Mandu Jeongol (Dumpling Hotpot)

We've had a bag of pork and leek dumplings sitting in the chest freezer for a while now. I picked them up because they're tasty and convenient, but then kept forgetting that we had them and planning other meals. TF reminded me about them the other day though, so I finally set aside some space in the meal plan for them.

I was initially thinking of doing mandu guk, but my mood had changed by the time I was doing up the grocery list and I decided to try this mandu jeongol recipe instead. I appreciate how easy and flexible it was to make. And the dipping sauce was incredible!

Mandu Jeongol

Slightly adapted from Aaron & Claire

Ingredients

Flavour Paste

• 2 Tbsp. gochugaru
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce¹
• 1/2 Tbsp. garlic paste
• 1 Tbsp. chicken bouillon powder²
• 1 Tbsp. fish sauce
• filling of 2-4 dumplings (depending on the size of your dumplings)

Dipping Sauce

• 2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp. vinegar³
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 1/2 Tbsp. Korean mustard (or wasabi)

Everything Else

• 2-3 c. sliced napa cabbage or black kale
• 100-150g shiitake mushrooms⁴, sliced
• 100g enoki mushrooms
• 100-150g oyster mushrooms, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 1 bell pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 jalapeño, seeded and sliced
• 10-20 dumplings (depending on size of dumplings)
• 2-4 green onions, sliced
• 1 red chili, sliced on bias (optional)
• 4 c. water

Directions

1. Combine all of the flavour paste ingredients, mix well, and set aside.
2. Combine all of the sauce ingredients, mix well, and set aside.
3. Add the cabbage, mushrooms, onion, bell pepper, and jalapeño to a wok or pot (use a hotpot dish if you have one). Try to place each ingredient in its own section and don't place similar colours next to each other.
4. Arrange the dumplings on top.
5. Scoop the flavour paste onto the centre of the arrangement.
6. Decorate with green onions and chili (if using).
7. Take a photo and/or show off the pretty, pretty hotpot to your guests/family at this point.
8. Pour the water into the pot and bring to a boil.
9. Stir the hotpot as it cooks so that everything gets mixed and heated evenly.
10. Serve with the dipping sauce on the side. Dip the dumplings and vegetables into the sauce as you eat, then drink the broth (with a bit of dipping sauce mixed in if you like)!

---

¹ I used a 50:50 mix of light and dark soy, but I think that either would've been fine. ^Back
2 I didn't have any chicken bouillon powder, but I did have dasida, so I just used that instead. ^Back
3 I just used plain white vinegar this time, but I think that black vinegar would've been really nice in this sauce. ^Back
4 Aaron mentioned that just about any variety or combination of mushrooms will work for this hotpot. He suggested enoki, shiitake, and oyster, but cremini and/or king oyster would probably also be great. And I think lion's mane or bear's head could also work, although their flavours and textures are obviously a bit different. I don't normally see a lot of other fresh mushrooms on offer here. But feel free to experiment if you have something else available locally! ^Back

酸菜炖粉条 (Braised Vermicelli with Pickled Cabbage)

I haven't been very good at keep up with the blog the last few months. I'm way behind on my recipe write-ups. It's going to take me a while to catch up, but here's what I've got for today: 酸菜炖粉条 (suāncài dùn fěntiáo), which is cabbage and vermicelli stew (or "braised vermicelli with pickled cabbage" if you're going for a more literal translation). It's a popular winter dish in northern China, often prepared with home-made pickled cabbage. My cabbage was not home-made. In fact, the whole soup base came from a kit that I found at the Asian grocery store. I'm sure it would've been even better had made it myself, but the kit was still really nice. We did it as a hotpot and tossed in various veggies and proteins to cook at the table.

Before making the soup kit, I looked around online for recipes to make the dish from scratch. And the Woks of Life came through for me with a great home-made recipe. I used their recipe to adjust how I prepared the kit a bit, including mixing up the delicious dipping sauce to serve along with it. And now I know what to do if I want to make it without the kit in the future. It's actually quite simple to put together.

The folks at the Woks of Life provide several different options for the sour cabbage component of this stew. The best option, if you can find it, is pickled nappa cabbage. If you can't find that, they recommend pickled mustard greens as the next best thing. They tend to be a bit easier to find, but their texture isn't ideal for this dish. And, as a last resort, if you can't find either of the others, you can use sauerkraut. It has a different flavour than the others, but it is sour and it's made of cabbage, so it'll do in a pinch.

We made our stew with mung bean glass noodles/vermicelli, but sweet potato glass noodles are actually recommended. Unfortunately I didn't have any of those and I did have a huge surpluss of bean noodles, so I used what I had. I really liked it with the bean noodles. Sure, they absorbed a lot of the broth and made it less soupy, but I was okay with that.

One final note: The authors of the Woks of Life blog note that this stew is almost always served with rice. I'm sure it would be tasty that way, but we chose to omit the rice and just have our brothy noodles and veggies. Follow your heart!

Cabbage and Vermicelli Stew

From The Woks of Life

Ingredients

Pork Preparation

• 1L water
• 450g pork belly or 900g meaty ribs
• 2 Tbsp. Shaoxing wine
• 4 slices fresh ginger (~2cm by 4cm)
• 2 scallions/green onions
• 1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns¹
• 1 star anise
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Dipping Sauce

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp. sugar
• chili oil, to taste (optional)

Soup

• 450g pickled cabbage
• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 3 slices ginger (~2cm by 4cm), julienned
• 2 sallions/green onions, white parts julienned, green parts chopped
• 1 Tbsp. oyster sauce
• 1 c. chicken stock (optional)
• 90g glass noodles
• 1/4 tsp. white pepper, ground

Optional Extras

• carrot, chopped
• zucchini, chopped
• tofu puffs
• kale, chopped
• mushrooms, sliced
• rice, cooked

Directions

Pork Preparation

1. Combine water, pork, wine, ginger, scallions, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and salt in a pot, cover, and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
3. If using pork belly: Reserving the broth, remove the belly from the pot and set it aside to cool.
   If using ribs: Turn the heat off, but leave the ribs in the broth to cook some more while you prepare everything else.

Dipping Sauce

1. Combine all sauce ingredients and set aside.

Soup

1. Slice the pickled cabbage into 5 or 6mm pieces and place it in a metal bowl with fresh water.
2. Stir the cabbage around a bit, then drain it and squeeze well to remove as much residual liquid as possible. Set aside.
3. Once the pork is no longer hot, cut it into 5 or 6mm slices. Set aside.
4. In a heavy pot (something that retains heat well), heat the oil over medium heat.
5. Add the ginger, white parts of the scallions, and pickled cabbage and stir-fry for 5-7 minutes.
6. Strain the pork broth and add it to the pot.
7. Stir in the oyster sauce and chicken stock (if using).
8. Add the sliced pork and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
9. Add the glass noodles and cook according to package directions.
10. Add the white pepper and green parts of scallions.

Serving

1. This can be served as a hotpot. Make sure the broth is boiling and then toss in any veggies or proteins you'd like. Once everything is heated through/cooked to desired doneness, you can fish it out and eat it with the dipping sauce, rice, and noodles.
2. Or serve it without any extra inclusions. Make sure it's piping hot and give everyone dipping sauce for the pork and rice.

---

¹ It would normally be important to make sure you picked all the seeds out of the Sichuan peppercorns and only used the husks. However, since the broth is strained before adding it to the final dish, any seeds (or husks) will get filtered out so there's no need to worry about it in this case. ^Back

Lẩu (Vietnamese Hotpot)

I've never made or eaten hotpot before, but I was suddenly overcome with the desire to try it. We don't have a portable burner or hotpot... pot. But we do have an InstantPot. It's not ideally shaped for the task, but I figured it would due in a pinch just to try it out. If we really get into doing hotpot often I might consider buying a dedicated burner and pot for it. In the meantime, the InstantPot worked quite well.

There are loads of different hotpot recipes. Many different countries and regions have their own versions of hotpot and there are often several different types and/or flavours common within a single region. I found a recipe for vegan Lẩu and decided to give that a go. The broth smelled delicious while it was cooking. And that was before adding the vibrant red, garlic-y aromatic oil!

I didn't have a lot of the suggested dippers, but I did my best to put together a nice spread with what I had. We all enjoyed the meal and came away full, so I'm gonna call it a success. I've put in a grocery order so hopefully we can heat up the broth again tonight and enjoy some different things cooked in it. I've got a bunch of mushrooms, bean sprouts, yard-long beans, and dumplings on the way!

The broth (Not the best lighting or pot for it but, trust me, it was delicious!)

The dippers: baked tofu, blue pearl oyster mushrooms, baby mustard greens, and dried seitan. Also available but not pictured here: spinach rice vermicelli and buckwheat-sweet potato soba noodles.

Lẩu

Slightly adapted from The Viet Vegan

Ingredients

Broth

• 3L water
• 1 daikon, peeled and very roughly chopped
• 4-5 carrots, peeled and very roughly chopped
• 2-3 onions, peeled and halved
• 1 c. dried mushrooms, soaked for 10 minutes and rinsed¹
• 4-5 ears of corn²
• 7-8cm piece of ginger, peeled and very roughly chopped
• several leek tops/leaves (optional)
• 2 Tbsp. frozen chopped lemongrass or the white parts of 3 stalks of lemongrass, sliced thin
• 2-3 Tbsp. mushroom stock concentrate, to taste

Aromatic Oil

• 3 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 1 bulb garlic (~6-12 cloves), minced
• 1 Tbsp. frozen chopped lemongrass or the green parts of 3 stalks of lemongrass, minced
• 2 Tbsp. sweet paprika
• 1-3 tsp. red chile flakes, to taste

Dippers

These are just suggestions/ideas. Use as many or as few as you'd like!

Vegetables

• bok choy
• yu choy
• pea sprouts
• bean sprouts
• kale (mature or baby)
• mustard greens (mature or baby)
• broccoli
• green beans and/or yard-long beans
• nappa cabbage

Protein

• tofu puffs
• vegan shrimp
• seitan (dried or fresh)
• yuba
• sliced tofu (baked or fresh)

Mushrooms

• cremini
• oyster (regular oyster mushrooms or any of the "colour" varieties)
• king oyster
• enoki

Noodles

• rice noodles (vermicelli or ribbon)
• udon
• shirataki noodles
• bean thread noodles
• wontons/dumplings

Sauces

Again, use as many or as few as you'd like.

• sambal olek
• hoisin
• sriracha
• light soy sauce
• black vinegar
• dumpling sauce
• laoganma
• peanut sauce
• Vietnamese spring roll sauce

Directions

Broth

1. Combine all broth ingredients in pot.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for at least an hour and up to 5 hours. (I used the InstantPot slow cook setting on high for this.)
3. Strain the broth. Solids may be eaten with dipping sauce or discarded.

Aromatic Oil

1. Heat oil over medium heat.
2. Add garlic and lemongrass and cook until garlic starts to turn golden.
3. Remove from heat and add paprika and chile flakes.
4. Scoop a ladel-full of the strained broth into the pan to loosen any stuck on bits.
5. Dump the broth and oil into the main broth pot. Broth is now ready to go!

Serving

1. Prepare all your dippers by slicing thin and/or cutting into bite-sized pieces as appropriate.
2. Set out your dipping sauces and utensils. (Chopsticks, tongs, spider/strainer, etc.)
3. Set the broth pot (and a portable burner) on the table and bring to a boil.
4. Diners can now drop in their desired foodstuffs to cook in the pot. Retrieve them with the spider when they're done.
5. Dip in desired sauce(s) and enjoy!

---

¹ I filled the measuring cup most of the way with Chinese black mushrooms and then topped up the last little bit with some black fungus. ^Back
2 I can't really get corn on the cob here right now, so I substituted 2 c. frozen corn kernels + the empty cob left over after popping some popcorn on the cob. ^Back