Saturday I went regular grocery shopping and then we went to a lunch meeting for the newly-formed spouse-support group at the school. We were the only "significant other" couple rather than married couple, but he didn't seem to mind. The bigger problem is that we were the only couple where the girl was the med student, so it appears ESC has many pedicure parties and cookie-swapping fetes to attend in the future. After perusing our class composite, I determined that we are the only unmarried-but-living-together couple (I'm pretty sure), and one of only a handful of girl-med-student couples. Granted, my class is mostly guys anyway, so the stats are bound to be skewed in their favor no matter what, but it was still an odd realization. Lots of married people in my class, and I'm still not sure if it's because it's Kentucky, or what.
Anyway, after spending the afternoon cleaning the apartment (my pile from Hong Kong is finally gone!), some friends came over for a Chinese New Year's dinner party (hence the Asian grocery stores). We made dumplings, which were a hit as always, and I tried out my new wok by making fried rice (not so good, but my rice was too moist, so it was my fault) and steaming a flounder. I also made steamed Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. Yum. I think I've gotten my cooking kick out of my system for the next week, which is good, because I need to do some MAJOR studying.
This afternoon, I watched some of Animal Planet's Second Puppy Bowl (so cute!!!), which featured puppies on a fake football field romping with each other (feature: "Bowl Cam," with shots of puppies drinking from a water bowl, from the bottom of the bowl) and the Kitten Halftime Show, which was the same thing, but with kittens. Pretty funny.
Before I get back to studying (no, I'm not watching the game, just some of the commercials), I just wanted to post some pictures from last night:
Wine bottle dressed up for the occasion (bought this cheong sam in HK)
New wok (not really shiny, since woks are like cast iron pots; you don't clean them with soap and instead let the food-grime patina build up)
Some dumplings; a perennial favorite and good staple for active dinner parties (you make the filling ahead of time and let everyone make the dumplings themselves at the party)
Whole steamed flounder - my personal piece de resistance, having never made it before. I forgot to take a picture until we had started to devour it, though. So easy to make, and so inexpensive! I paid a little over $3 for the fish, and all you do is score it and stuff some ginger and green onions in the scores, then steam it (I steamed it on the plate in the wok covered by a pizza pan) for 10-15 minutes. Then splash on some soy sauce and peanut oil and garnish with some more green onion. So light and tasty!OK, that's it for me; I need to spend the next 2.5 hours studying so I can watch Grey's Anatomy after the Bowl (Code Black! Oh my goodness!). But here are my favorite Super Bowl commercials so far:
-The FedEx caveman/dinosaur one. "But FedEx hasn't been invented yet!" "That's not my problem." I like how he kicks the little dino and then gets stomped by the huge one.
-Ameriquest, where the doctor cardioshocks the housefly over the unconscious patient, then says, "Well, THAT killed him," as the patient's wife and daughter walk in. Hilarious.
-Budweiser, with the streaking sheep.
-Mobile ESPN, with the guy walking down the street and all the athletics going on around him. Not a particularly funny commercial or anything, but I liked how they included so many different sports. Very inclusive.
-Diet Pepsi. Not the P.Diddy one, but the Jackie Chan / stunt double one was good, for the shock factor of the Diet Coke can being stomped on. I don't like Pepsi, but I have to admit they've done a great job with marketing and gobbling up market share.
-Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty commercial, for two reasons. 1) you barely ever see girl-oriented Super Bowl commercials; 2) they've done such a great job with their adult-oriented Campaign for Real Beauty ads, I think this is a logical extension, and goodness knows more girls could hear some positive reinforcement of this kind.
Now I have to sign off before I catch another commercial break!
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2 comments:
You know, I forgot to comment about these earlier: both the dumplings and the fish look great. The Trib just did a big article here on potstickers/dumplings (yes, I know they're not exactly the same) and pretty much word on the street was that there are some excellent places to get them in the area, but no more so than in your own kitchen. When you get back from Aspen, how about sending me the recipe?
Here's the dumpling recipe:
-1 pound ground pork (I've done it with ground turkey as well for vegetarians, but pork is usually cheaper; grocery stores don't usually carry ground pork, but meat markets and Asian grocery stores will)
-1/2 Napa cabbage (or more if you want)
-6 scallions, plus a few more for garnish
-1 egg
-1 Tbsp salt
-1 Tbsp chicken broth powder/granules (I've been told you can use MSG, but that sounds gross)
-2 Tbsp sesame oil
-Round dumpling skins – usually a yellowish color, may say "Hong Kong style" on the package, in the refrigerated section of the Asian grocery store. I usually use about 2 packages for 1 recipe and have some skins left over.
Chop up the cabbage (if you can use a food processor to get it chopped finer, that's better) and scallions and mix everything but the dumpling skins together. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, or as long as overnight for full flavor. Drain the excess liquid, or just don't scoop from the liquidy bottom as you make the dumplings.
Spoon a small lump of dumpling mix onto the center of a dumpling skin (don't let the mix touch the edges of the skin). Dip a finger into water and spread it around the edge of half of the skin. Fold the skin in half to make a half-moon shape. Starting at one end of the curved side of the half-moon, begin folding/pleating the edges together, making sure everything stays tightly sealed. Tip: don't overfill the dumpling, because if it's too full it won't seal properly and then it'll burst when you cook it. A good-sized lump is probably a small teaspoonful.
Place the wrapped dumpling, folded edge up, onto a plate or baking sheet. Don't let them touch each other cause they'll get soggy, and don't let them sit too long before cooking for the same reason.
To cook, you can boil, steam, or pan-fry:
To boil, drop the dumplings into a large pot of boiling water (don't cook more at a time than what will form a single layer in the water, give or take a few). Stir immediately, then wait for the water to boil again and the dumplings to float to the top, then let them boil for another 5 minutes or so – probably about 8 minutes total. (I always forget to time them and end up just tasting one and seeing if the pork is cooked through.) The skin will sort of tighten against the filling so the whole thing looks kind of wrinkly due to the form of the filling. Remove from water and serve.
To steam, place a layer of dumplings (not touching each other) on a Napa cabbage leaf and put into a steamer (bamboo is traditional, but I just use a steaming rack in a pot), and steam for about 10-15 minutes until done.
To pan-fry, add oil (peanut oil or other high-heat oil) to a hot pan and add the dumplings in a single layer. Cook about 2 minutes on each side (again, rough time estimates).
To eat, serve as an appetizer or main dish with dipping sauce. Dipping sauce consists of some combo of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and chili paste/other spicy stuff. I like a mix of everything but spicy, making it a little on the tart side – I would estimate that it's about 1 part soy sauce, ½ part vinegar, ¼ part sesame oil. (My cousin likes it with pretty much plain vinegar – yikes!) Add some chopped scallion on top to garnish. Another way to eat them is as a soup dish – place some dumplings in a bowl with chicken broth (when I'm doing a quick lunch I'll just pop open a can of broth) and add a dash of soy sauce and maybe sesame oil.
Variations: make the dumplings vegetarian (or just more interesting) by using ground turkey or tofu, or extra veggies (celery, green pepper, grated carrot, maybe cilantro, etc). If you use tofu or plain veggies, you'll have to add something to make everything stick (with meat, it's the fat that does this) – try some extra egg and maybe some corn starch. You can also use some cooked rice noodles (cut them up after cooking) as filler. I've seen versions where you add fresh ginger or fresh garlic (mince or grate) to the dumpling mix, and you can add some garlic to the dipping sauce as well if you like.
To freeze: as you make the dumplings, place them on a baking sheet lined with wax paper (you may need to sprinkle some corn starch on it as well). Don't let them touch. When the baking sheet is full, place it in the freezer for a while, and once the dumplings are frozen, store them in a Ziploc bag. To freeze multiple sheets at once, I stack the baking sheets on top of each other and keep them separated using little ramekins or shot glasses or something like that. Usually anytime I make dumplings, I'll make 2 recipes so I can freeze them for later. When cooking the frozen ones, just add a couple minutes to each of the cooking times. To pan fry the frozen ones, you might want to boil them for a couple minutes first before adding them to the pan.
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