Sunday, April 8, 2007

Home is where the stomach is

What a lovely weekend. Though I didn't do anything much exciting and was not able to see my busy, working sisters, I was able to enjoy the quality time I spent with my parents.

Whenever I'm at home, I make breakfast for my dad. I think that habit started a couple years ago when I would nag him to eat more oatmeal for his high blood pressure. I make a pretty decent oatmeal, if I do say so myself, fancying it up with a good splash of milk for satisfying creaminess and dried fruit and maple syrup for natural sweetness.

Anyway, that's not to say that I don't throw in a few things in the mix. I often make pancakes and french toast when the morning calls for something a little more fabulous...
Yes, I call them Amber's fabulous pancakes because, well, they simply are so. Not only are they relatively healthy, but they flaunt something different everytime. Made with a mix of flours (whole wheat and regular), these pancakes might be dressed up with nutty toasted walnuts one day, decadent chocolate chips the next, bright citrus zest another and maybe even all three at once! I basically take the recipe base and add whatever I want to it.

Amber's fabulous pancakes


1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 T. oil
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 T. maple syrup (or other sweetener)
1 t. vanilla

fabulous additions: toasted walnuts, cinnamon, citrus zest, chocolate chips, bananas, dried fruit -- be creative!!


Mix all dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix all wet ingredients in the other and any of your additions (except bananas, they should be sliced and placed on top of the pancakes when they're on the pan/griddle). Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture in. Stir until JUST combined (overmixing will result in tough, yucky pancakes). Use a 1/4 measuring cup to pour onto a pan/griddle on medium high heat. Cook about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Serve with REAL maple syrup (please, not the imitation kind).


Another of my dad's favorite is french toast.
I mean, who doesn't love how the fragrant eggy vanilla goodness soaks up the bread that's then lightly browned? I usually use regular sliced bread (if it's frozen, just let the slices thaw first), but today I had a french baguette so I just used that. It's so darn easy and cheap I almost want to cry when people are willing to pay $7 or whatever for a plate of questionably made stuff from IHOP. Whatever floats your boat folks -- here's my version of french toast.


Cut 4 1/4-inch slices from a french loaf at an angle so you have slices with a pretty large surface area (or just use plain sliced toasting bread that you have), set aside. In a flat bowl (one where a slice of the bread is able to sit in), whisk 2 eggs, 3 T. milk, 1 T. maple syrup (or other sweetener), 1/2 t. vanilla, 1/2 t. cinnamon. Dip each slice of bread in this mixture, both sides so that they're well coated, but not soaked. Cook in a skillet over medium heat until golden brown, about 4 minutes each side. Serve with REAL maple syrup.


Lastly, let me talk a little bit about one of my favorite things --
dou sa bao zi. These steamed delicacies are lovingly prepared by my mom. They are basically a bun that is filled with redbean paste then shaped and steamed so it acquires a spongy, airy texture. There really isn't anything like it and I really hope I 'm one day able to make these completely on my own so that I can enjoy them home-made well into my old age!


Mom makes the dough and after letting it rise, shapes it into rounds and rolls them flat.


Then she takes the redbean filling and places a cute dollop in the center of each flattened round. She takes the edges and pinches them into their characteristic bao zi shape and gives them a final rise.


They are them steamed for 20 minutes in our metal steamer...



And voila! Plump and slightly sweet, I can't ask for a better treat. Mom had extra dough and made man tou out of them (basically a plain steamed roll) and packed them up in a ziploc baggy for me... whooopeeee!!!

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

A big bowl full of comfort




For some people, it's the rich, creaminess of mac n' cheese; for others it might be the refreshing crunch of milk and cereal; but for me, I find comfort in a steaming bowl of
xi fan, or rice porridge. Yes, it might be mushy and yes, relatively bland, but there is so much more to it. It's having that warming and mellow aroma of rice tickling your senses and all the delightful tiny dishes of pickled spicy veggies to accompany it. At home, my mom likes to make plain rice porridge with jasmine white rice, but I prefer it when she mixes it with other grains like barely, cornmeal and millet to give it more bite and a nutty edge. However, on occasion she'll make a savory rice porridge made with pi dan, 1000-year old egg.

That's right, 1000-year old egg, otherwise known as preserved duck egg. Non-chinese people are probably disgusted at the thought, but let me tell you -- this stuff has been eaten throughout chinese history and is enjoyed by us even today! Preserved duck egg is made by coating the egg with a clay-like plaster of red earth, lime, wood ash, salt and tea and aged for 100 days (I think the 1000-year is just a name in good fun).

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. The yolk is a creamy gray and the "whites" become a barely translucent blackish amber. How does it taste? Well, it's hard to describe really. I would say it has the richness and texture of an avocado, but, well, eggy. This stuff should not be eaten just as a hard-boiled egg, but should be incorporated with other ingredients like tofu or meat or what I made today -- rice porridge.

I called my mom to ask her how to make this the other day, and it's actually quite easy. I like to use cooked rice because it speeds up the cooking time considerably. Traditionally, one would use white rice to make it, but I'm a brown rice freak so I prefer the mixed brown rice. My mom also said that it tastes best when you have both the pi dan and some thinly sliced lean meat. I've had it with roasted duckmeat before, which is probably the best you can get, but lean pork is great too. Also make sure that the meat is seasoned before hand with soysauce, sugar, rice wine and five spice powder. I went rice-happy the other day and cooked too much, so I used about 2 cups of rice and cooked it in 8 cups of liquid. 7 cups of that liquid was water and 1 cup was chicken broth. I let the pot of porridge cook for 30 minutes and added the diced egg and meat and simmered for another 15 minutes. I then served it up with some leftover leafy greens I had in the fridge. Yum!

I'm not going to put up the recipe just because I have a feeling it's a little to "out-there" for ya'll especially with the "strange" eggs. But if you want it, I would be happy to share it with you if I'm asked.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

That's some fine lookin' dimsum you got there, where'd ya go?


Oh, fooled ya. I didn't go anywhere for dimsum today, because my mom and I made our own! She has stocked a ridiculous variety of starches in the pantry: rice flour, glutinous rice flour, bean starch, this and that starch, that and this flour... so today, she decided, was the perfect day to try to make a dent in her supply.

Now, I'm not a big fan of dimsum. Unless it's done very well, dimsum can be a nauseating and greasy experience. One of my favorites though, chang fen, is sometimes hard to find because the xiao zhen bao, or little steamed buns are more popular. This is where "making your own" comes into action.

A popular filling for dimsum is cha sao (which is also called char siu as in the Cantonese dialect), a sweet and smoky chinese bbq pork. We happened to have some in the freezer and chopped it up into a small dice and sauteed it with finely diced shallots. For chang fen, the wrapping is essentially a rice flour crepe. We mixed about 1/4 cup of rice flour with a little oil and 1.5 cups of water. To put this whole shindig together, we used our aluminum steamer and placed a normal circular pie pan on it and poured on a thin layer of the rice flour mixture. It took about a minute of steaming, covered, to fully turn the mixture into a lovely rice crepe where it then received a heaping tablespoon helping of the cha sao mixture.



We then took the pan out of the steamer and repeated the same process with another pan. In the meantime, I was in charge of rolling the thing together. By greasing the pan a little before hand, I didn't have to fight any stickiness and was able to roll the chang fen fully intact.



The result was very pleasing. The outer rice flour crepe was smooth and light and the filling was tasty. Doused in a mixture of soysauce, sesame oil, sugar and a small drizzle of Sriracha, dim sum was a delightful affair in the comforts of our own dining room -- we didn't even miss the waitresses pushing their carts.



Final thoughts: of course I wouldn't even dare make this back in Davis (keep that huge aluminum steamer in an ittybitty kitchen that I share with 5 other people? what a laugh!) but it's just a good feeling to know that you don't have to only leave it to a restaurant for "special" foods. Everything is within our reach if we just try and go for it!