Pork Shrimp & Chive Dumplings

Some people run. Others doodle. I like to make dumplings. 

To me a stack of dumpling skins is like a yoga class -- no distractions, just a moving meditation while you focus on spoon, fold, cross, pinch and repeat. 

While dumplings aren’t strictly weeknight meal-material, they are easy weekend projects that set the groundwork for easy weeknight meals. Though if you’re reasonably nimble with your hands, you could knock out 50 dumplings in 40 minutes and if you have a helper, half that! Pop some veggies in the oven and roast them while you prep. You can have dinner on the table in an hour or so. 

This is what a weeknight meal typically looks like for me: a small amount of meat, a small amount of carbs, a cooked veg and a raw veg. I also try to make enough for my husband and I to eat for lunch the next day. See? Small weekend project, big weekday payoff. 
 

RECIPE 

Makes 50 dumplings

1 lb raw, peeled, deveined shrimp
1 lb ground pork
½ cup of chopped garlic chives, flowering chives, or scallions
1 egg
1 teaspoon shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 teaspoon white pepper (black pepper also works) 
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons salt
1 12-oz package of wonton skins 

Finely chop the shrimp so it is almost paste-like (but not quite). Mix with the rest of the ingredients, except for the wonton skins. Br careful not to overwork, otherwise the meat will be tough. I recommend using your hands! 

Set up your station: a sheet tray (for your finished dumplings), a bowl of water (to seal the dumplings), your meat, and the wonton skins, covered by a damp paper towel to prevent drying out. 

Spoon about 1 heaping teaspoon of meat into the center of the wonton skin. Fold your dumpling like the image below, using water to seal the triangle and the “arms”. When done, place on the sheet tray, careful not to overlap the dumplings. Repeat until all the wonton skins are done.   
 

To cook: Bring water to a boil in a wide saute pan. Drop dumplings into water and cook for about 5 minutes, or until meat is cooked through. If boiling from frozen, boil for 6-7 minutes.

To freeze: Place baking sheet filled with dumplings in freezer. Freeze until just-frozen, about 1 hour. Then place in a freezer bag and save for a weeknight meal!

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Proportions are to taste! If it’s still too salty for you, add water.

TIPS & TRICKS

• If you want to experiment with adding more flavorings to the filling like cabbage, water chestnuts, etc… don’t. You only have 1 teaspoon in each dumpling so they’ll come at the expense of the meat.

• You can pulse the shrimp in a food processor, but be careful not to overdo it. You still want the shrimp to have texture (think salsa and not tomato sauce).

• It might seem like the meat mixture has a lot of salt, but remember that the salt will leach out into the boiling liquid/broth.

• You want to use a wide saute pan when boiling the dumplings so they cook in one layer. If you boil in a pot, the wontons will knock against each other not only side-to-side, but also top-to-bottom, potentially ruining all your great folding work!

• Make an easy broth out of the boiling liquid. Add a couple slices of ginger and soy sauce to the water. Then add dumplings and cook. The pork/shrimp/chive mixture will add flavor and the wonton skins will add starchy body. Serve with sliced chives.

• If you have extra meat after you’ve used all your wontons skins, fry it up with a little oil and deglaze the pan with black or rice vinegar. This creates an extra-savory topping that gives a hint of what’s inside (think spiced chickpeas on top of hummus).

Cooks vs Cons Round 2: Korean Beef with Toasted Quinoa, Quick Pickles & Miso Egg Emulsion

Round 2...candy! Oh boy. I don't know about you, but I've never cooked with candy before. As Bruno and Geoffrey Zakarian pointed out, it's hard to know how candy will cook. Will it melt? Hold its shape? Curdle? 

I once tried to brûlé gummy bears and it was a disaster. The heat seems to toughen the gelatin, making an impossibly tacky bite. 

So instead of opting for licorice, gumdrops, or  jelly beans, which contain mysterious ingredients with unknown properties, I used clean and simple lollipops. Sugar, flavoring and coloring. Not ideal, but not horrifying either. 

We weren't allowed to make desserts (too easy), so my mind immediately went to Korean food. Korean food is actually pretty sweet, but it's tempered by salt, spice and funk. No one-note sweetness here. I called on my go-to flavors: miso, soy, ginger, garlic and sesame (the same flavors that are in one my most popular recipes of all time). I chose pink lemonade and lemon lollipops, thinking that citrus flavors were better than, say, cherry or grape (gag). 

Once I knew how I'd feature the surprise ingredient, I worked from there. What works best with sweet and spicy marinated beef? 

Bibimbap! Concepting the rest was easy. I'd adapt the classic Korean rice-and-veggies dish with my own spin. A quick pickle added some brightness and crunch, toasted quinoa with nori contributed an earthy, umami base (and mimicked the delicious burnt rice in the bottom of a stone bibimbap bowl). I also made a miso-egg emulsion, a hollandaise-like sauce that nods to the raw egg that is traditionally stirred into bibimbop. 

The recipe below is sequenced for a tight 30-minute cook. There's no wasted time waiting for things to cook. But if you want a saner experience, then you can always make each component one by one.

RECIPE:

Beef: 
1/2 cup of sugar -- ground-up citrus candy or actual sugar
1 small onion
8 cloves of garlic
1 ping-pong-ball-sized knob of ginger
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 Scotch Bonnet chili 

1 lb thinly sliced top sirloin 

Toasted Quinoa: 
1 cup red quinoa
10 sheets of roasted seaweed

Quick Pickles:
4 radishes
3 baby cucumbers
1 tablespoon salt 

Miso Egg Emulsion:
4 egg yolks
1 heaping teaspoon miso paste
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
½ teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon butter 

2 tablespoons black sesame seed
¼ cup chopped chives

Rinse quinoa and place in pot with two cups of water. Bring to a boil on high, then cover and simmer on low until nice and fluffy. The "tails" of the quinoa should be sticking out. (This didn't happen during my episode... perhaps because the stove was so hot the water boiled off too quickly and/or the quinoa was old and took longer than normal to "bloom".) 

For the marinade, blend the onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and chili. Place in saucepan and reduce on medium-high. 

For the miso egg emulsion, blend the egg yolks, miso, rice vinegar, chili powder and butter. 

For the quick pickles, slice the cucumbers and radishes with a mandolin on the thinnest setting. Salt and let rest. 

Slice the beef and place it in the reduced marinade. While the beef is cooking and picking up the glaze, toast half the quinoa in a frying pan with a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the other half of the quinoa, add sliced nori and reserve. 

Assemble your plate. Squeeze out the excess water from the pickles and place. Add the toasted quinoa with nori and Korean candy beef. Pour miso egg emulsion on top, or serve on the side. Add chopped chives and black sesame seeds. 

RELAX because that was an intense 30 minutes of cooking.

Cooks vs Cons Round 1: Polenta Gnocchi with Creamy Corn Soubise

When Geoffrey Zakarian announced we had to make pasta for the first round of Cooks vs Cons...I wasn't very excited. 

I'll occasionally eat pasta when I'm out to dinner, but I rarely make it at home and when I do, it's always dried pasta or sometimes pre-made fresh ravioli. I know I must make fresh pasta. This has been ingrained in me after years of watching cooking shows. 

But I do have one pasta recipe up my sleeve: gnocchi. With some adjustments, I thought I could make it a 30-minute version, with some extra time for a dynamic, complex sauce. 

My first trick was adding polenta to the dough. Usually pasta dough needs ~30 minutes for the gluten bonds to form, but I had no such luxury. So I added instant polenta, which creates instant dough "glue". Bonus points because corn is the surprise ingredient and of course polenta is cornmeal. 

My second trick was to make an onion soubise. I first had soubise at Momofuku Ko, in a now-iconic poached egg with caviar and potato chips dish. A soubise traditionally calls for softened onions and cream or bechamel. But what about using corn as a not-too-rich thickener?? I gave it a try, and it worked! 

And finally, corn and pasta are both soft and starchy. Where's the pop? So I added chipotle puree to the dough, along with ground annatto seeds for color. I swapped the traditional Parmesan with Mexican cotija, to keep with the Mexican flavors. I also added some tortilla chips and popcorn for texture. 

This was a tough round, especially since I don't really make or eat pasta. But these gnocchi may make it into my everyday rotation...

POLENTA GNOCCHI WITH CREAMY CORN SOUBISE RECIPE

Gnocchi: 
¾ cup ricotta cheese
3 tablespoons grated cotija cheese
2 tablespoons potato flour
1 ½ tablespoons instant polenta
1 ½ tablespoons flour + extra for rolling
2 tablespoons chipotle puree
1 tablespoon ground annatto seeds
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
semolina flour for gnocchi dusting
salt 

Soubise: 
2 tablespoons butter
2 large Vidalia onions
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
¾ cup heavy cream
1 cup of corn
salt / pepper

Garnish:
cilantro
tortilla chips
popcorn
sumac
chili powder 

Sandwich the ricotta between four paper towels to soak up excess water. Salt your pasta water and bring to a boil. 

Melt butter in a saute pan. Slice onions and add, along with cumin, oregano and salt. (If you want to do this under 30 minutes, I recommend using a mandolin to sweat the onions faster. Slice the onions directly over the pan.) Sweat the onions until semi-translucent, about 7 minutes. 

Mix the ricotta, cotija cheese, potato flour, flour, polenta, chipotle puree, annatto and eggs. Form into a dough. Roll into snakes a little wider than your finger and cut into 3/4" slices with a bench scraper. 

Add the sauteed onions to a blender and add the cream, corn, white wine vinegar and salt to taste. This is your creamy corn soubise.

Add the gnocchis to the salted boiled water. Remove with a spider or slotted spoon when they float at the top for about 30 seconds. 

Place gnocchi in a bowl and add onion soubise plus cilantro, sumac, chili powder, more corn, sumac, crushed tortilla chips, and chili powder. Or not! The judges weren't fans of all the fixins, and I kind of agree. But at home, it's up to you. 

Kumquat Carrot Cake Muffins

Like clockwork. Every time the weather warms up a little, I get an urge to bake. 

Am I self-sabotaging before bikini season? Seeking heat inside to match the heat outside? Or maybe...it's all in my head. 

But alas, here we are, daffodils a-peepin', cherry blossoms a-blossomin', and me. A bakin'. 

These came about because D thought he liked kumquats even though I had never seen him eat a kumquat and he doesn't like very sour or bitter things. Nevermind! We bought a whole sackful at a raucous grocery store in Flushing. 

Turns out D doesn't like kumquats... and so we were left with three pounds of kumquats and two stomachs that couldn't quite take them eaten whole. 

So here we are, the kumquat carrot cake muffin. These are strictly more muffin than cake. I wanted to round out the assertiveness of the kumquat while still keeping its essential character -- ie: not throwing a lot of sugar at it. I used coconut and turbinado sugar for texture and a sweet musty complexity. But if sugar is what you want, do it! That's what jam is for. 

RECIPE: 

2 cups kumquats, seeded and sliced

2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup coconut sugar 

¾ cup vegetable oil
⅛ cup white sugar
⅞ cup turbinado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

3 large eggs 

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt 

3 cups grated carrots
1 cup raisins
½ cups walnuts (optional) 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut and seed the kumquats. Place in saucepan with butter and sugar. Simmer on medium until the kumquats are soft and pliant, about 6 minutes. 

Using the paddle attachment of a mixer, blend the oil, sugars, and vanilla extract. Add eggs one by one until mixed. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. While the mixer is on medium, slowly add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the carrots, raisins, and walnuts. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until just blended.

Grease a muffin pan. Spoon the kumquat mixture so it just coats the bottom. Add the carrot cake batter into each cup about 80% full. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce to 350. Bake until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Large muffin tins will bake in about 25-30 minutes. A small muffin tin will bake in about 15-20 minutes. Cool completely before removing from the tin. 

Eat in your preferred fashion. Here I had some with a dollop of Rhubarb and Meiwa Kumquat jam from Sqirl. 

Book Club Bites: Cauliflower Soup with Balsamic-Olive “Caviar”

People have asked me why there aren’t more modernist cuisine (aka molecular gastronomy) dishes in Food Whore. You know, foams and clouds, things made with aerators and anti-griddles. I find that type of cooking extremely fascinating, but looking back, I must have subconsciously only included dishes I know and understand. I’ve never experimented with sodium alginate or soy lecithin. Never made a consommé with a centrifuge.

But there is one exception -- “potato pearls with black, green, and crimson ‘caviar’ in a cauliflower cream nage”, which pops up in Chapter 14. You can easily make “caviar” using agar-agar, a plant-based gelatin that’s available in health food stores, gourmet shops, and Asian markets. It looks fancy, but it’s not. And the process is so fun. 

INGREDIENTS

A video posted by Jessica Tom (@jessica_tom) on Oct 15, 2015 at 8:08am PDT

“Caviar”
8 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Kalamata olive brine
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 grams powdered agar-agar
vegetable oil

Soup
1 head of cauliflower (about 1.5 lbs)
2 shallots
1 large white onion
5 cups of water
olive oil
salt
ground pepper 

Fill a tall glass with vegetable oil and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Briefly boil the balsamic vinegar, olive brine and fish sauce with the agar-agar, until dissolved. Using a pipette, drop the liquid into the cold oil. The drops will immediately solidify and turn into spheres. (If yours don’t, try chilling your oil longer or using a taller glass. The droplets need to cool and congeal by the time they reach the bottom of the glass). Refrigerate until ready to use.

In a large pot, heat olive oil and sweat chopped shallots and onion on low for about 15 minutes. They should be translucent and not brown (you want the soup to be as white as possible so the “caviar” will visually pop).

Add diced cauliflower and water and boil on medium-high for 20 minutes, until cauliflower is very soft but not sulfurous (as overcooked cauliflower is prone to be). Add one tablespoon of butter and blend on the highest setting your blender has. You want the soup very, very smooth.   

Let the soup cool for 10 minutes, so the “caviar” doesn’t melt. Spoon the “caviar” on top. Serves 4-6.   

Book Club Bites: Sweet Potato Flowers

What was your first fine dining “wow” moment? Perhaps it was a duck confit, made from a recipe that hasn’t changed in generations. Or an elaborate 30-component dessert. Or a simple bite of the world’s best ingredients.

In Food Whore, Tia's eyes are opened by a simple amuse bouche: a sweet potato flower with sesame-honey stamens.

Unlike some of the other dishes in Food Whore, which are based on real-life dishes I’ve seen or eaten, this one came entirely from my imagination. I’m no restaurant chef, and if you’re making this as a snack for your friends or family, you probably don’t want to spend restaurant-level time on this. So here’s my at-home version of Tia’s fine dining bite. The inside is soft, while the ends are crisp like chips. If you’re timing this to the book -- this dish appears in Chapter 11!

INGREDIENTS

sweet potatoes (this recipe will make enough seasoning for 4-5 potatoes, but you can make fewer)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons paprika
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon cayenne

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the sweet potatoes very thinly, preferably with a mandolin (I used the 1.3mm setting). On a non-stick baking sheet, fan 7 sweet potato slices into a circle.

In a bowl, mix egg, oil, salt, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne. Mix well then dab onto the sweet potatoes with a silicone brush (or even your fingers) until evenly covered. Make sure sure to get where the slices meet, too.

Place in oven and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the slices are slightly golden and very pliable. Remove from the the oven, then raise heat to 400 degrees.

Once cool enough to handle, pick up the circle and detach two of the slices so you have a broken circle. From one end, curl the perimeter of the circle, holding at the base and letting the top fan outwards like petals. Use two toothpicks in an X shape to secure the bottom.

Once you’re done, replace all your flowers on the baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes, or until the ends of the flower “petals” are crisp. Remove and let cool. Before serving, remove toothpicks. 

Book Club Bites: Dacquoise Drops

Even if you’re not particularly food-obsessed, you probably have one. A bite, a dish, a sip that changes your life somehow. Perhaps an oyster started a lifetime of risk-taking. A restaurant meal introduced you to your soulmate. A family dish opened generations of stories.

For Tia, her dish was a plate of cookies. Dacquoise drops connect her with her family, give her national recognition, and finally put her face-to-face with Michael Saltz.

The cookie is light but sturdy -- a stiff meringue made even more hardy with four types of nuts. I love them with a nutty, milky coffee. Pro tip: save a packet of silica gel from some kale chips or freeze-dried fruit. They’ll help keep your cookies crisp.

RECIPE:

Bring 4 egg whites to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In an electric mixer, whisk egg whites on high until foamy, about 1 minute. Add 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and mix until fluffy, about another minute. Mix ⅔ cup of powdered sugar with ⅔ cup of granulated sugar. Add to egg mixture one tablespoon at a time while on medium-high speed. Continue to whisk until shiny and stiff (a peak stands up straight and doesn’t fall over). Gently mix 2 ¼ cups of chopped nuts (a mixture of pecans, pecans and cashews) and 1 cup of almond flour.

Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon meringues onto tray with two tablespoons, leaving about an inch between drops. Turn off oven and leave in there for at least two hours and up to overnight. Makes 40 cookies.

Book Club Bites: A Michael Saltz Manhattan with Jalapeno-Infused Bourbon

One of the main characters in Food Whore is Michael Saltz: a manipulative, secretive creep who lies to Tia to get his way.

And yet. It was important to me that he wasn’t a cartoon villain. We can spot overt power plays and runaway egotism a mile away. It gets more complicated when the person appeals to a desire within you.

For Tia, that’s recognition and making it in NYC. Michael Saltz offers that in an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime arrangement. Except there’s a catch…

This is a classic Manhattan, with a little twist: jalapeños and ancho chilis infused in the bourbon. Manhattan (the city and the drink) will always sting. We know that. Here, it burns. I used two dried peppers to one fresh one. Why? This is a flash-infusion. If you use all fresh peppers, it will take longer for the flavors to infuse into the bourbon. The dry peppers absorb the liquid more readily, releasing their flavor.

Like Michael Saltz, this is a glamorous, sophisticated drink that packs more of a punch than you might expect. Sip carefully.

RECIPE: Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off half an orange. Place inside a mason jar with two dried ancho chilis and one red jalapeño (ie: a green jalapeño that has ripened and turned hotter). Pour 8 oz of bourbon (half a standard mason jar) and let steep at room temperature for at least one hour. After 24 hours, pick out the peppers.

In a cocktail shaker, add ice and 2 ounces bourbon and 1 ounce sweet vermouth. Shake, strain, and pour into a short glass. Spritz the oil of one orange peel into the glass and add with maraschino cherry. Repeat three more times until the bourbon is done.

Book Club Bites: Salade Nicoise

There’s an important scene in Food Whore where Tia is feeling lost. Her personal life and secret life with Michael Saltz are starting to clash and she’s not sure how she'll sort it out.

Her friend asks her to grab a bite and they go to a nice-ish deli near Washington Square Park. You know, one of the ones with a decent salad bar. As she’s thinking, she absent-mindedly adds items to her container: arugula, tuna, mustard, olives… until she makes an accidental Salade Niçoise.

“I mixed and tasted and went back for other ingredients until the tuna salad was near perfect. It was filling and bracing and pickled. It didn’t taste like bodega food at all. The simple act of cooking and tasting calmed me like nothing else.”

Surprise, surprise, I also love Salade Niçoise. The appeal is its remarkable harmony. Every player is assertive: fragrant tuna, briny olives, meaty haricot verts, plush hard-boiled eggs, spicy arugula. And yet together, they harmonize. The salad surely doesn’t need cheese or bacon, both auto-tune for salad, ways to increase tastiness by masking the ingredients. This is hearty and flavorful, with each component keeping its integrity. 

In my mind, the defining characteristics of a Salade Niçoise are: boiled potatoes, blanched haricot verts, Niçoise olives, hard-boiled eggs, and high-quality tuna. Other people may want to put anchovy in there, but to me, olives and tuna add enough saltiness. Once you have those ingredients, you can really play around with the rest. The recipe below doesn’t have precise proportions -- just mix and match, salad-bar-bodega style.

RECIPE:

Dressing: Using a mortar and pestle, grind three cloves of garlic with one tablespoon of salt until pasty. Add to a bowl along with ⅓ cup of olive oil, 1 minced shallot, the juice of 2 lemons, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and black pepper to taste. Whisk and set aside.

Boiled Components: If you have the time, you might as well cook everything in the same pot of boiling water (as opposed to having three pots at once, which is somewhat wasteful and adds a lot of unnecessary heat to your kitchen -- critical if you’re making this in the summer).

Add water to a large saucepan and heavily salt. Bring to a boil. Add purple potatoes and four eggs. After 7-10 minutes (depending on how you like your eggs), remove the eggs and cool them off in a bowl of ice water. Add trimmed haricot verts and cook for 2 minutes. Remove and add to another bowl of ice water. Check potatoes with a fork -- the cooking time depends on the size. Remove when a fork easily slips in, with no “crunch” sound.

Before you assemble, cut the eggs in halves or quarters. Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces.

Classic Components:
Tomatoes - I like Kumato because they’re sweet and not too tart. But any tomato will do. Cut into wedges.
Radishes 
Cucumber - English or mini. You want a compact cucumber that isn’t too watery.
Olives - I used oil-cured black olives because they are one of my favs. But Niçoise olives are the classic.
Herbs - scallions, basil, chervil

Wildcard Components:
Beets
Fiddlehead ferns
Microgreens - here, I used mustard micro greens
Pickled Cipollini Onions

Assembly:
On a large plate, arrange a bed of arugula. Add your other ingredients. Top with high-quality olive oil-packed tuna. My favorite is this yellowfin tuna from Ortiz. You can buy it at Whole Foods or Zingermans. (True, you can’t find imported Spanish tuna at a bodega salad bar. But just go with it.)

Drizzle with dressing and serve.

Book Club Bites: Pomegranate Lemon Bars

Lemon bars were one of the first things I baked -- from a box, of course, and I’ve repressed the exact procedure. Was it curd on top, or some sort of cornstarchy-sludge? Did I make it, or did I squeeze it out of a baggie?

It took me years to figure out that lemon bars aren’t hard to make at all. You probably have all the ingredients right now: flour, sugar, butter, and lemons. But for the best lemon bars, you need a lot of lemons.

I’ve experimented with other flavors: lime, lemon-grapefruit, and now this: a pomegranate lemon bar. I like the berried base that underpins this dessert. Citrus is a top-note flavor, while pomegranate is a mustier, base note player.

Plus, pomegranates are often on my mind so I had to incorporate them into a recipe. There’s a pomegranate on the cover of Food Whore but pomegranates don’t appear in the text of the book. Not once.

So why did I suggest a pomegranate for the cover? Well, they’re juicy, luscious, sexy -- all things I wanted my book to be. Not really in terms of scenes (don’t get your hopes up for back-to-back sex scenes), but more on a sentence level. Sentences can move with a sensual quality.

Also, I summoned some middle school Latin and loved the connection to Persephone and Hades. Do you remember that story? Basically, Hades tricks Persephone into eating a couple pomegranate seeds, sentencing her to a life in the underworld. Because of her love of food, she makes a deal with the devil.

And that… the pomegranate… is basically my book.

RECIPE: (adapted from Ina Garten’s lemon bar recipe)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bring 1 cup of pomegranate juice to a simmer and reduce on low for ten minutes. Turn off heat and let cool.

In an electric mixer, cream 2 sticks of room-temperature butter and ½ cup of granulated sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups of flour and ⅛ teaspoon of kosher salt. Slowly add to the mixer on low until just incorporated. Remove dough and roll into a ball on a well-floured surface. Press onto a 9” x 13” baking sheet, then chill for 15 minutes.  

Poke holes into the dough with a fork (so it doesn’t bubble up), then bake for 15-20 minutes until very lightly browned (keep in mind that it will get baked again with the curd, so no need to go all the way now).

For the filling, whisk 6 extra-large room temperature eggs, 3 cups of granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons of lemon zest, ¾ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, ¼ cup of the reduced pomegranate juice, and 1 cup of flour. Pour over the crust, then bake for 35-40 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.
​
Cut into squares (or triangles if that’s your fancy). In a food processor, powder ⅓ cup of dehydrated strawberries. Sprinkle on top with powdered sugar.

Chewy Chocolate-Mint Brownies

And so the paradoxical summer baking streak continues. 

Well... what's paradoxical about chocolate mint brownies? It actually makes perfect sense to me. 

I got this recipe from NYT Cooking, which I'm turning to more and more these days. (It's the email blasts, I think. I love an email blast that sounds like it's written by a real person, not a click-optimizing program.) 

This recipe is adapted from Katharine Hepburn's brownie recipe but with a few important tweaks. 

First, there are no nuts. These brownies are for D's birthday and he is anti-nuts in dessert (unless they're peanut). We will disagree about this until the end of time, but a birthday dessert is no time to be contentious. No nuts. 

Second, I cut the already tiny bit of flour (1/4 cup) with almond flour. Why? I wanted to make this a practically flourless cake. And, see above, I also like nuts in my dessert but Dave doesn't. How to hide them... 

Third, I browned the butter because browned butter begets better brownies (yes, that's how I say it in my head). 

And, last, I added mint extract. Just the tiniest bit because you don't want this to taste like toothpaste! I had no way of knowing this in the beginning, but the mint extract does something interesting. This is no regular brownie. It's a cross between a brownie, fudge, and the chewy/candied part of a meringue. It's sticky yet chewy, rich yet... and that's where the mint comes in. The mint cuts the richness and brightens the flavor in the same way lemon or red wine vinegar might brighten a savory dish. 

RECIPE: (adapted from Katharine Hepburn's Brownies from NYT Cooking) 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt and brown butter in a saucepan. Add 1/2 cup of Dutch-processed cocoa then set away from heat, above five minutes. Add two eggs -- one at a time -- and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 3 drops of mint extract. 

In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of sugar, 1/8 cup of almond flour, 1/8 cup of regular flour, and a pinch of salt. Add to cocoa butter mixture and stir until just combined. 

Pour batter into a greased 8" x 8" square pan. The brownies are very flat so don't worry if it seems like the pan is too big. Bake for 35 minutes, then cool slightly and cut into squares. Like all brownies, these are good warm. But because of the mint, they're also great cold. 

Peanut-Brown Butter Blondies

Call me a contrarian. I grow my hair long in summer, cut it in winter. Order the fish at a steakhouse. Make salads in the winter... and bake in the summer. I don't know why!

Forget for a moment about the heat factor. To me, summer is about easy improvisational meals. Something on the grill. A picnic of finger foods. A cocktail of two ingredients, tops. 

Baking, of course, is not improvisational. It's precise and fickle. You have to plan ahead because you can't easily substitute ingredients. But for some reason, I've had the urge to bake this summer. Just this past month I've made this tahini banana bread, these cornmeal currant thyme cookies, this "life-changing loaf", and now these -- peanut-brown butter blondies, like a cross between peanut butter cookies and toffee cake (ie: good in any season). 

I adapted this from Martha Stewart's Cookies which organizes its chapters in the same way I think about cookies: light and delicate, chunky and nutty, crisp and crunchy, cake and tender, and so on. 

Maybe one of these summer days I'll make these into ice cream sandwiches or sundaes (with some butter pecan ice cream as a comp... or strawberry ice cream for contrast). But for now, they're great au natural. 

RECIPE: (adapted from Martha Stewart Cookies) 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 9" x 13" pan with parchment, then butter and flour. Melt 2 sticks of butter until a golden brown. Remove from heat and cool. 

Whisk 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer, use a wooden spoon to mix the brown butter with 2 cups of brown sugar and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Add the paddle attachment and turn mixer on medium-high speed, adding three eggs. Mix until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add 2 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract while beating. Slowly add flour mixture, then add 1 cup of roasted unsalted peanuts until thoroughly integrated. Pour into pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. 

Excellent warm, room temp, or cold (we've been keeping them in the fridge... steamy weather mold is no joke!) 

Tahini Banana Bread

For some, this is a breakfast cake or something to nosh with afternoon tea. But if your family is like mine and doesn't like anything too sweet, then behold the perfect dessert. 

I made this for my Dad's birthday last weekend because it has all the hallmarks of a Tom-family classic. Fruity, nutty, not too sweet. This is a banana bread with a velvet cape, made luscious with sesame and tahini. 

To be totally honest, I also made a coconut-mango panna cotta that was a complete fail. I used coconut sugar with the coconut milk, so that layer was an unappealing medium-toned brown. The top never evened out, so it had a lumpy look to it. And then, it never completely set! 

So we spooned the failed panna cotta over this dessert, and that added a little fruit and moisture. But I wouldn't recommend it. 

RECIPE: Adapted from El Rey's Sesame Banana Bread, from Bon Appetit

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast 2 tablespoons of white sesame seeds in a dry skillet until fragrant, about 5 minutes. 

Blend 4 very ripe bananas to a smooth puree. In a separate bowl, mix 1 3/4 cups cake flour, 3/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. In an electric mixer, whisk 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons of tahini, and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract. Add 1 cup of dark brown sugar and 1 cup of turbinado sugar and banana puree. When well blended, whisk the dry ingredients. Fold in toasted sesame seeds. 

Pour batter into an 8" x 8" cake pan and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sesame seeds. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Let cool completely in pan, then serve. 

Friday Links | 6.12.15

Hey there... it's Friday! 

This past week I took a little break from blogging. Next week, I'm workshopping the second 20-page installment of my next book (tentatively titled THE COOKS) and I was working pretty intently on that. I've also been thinking about how to create the best possible content for you guys  -- quality/quantity? Food/fiction (or fashion)? 

As the book launch approaches, there's also a lot more to do: galleys to send, emails to write, people to meet, events to plan. There's the private writing and the public connecting. Now have to figure out where this blog fits into that... 

So, expect some tweaks in blog frequency -- perhaps 1-3 times per week? I'll be picking up the slack on Twitter on Instagram. 

But on to links! 

This Sunday, I'll be attending the #BeABoss food and fashion event, hosted by Taste the Style and Local Creative. Panelists include female restaurateurs, mixologists, designers, shop owners and more. Ladies getting things done, on their terms. I'm there. 

I've also gotten more involved with two great groups: YaleWomen, a group of female alums (undergrad and grad) who come together for chats about life, work, and art. The second is Books for Asia, an amazing organization that sends over 1 million books a year to locations in countries in need. Not so much Japan and South Korea... but places like Nepal, Thailand, Pakistan. Everything from children's books to academic texts to novels. I'm planning two events with tthose organizations this summer. Expect invites soon! 

I aspire to cut a mango like this.

planning Near & Far / via 101 Cookbooks

This cookbook process post from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks got me thinking about my own process. It should come as no surprise that Heidi – who was on the vanguard of beautifully photographed food blogs – is very hands on with the layout and flow of her book. This is not the sort of thing you want to improvise.

But when it comes to fiction, it seems we have a bias against outliners. I know I posted that EL Doctorow quote (“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way), but to be honest, that's not how I do it.

Why the stigma? People think that an outline takes the romance out of writing (nope). It means you're following a formula rather than feeling the rhythms of the story and characters (not at all). Outlining is for genre writers, not literary writers (um, snobby much?). To me, there's nothing romantic about fumbling in the dark. I know too may authors who start writing a novel, only to realize that it's “not going anywhere“. But then, you've lost the energy to turn back, or – even more heartbreaking – to just delete the past 50 pages and start over. If you knew where you were going... wouldn't that be better? 

I'm not sure outlining works for everyone. But if you want to storyboard – do it! Personally, I think it's very hard to create a sound plotline with believable characters while also creating artful and beautiful sentences. So – my advice – give yourself a break and plan it out.

What do you think? Are you an outliner or not?

RECIPE: If you're grill-less like me, grease a grill pan. Mine is Le Creuset. Set it on the stove and heat until very hot, when a splash of water immediately sizzles and evaporates. (Otherwise, just heat a real grill as you do.) 

Slice a peach and plum. Lay on the grill along with some cherries and cook until grillmarks show, about 2 minutes on each side.

The peaches will get the best sear (they are the driest and you can see the black against the orange pretty well). The plum is too wet to sear but it will emit the most wonderful, surprising smell. And you will feel guilty about grilling perfectly delicious cherries ($7.99/lb!), but they will be even juicier after a kiss of heat.

Sweet Potato Roasted with Coconut

This is more hefty than a snack, more slight than a meal. And that's a good thing. 

On Tuesday nights I go to a writing workshop and leave the house around 6:45. I probably could eat a full diner, but I don't want to be too full during class. I also don't want my hunger to distract me. (I've never been the type of person who can just "forget to eat". What? My whole day revolves around eating.) 

So the other day I made this as a pre-class snack -- one sweet potato, roasted with coconut oil, topped with Maldon sea salt and coconut flakes. Like these soy-mirin-sesame glazed yams, this is a lovely blend of sweet and savory. I was inspired by coconut curries with starchy potatoes, yams, butternut squash. Maybe next time I'll make this with curry, but not before class. It's one thing to stain your own writing with curried fingers. Quite another to stain your classmate's. 

RECIPE: Preheat toaster oven to 450 degrees. Prick sweet potato with fork, slice into rounds, and rub with coconut oil. Roast for 15-20 minutes, or until a fork can easily slip into the slices. Sprinkle with coconut flakes and sea salt. 

Matcha Almond Date Smoothie

Have you had the green tea crepe cake at Lady M? It's a delicate confection made with 20+ crepes layered with super-light pastry cream just barely kissed with the green, slightly bitter taste of matcha. These aren't pancake-y crepes, they're paper-thin and imperceptible on the tongue. You see them individually in the cross-section, but that's an illusion. The cream soaks into the crepes so your fork (yes I eat desserts with a fork, I find it's easier to piece off the exact bite I want) just glides on through. 

Now it might seem ascetic to go on to describe a smoothie, but in fact they share the same flavor profile. A creamy base. An earthy sweetness. A plushness. And then, the matcha to give it all shape. 

I got this recipe from this Instagram from Kat Odell, Eater's Drinks editor. Is this drink trendy? Yes. Insufferably so? Perhaps. But, who cares. It tastes like cold drinkable cake. 

RECIPE: Blend 2 grams matcha, 16 oz water, 1 date, handful of almonds. Add crushed ice, if it's really hot. 

Cucumber Fennel Salad with Dill

I make this salad all year round. Take some English cucumbers, slice them up with a mandolin, or a spiralizer, or even (!) a knife. Salt them to release their moisture. Sometimes I'll cut into matchsticks. Or sometimes, I'll add soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and garlic. Other times, yogurt. 

But for summer, I'm of the opinion less is more. Just the extra crunch and water of fennel. A touch of dill. And few grinds of pepper. This is great as a condiment (on your burger, say), or just on its own. So easy and good. 

RECIPE: Mandolin one long English cucumber and one bulb of fennel. Salt liberally with 1 1/2 tablespoons of table salt. Let sit for 15 minutes, then squeeze out all water. Dress with 3 tablespoons of white vinegar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil, and dill. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serves 2-3.

Spiralized Zucchini Noodles with Peanut Sauce

This is for those times when you don't want your zucchini noodles to taste like diet noodles. The key is really cooking the noodles down in the sauce. The noodles become the vehicle for the fatty flavor of the peanut-sesame sauce. It's a beautiful thing. 

Another key: some brightness in the form of lime, ginger, and cilantro. You don't want to feel like you're eating straight peanut butter (save that for eating straight peanut butter). 

RECIPE: 

Spiralize 4 zucchinis on the largest setting. Slice 1/3 of a cabbage into 1/4-inch ribbons. Add cabbage and zucchini in wok with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Saute on high uncovered for 3 minutes until fragrant. Turn stove to low and cover for 5 minutes, to sweat out the veggies.

In the meantime, make peanut sauce and the veggies you don't want to overcook. Mix 2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of chopped ginger. Chop two bell peppers and spiralize one carrot. Add veggies and peanut mixture to the veggies. You'll have to break up the peanut butter. Resist the urge to water it down because there's plenty of water in the wok. You don't want the sauce too watery. 

Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Add juice of 1 lime, cilantro, and toasted peanuts before serving. 

Papaya Lime Sorbet

Papaya and lime. They're more than nice pairings... they complete each other. 

Papaya is a subtle, low-acid fruit. It's floral, but not as insistent as lychee. It's tropical, but not as overt as mango. And so lime strengthens its lines, like a few swipes of makeup that enhances the beauty that's already there. 

RECIPE: 

Freeze 1 1/2 cups of papaya and half a banana (or, if you're like me, just keep a bunch of frozen fruit in the freezer for sorbet and smoothies). Blend in a Vitamix with one glug of almond milk, 1 teaspoon of honey and the juice of 1 lime. If the mixture isn't blending, add more almond milk.

Swiss Chard, Raisin, Pine Nut & Bulgur Dolmas

When I tell people I was born in Queens -- I know what they're thinking. Flushing. That's where the Asian community is, right? 

Yes, that's true. But that's not where I was born. I was born in Astoria -- little Athens. 

Nowadays that means one thing: a mandatory visit to Titan, said to be the largest Greek grocery store in North America. 

So that's what came to mind when I had some beautiful Swiss chard. My go-to prep (after just garlic, olive oil, and lemon) is Swiss chard with raisins and pine nuts. But how to make it different? 

Dolma is from the Turkish verb dolmak, "to be stuffed." So...we're good! 

RECIPE: 

Boil 2 cups of water, turn off, then add 1 cup cracked wheat. Let soak for 15 minutes, then drain off water. 

While the water is boiling, toast 2 heaping tablespoons of pine nuts for 3 minutes at 350 degrees. Keep watch! Pine nuts burn even when you're concentrating. and If you don't -- you're done for. 

In a frying pan, add 2 cups of broth. When at a boil, add the stems of 5-6 Swiss chard leaves. After 3 minutes, add the leaves and keep simmering until wilted, about 2 minutes. Make sure they're still bright green -- not olive.

Mix 2 tablespoons raisins, toasted pine nuts, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon olive oil to cracked wheat. Mince Swiss chard stems and add. Mix well, then add one spoonful per Swiss chard leaf, wrapping like a burrito (sides, then along the length. Pour the remaining broth on top and serve.