Bacon Cupcakes

What can I say? I had to try these. How could I not? It's bacon... in a cupcake!

Maple-Bacon Cupcakes
From C&C Cakery (slightly modified)
8 slices of bacon (maple bacon if possible)
1/4 c. butter, softened
1 Tbsp. bacon fat, solidified
5 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 c. high-quality maple syrup
1 large egg
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. milk

Maple-Bacon Frosting
1/4 c. butter, softened
1/4 c. bacon fat, solidified
1/4 c. maple syrup
2 c. icing sugar, sifted
turbinado sugar (optional)
coarse sea salt (optional)

1. Cook bacon until very crisp, reserving drippings. Crumble six of the slices and reserve the other two for garnishing the finished cupcakes.
2. Beat the butter with the bacon fat until combined then add the sugar and cream together until light and fluffy.
3. Blend in the maple syrup and the egg.
4. Combine the dry ingredients and add to the wet mix a little at a time, alternating with the milk and ending with a dry addition.
5. Stir in the crumbled bacon.
6. Spoon into cupcake liners and bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes. (C&C says this should make a dozen cupcakes, but I must've made mine slightly larger than she made hers because I only got nine.)
7. Combine butter, bacon fat, and maple syrup and beat until well-blended.
8. Gradually sift in icing sugar and beat until frosting is smooth and delicious.
9. Once cupcakes are cool, decorate with frosting. Sprinkle on a little turbinado sugar and/or sea salt as desired. (My bacon was pretty salty, so I didn't feel the need to add any extra salt.) Top each cupcake with ~1/6 of a slice of bacon. Enjoy your bacon-y dessert!

The maple flavour in these cupcakes is pretty subtle. It's definitely detectable, but bacon is definitely the dominant flavour here. And it works! That said, I think it would be nice with a stronger maple presence as well. I might try using a slightly darker syrup next time and/or replacing 1 Tbsp. of the brown sugar with a Tbsp. of maple syrup to try to pump up the maple-y goodness.

Another interesting option might be to try injecting the cupcakes with a little bit of maple syrup. It would help keep them delicious and moist for longer and definitely increase the maple quotient. I'd just have to make sure not to overdo it and end up with a sickly sweet, sticky mess rather than a delicious confection. Maybe the answer is to leave out a Tbsp. or two of sugar from the batter and then inject each cupcake with 1-2mL of syrup once they come out of the oven... Hmmm... I think this requires additional testing. For science!

Chinese Sausage and Lotus Root Stir-Fry

This will probably be my last stir-fry for a while as I received a tagine for Christmas and am extremely excited to try it out. Tagine would've been on the menu for tonight had I not already purchased the lotus roots and mushrooms for this stir-fry last week. Seeing as they needed to be cooked anyway, I figured I stick with my original plan and pull out the wok again before moving on to the wonderful world of tagines.

This particular stir-fry is based on some advice given in the Goons with Spoons Chinese food thread, but includes some of my own improvisations as well. There was a question of what to do with Chinese sausages and someone mentioned that they were excellent stir-fried with black fungus and lotus root with a mix of hoisin sauce and oyster sauce and a bit of black vinegar (and maybe some tofu). This gave me a pretty good starting point and I just went from there with it.

Sausage and Lotus Root Stir-Fry
400g firm tofu, cubed
227g cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1-2 Tbsp. black bean lao gan ma
1-2 Tbsp. garlic paste
*1 Tbsp. ginger paste or minced ginger
*3 small carrots, peeled and sliced
1-2 small lotus roots, cubed
a handful of dried black fungus, rehydrated
1 pkg. Chinese sausage, sliced
1/4 c. hoisin sauce
1/4 c. oyster sauce
1/4 c. black vinegar
*1-2 tsp. sugar
*1 Tbsp. light soy sauce
*4 green onions, chopped
chili crisp lao gan ma, to taste

I know I should type out all the instructions properly, but I'm feeling tired and low-effort tonight, so I'm just going to do a high-level overview:

• fry the tofu, reserve
• fry the cremini mushrooms, reserve
• fry the onion, add the aromatics
• add carrots, then lotus root, then sausage
• add black fungus, cremini, and tofu
• add sauce, thicken with cornstarch slurry as necessary
• add green onions
• serve over rice with more lao gan ma as desired

The ingredients with asterisks didn't actually make it into this edition of the stir-fry. Next time I think I'd replace one of the two small lotus root segments with some carrots and add a bit of sugar and soy sauce to the sauce mix since I felt it needed a little something. I was unsure about whether or not to put ginger in, but after tasting it, I think the ginger would've gone nicely. I'll toss a little bit in the next time I'm making this. Other than that, I think it came out pretty well and I'm happy with the results.

Cinnamon-Hazelnut Brownies

I'm not really much of a brownie person. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll eat brownies and I actually like most brownies, they're just not my favourite. I generally prefer things like cookies or cake or chocolate or ice cream. (Now, brownies + ice cream? That's a whole different animal! You kind of end up with a "more than the sum of its parts" situation there. Fabulous!) But yeah, brownies are not generally my first choice when it comes to baked goods. TF, however, loves them! He also loves hazelnuts. And Nutella. So, when I found a brownie recipe that called for all of these things, I had to try it.

I was tempted to leave out the cinnamon called for in these and just really focus on the hazelnuts, but I figured I'd stick to the recipe as written the first time around.

Cinnamon-Hazelnut Brownies
from Spache the Spatula
1 c. all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp. Dutched cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
4 oz. (114g) + 1/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (sorry for mixing weight, mass, and volume here)
1 c. granulated sugar
1/3 c. chocolate-hazelnut spread (eg. EuroCreme or Nutella)
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 c. hazelnuts, crushed

1. Combine the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon).
2. Melt the butter over medium heat, then remove from heat and add the 4 oz. of chocolate chips, stirring to melt them as well.
3. Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl with the sugar and beat for a couple minutes. (Spache's recipe specifies using a paddle attachment on a stand mixer, but since I have neither, I just used a regular hand mixer. It seemed to work fine.)
4. Mix in the chocolate spread, eggs, and vanilla.
5. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients until just blended.
6. Spread batter into a well-greased 8x8 square pan. (I skipped the parchment paper when preparing the pan. Feel free to use it if you're worried about sticking though.)
7. Combine the crushed hazelnuts (I just mashed mine up with a mortar and pestle) with the remaining semi-sweet chocolate chips and use this mixture to top the brownie batter in the pan.
8. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes. (TF thinks they probably could've stood another few minutes in the oven, but says they're delicious as is and the edges are perfect. He is in agreement with Spache that it's better to slightly undercook rich, fudgey brownies like these than to end up overcooking them.)
9. Once brownies have completely cooled, cut and enjoy!

Update: I tried a little corner of one of these brownies and, while I'm still not a brownie person, I can say that I am so glad that I didn't leave out the cinnamon! It's so nice with the richness of the chocolate and the hazelnuts! I thought that it might detract and distract from the wonderful nuttiness of these brownies, but it's just the opposite. It really does enhance the flavour. Yum!

Rappie Pie

I'm cheating a little bit here since this isn't something that I've ever made. It is one of my favourite foods in the whole wide world though. And my mom makes wonderful rappie pie, so I figured I'd write a bit about it. If I ever decide to try making it myself, I'll do another write-up (and hopefully remember to take pictures), but for now, I'll just share the process.

Rappie pie is another one of those dishes, like oxtail soup, that's really a labour of love. It's a lot of effort to make, but that just makes it so much more special since that means it can't really be every day fare.

At its core, rappie pie is really just potatoes and chicken. Sounds simple, right? But it's all in how you prepare them!

The raw potatoes must be grated extremely finely. Think "I am setting out to make potato flour" rather than "I am setting out to grate potatoes". And then the liquid must be squeezed out of them. If you are a hardcore, Acadian granny, you'll probably do this by hand, pressing the grated potatoes in cheesecloth. For the rest of us, this is where a juicer comes in handy.

Once the potatoes are all juiced, you need to measure how much liquid you got out of them. You don't need the liquid, you just need to know how much there was.

The other main component of rappie pie, chicken, can be dealt with a little more simply. You need to cut up and cook a whole chicken (preferably a big, tasty one) and then pick all the meat from the bones and shred it. The best approach is probably to treat it like you're making chicken soup. Cook it in a big pot with some water, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and whatever other seasonings you like in your chicken soup. Maybe toss in an onion or two and some carrot and celery as well.

Now you should have a big pile of shredded cooked chicken and a pot of stock which you should skim and strain before using. Along with your juiced potatoes, this is all you need to make rappie pie!

Remember when I said that you didn't need the potato juice but you needed to know how much there was? Yeah, that's because you're gonna replace all the liquid extracted from the potatoes with delicious, delicious chicken stock. You'll probably want to add a little more salt and pepper to the potatoes at this point too.

Now it's just a simple matter of layering the potatoes into a pan with the chicken and baking it. It doesn't look like much, but I promise, it's completely wonderful to eat! The edges get all lovely and crisp and the centre has a lovely creaminess to it with chunks of chicken burried inside. It is delicious!

Linzer Cookies

 I was planning on making linzer cookies for Christmas this year. I got a bit behind in my preparations though and ran out of time. The linzer cookies still got made, but I had to ask TF to do it while I was out running errands. I got the recipe here and they came out pretty well. I'd like to try them again sometime with different flavour combinations.

Linzer Cookies
2/3 c. almonds
1/4 c. lemon sugar (1 c. granulated sugar to grated zest of 1 lemon)
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 c. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 Tbsp. icing sugar
raspberry jam (I used strawberry instead)

1. Toast the almonds for a few minutes either on the stovetop or in the oven at 350F. Once cool, grind to a powder and set aside.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. (I used some of the left over dry ingredients from making my gingerbread for this, so I left out the cinnamon since there were already some spices in the flour.)
3. Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract. (I forgot to tell TF to use half vanilla and half almond, so it was all vanilla in this batch.)
5. Gradually beat in the almonds, followed by the flour mixture. Mix until just combined.
6. Chill for at least three hours.
7. Roll out dough about 1/8" thick. Make half of the cookies solid and half with cut-outs.
8. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.
9. Cool and sprinkle icing sugar on the cookies with cut-outs.
10. Flip the solid cookies upside down and spread a little jam on each one. Top with the sugar'd cut-out cookies.

Almond cookies with either apricot or raspberry jam is traditional for these cookies. I'd like to try some other combinations though: peanut cookies with grape jelly, ginger cookies with apple jelly, chocolate cookies with marmalade, etc.

Pineapple-Chile Ice Cream Topping

This recipe comes from one of my absolute favourite cookbooks: 660 Curries. It was actually originally concocted as a toping for some grilled salmon, but the author suggested that it would also be good spooned over some premium vanilla ice cream. I haven't tried it with salmon yet, but I can vouch for its excellence as an ice cream topper. Really, really excellent!

Pineapple-Chile Ice Cream Topping
2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
2 c. cubed pineapple
6 whole dried chiles
1/2 c. golden raisins
1/2 c. chopped jaggery
1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt

1. Heat the oil over medium-high heat and add the mustard seeds. Cover and cook until they stop popping.
2. Add the pineapple, chiles, and raisins and cook for a few minutes until the raisins have softened and plumped up a little.
3. Add the jaggery and cook, stirring, until it melts and dissolves into the mix.
4. Add 1 c. water and the sea salt and cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens and becomes syrupy (about 15 minutes).
5. Serve warm over ice cream.

Raspberry Honey Mustard

I'll try to make this short because I am extremely tired.

My Shakespeare's Kitchen cookbook includes several recipes for homemade mustard. The recipes were all very simple and straight-forward, so I figured I'd give it a try. Here's a short list of the things I've learned about making mustard so far:

• mustard, even cheap-o no name mustard, is a lot more potent than I expected when freshly prepared
• it will have a bitter taste/aftertaste to it for the first day or so after it's mixed up
• mixing the dry mustard with some cold water and letting it stand for a few minutes will bring out its heat; for hot mustard do this, for milder mustard mix it with the acidic ingredients immediately
• even without the cold water soak, you can still expect some pretty pungent mustard!
• make mustard a bit runnier than you want the final product to be as it will continue to thicken up for several days after it's made
• if you get a high-quality dry mustard, expect it to have an intense, almost wasabi-like kick once prepared (even if you mix directly with vinegar)
• there are a multitude of mustard flavouring possibilities and I'd really like to do some more experimenting when I have the time!

Raspberry Honey Mustard
1/4 c. honey (I used a light, golden liquid honey for this)
2 Tbsp. raspberry zinfandel
1 Tbsp. raspberry vinegar
1 Tbsp. high-quality dry mustard or 2 Tbsp. discount dry mustard
1/4 tsp. sea salt
3-4 grinds black pepper

Just mix everything together and let stand for at least 24 hours before using. Will keep in the fridge for up to a year.

I tried this both with Keen's dry mustard powder and with some cheap no name ground mustard. The no name was much milder when used in the same proportions as the Keen's. Doubling the amount of mustard called for brought the cheap mustard up to almost the same level of intensity as the fancier stuff.

Keen's also had pretty much no aftertaste or bitterness even immediately after being mixed. The no name had an unpleasant aftertaste initially, but this had completely dissipated after 24 hours. (The Keen's still tasted better though, although it was a much nearer thing the day after mixing.)

Both mustards were extremely thin immediately after being mixed. They had thickened up noticeably after a day, but were still nowhere near as thick as most prepared mustards I've had. The batch with the double quantity of cheap mustard (unsurprisingly) was thicker than the others, but still more liquid than paste. It was too thin to be spreadable or anything like that. We'll see if it thickens up more over the next couple of days.

Being that this mustard has such a kick to it, I think it would be interesting to experiment with layering different types of "hot" into the same condiment. I'd like to try blending mustard with cayenne or chili powder and maybe some white pepper too.

There are all sorts of different flavour combinations that could be tried here, varying the type and amount of honey or sugar, trying different types of vinegar, using different types of alcohol (or none at all)! If I did a raspberry mustard again, I'd like to try using a tablespoon or two of chambord in place of the zinfandel. Plenty of possibilities!

Gingerbread Cookies

I made an important realization the other day, in amongst all my cookie recipe testing: I've never actually made gingerbread cookies. I mean, I made them with my mom when I was a kid, but that mostly consisted of me wielding a cookie cutter while she made the dough, rolled it out, and baked the cookies. What I mean is I've never actually made gingerbread dough. I knew it involved ginger and molasses and brown sugar, but I have no favourite recipe, no tried and true methods, no specifics.

I do have a young nephew now though and I decided that he should get some gingerbread people for Christmas this year. So after a bit of Googling, I decided to try out this recipe.

The dough came together pretty easily. I'd meant to follow the advice of one of the reviewers and leave out half a cup of the flour, but I had already mixed all the dry ingredients together by the time I remembered. Instead I reserved about half a cup of the dry ingredients and used them to flour the dough and surface when I was rolling out my cookies. It seemed to work reasonably well. Next time I'd just leave out the extra flour from the start though.

Despite the large quantity of ginger called for in these cookies, I didn't find them overly ginger-y once baked. The flavour seemed to intensify slightly once they'd been left to sit/cool overnight, but it still wasn't a very intense ginger flavour. I liked them best fresh out of the oven when they were still warm and soft. TF prefers them now that the flavour has deepened, even though they've lost that wonderful softness they had when they were still hot.

So, what would I do if I were making these again?

Gingerbread Cookies
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 c. fancy molasses
2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.
2. Cream butter. Add sugar and egg and mix until smooth.
3. Add molasses and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix until smooth and well-blended.
4. Gradually add dry ingredients stirring until just combined.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for at least two hours. (Or chill overnight.)
6. Allow to come to room temperature (if necessary) and roll out dough. Approximately 5mm seems to be a good thickness.
7. Bake at 375F for 5-7 minutes.
8. Decorate with royal icing as desired.

I think I'd also like to experiment with some (ginger-)molasses cookie recipes and see how they compare to the standard gingerbread. Personally, I prefer a nice, soft, chewy cookie and I'm wondering if a molasses cookie might be the way to go for that.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Ganache

I got into the Goons with Spoons CAKE thread a few years back and tried out a couple of the recipes shared. I haven't been doing any cake baking lately, but I did rediscover one of the recipes I'd made before. It was delicious! Seriously. It was probably the best cake I have ever made. Ever.

The recipe was posted on Smitten Kitchen and can still be found there, but I just wanted to copy it out here so that I have it on hand for future reference.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake
2 c. (250g) all-purpose flour
2 1/2 c. (500g) sugar
3/4 c. (~65g) Dutched cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. canola oil
1 c. sour cream
1 1/2 c. water
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs

1. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
2. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend.
3. Gradually beat in the water.
4. Blend in the vinegar and the vanilla.
5. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended.
6. (The recipe states to split among three 8" round cake pans, but I'm pretty sure I did this as a single 9" square layer.) Divide the batter among greased cake pans. The bottoms and sides of the pans should be greased for this.
7. Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes or until tester comes out almost clean.
8. Cool in pans for 20 minutes before inverting on a wire rack and lifting off the pan. (Smitten Kitchen blogger notes that the cakes are much easier to work with if you stick them in the freezer for a bit before trying to do anything with them. I don't think I did this, but she said it makes them a lot easier to handle.)
9. Frost the cake with the peanut butter frosting. (Doing a crumb coat and then chilling the cake before adding the rest of the frosting should result in a neater looking finished product. Chilling again before applying the ganache will probably improve results as well.)
10. Pour the ganache over the top of the cake and use a spatula to spread it all over the top just to the edges. Allow the ganache to drop down the sides of the cake.
11. Chill until the ganache is well-set.

Peanut Butter Frosting
10 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (1/2 c.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 c. (600g) icing sugar, sifted
2/3 c. (170g) smooth peanut butter

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add the icing sugar, scraping down the bowl as you go. Continue to beat again until light and fluffy (3-4 minutes).
3. Add the peanut butter and mix thoroughly.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ganache
8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 Tbsp. (50g) smooth peanut butter
2 Tbsp. (40g) light corn syrup
1/2 c. half-and-half

1. Combine chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup in a double boiler. Cook, whisking as the chocolate melts.
2. Once the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth, remove from head and whisk in the half-and-half. Beat until smooth. Use while still warm.

It's been two or three years since I made this, so I can't offer any detailed notes on exactly what I did or how it came out. I remember it being really, really good though. TF still fondly remembers it as well. He's got some photos kicking around somewhere. I'll see if I can find them and put them up when I get a chance.

Update: Found those photos!

Fried Nian Gao

This one was a bit of a learning experience. The instructions (found in the Wok This Way thread on Something Awful) were a little vague and I made a few mistakes due to inexperience as well. Now that I've seen how nian gao behave when cooked, I think I could do a much better job next time.

Fried Nian Gao
1 pkg. frozen nian gao
6 Tbsp. peanut oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp. garlic paste
1 Tbsp. ginger paste
*2 Tbsp. Sichuan bean paste
dash of white pepper
2 tsp. ground cumin
500g-700g thinly sliced lamb
227g sliced cremini mushrooms
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
6-12 whole dried chiles
*1 c. stock (vegetable, chicken, beef, pork)
8-12 napa cabbage leaves, shredded
3 carrots, cut into thin coins
4 green onions, chopped
1 Tbsp. shaoxing wine
2 Tbsp. black vinegar
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
1 Tbsp. sugar
Laoganma (optional)

1. Place the nian gao in water for a couple of hours to thaw.
2. Do all the chopping and slicing and mincing and mix the sauce (wine, vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar).
3. Heat up the wok and add 2 Tbsp. of oil. Add the onion and stir-fry for a minute. Add the pastes, cumin, and pepper and stir-fry for another minute. Add the lamb and stir-fry for a few more minutes until it's just cooked.
4. Remove the lamb from the wok and add more oil if necessary. Add the mushrooms and stir-fry for a couple of minutes until desired doneness.
5. Remove the mushrooms from the wok and add a couple more Tbsp. of oil. Add the minced garlic and chiles and fry until aromatic but not burnt.
6. Add the (drained) nian gao and keep them moving! After 30 seconds or so add ~1/4 c. of stock and keep stirring. Cook until nian gao are softened and some begin to brown slightly around the edges adding more stock as needed during cooking.
7. Add the vegetables to the wok and stir-fry until cabbage is wilted.
8. Return the mushrooms and meat to the wok and stir to combine.
9. Stir in the sauce.
10. Serve garnished with Laoganma if desired.

The ingredients marked with asterisks are ones that I didn't include this time around but would like to try out next time. I just used water for cooking the nian gao this time and they came out tasty, but I think they would've been even better cooked in some nice vegetable stock!

I only put six chiles in this time around because, once again, I was trying to make sure it was mild enough for the froglet. It came out pretty mild though and I think I'd use at least 12 chiles next time and still consider it baby-appropriate. (The froglet is a trooper and seems to be good with moderately spicy dishes so far.) Along similar lines, I'd like to experiment with adding a bit of Sichuan bean paste or Laoganma when cooking the meat. Maybe a bit of soy sauce too. I felt it could've used a bit more spice and a bit more salt.

I put 8 napa cabbage leaves into the wok this time and it was good, but I think 10 or 12 would've been better. The cabbage really cooks down and it kind of ended up getting lost amongst the other ingredients. I had the opposite problem with the lamb. It came in a 700g package, so I just tossed all of it in. I really think that was too much though. I think more cabbage and less meat would make for better proportions the next time I'm making this.

Even with my minor mistakes (like not letting the nian gao cook for long enough before adding the veg and adding too much water) this was still pretty good. I think it has the potential to go from good to excellent if done right though. Maybe I'll give it a try again sometime soon and see if I can nudge it up to the next level of delicious.

Lemon Cookies (Fluffy)

So, I had some lemon juice and a bunch of lemon sugar and cranberries left over from making my lemon-cranberry muffins. Seeing no reason for them to go to waste, I decided it was time to make some lemon cookies! I headed back over to AllRecipes to see what popped up in a general search for "lemon cookies".

It came down to a choice between lemon sugar tea cookies and lemon chewy crisps. I decided to go with the "chewy crisps" mainly because they actually called for both lemon juice and zest while the other recipe called for neither and I would've been splicing them in somewhere along the way.

As usual, I ended up changing things around a bit, but I stuck pretty close to the recipe as written.

Lemon Chewy Crisps
1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. lemon sugar (rind of 1 lemon per 1 c. sugar)
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 egg
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. white bread flour (only because I was all out of all-purpose flour)
24 fresh cranberries

These have a nice, light lemony flavour. The lemon is definitely noticeable, but not super strong. If I were making these again, I might consider adding some extra lemon zest and/or a bit of lemon extract.

Given the recipe title and the description, I was expecting cookies that were slightly crisp around the edges (and maybe on the bottom) and chewy everywhere else. The dough didn't spread nearly as much as I was expecting though, so the edges got little-to-no crisping and the rest of the cookie was actually more fluffy and cake-y than chewy. They are quite light and are nice enough if that's the texture you're after, but certainly not what I was expecting. 'Though I did quadruple the amount of lemon juice, left out the vanilla extract entirely, and ended up using a different kind of flour than I was supposed to, so that likely had an effect on the final texture. That said, I think I'll still try the other recipe next time instead of repeating this one.

Lemon-Cranberry Muffins, Round 1

When I was in high school I made some totally awesome whole wheat lemon-cranberry muffins. It was a recipe of my own invention and they were awesome! Of course, I was so sure I'd remember it that I didn't write it down. Now, aside from a few fuzzy details, I have no idea how I made them.

Back to the drawing board!

I grabbed a basic lemon muffin recipe off of AllRecipes and started tinkering with it. The results aren't perfect, but it's a start. This time I'll keep a record of what I've done and just keep revising it until I'm able to recreate something akin to the amazing muffins of my adolescence.

Imperfect Lemon-Cranberry Muffins
1 c. milk
1/3 c. canola oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
juice of 1 lemon
1 c. whole wheat bread flour
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
zest of 1 lemon
1 c. fresh cranberries

1/2 c. sugar
zest of 1/2 a lemon
juice of 1/2 a lemon

1. Mix all the wet ingredients together. Mix all the dry ingredients together and add to wet ingredients. Stir until just combined.
2. Grease the bottoms of 12 muffin cups or line with papers. Divide the batter between the cups.
3. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F.
4. Combine the zest of half a lemon with 1/2 c. sugar. Place the juice of half a lemon in a separate bowl.
5. Dip the top of each muffin into the lemon juice while still hot, then immediately dip into the lemon sugar.

These muffins are good (especially the cranberries), but I found the batter a bit too thick. They were also slightly dry, but I may have left them in a few minutes longer than they needed (25 instead of 20).

Next time I would:
try using 1/2 c. oil instead of 1/3 c.
consider adding another egg
try substituting honey for some or all of the sugar (I think that I might have used honey in my past lemon-cranberry adventures)
make sure to bake them for only 20 minutes

It might also be fun to try adding cranberry juice or dipping the tops in cranberry juice when garnishing. (Especially since I have a bottle of unsweetened cranberry juice in the fridge that isn't getting used up as quickly as I'd like.)

Preserved Lemons

About half the recipes in my Moroccan cookbook (or at least half the tagine recipes) call for preserved lemons. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find any locally. I'm sure I could find them in Toronto or buy them online somewhere, but seeing as there's a recipe for them included in the front of the book, I decided to try that route instead.

Moroccan preserved lemons are basically pickled in their own (salted) juices. Sometimes a few spices may be added, but at their simplest, they're just lemons + salt.

Preserved Lemons
8 meyer lemons
coarse sea salt
2 small bay leaves
1 1/2 cinnamon sticks
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
9 coriander seeds
freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Sterilize your jar(s) and wash your work surfaces.
2. Place 1 Tbsp. of salt at the bottom of each jar.
3. Quarter the lemons to within 1cm of the bottom and rub salt into the cut surfaces.
4. Form the lemons back to their original shape and add to the jar along with the spices. Press down to release juices and make sure they all fit.
5. If the lemons are not completely covered by juice, add some more freshly squeezed juice. (The recipe was very specific that it must be freshly squeezed juice.)
6. Make sure there is still some air space at the top of the jar before sealing it.
7. Place in a warm spot and shake daily. Lemons are ready to use after 30 days.

The recipe notes that the pickling brine may be reused several times and that the lemons should keep for about a year at room temperature. It does mention that you should be careful when fishing lemons out of the jar. Make sure that your implements are clean to avoid contamination. It also suggests using wooden implements to retrieve your lemons from the jar, but doesn't say why.

My lemons just went into the jar today, so it'll be a while before they're ready to use. I'll try to remember to plan for a nice tagine in a month or so to give me a chance to try them and report back here. Can't wait to try some new recipes!

Salt-Fried Potatoes

Stir-frying potatoes is hard mode!

Once again, I forgot to as TF to take a picture before he dished his dinner up.

I thought if I just kept them moving it'd be okay. I thought that being prepared to constantly stir and flip would be enough. I was wrong!

Those potatoes welded themselves to the bottom of that wok! Eventually I gave up and started adding water to try to deglaze it a little. Of course, this means that my potatoes ended up more boiled than fried by the end. But honestly, by that point, I just wanted to get them cooked and it didn't much matter how!

I also added the meat and veg to the wok too soon. I should've tested the potatoes for doneness, but my arm was already pretty tired from stirring them so much and they were sliced so thin... I figured they must be done by now! This means that by the time the veg was done, the potatoes were still a bit underdone. I turned the heat back on and cooked it up a bit more, but then all my stirring (and the addition of more water) caused my lovely thin potato slices to start breaking down. So the final product looks a lot messier than I'd hoped.

I think, for me at least, the answer may be to briefly deep fry the potatoes before adding them to the wok. I am just not good enough to stir-fry a potato. If your wok-fu is greater than mine, by all means, give this a try without the deep fry cheat!

Salt-Fried Potatoes
~700g very thinly sliced meat (I used lamb)
2 tsp. coarse sea salt
generous 2 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
dash white pepper
generous 2 Tbsp. Laoganma
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. minced ginger
4 potatoes, thinly sliced
4 green onions
2 bell peppers, any colour(s)
200g cremini mushrooms, sliced (optional)

1. Slice the meat as thin as possible. (Par-freezing helps here.)
2. Lightly boil the meat. (No more than a minute or so.) Drain; season with 1/4 tsp. salt, pepper, cumin, and anything else you'd like; and set aside.
3. Do all your other chopping, slicing, and mincing and make sure everything's ready to go.
4. Heat up the wok and add a bit of oil. Toss in the meat and stir-fry until it starts to brown.
5. Remove the meat from the wok and give the wok a rinse. Add the soy sauce and half the Laoganma to the meat and set aside.
5 1/2. Optionally, heat the wok back up, add a bit more oil, and stir-fry your mushrooms. Remove from wok and set aside.
6. If you're hardcore, this is the part where the potatoes get stir-fried. Heat up the wok and add a generous quantity of oil. Add the garlic and ginger followed by the potatoes and keep 'em moving!
If your wok-fu is weak like mine, cheat and deep fry your potatoes a little bit before adding them to the wok with the garlic and ginger. You're not looking for potato chip crisp here, but we do want them a bit browned with maybe a hint of crispiness on the outside.
7. Once you've achieved nice golden brown potatoes, add the rest of the Laoganma and the salt. Stir to distrubute.
8. Add the meat (and mushrooms) and stir to combine.
9. Add the green onions and bell peppers. Stir-fry until bell peppers achieve desired done-ness.
10. Serve with additional Laoganma if desired.

Mexican Rice

It's been a while since I last used my rice cooker cookbook, so I figured I'd flip through it again and see if anything caught my eye.

Most of the recipes in the chapter I was looking at seem to be recommended for a medium (5-6 cup) rice cooker, but they do note that they can be scaled up or down to fit other sizes. I have a 10 cup rice cooker, so I figured I'd just double the recipe to fit the larger pot. (10 cup cookers don't tend to do so well with small quantities of rice. Two "rice cooker cups" is about the the minimum that they can do a good job on.) This worked out well in the sense that the rice cooked up nicely and we got a tasty lunch out of it. However, once all the other ingredients were added, I was left with a huge quantity of "Mexican rice"! I will probably just make half the amount next time and deal with the less-than-perfectly-cooked rice.

Mexican Rice
1 c. long-grain white rice
1 c. stock (chicken, vegetable, pork... whatever you prefer)
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
5 grinds black pepper
2 Tbsp. capers
1 (15 oz.) tin diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz.) tin beans (black or pinto work well), drained and rinsed
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tsp. dried oregano
3 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped
sour cream, for serving
feta, for serving

1. Add rice and stock to the rice cooker and turn it on. (If you have a fancy-pants fuzzy logic rice cooker a regular, quick cook, or mixed cycle should be appropriate here.)
2. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion until it begins to brown. Add the bell pepper and cook until it just begins to soften.
3. Add the onion, bell pepper, black pepper, capers, diced tomatoes, beans, chiles, oregano, and cilantro to the rice cooker. Stir and replace the lid. If the cooking cycle hasn't yet finished allow it to complete.
4. Serve topped with sour cream and feta.

If you have a large rice cooker, the small quantity of rice called for in this recipe may not cook up as nicely as larger volumes usually do. Double the recipe if you're worried about this, but be aware that the finished product will fill your rice cooker! I doubled the quantities called for above and ended up with my 10 cup cooker filled to the brim. I actually only put in half the amount of beans called for because the rice cooker was already so full!

This is how much was left after TF dished his lunch up!

I think this would also be nice with brown rice and/or garnished with lime juice in place of the sour cream. I think I'd also try adding a couple cloves of garlic next time. In fact, I may sauté up a little garlic tomorrow and add it to whatever's left in the pot.

This makes for an extremely easy meal. And quite quick as well if you stick with white rice! Quick, easy, and tasty... what more can you ask for out of a meal? It does fall just short of being a one-pot meal since you have to sauté the onion and peppers (and optional garlic) separately, but there really isn't much to do in the way of clean-up after making this. It's pretty great.

Spicy Chicken Stir-Fry

Yet another great recipe courtesy of Goons with Spoons! I made a few changes for my version (not all of them intentional). I'll share my take here. Or rather... what I would've done if I'd not been so discombobulated when preparing dinner tonight.

Spicy Chicken Stir-Fry
100g slivered almonds
500g skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1 lotus root
3 small heads Shanghai bok choy
4 green onions
1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns
3 fresh red Thai chiles
3 dried red chiles (de arbol)
4 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. ginger paste
1 generous Tbsp. Laoganma
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. shaoxing wine
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
2 Tbsp. black vinegar
1/4 c. pork stock
cornstarch slurry (1 Tbsp. cold water + 1 tsp. cornstarch)

1. Chop the chicken into small cubes and toss in whatever marinade you prefer. (I used a couple splashes of shaoxing wine combined with some light soy and a bit of sesame oil and white pepper.)
2. Chop the lotus root and set aside. Chop the bok choy and green onions and set aside. Mince the garlic and chiles and combine with the Laoganma, Sichuan peppercorns, and ginger paste and set aside. Combine the sugar, shaoxing wine, soy sauce, black vinegar, and pork stock and set aside. Mix the cornstarch slurry and set aside.
3. Lightly fry/toast the nuts in a little oil.
4. Heat wok over high and add a bit of oil. Add the chicken and stir-fry until it releases some liquid and most of the liquid has cooked off. Set the chicken aside and give the wok a rinse.
5. Heat the wok back up and add a touch more oil. Toss in the aromatics (Laoganma, chiles, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, and ginger). Stir around for a few seconds (15-30), then add the lotus root.
6. Stir fry the lotus root for a minute or so, then add the bok choy and green onion. (Add a bit of water if the wok is too dry.)
7. Once the bok choy has wilted, return the chicken and nuts to the wok and give it a stir. Stir in the sauce followed by the cornstarch slurry and allow it to thicken the sauce a bit.
7. Serve over rice (with more Laoganma if desired).

I was planning on toasting ~100g of slivered almonds and using them in place of the peanuts, but I plum forgot! I missed adding the Sichuan peppercorns as well, sadly. And I was running a bit short of green onions, so I only had three, rather than the four I would've preferred. Still came out quite tasty though! And I found it to be a nice level of heat as well.

If I were to do this again, I think I'd consider adding a few more vegetables. Another small head of bok choy certainly wouldn't go amiss and I think a red bell pepper might be a nice addition as well. The lotus root gives a nice, slightly crisp texture and I think the nuts would've been excellent in it as well if I'd remembered to add them!

Also, a note on Laoganma: I normally consider "spicy chili crisp" to be the default type if the recipe doesn't specify. However, the Asian supermarket I normally go to doesn't seem to stock that variety anymore, so I decided to try one of the other products in the line. The black bean type that I have now seems to be working out pretty well so far. The texture is markedly different than the usual "crisp", but it does have a pretty similar flavour and heat level, so I consider it a reasonable substitute. Feel free to experiment with other varieties of Laoganma as you see fit! I'm told they're all delicious!

My brain's kind of fried tonight, so I won't say much more about this one. Very tasty! I definitely want to try making this on again sometime!

Harcha

Tonight was another batch of one-pot rice cooker dinner. This time with char sui instead of the Chinese sausages. I plan on doing home-made char sui at some point and doing a write-up on it, but for tonight, we just got some ready-made.

Since I don't really have anything new to write about from tonight's dinner, I'll mention another recent (mis)adventure in food. TF's mom was going to be making a lovely lamb couscous meal for us at her place, so I thought it'd be nice to bring some flatbread to go along with the meal. Flipping through my cookbook, I came upon a harcha recipe: perfect! It requires no rising or kneading, has a fairly simple ingredient list, and just needs to be cooked in a skillet! So I grabbed some semolina flour and got started!

Harcha
1 1/3 c. pasta flour (medium semolina) + 2/3 c. for shaping and cooking
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. double-acting baking powder
1/2 tsp. fine salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. honey
1/2 c. + 2 Tbsp. warm herbal tea, strained
melted unsalted butter, for garnish
honey (optional)

1. Spread the 1 1/3 c. flour out on a work surface or wide wooden bowl.
2. Add the butter and oil and rub it into the flour with your fingers until crumbly and the texture of sand.
3. Add the salt and baking powder and toss lightly.
4. Combine the honey with the tea and gradually add it to the flour mixture. Work the liquid in with your fingers and gather it into a wet ball.
5. Press (without kneading) into a 12"×15" rectangle. Let stand for 15 minutes.
6. Use a pastry scraper to divide the dough in half. Lift each half and sprinkle a little pasta flour under it.
7. Flatten each dough half into a 6" round. Sprinkle with a little pasta flour.
8. Lift, flip, and press to make sure there are no air holes.
9. Set two nonstick skillets over low heat (or cook one at a time). Dust the surface of the skillets with pasta flour.
10. Slide each round into a skillet. Cook over medium-low heat, shaking the bread back and forth, until the undersides are golden (~10 minutes).
11. Slide each round onto a plate, invert a skillet over the round, and flip the bread back into the skillet. Repeat with the other round.
12. Cook until the second side is also golden brown. Brush the tops with butter (and optionally honey) and serve hot.

So, this all sounds pretty straightforward in theory. I mixed my ingredients and ended up with a very wet "dough", almost more of a thick batter really. But that's okay! She said it would be wet. That's why you're supposed to let it sit for a while. It needs time to magically transform into dough! Well, I came back and it was still pretty wet. So I let it sit for another five minutes. Which helped a bit, but it was still nearly impossible to handle.

Eventually I struck upon the technique of loading a lifter up with semolina flour and then very carefully wedging it under the "dough", allowing it to flour the underside as it went.

After a lot of fiddling, I finally managed to get them flipped and floured. Then the trick was getting them into the pan. Based on how wet and unmanageable they'd been so far, I decided that it'd be best to err on the generous side when flouring the pans... extremely generous. Getting them into the pan was... interesting, but I managed it!

The first one broke when I tried to check to see if the bottom was browned yet. It wasn't. In fact, I didn't seem to be getting anywhere with the browning at all! I suspect this may have had something to do with the large quantity of flour in the pan.

After a few more breaks and fractures, I managed to finish cooking the first round and extract it from the pan, now in several pieces. The second round was not so fortunate. I completely psyched myself out when it came time to flip it back into the pan and ended up slipping. Half of it ended up on the floor and the other half went into the lit burner. At which point it caught fire. I swore and turned the burner off, at which point TF came and blew out my little flatbread bonfire.

We did end up eating the round that didn't fall on the floor. It was nice spread with a blend of almond butter, honey, and sea salt. Not nice enough for me to want to give it another try without making some serious modifications though!

I think a large part of the problem may have been my flour. My cookbook mentions three grades of semolina flour: coarse, medium, and extra-fine. Coarse is for homemade couscous. Medium is "pasta flour". Extra-fine is generally used for pastries and the like. When I went to the store I found three types of semolina flour. One was extremely coarse, one was quite fine, and one was in between. I grabbed the in between one thinking that must be the "medium" flour I was looking for. It wasn't until I got it home that I noticed the partially rubbed out "coarse" label. I'm thinking that the finer flour must've actually been "medium" or "pasta" flour and is what I actually wanted. The extra-fine grade is apparently often sold as "durum" flour or "durum atta" rather than semolina flour, even though they're from the same grain.

So, if I ever try to make harcha again, I'll use finer flour for sure. I may also try making it with milk instead of tea. And I'll put less flour in the pan when I'm cooking it. I'll also try to be less of a spaz when I'm flipping it, but that's hard to predict!

I kind of wish I'd thought to snap a few photos of my sad and broken harcha rounds. I'm sure you can imagine an approximation though! It was sad. Next time I'll do better!

Chinese Vegetable Stock

Since we're eating leftovers tonight, I guess now is a good time to post about the vegetable stock that I made last week. I completely forgot to do a write up when I made it initially, but I guess it all works out since it gives me something to write about today. The process was a little involved, but I think it'd go a lot smoother if I did it again, since I have all the ingredients on hand now.

Chinese Vegetable Stock
2.3L water
3/4 lbs. carrots, cut into thirds
3 yellow onions, quartered
3/4 lb. green onions, cut into thirds
3/4 lb. button mushrooms, quartered
6 ribs celery, cut into thirds
4 oz. fresh cilantro, very rough chopped
1/4 c. dried red dates (jujubes)
1/6 c. dried goji berries (wolfberries, boxthorn seeds)
4 oz. ginger paste (or fresh ginger, peeled, halved, and lightly smashed)
2 Tbsp. scallion oil
1/2 c. fried scallions (from scallion oil)
2 Tbsp. fried garlic (from garlic oil)
1 Tbsp. salt

First off, if you don't already have scallion oil (and fried scallions and garlic) on hand, you'll have to make some!

Scallion Oil (and Fried Scallions)
1 c. peanut oil
3/4 lb. scallions, very rough chopped

1. Lightly smash the white portions of the scallions.
2. Heat a wok over high heat for 30 seconds. Add the peanut oil followed by the scallions.
3. Once everything is vigorously bubbling, reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally for 20-30 minutes.
4. Strain the oil through a fine mess and allow to cool. Both oil and scallions will keep in the fridge for several months. (Use a sterilized jar for storing the oil.)

Garlic Oil (and Fried Garlic)
1/2 c. peanut oil
1 head garlic, thinly sliced

1. Heat a wok over high heat for 30 seconds. Add the peanut oil followed by the garlic.
2. Stir and reduce heat to medium.
3. Once everything is nicely bubbling, reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
4. Strain and store both oil and garlic as for scallion oil.

You begin to see why making this broth was such an involved process! Now I have both types of oil and the fried garlic and scallions on hand, so it'll be much easier in the future!

Now that all the frying and yak-shaving is done, onward to making our actual broth!

1. Soak the dates in very hot water. You'll want to let them sit in the water for at least half an hour, so do this first. Once the half our is up, drain them and add them to the pot.
2. Soak the goji berries in some very hot water. They should only need about 10 minutes of soaking. Once they're done, drain them and add them to the pot as well.
3. Add everything else to the pot! I did this in my crockpot, but it also works in a stock pot on the stove.
4. For the crockpot, I turned it on high for a few hours before switching it to low overnight. If you're doing it on the stove, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for at least 5 hours.

After a night simmering in my crockpot I was rewarded with some of the most delicious, rich-smelling stock I've ever seen! It was glorious! I'm pretty sure this is going to be my go-to vegetable stock recipe for the rest of forever!

In case anyone was wondering, I got this recipe out of Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking. I halved all the quantities to make it fit in my crockpot (and used a crockpot rather than stove top), but other than that, kept the recipe the same. I'm looking forward to trying her recipe for chicken stock at some point as well, but I had more immediate uses for the vegetable stock for now, so I figured I'd try that one first. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with how this turned out! Om nom nom!

Pancit Bihon

I know I've been posting a lot of Goons with Spoons recipes lately, but that's because there's an awful lot of delicious in that forum/wiki. This recipe is courtesy of the "Pilipino Pood" thread and can also be found on the GwS wiki.

I've been in a noodle-y sort of mood lately, so something using rice vermicelli was quite appealing. And, it even calls for carrots, which is great, because I have a bunch in the fridge that need to be used up!

The recipe as written has you making chicken stock from scratch. However, I had a bunch of delicious, wonderful pork stock left over from my adventures with sisig. So, I opted to use that as my liquid and go from there.

Pancit Bihon
4 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
oil
4 c. pork stock
~1/2 tsp. celery seed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
3 small carrots, peeled and julienned
1 pkg. Chinese sausage, sliced into coins
3 heads Shanghai bok choy, shredded
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
1 (225g) pkg. rice vermicelli
3 green onions, chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Apply salt and pepper to the chicken thighs. Heat up a pot or wok with a bit of oil and sear the chicken. (I used skinless, boneless thighs because I already had some pork stock on hand. Skin-on, bone-in will be better if you're starting with water instead of stock.)
2. Add the stock (or water) to the pot/wok, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is done.
3. Empty the pot/wok, reserving both chicken and stock. Shred the chicken.
4. Brown the garlic, adding a little oil to the pot/wok as necessary.
5. Add the onion and sauté until tender and starting to brown.
6. Add the sausage and carrot and cook until carrot reaches desired done-ness.
7. Add the bok choy and cook for a minute or two until it wilts.
8. Remove everything from the pot/wok and set aside.
9. Return the stock to the pot/wok, add the soy sauce and fish sauce, and bring to a boil. Add the noodles.
10. Make sure noodles are submerged in stock, then dump all the reserved items (shredded chicken, garlic, onion, sausage, carrot, and bok choy) in on top of them.
11. Once the noodles are soft enough to stir without breaking, stir everything together. Continue to cook until all the stock is absorbed.

12. Serve garnished with green onions and squeeze a little lime juice on top (or calamansi if you can find it). Yum!

This recipe is pretty flexible. You can include fish or seafood if that's your thing. (The original suggests half a pound of shrimp.) You can make it with pork instead of chicken if you want. You can use pre-made stock or make it from scratch. Change up the veg. Whatever you want!

The original recipe suggested using one small head of napa cabbage, but I didn't want to go out and buy more cabbage when I had a bunch of bok choy on hand, so I used that instead. Likewise, I didn't want to get a whole celery just to use the one rib called for in this dish, so I just added a few celery seeds to my stock and called it a day!

If you're starting with water and making your stock from scratch, you'll probably want to include a few more seasonings while boiling the chicken. (And also use skin-on, bone-in chicken.) I'd recommend adding a bay leaf or two and a few black peppercorns as well as a touch of extra salt for a start. Feel free to add in whatever else sounds tasty from there! Garlic, onion, parsley, cilantro? My stock just had salt, pepper, bay leaves, citrus (probably mandarin orange) juice, and pork (neck bones, ears, and belly) for its initial cooking and then the added chicken and celery seed today and it seemed to come out plenty tasty! I do think a bit of garlic (or even just garlic powder) in the stock would've been a nice touch though.

I really like how this turned out with the dark soy in the stock and the lime juice drizzled over it to serve. The hit of sourness from the lime is a really quite nice. I would be curious to try a variation that skips the lime and just adds a double quantity of toyomansi to the stock though. I would also love to try it with actual calamansi but, so far, I have been unable to find it here, so toyomansi is the closest I can get for now!

I love how flexible, delicious, and satisfying this dish is! It requires a fair amount of chopping but, other than that, is actually pretty easy. Now that I think about it, it occurs to me that most of the prep work could be eliminated if you're willing to use pre-made stock or broth and toss in a bag of coleslaw mix in place of the shredded cabbage/bok choy and carrot. Then all you need to do is mince the garlic and chop the onion and scallions (and sausage if you're using it). And, if you're not making the stock from scratch, you're free to throw in leftover chicken (or whatever other meat) instead of cooking it from raw. This could reasonably be made into a tasty, low-effort, weekday dinner!

Kung Pao Tofu

If you've ever been to a Chinese restaurant in North America, you're probably familiar with Kung Pao Chicken. It's a Chinese take-out staple. It turns out that it's actually pretty easy to make at home. Added bonus: this lets you adjust salt, sugar, and spice levels to your taste.

The recipe poster actually ended up making their kung pao "chicken" with tofu since they were cooking for a vegetarian, and that actually sounded quite appealing to me, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Kung Pao Tofu
100g peanuts
400g extra firm tofu, cubed
1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and chopped
3 green onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 Tbsp. ginger, minced
1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns/prickly ash
2-3 dried chiles, broken up
1 stalk 莴笋 (asparagus lettuce/celtuce) or substitute vegetable of choice
1 Tbsp. Shaoxing wine
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
2 Tbsp. black vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
cornstarch slurry (1 Tbsp. cold water + 2 tsp. cornstarch)

1. Make sure that everything that needs chopping or mincing is chopped and minced appropriately.
2. Mix the wine, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil in a bowl and set aside.
3. Mix the cornstarch slurry and set aside.
4. Add a small amount of oil to the wok and gently fry/toast the peanuts over low heat. (My peanuts were sort of old and had developed a bitter aftertaste, so I ended up using slivered almonds instead.)
5. Remove nuts from wok and set aside. Increase to high heat. Let wok heat up for about 30 seconds, then add more oil (~3 Tbsp.). Add the tofu cubes and fry to golden-brown.
6. Remove tofu from wok. Wash wok if necessary before returning to medium heat. Add more oil if necessary. Add carrots, green onion, garlic, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns. Cook until carrots reach desired done-ness.
Important note: If wok becomes very dry, add ~1/4 c. water and continue cooking. Repeat as necessary.
7. Add chiles and cook for another minute or so.
8. Raise heat to high and add asparagus lettuce (or other vegetable). Cook until wilted, adding water as necessary. (I used a large head of Shanghai bok choy here because that's what I had on hand. It worked quite nicely.)
9. Add nuts and tofu. Stir to mix.
10. Pour sauce into wok and give it a stir. Add cornstarch slurry and continue to cook and stir until sauce thickens.
11. Serve alone or over rice or noodles. Enjoy!

I made a few changes from the original recipe.

My peanuts weren't tasting so fresh anymore, so I substituted some slivered almonds. I know it's a different flavour, but it was still quite tasty and had a nice, slightly crunchy texture.

I didn't have any asparagus lettuce on hand (I'm not sure if I can even get it here, honestly), but I did have a bunch of Shanghai bok choy, so I chopped up a large-ish head and tossed that in instead.

I also doubled the quantity of sauce called for since I was planning on serving it over noodles and wanted something extra saucy for that.

The original recipe also didn't list specific quantities for the Sichuan peppercorns or chiles and suggested adding salt and/or MSG to taste. I found the soy sauce added enough salt for my taste, so I didn't include any extra. I went with two chiles for this rendition because I wanted to make sure it was mild enough for the froglet to eat. They were hardly perceptible in the finished dish, and I think I'd use at least four in future attempts (and a lot more if I'm not planning on sharing with the little one). I think 1 tsp. is about right for the Sichuan peppercorns, but mine don't seem to be very potent, so it's hard to tell.

As mentioned above, I served my kung pao tofu over some noodles. They weren't anything particularly special, but I'll run over what I did quickly for any who might be interested (or for my own future reference).

Fried Brown Rice Vermicelli
200g brown rice vermicelli
2 Tbsp. oil
1 green onion, chopped
dash of garlic powder
dash of ground white pepper
splash of light soy sauce

1. Cook noodles however you prefer. I like to put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them, let them sit for a minute or two, then drain.
2. Heat oil in a pan and add noodles. (It may help to oil the noodles first and then add little to no oil to the pan for frying.)
3. Add the green onion, garlic powder, and white pepper and stir fry until noodles begin to brown and crisp and green onion is cooked.
4. Add a splash or two of soy sauce and stir to coat. Serve topped with stir-fry of choice.

Pork Sisig

I tried new thing today. I found a recipe for sisig on the Goons with Spoons wiki. It immediately captured my attention and I was determined to try it.

The page gives instructions for making "sissy's sisig" with pork loin, but I wanted to, at least for the first time around, make at least somewhat "authentic" sisig. If I wanted to be really authentic about it, I'd need a whole pig's head and a giant pot in which to braise it. I decided that semi-authentic was good enough for me and settled for getting some pig's ears, neck bones, and belly to make it with.

I followed the Goons with Spoons recipe pretty closely, but I'll write out my full procedure below since the recipe page was a little vague on some of the steps.

Pork Sisig
1 lb. pig ears
1 1/2 lb. pork belly
2 1/2 lb. pork neck bones
5 bay leaves
2 tsp. peppercorns
1 tsp. coarse sea salt
4 c. water
2 c. citrus juice (I'm not sure what type I had... some variety of mandarin maybe?)

1/2 c. Mama Sita's Toyo & Kalamansi
3 Tbsp. cane vinegar
sprinkle of black pepper
3 small cloves garlic, minced
1 scant Tbsp. ginger paste
2 Tbsp. peanut oil
1 onion, chopped
3 red Thai chiles, chopped
2 eggs

1. Dump all the pig bits into a big pot. Toss in the bay leaves, peppercorns, and salt. Add the water and the citrus juice.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, until tender. (I think I cooked mine for about an hour and a half.)
3. Drain the meat (reserving the broth for another use if desired).
4. Once meat is cool enough to handle, remove any bones and chop into very small pieces.

5. Measure out one pound of chopped pork and place it in a bowl. (Freeze the rest of the meat for future sisig.) Add the toyomansi (or a mix of soy and calamansi or lime juice), vinegar, pepper, garlic, and ginger and stir to coat the meat well. Allow to stand for at least 15 minutes.
6. Heat a pan (preferably cast iron) over high heat. Add the peanut oil and coat the bottom of the pan with it.
7. Remove the meat from the bowl with a slotted spoon and add it to the hot pan.
8. Once the meat is seared and has developed some tasty brown bits, add the onion and the chiles to the pan, stir them in, and continue to cook.
9. Add left over marinade to the pan as needed to keep it from getting dry.
10. Once the onion is cooked, crack the eggs into the pan on top of the meat. If you have a cast iron pan, serve at once! Stir in the egg, allowing the residual heat of the meat and pan to cook it.

If you don't have a cast iron pan, you may want to stir in the egg while still on the stove and cook it a little before serving.

This came out amazingly well. So well, in fact, that TF has declared it his new favourite pork dish! That's right, given the choice between a plate of bacon and a plate of sisig... he'd take the sisig! I'm pretty pleased that he liked it so much.

I also thought it was delicious. The flavour was excellent. The cartilage from the ears was still quite noticeable though. The texture of the cartilage wasn't necessarily bad, but I do think I would've preferred it without that aspect.

I almost passed on the neck bones for this. They weren't specifically mentioned in any of the recipes I looked at. However, they did fit the <$2/lb. criteria mentioned on the Goons with Spoons wiki (at $0.99/lb.) and I figured neck bones would be reasonable in a dish meant to be made from a pig's head. I'm so glad I didn't pass them up! The meat came out incredibly tender and luscious, almost like a pork-y version of oxtail. Next time I might consider making this with neck meat alone! It was more tender and less fatty than the belly and more meaty and less cartilaginous than the ears.

TF is in favour of trying a sisig variant using a 1:1:1 ratio of neck, belly, and liver at some point. I'm down with that, but I'd also like to try a neck only version sometime. I just can't get over how lovely that neck meat was when I was picking the bones! If you've never had pork neck before, you should definitely consider giving it a try!

One-Pot Rice Cooker Dinner

Everyone was pretty tired last night, so I was glad that I'd planned an easy, throw-together meal for Thursday evening. The basic concept is pretty simple: toss some rice and water into your rice cooker, add some meat and vegetables along with whatever seasonings you want, turn the rice cooker on and you're all set. Once the rice is done, just give it a stir and dish it up!

Here's what went into mine last night:
2 "rice cooker cups" brown jasmine rice
water (up to the 2 cup line)
5 dried Chinese black mushrooms
1/4 of a whole star anise
1 pkg. Chinese sausages, sliced thin
bok choy (as much as would fit in the cooker)
a couple splashes of light soy sauce
a dash of hoisin sauce
a pinch of white pepper
a splash of black vinegar
served with sweet chile sauce

If I think of it next time, I might try to sauté an onion in the bottom of the rice cooker before I add the other ingredients. Or, if I happen to have any green onions on hand, it might be nice to chop a few and toss them in with the bok choy. I think I'll also try adding a splash of Shaoxing wine next time too. I would've thrown some in this time if I'd thought of it but, as I said, we were all pretty tired last night, so I wasn't as on top of the seasonings as I might've otherwise been. Still, it came out tolerably tasty and, most importantly, was very, very easy!

Grandma's Lemon Bread

I'm really bad at keeping up with housework. And since having a new baby isn't exactly conducive to getting more done around the house, I've opted to have a maid service come in once a month to take care of some of the basics like sweeping and vacuuming. It's been really nice to have the extra help and make sure I don't get too far behind.

This week was their last visit before Christmas, so I figured it'd be nice to make them some baked goods. When I found some gift-able loaf pans at the grocery store, I decided that it was time to make some lemon bread!

I have no idea where this recipe originally came from, but I got it from my grandmother. And it's delicious!

Lemon Bread
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. lemon extract
zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Glaze
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 c. sugar

Just mix up your batter, bake at 325F and then pour the glaze over it while it's still hot in the pan. Perfect recipe for making in a single-use gift pan! And so very tasty!

Fish-Fragrant Eggplant & Ninja Ramen

My former landlady used to make this delicious eggplant dish. I'm not generally a fan of eggplant, but this stuff was delicious. It was full of garlic and oil and I did ask her how to make it, but her description was somewhat vague. When I came across a recipe for "fish-fragrant eggplant" in a Chinese cooking thread online, I flagged it as a likely candidate. It's not quite the same, but it is nearly as delicious as my landlady's mystery garlic eggplant.

I'm honestly not sure why it's called "fish-fragrant" as it contains neither fish nor even fish sauce, but it certainly is a tasty way to prepare eggplant!

Fish-Fragrant Eggplant
5 Chinese eggplants
1 c. peanut oil
1 1/2 Tbsp. Sichuan chile-bean paste
1 Tbsp. minced ginger
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 c. chicken stock
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. light soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp. corn starch mixed with 1 Tbsp. cold water
1 1/2 tsp. Chinese black vinegar
4 green onions, chopped
1 tsp. sesame oil

1. Peel the eggplants and chop into chunks (I went for ~1" chunks). Mince garlic and ginger and chop the green onion. Ready the stock and all the various sauces, vinegar, corn starch slurry, etc.
2. Heat up the wok. Add the peanut oil and fry the eggplant in small batches. Remove eggplant to paper towel to drain.
3. If more than 2 Tbsp. of oil is left in the wok after frying the eggplant, pour out the excess oil.
4. Reheat the oil, if necessary, and ad the chile-bean paste and stir-fry for 30-60 seconds.
5. Add garlic and ginger and fry for another 30-60 seconds.
6. Add chicken stock, sugar, and soy sauce and stir to combine.
7. Add fried eggplant and allow to simmer in sauce for several minutes.
8. Stir in corn starch slurry and cook until sauce thickens.
9. Add black vinegar and green onion. Cook, stirring, until onion is no longer raw.
10. Adjust seasoning to taste. Add more salt or sugar as desired and drizzle with sesame oil to serve.

I found this very tasty as it was. That said, I don't think I could resist trying out a few tweaks the next time I make it. (And there will definitely be a next time!) I think I'd try increasing the chile-bean paste to 2 Tbsp. next time. And I'd like to try adding 1 tsp. of dark soy sauce as well.

TF actually ended up taking over the cooking for the "ninja ramen". It is yet another recipe off of the Goons with Spoons wiki. And one that I've been meaning to try for quite a while at that.

Since the "recipe" doesn't list any quantities or proportions, it took a little trial-and-error to get the flavour right. We also had to make a substitution since I'd forgotten that we were all out of sambal oelek. Here's what we ended up using for our ninja ramen.

Ninja Ramen
2 pkg. ramen
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 Tbsp. Sichuan chile-bean paste
2 cloves garlic
12 white button mushrooms, sliced
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
3 Tbsp. hoisin sauce
5 green onions, chopped

Verdict: Nice flavour, but not enough of a step up from my favourite instant ramen preparations to warrant the extra effort, I think.

Spinach Cookies (Renaissance Cookies)

I was somewhat skeptical about a recipe that called for topping cookies with spinach purée. Then again, most people would probably question adding a bunch of sugar and fruit to ground beef and serving it for dessert as well, and mincemeat is delicious! So maybe dessert spinach would be equally tasty.

Spinach Cookies
1 c. (1/2 lb.) butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
1/4 c. white dessert wine (I used this stuff)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. pastry flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
10 oz. baby spinach, cooked and drained
4 oz. almond paste
1 large egg yolk
1 Tbsp. cream
1-3 Tbsp. sugar, to taste
sugar-coated fennel seeds, to garnish

1. Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg, wine, and 1/8 tsp. salt.
3. Gradually add flour and stir until just combined. Set dough aside while spinach topping is prepared.
4. Purée spinach (or mince very fine by hand). Add almond paste, egg yolk, and cream. Purée until almond paste dissolves (or use pastry blender to cut in and mix well). Add sugar to taste.
5. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, until mixture thickens.
6. Roll out the dough to ~1/8" thickness and cut out your cookies.
7. Spread each cookie with some of the spinach purée and top with a smaller dough cut-out.
8. Top with a few sugar-coated fennel seeds and bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes.

These are surprisingly tasty little morsels. The almond flavour in the spinach is really nice. I do wish that that had been carried through in the cookie dough as well though. Next time I think I'd make a cookie that incorporates ground almond in the dough. That seems like it'd be a little more harmonious. The whole wheat flour was a nice touch though. I'll definitely keep that in if I'm making these again.

I didn't have quite enough spinach to top all my cookies. I thought about just baking a few plain cookies, but then I remembered the jar of bacon marmalade in the fridge... So, the last few cookies got a sweet bacon treatment. And that worked quite well too!

Overall a fun and unique recipe. I just wish it didn't make quite so many cookies. I might only make a half portion of the spinach purée next time and try freezing half the dough to use for something else later. It takes way too long to bake that many cookies, especially when you only have one small cookie sheet and have to cook them 12 at a time!

Liver Fried Rice

This idea actually came from an episode of Iron Chef. TF and I both love liver, but we don't really have that many ways of preparing it. I love liver and onions as much as the next person (probably more actually), but you can only have it so many times in a row before you start to get tired of it. I came across a Burmese liver curry recipe a while back and we made that a few times but, again, as tasty as it is, a little variety is nice too. So, when Chen started making liver fried rice, we decided that had to be a thing.

It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself!

Historically, I haven't had great luck with fried rice. I mean, it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult: you cook some rice and then fry it, right? Yet, any time I've tried it, it's never come out quite right. It usually comes out tasty, but it's not fried rice. I now have an excellent Chinese cookbook though (courtesy of my mom), so I decided to try the basic fried rice recipe out of there and add some chopped liver to it. Which worked a treat!

So, how do you make proper fried rice, you ask? Well, it's actually pretty easy. The key is having everything laid out and ready to go before you actually start cooking; you know, mise en place and all that jazz.

Liver Fried Rice
Sauce
2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
1 Tbsp. Shaoxing wine
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch of white pepper
Stir-Fry
5 c. cooked rice, at room temperature
1 c. green peas or mixed veg
5 extra-large eggs
7 Tbsp. peanut oil
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch white pepper
3 tsp. minced ginger
3 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 c. 1/4" dice shallot or onion
1 lb. liver, cut into small cubes
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp. hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds

1. Make sure everything that needs chopping is chopped. If you're using frozen peas/veg, thaw them. If you're using fresh, boil them for a couple minutes and drain and set aside before you get started. Make sure your rice is cooked and ready to go. And mix up the sauce. Just combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set it aside for now. In another bowl, combine the dark soy, hoisin sauce, sesame seeds, and a pinch of white pepper. We'll call the contents of this second bowl "liver sauce".

2. Time to break a few eggs! Beat the eggs with 1 Tbsp. of peanut oil, 1/4 tsp. of salt, and a pinch of white pepper. Set them aside with the rest of your ingredients.

3. Now let's get that wok going! Heat the wok (empty) over high heat for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. of peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Now add your eggs and scramble them for a minute or two (until medium-firm). Turn off heat. Transfer eggs to a plate and set aside.

4. Wash and dry wok. Heat over high for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Add liver and stir/toss around a few times. Add garlic and ginger and stir/toss some more. Add "liver sauce" and stir/toss for another minute or two until liver is just barely cooked through. Turn off heat. Transfer liver to a plate and set aside.

5. Wash and dry wok. Heat over high for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Add shallots/onions and 1/4 tsp. salt (and a bit more ginger and garlic if you're so inclined), reduce heat to medium and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes (until shallots are translucent).

6. Add peas/vegetables and raise heat to high. Stir-fry for 2 minutes.

7. Add rice, reduce heat to medium, and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes.

8. Raise heat to high, stir sauce, and drizzle over rice. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

9. Add liver and stir to mix. Add eggs, breaking into bite-sized pieces as you stir to mix. Cook/stir-fry for another 2 minutes.

10. Transfer to serving dish and enjoy!

So very tasty! And I finally managed to make fried rice that actually tastes like fried rice! Yum!