Frozen Wontons

In a mad busy week, it's always nice to be able to whip up a delicious meal in about five minutes when anything more than boiling water is out of the question.

That's where frozen wontons come in. We always have bags of these wontons or chicken dumplings or shumai or potstickers...

If you find yourself, as I sometimes do, with no more than twenty minutes before running out again, boil up some chicken stock, throw in the dumplings and, if you have them, add bean sprouts or spinach right before eating so they can wilt. Voila. Instant dinner.

Celebrate Good Times

Happy Birthday J!!*

I'm cheating a little here. I made this cake a couple of weeks ago for a cast party. But I ask you, does anything spell celebration more than a chocolate-frosted M & M embellished layer cake?

I didn't think so.

*NB: the birthday fellow calls this the magical measles cake.

Lazy Roast Potatoes

I have mixed feelings about potatoes. Actually, they're not that mixed. Any food that has to be coated in oil, butter, cheese, or cream to taste of anything makes me skeptical.

Which is not to say that I don't like how potatoes taste when they have, in fact, received the works. I love roast potatoes, something I think of as particularly English as I do not frequently come across them here. Potatoes roasted to a golden crisp outside, and silky smooth on the inside - a perfect accompaniment to roast lamb, Yorkshire puddings, and gravy.

There's just one problem. Well, quite a few problems. I can't stand the fiddle-faddle of roast potatoes the normal way, the peeling, the chopping, the pre-heating the oil in the oven while boiling the potatoes on the stovetop...and all for dubious results, because a truly-well roasted potato is something that has eluded me for many years.

Which is why I recently resorted to roast potatoes - the lazy (read: ingenious) way.

1. Buy dinky potatoes with thin skins.
2. Wash them, scrub them, and then chop them up into little triangles.
3. Throw on a rimmed baking sheet with as much butter and oil as you want, salt them, and then add possibly garlic, parsley, and onions if you'd like.
4. Roast until golden or blackened at the edges. They still take a little while, but as I can throw them in and leave them, I am much happier.
   

Scotch Bonnet - Part 1

No, these are not Scotch Bonnets.

These are.

A few months ago, I bought some little tiny green peppers from an Indian deli in Davis Square, and when I asked the fellow at the counter how many peppers I should use for a big pot of curry, he suggested two. Two.

I used two in my all-time-favorite-make-it-all-the-time curry dish and registered nothing. Not even the mildest tingle. Suffice it to say I used many more the next time I cooked.

Consequently, when I bought these peppers the other day, I scoffed at the teeny warning on the label.

(very hot) it says quietly as if embarrassed or shy.

Really? I thought. Haven't I heard that one before?

Having recently heard from my dad, though, about a shopping excursion in which he came home with a pile of dried habaneros, the hottest pepper in the world, I thought it might be prudent to look up Scotch Bonnet peppers just in case. And wouldn't you know...they are also one of the hottest peppers in the world!! Right up there with the habanero on the Scoville Scale (this is a measurement based on ppm of capsaicin):

100,000 - 350,000 Habanero
100,000 - 325,000 Scotch bonnet

To compare, jalapenos are 2,500 - 5,000 on the scale. And the numbers are directly correlated, so the hottest Scotch bonnet may be one hundred and thirty times the heat of a weak jalapeno.

Now I knew the power I had in my hands.

Reading that they taste fruity - like apricots or tomatoes - beneath the tremendous heat, I couldn't wait to try them in the curry (which features tomatoes, sweet potatoes, grapes, etc), but I was terrified of handling them without doing myself an injury. They were like little orange bombs sitting in my kitchen - safe until I undid the plastic wrap.

When I finally got around to braving the whole touching, handling, deveining, deseeding, all with gloves on, they looked so innocuous. And ultimately, they were. They blended seamlessly with the curry and gave it no more bite than with the jalapenos I normally use. I was extremely disappointed (and J was very relieved).

But this was not the last of my adventures with these little kitchen bombs. More fun to come.

Iron Chef: Cambridge Edition

Of all the awesomely awesome food-party ideas, a house party planned around the Iron Chef may be the awesomest of all.

Theme: Tapas with accompanying cocktail (genius!)

We were lucky enough recently to tag along with our friends, one of whom was competing in the day's festivities. There were four judges who would be judging six chefs and their tapas-inspired output.

The judges were set up around the dining table, and we, the plebs, were arrayed around it watching the proceedings. My favorite feature, besides the pageantry surrounding the initial entrance of the courses, was the extras and nibblies for we in the peanut gallery.

We knew we had entered a foodie haven when we were greeted with home-made gravlax (coincidentally enough, the following week, a recipe for gravlax appeared on Mark Bittman's blog - so weird):

It was translucent salty-dilly-salmony heaven. I could have eaten the whole lot.

Behold confit de canard:

If duck fat was as good for me as olive oil, I would eat nothing else. I can't even begin to describe how delicious it was. Its richness made me think of royal meals of yore, and I fully understand how Henry VIII went from trim young thing to this:

Here are the highlights:

Beef sushi with accompanying haiku. The beef was beyond belief:

How does one even accomplish this?

The hostess came out with individual ramekins of lasagne. I don't know why, but big things made wee are so charming:

And then, I bring you the winning entry by our friend! I knew he was good, but it was when I saw this work of art that I decided to give up cooking forever. Just kidding. But it was clear that this was someone who had gone to the creme de la creme of cooking schools:

This is tea-roasted (infused?) duck breast over roasted asparagus and homemade cucumber pickles. It was truly divine. And he made a blackberry-puree cocktail with orange oil to go with it. Congratulations, winner!

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Mollie's already making me less squeamish about my food processor. The recipe for sweet potato pancakes was too tempting and too easy to turn up. I must admit that I tried to get away with hand-grating my three sweet potatoes, but these suckers are very dense and hard when they're raw, and the fear of hands and sharp kitchen tools was greater with the grater than with the processor.

I fitted my processor with the round and shiny grater attachment and flung in the potatoes and one small onion.


Then, I mixed in some eggs and salt and began frying at high temperatures in our cast iron skillet. Actually, I must admit something. I was pretty hopeless at this. The "batter" was turning into all kinds of fried mush. So J took over for me, and produced these flat and gorgeously blackened pancakes:


I ate them piled high with full-fat plain yoghurt.

Home-Made Stir-Fry Hea-ven

After my disappointing street meal, I embarked on my quest to make a delicious stir-fry at home. An internet search generated some useful general tips and information and a basic sauce.

1. First, I learned that a wok is shaped the way that it is so that as you are cooking at very high heats, you can move food up and down the curved sides as needed to cook them more or move them away from the flame.
2. For a sauce, I would have to buy two things I've never had in my cupboard before: Chinese rice wine and cornstarch. Those, combined with soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and garlic form the basis of a fragrant, yummy, thick brown sauce.
3. The greatest amount of work in the stir-fry is prep, as all of the vegetables and meat have to be ready to go once you start cooking as it is a high-heat method and there is no time to waste!
   

The amount of prepwork was not an exaggeration. I diligently chopped up onions, leeks, mushrooms, and zucchini, washed a handful of spinach, and pulled out some frozen peas to thaw, as well as dicing three breasts of chicken. All in all, I may have been gathering, washing, chopping, and arranging ingredients for close to an hour.

I also threw on my rice cooker.

I used Mollie Katzen's stir-fry sauce (from my new cookbook) as a guideline:

Stir-Fry Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/4 cups water (I'll use less water next time)
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
3 tbsp cornstarch

With those ingredients all mixed together, I was ready to go. I fired up the wok and in went the onions and leeks, followed by zucchini, then mushrooms, and lastly peas and spinach. Once the spinach was wilted, I set all of the veggies aside, and threw in the cubed chicken. I wish I had pounded them flat first, like they frequently do in Chinese restaurants, as that meat is always so tender, but I forgot. The nubbins of meat ended up a little bit tough...so perhaps the highest of the high heat is too much for them? But they were nicely browned on the outside.

Once the chicken was almost cooked through, I poured the sauce in the pan for it to thicken. It didn't quite thicken to a glistening restaurant-quality sauce, which is why I will reduce the water next time, and perhaps leave the sauce on for more than three or four minutes. But it was mighty tasty.