OMGSNAX!

val texted me this afternoon while sarah & i were off frolicking in forest park (frolicking WITH PURPOSE, of course) — she wanted to know if we were doing dinner, &, if so, if cupcakes could be arranged. i knew EXACTLY where to go for a recipe — the cupcake blog that i’d bookmarked some time ago.

now i’m not much of a cupcake fan — frosting squicks me out on principle & it’s just not my thing. i like cookies. but the idea took root that maybe i’d just only had gross store-bought cupcakes or ones made from a mix (never good), so i didn’t want to give the cupcake family short shrift in toto without trying it for myself.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs

METHOD
preheat oven to 350 degrees.

measure out everything but the eggs directly into your mixer bowl. mix on low speed just until incorporated. beat on high speed for 2 minutes. add eggs, beat on high speed again for 2 minutes.

measure out into cupcake pan lined with cupcake papers. a 2″ ice cream scoop works great for this. bake for about 15-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. let cool slightly in the pan then transfer to a rack to cool completely before frosting.

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING INGREDIENTS
1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
~1/4 cup milk

METHOD
beat butter on high for about 30 seconds until soft. add cocoa & 1 cup of sugar & beat until incorporated. add half of the milk & the remainder of sugar & beat until incorporated. continue to add milk until you get to the consistency you want.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
well, if you ignore the part where i got chocolate cupcake batter all over my shirt, the toaster, the counter, the floor, & my neck, i’d say this went pretty smoothly. (stupid handmixer. if i’d been at home we could’ve used my kitchenaid!) i forgot to get liners when i went to the store so that was a little bit annoying, but the cupcakes came out fine for the most part. the first batch was filled a little full, so they overflowed, but the second batch came out beautifully round & pillowy.

the buttercream was a little stiff — we actually added a little more milk than the recipe called for in an attempt to make it squishier, but ultimately i think it came down to a combination of thick frosting & poor tools — we used ziploc baggies with the tips cut off to “pipe” the frosting onto the cupcakes, but this was uneven & overly thick, resulting in cupcakes with entirely too much frosting on top.

also, & maybe this is just a function of cupcakes, i thought they were a little dry. dave agreed with me, though val & sarah & daniel thought they were just fine. i guess what i’m saying is that i’d be willing to try cupcakes again, but maybe not this recipe. i think something denser would make my mouth happier.

 

 

 

“Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream” from cupcake bake shop by chockylit.

oh my god, dudes & dudettes! did you miss me? probably not half as much as i missed you! the thing is that i did a whole lot of cooking in february — just not a whole lot of blogging about it. i guess i was reading Julie & Julia & felt annoyed by some self-indulgent whining, & then thought, hey wait a second … I’M a self-indulgent whiner! oh noes!

luckily, i’m totally over it — & just in time for a return to some hardcore recipe experimentation, for i’ve transferred to a new job which means NO MORE EVENING OVERTIME, & that, my friends, is a surefire way to get me back into the non-pasta-with-broccoli-for-dinner routine (uh, not that there’s anything wrong with that!).

so tonight i made these sweet potato wonton-esque things with my new partner-in-crime (kitchen-stylee!), sarah, who was indispensible & without whom there’s no way i would’ve gotten all this chopping of vegetables & stuffing of dumplings finished at a reasonable hour. (as it was, it took THREE HOURS.)

so these are technically called shiao mai, but sarah & i have decided that we’re going to call them dumples. an ugly word for a delicious snack.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup mushroom mince (see below)
1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 green onions
2 tablespoons fresh mint
1 package (12 ounces) wonton wrappers
soy sauce, seasoned to taste with white vinegar, sugar, & green onions, for dipping

METHOD
in a bowl, combine the mushroom mince, sweet potato, bread crumbs, egg, soy sauce, sugar, salt, green onions, & mint. mix very well. set up a work space with a clean, dry cutting board, a baking sheet, a small bowl of water, the wonton wrappers, & the sweet potato filling.

divide the stack of wonton wrappers into thirds & trim away the four corners of each stack, reserving the little pasta triangles to toss into your next pot of boiling soup. place 3 of the now octagonal wrappers before you on the cutting board. place about 2 teaspoons filling in the center of each wrapper. now, your job is to coax each wrapper into a tiny, slender version of a paper baking cup filled with cupcake batter. begin by using a table knife to spread out the filling on each wrapper as if it were peanut butter on bread. stop just short of the edge, leaving a thin border of pasta all the way around. then, place one wrapper in your palm &, using the fingers of your other hand, pinch its sides up into a cup. tap its base on the cutting board to firm it up. next, work your way around the exterior, pressing the dull side of the table knife into the sides to even up the little folds & give the dumpling an upright shape, like a column holding up a roof. tap the base again & set the tall but diminutive “cupcake” aside on the baking sheet. fill & shape the remaining dumplings in the same way. place them without touching on the baking sheet. at this point, you can seal the dumplings airtight & refrigerate them for 1 to 2 days, or freeze for up to 1 month. they can be steamed directly from the refrigerator or freezer.

to steam the dumplings, fill the bottom of a steamer or a heavy saucepan with serveral inches of water and bring it to a rolling boil over medium heat. meanwhile, place a batch of the dumplings on a steamer basket or tray. when the steam is steady & strong, place the dumplings over the steam, cover, & adjust the heat to maintain a steady head of steam. cook until the filling firms up & the wrappers are tender & cooked, about 15 minutes. transfer carefully to a serving platter. serve warm with seasoned soy sauce.

INGREDIENTS: MUSHROOM MINCE
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic (8 to 12 cloves)
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped cilantro root, or cilanro stems & leaves
1/2 teaspoon freshly grond pepper
8 ounces fresh button mushrooms, chopped
4 ounces firm tofu
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons regular soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt

METHOD: MUSHROOM MINCE
in a mini processor, combine the garlic, cilantro, & pepper & grind to a fairly smooth paste. set aside.

chop the mushrooms until they are reduced to a crumbly pile & set aside. chop the tofu into tiny cubes & set aside as well.

in a skillet over medium heat, warm 2 tablespoons of the oil until a bit of mushroom added to the pan sizzles at once, about 1 minute. add the garlic-cilantro paste & toss until fragrant & shiny, 2 to 3 minutes.

add the mushrooms & cook, tossing often, for 5 to 7 minutes. the mushrooms will soften, release their liquid, & brown as they cook. when the liquid has cooked away & mushrooms are shiny & tender, scrape them to the sides of the pan & add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the center. add the tofu & toss until thoroughly combined with the mushrooms & heated through, about 1 minute. add the sugar, water, both soy sauces, & salt & cook, tossing often, until the mixture is moist, evenly colored, & well combined, 2 to 3 minutes. remove from the heat, let cool to room temperature, & refrigerate in a tightly covered container until needed.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
okay, i finally made something with mushrooms — LOTS of mushrooms. are you happy now??? god.

that being said, it, well, wasn’t that bad. at all. in fact, it was really REALLY incredibly good. now maybe that’s b/c the mushrooms weren’t those slimy gross ones that look like smurf houses, or maybe it’s b/c the mince contained enough garlic to kill a horse, but the fact of the matter is that, while i may not be a mushroom convert, i’ve come to the conclusion over the last few months that i can tolerate them as long as they’re not the predominant flavor or texture.

COMPROMISE, KIDS. that’s how we do it in the 314.

now you may have noticed that the directions for the mushroom mince leave off the shallots — no worries, i just added them with the tofu (given where they were in the list of ingredients, that seemed about right), & it all came out just fine. in fact, we weren’t even able to get the cilantro & garlic into a paste at all — sarah smushed everything around in the blender for a bit, & i figured it’d taste good either way (can’t go wrong with garlic!), so it was really more of a fine mince than a paste.

you’d think that 8 ounces of button mushrooms would be overkill — that all this would result in WAY more than 1 cup of the mince. sarah & i thought so, & we flipped through the book to pick out another mushroom mince recipe to make during the week to use the leftovers … but the truth is that it made maybe a cup & a quarter of mince all told, so no big deal. we did use the leftover mashed sweet potato for nefarious purposes (see below), but it really all worked out.

the dumples themselves were a breeze to make — a little time consuming, sure, but that three hours included a lot of chopping and stirfrying and sweet potato boiling time as well as dumple formation. (note: i did substitute cilantro in the filling for mint, as i’m suspicious of fresh mint as a rule, not to mention i already had the cilantro.) now, sarah & i had a problem figuring out how to actually form the shiao mai according to the directions — i mean, i had a good mental picture, but they really wouldn’t do what i thought they should be doing, so instead we made dumplings of various shapes — sarah’s had sort of a star shape, while i mimicked my aunt donna’s crab rangoons & folded them first into triangles & from there, brought two points together into a sort of, um, hug. they stand up & look like little crowns.

once i saw that shape, i was reminded of the goons & decided that i should fry some of these puppies up in addition to steaming them — i’d actually been looking for a good veg goon substitute anyway, b/c what’s not to love about tiny fried appetizers? my aunt fries them in a stockpot full of oil, but i just pan fried them in a little vegetable oil & it worked fine.

taste-wise, they were AMAZING. I AM NOT MESSING AROUND. the soy sauce was wicked salty, but who cares? the dumples didn’t even need it! so freaking good. i would eat these all the time, & i would definitely make them again.

as for the leftover mashed sweet potato, i added some cinnamon sugar & filled a few leftover wonton skins (we didn’t have quite enough savory filling for all 48 skins) — i fried them up & sprinkled more cinnamon sugar on top, & while i didn’t taste any of them personally, sarah, sue, &, of course, daniel said that they were delicious.

i should note that the sweet dumples were all daniel’s idea — well, actually, he suggested that i make some sweet (as he strenuously objects to sweet potatoes made savory), & i hammered out the details.

 

 

 

“Sweet Potato Shiao Mai” from Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott, © 1997.

i received a vegetarian thai cookbook for chanukah from sarah & sue under the condition that i choose a recipe or two from the book to make for a sunday night dinner sometime. sarah & i flipped through the book when she first gave it to me, dog-earing interesting-looking recipes & chatting about our mutual love of thai food. a couple days ago, i decided that this would be the week of my first attempt, & that it would have to be something involving easily acquired ingredients (as i hoped to avoid a trip to global foods or jay’s market until the weather was warmer).

i only noticed later that the recipe i selected is known as paht si-yu (or pad see euw), which happens to be my friend megatron’s favorite thai dish!

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons dark sweet soy sauce, or 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce & 1 tablespoon molasses or brown sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable stock
1 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic (4 to 6 cloves)
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
3 cups bite-sized broccoli florets
1 pound soft, fresh flat rice noodles, or 8 ounces dried rice noodles soaked in warm water for about 20 minutes until pliable
2 eggs, lightly beaten

METHOD
in a small bowl, combine the dark sweet soy sauce or dark soy sauce mixture, vegetable stock, regular soy sauce, salt, & pepper. stir well & place near the stove along with a serving platter.

heat a wok or a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. add 1 tablespoon of the oil & swirl to coat the pan. add the garlic & toss until fragrant & just beginning to brown, about 1 minute. add the mushrooms & cook, tossing often, until they are dark, softened, & shiny, about 3 minutes. add the broccoli & cook, tossing often, until shiny & bright green, about 2 minutes. scoop out the mushrooms & broccoli & place on the serving platter; set aside.

add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan & heat for about 30 seconds. add the noodles & toss until they are separated & heated through. push the noodles to one side of the wok & add the eggs. swirl to spread out the eggs & let cook for about 30 seconds. then scoop & toss everything together gently, scrambling the eggs & mixing well.

quickly stir the soy sauce mixture to combine & then pour it over the noodles. add the reserved broccoli & mushrooms & their juices & toss until the noodles are handsomely colored & evenly coated with the sauce, about 1 minute. transfer to the serving platter & serve at once, offering the condiments — chili-vinegar sauce, sugar, red chili pepper flakes — in small bowls on the side.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
i of course omitted the mushrooms — maybe 2007 will be the year i cave & try to figure out a non-gross way of cooking them — but followed the rest pretty closely. despite my best efforts, i did wind up having to go to the asian market (jay’s on south grand) to get the flat rice noodles, as the grocery stores i visited only had udon noodles (buckwheat), rice sticks (too thin), or mein. i felt a little intimidated by the store & so didn’t bother looking for dark sweet soy sauce (having already read that i could throw together my own), but i might consider giving jay’s another shot.

i washed the wok from the previous evening’s fried rice while sarah cut up the broccoli, & then we worked on separating the noodles while the garlic & broccoli cooked. the whole dish took virtually no time to make once everything was chopped, & i’m not kidding when i tell you that the flavor was AMAZING. i would absolutely make this again — it was incredible! i couldn’t believe it. i undercooked the broccoli a tiny bit, but DANG y’all.

“Rice Noodles with Eggs, Broccoli, & Dark Sweet Soy Sauce” from Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott (a Thai name if ever i’ve heard one!), © 1997.