the onion is golden, an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Add the reserved pork along with the curry powder. Cook, stirring often, for 1 minute then stir in the reserve noodle-soaking water. Add the drained noodles along with the fish sauce and herbs. Toss well to combine and serve with more fish sauce, if desired.

Beef Chow Fun with Bean Sprouts or Chinese Broccoli

This is a really easy dish to make at home, especially using the recipe I'm going to share with you below. As a working parent supporting two kids on her own, my mom did not have time for fancy recipes. If it weren't a dish she could cook in less than an hour, it wasn't going on the dinner table. This was one of those dishes that showed up regularly for dinner since it was a favorite of me and my brother, and it was super quick to make. Here's the recipe below for four.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. wide, flat rice noodles

1 lb. beef flank steak, sliced (or more, if you want more meat in the dish)

1 yellow onion, sliced

1 lb. bean sprouts

Canola oil (for stir fry)

Oyster sauce

Soy sauce

Sugar

Black pepper (optional)

2 green onions, sliced into 1-inch segments (optional)

Instructions:

1. Marinade the sliced beef in some oyster sauce, about 2 tbsp. If you like it a bit peppery, add some ground black pepper to the marinade as well. Make sure to mix the sauce with the meat. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes.

2. Loosen the noodles. If they aren’t fresh, they’ll be a bit tough to unravel. Take care not to break the noodle; eating small pieces of broken noodle is not as yummy as long strands! Once the noodle has been loosened from its packaged state, mix in about 4 tbsp. of oyster sauce by hand until the noodles are coated and have a light brown color to them. Heat in microwave for 1 minute if the noodles are too hard, but if they're fresh, you can by-pass the microwaving.

3. Add some oil to the wok. Stir-fry long slices of one yellow onion until it starts to become translucent. Add the beef slices, and stir around until the meat is cooked through. Slight pinkness is acceptable, since you'll be cooking the meat for a bit more before serving. Remove the meat from the wok and set aside.

4. Add a bit more oil to the wok and stir fry the bean sprouts (and the green onion if you have some) until the bean sprouts turn yellow. Alternatively, if you're making beef chow fun with Chinese broccoli instead, this is the point that you would add the Chinese broccoli and stir it around til the leaves are wilted.

5. Add the noodles to the wok and mix well with the bean sprouts. If needed, add a bit more oil to the sides to keep the noodles from burning. Add some soy sauce and sugar to taste. (Approximately 2 tsp. of soy sauce and ½ tsp. of sugar.) Once the taste of the noodles and bean sprouts has been adjusted, add the beef and onion back in. Mix all the ingredients and serve hot.

Oodles of Noodles

Indeed, we feasted on noodles, noodles, and more noodles at Dinner Meet this week, and boy, were they tasty! These are all noodle dishes that are easy to prepare for dinner on a weeknight, so I hope you try them out. Since I've prepared these dishes before, I felt more confident about how they would turn out. (Though trying out completely new recipes with a group of people for the first time can be amusing as well, I'm sure. I guess that's how quite a few of these Dinner Meets have been in the past few weeks, and the dishes turned out great!) Anyway, check out the recipes, and let me know how they turn out.

Oodles of Noodles this week

I'm delinquent - I posted about signups everywhere but the blog, fancy that. Anyway, on the menu this week are Asian-style noodle dishes:

Garlic Noodles with Roasted Crab

Beef Chow Fun

Curried Pork Noodles

It's this Wednesday, starting at 7pm. Do let me know if you'd like to join as I've space for 1-2 more people!

Cinnamon Sugar Biscotti

I have never made biscotti before, but then again I don't bake much. I've also been of the mind that biscotti is hard to make, but I think I might have just been intimidated by the exotic sounding name. Either way, the boys proved to me that baking is perhaps not as much a science as everyone else makes it out to be. (Don't hold me to this statement for baked goods that are not biscotti!) They totally forgot to cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl prior to adding the dry ingredients. They somehow also managed to add eggs before the recipe called for them to add eggs. I was worried, but the biscotti turned out just fine in the end. It smells wonderful as it's baking - like churros!

Here's another recipe from allrecipes.com; check it out.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Ingredients:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the 2/3 cup sugar and butter. Beat in 1 egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients.
3. On a lightly floured surface, divide dough into two pieces. Roll each piece into a log about 9 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place logs on the prepared baking sheet and flatten slightly. Brush with the beaten egg.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden and firm to the touch. Cool for 15 minutes.
5. On a cutting board, slice each log crosswise at a diagonal into 1/2 inch slices, using a serrated knife. Place back on the baking sheet, cut side down, and sprinkle with a mixture of the remaining cinnamon and sugar. Return to the oven for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until toasted. Cool on wire racks, and store in an airtight container.