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julia chews the fat

Monthly Archives: March 2012

Chinese tortellini

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by julia chews the fat in Lunch & Dinner, Soups

≈ 2 Comments

Venus and Jupiter walk into a bar…

There are a few popular legends surrounding the creation of tortellini – three to be exact. But my favourite by far is the one that involves a boozy encounter between Venus and Jupiter and a perverted inn-keeper. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s a fun jaunt through medieval lore via the Interweb. At the very least, it can be a fun story to share with the in-laws at dinner, especially if you sass-up the specifics. If you’re feeling shy, you can rely on this week’s space news to introduce the topic.

While I can’t confirm the true origins of tortellini, I can tell you this: it is not amongst my Nonna’s tried-and-true recipes. In fact, I had never come close to seeing homemade tortellini until I went to Bologna to visit family in 2001, when they were served to me in a soup. (Please note that I’ve just used the words “homemade”, “tortellini” and “Bologna” in the same sentence. Mm hm). The filling was made with two types of meat sourced from the family farm, fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parma being just down the road and all) and herbs grown from the garden. The pasta was made in casa, hand-rolled by a Bolognese mamma; the broth was homemade too – with stock made from the farm’s chickens, no less.

Oh and this was just the starter.

Like any good romantic fling, this one stayed suspended in the pillowy nostalgia of a short-lived, cross-continental escapade. I was happy to look back on it fondly as a moment that could never be replicated, presumably explaining why I’d never attempted making tortellini in the confines of my apartment’s depressingly small kitchenette. There was definitely a fear of making sub-par specimens and, ultimately, popping the rose-coloured bubble of my Bolognese food fling.

There had always been, however, a little dumpling that my mom used to make – something that my Nonna refers to as “Chinese tortellini”. Basically, a gingery meat mixture tucked into a wonton wrapper, served in broth. This has nothing to do with the Bolognese version – god forbid we compare them. But laid out on a counter-top, looking a bit Georgia O’Keefe-y, they bare a striking resemblance to their Italian cousin, tortellini. The filling is Cantonese-inspired, yet it isn’t exactly the kind of wonton you’d find at Sunday’s Dim Sum. But they belong to neither country, resting somewhere in between two worlds, in a kind of Sinotalese grey area that can’t, and probably shouldn’t, be categorized.

Chinese tortellini (adapted from mom’s recipe) – Makes about 80 dumplings

  • 1 lb ground pork
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup water chestnuts (drained)
  • 4 green onions
  • 1/2 teaspoon finely minced fresh ginger
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro

Directions

In a food processor, finely chop the water chestnuts, shallots, ginger and cilantro.  Add the ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil to blend.  Add the pork and egg. Pulse to incorporate the ingredients.

Place a teaspoon of the pork mixture on the center of each wonton wrapper, brushing some water along the edges. Fold dough to make a triangle. Press the edges to seal the filling inside the dough, being careful to eliminate air pockets. Gently criss-cross the two tip of the longest edge of the triangle to make a tortellini shape.

Place on cookie sheets and freeze. Transfer to freezer bags. When ready to use, cook for about 5 minutes in boiling water, drain, then transfer to hot broth and cook for a few more minutes until filling is cooked through. Add veggies and seasonings as you see fit.

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Dessert-shy

17 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by julia chews the fat in Cooking For Your Peeps, Sweet Tooth

≈ 4 Comments

Desserts are definitely not my forte. Most likely because I’m not very good at sticking to a recipe. With cooking, it’s a character trait that has served me well. But with desserts, the otherwise innocuous habit of getting “creative” in the kitchen has led me down the path of the bad and the ugly more times than I’d like to admit.

Successful baking generally requires the anal-retentive precision of a scientist – someone who revels in the joys of perfect calculations and measurements. Since 10th grade calculus, I have not found numbers the least bit enticing. It’s a fetish that escapes me. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I cooked anything by following a recipe to the letter, let alone measure the quantities. I prefer eye-balling it. It makes me feel tough. Pat Benetar tough.

Unfortunately, desserts require a bit more predictability and little less tomfoolery. They LOVE precision. They adore carefully levelled cups of flour and pristine egg whites; timers and double-boilers. But sometimes even lab-coat meticulousness doesn’t guarantee success with some of the more capricious members of the dessert family. Akin to dogs, bees and small children, they can sense fear from a mile away. This is especially true of meringues, shortbread pastry and dainty little confections like French macarons. As far as I’m concerned, these are the hard-to-please sultanas of the baking empire – fussy, bitchy and unforgiving. They know when you are afraid of them and they take great pleasure in melting into a floppy mess when you treat them with quivering hands.

Knowing that many of my dessert-fails can be traced back to performance anxiety, I am making a concerted effort to make more of them – the logic being that the more comfortable I get with beating egg whites, calculating measurement conversions and shaping pastry, the less intimidated I will be with all things delicate and sweet – particularly those of the French persuasion. Starting with…

French lemon tart (adapted from Laura Calder)

  • 2 whole eggs
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup lemon juice
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • zest of 1 lemon

Shortbread pastry

  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces
  • 2 tablespoons cold water

DIRECTIONS

  1. Put the flour, salt, and sugar into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter pieces and pulse to create a texture that resembles coarse meal.
  2. Add ice water in a slow steady stream through feed tube of food processor with machine running. Pulse for a few seconds to incorporate the water.
  3. Turn out into a lightly floured work surface and knead until dough comes together in a ball. Be careful not to over-work the dough.
  4. Form dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 15 minutes.
  5. Heat the oven to 400ºF. Roll out the dough, line the tart shell and bake blind by placing a piece of parchment paper over the shell and filling it to the top with baking beans. Bake for about 15 minutes.
  6. Remove pie shell from oven, remove baking beans (store for future use) and allow to cool.
  7. Reduce oven temp to 325ºF. Beat together the eggs, yolks, and sugar in a bowl. Add the lemon juice. Whisk in the cream.
  8. Pour lemon cream mixture into the shell. Bake until just set, about 30 minutes.
  9. Remove from oven and sprinkle with lemon zest. Let cool before serving.

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A morning sans toast

03 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by julia chews the fat in Breakfast & Brunch, Cooking Solo, Vegetarian

≈ 5 Comments

Baby, I am a toast girl, through and through. Make me toast with marmalade, and I’ll be yours forever.

Something magical happens to a piece of bread that’s been browned by radiant heat – it becomes something that taps into basic feelings of comfort and contentment. For me, toast also represents a history of experiences, all from different times and places: Grandpa used to make us whole-wheat toast with his sugar-free blueberry jam (for diabetics)- always cut straight through the middle, with the jam spread right to the edges. Two years of my adult life was spent getting up early on Sunday mornings to watch Coronation Street in the company of black tea and buttered toast. In the wee hours of the morning after a night out, almond butter on toast was a common go-to snack in my early 20s. And today, toast and cheese is pretty much the first thing on my mind once I’m up and out of bed.

It’s nothing less than a love affair, dear readers. Which is why on mornings when there’s not a single piece of bread in the house, it’s not uncommon to hear a low rumble of swear words slip out of my mouth. Anyone trying to convince me of the merits of cereal will be wasting their breath; a piece of hot, buttered sour-dough far surpasses a bowl of cold, soggy muesli. Every. Single. Time.

So what’s happens when there’s no bread in the house? Once the grumbling is out of the way, I usually weigh the following options: 1) get dressed and presentable and go buy some; 2) get dressed and (more) presentable and go have breakfast somewhere. But this morning, neither of these options were the least bit enticing. You couldn’t PAY me to wrestle with winter boots, a scarf, mitts and a set of unshoveled steps at 8am on a weekend to go out for a bread-run or a trek to the breakfast place. Winter 1, Julia 0.

—–

In cases like these, laziness can be beneficial as it forces you to be creative. It will test your ability to scrounge up the contents of your fridge and turn seemingly disparate food items into something edible: there are eggs, some leftover baby greens. And – oh well, hello there, Mr.Risotto. Care to join me for breakfast?

Risotto hash, scrambled egg and mesclun salad (Serves 1)

  • 1 egg
  • splash of milk
  • leftover risotto
  • baby greens
  • vinaigrette: olive oil, juice of 1/2 an orange, splash of red wine vinegar, 1/4 tsp whole-grain mustard, touch of honey
  • butter
  • olive oil
  • salt & pepper

Get 2 skillets ready: a small one for your egg and another for your risotto. In one skillet, heat about a tbsp of oil. Add your risotto and flatten it out all the way to the edges of the pan. Allow to crisp up on medium-high heat, turning once the bottom has turned toasty-brown. You don’t need to be gentle with it – you’re making a hash.

While the rest of the hash is browning, melt a small knob of butter in the other skillet. Beat the egg with a splash of milk and some salt and pepper. When the butter starts to get foamy, add your egg, removing it immediately off the burner – you should be able to cook the egg with the residual heat of the pan by gently pushing it to and fro.

Toss the salad with the vinaigrette and serve with the eggs and hash, remembering that you can always have toast tomorrow.

Getting it all in one forkful. Happy times.

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