Felix Food

Potsticker Wrappers From Scratch

2012-02-26T11:39:00.000-05:00

Kavitha and I made the wrapper dough using 2 cups of AP flour and 3/4 cup hot water with a pinch of salt. Combine and then knead until smooth. Let rest and cool. Break into small pieces and then roll out.

I attempted the typical dumpling shape that is crimped into a crescent shape, but the dough was a tad too soft and elastic. Instead, I opted for crimping them into the round shape more typical of Shanghai soup dumplings.

It worked!

Fantastic.

The final product had a wrapper that was on the thicker side (about 1/8"), which was fine, but I'm curious to see what they would be like even thinner. The dough seemed pliable enough to be able to handle it. Next: Shanghai soup dumplings?

Scallion Pancakes

2012-02-17T11:58:00.001-05:00

Chinese scallion pancakes are not your typical kind of pancake that comes from a viscous batter. It's more of a fried bread and starts with a simple hot water dough that is rolled flat, rolled up, then rolled into a spiral, and then rolled flat, again. It's what we call a laminated pastry, similar to puff pastry or even croissants. But it's pan-fried. It can be a breakfast food, but I think it's more of a street food type of snack than anything else. You can get a pile of them at a street cart in Flushing, Queens for something like a dollar.

Notice the flaky layers. I used a recipe from the always reliable Kenji Lopez-Alt on Serious Eats. His investigations and explanations are always a pleasure to read, so I'm not going to go into any of that, here. Read his.

The only thing I would add to his recipe is that you should use a cylindrical rolling pin, and not a tapered French pin (which I usually prefer). The reason is that the scallions embedded into the dough will do all sorts of crazy things as you're trying to roll the dough as thin as possible. A cylindrical rolling pin will ensure an evenly distributed pressure while you're flattening it out, and you won't have (as many) scallions poking out all over the place.

"Claypot" Rice With Chicken, Chinese Sausage, Shitakes

2012-02-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

I don't have a Chinese clay pot, but I so wanted one when I saw this recipe on 3 Hungry Tummies. I went ahead and made it without the pot, anyway, using a medium saucepan.

After some online research and consideration of what's currently in my pantry, I made some slight modifications. The common denominators in most recipes seem to be the clay pot, the rice and the sausage. Most everything else seems to be fair game.

I didn't use chiles. I also don't have salted fish, so I made do without that. For the egg, instead of mixing it into the rice at the end, I fried it separately and served it on top. I added shitakes and served it with some Chinese mustard greens. The specific sausage I used was a Taiwanese style sausage, which is shorter, thicker, a little sweeter and more fragrant. All smiles.

Marinating the Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 2" pieces
1 Chinese sausage, sliced
2 dried shitakes, hydrated and sliced
2 scallions, cut into 2" pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp grated ginger (Microplane recommended)
1 tbsp soy
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp corn starch

If the shitakes are not yet hydrated, begin to hydrate them first. Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl and let marinate for an hour. Add the shitakes when they are hydrated. It'll be fine.

Preparing the Rice

1 cup rice (I used short grain sushi grade rice)
1 1/2 cup water

2 tbsp light soy
1 tbsp dark mushroom soy (careful with this!)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 cup chopped scallions
2 fried eggs

Start with only the rice and water in a medium saucepan, or more properly, a Chinese clay pot. Bring to a boil and then add the marinated chicken mixture to the top. Don't mix. Cover and let simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.

Mix the soy, dark soy, sugar and sesame oil. Drizzle evenly over the cooked rice and chicken. Again, don't stir. Cover and cook for another 5-10 minutes on low heat, making sure the rice is cooked through.

Remove from heat, add chopped scallions and stir to combine. Serve topped with a fried egg. Serves 2.

Great with unsweetened hot tea.

Coming Soon: Chairman Hu's Pork Belly

2012-02-14T13:45:00.002-05:00

A friend and I are working on a competition entry for a local event. We're using the basis of my creation here and its near-winning entry here as a starting point. Probably not deviating much, but adjusting where necessary to WIN. With all the pork belly lying around, I've been playing with a new idea: Chairman Hu's Pork Belly. Ya know, as like a contemporary response to General Tso's Chicken.

These are red chiles I'm experimenting with in a sweet pickling process (candied version was too hard/crunchy/chewy). I didn't cook them long enough, so I decided to just chop them up, instead. Gives a good kick. But I need to retreat from this hoity-toity stuff below. Consider it a work in progress. Needs sauce. Needs rice.

Mushroom Tofu Soup

2012-02-13T17:58:00.000-05:00

I suck at Meatless Monday. Usually, I wake up completely forgetting about it and go straight to the fridge and nosh on some leftovers from the previous evening. Something meaty. And then I give up for the remainder of the day because I've already tainted my belly.

Today, I didn't forget. But I still screwed it up. I made a Korean Soon Dubu inspired soup/stew with all sorts of mushrooms (king, enoki, white beech, dried shitake), tofu and bean sprouts. I used a Better Than Bouillon mushroom base and shiro miso paste to flavor the soup. I used a ton of minced garlic. And then I stirred in some eggs at the end. Vegetarian, no?

Sure, but then I opened the fridge (always regrettable) and took out a bag of fresh kimchi from H-Mart. Opened that sucker up and dug in. Damn. It has fish sauce in it. Whatever. I made the effort.

This was round two, reheating the leftovers with some Chinese broccoli and topping with some avocado and more kimchi, haha.

Playing with Pork Belly Ideas

2012-02-09T10:32:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a new food-related project this week which suddenly cast a few packages of pork belly in my fridge. What to do?! =D

I started playing with some ideas for an upcoming meal, this one using candied peppers. The product didn't end up what I was looking for, so I'm probably going to switch to recipes that are more along the lines of sweet pickled peppers. The candied ones aren't the right texture for this. Still tasty, though.

What is Food Porn?

2012-02-01T12:16:00.001-05:00

Is it this?

Or something like this?

Or is it this?

DEAR GOD.

Indian Style Pilaf

2012-01-19T09:26:00.000-05:00

I think the book (which one, I forgot. look up Madhur Jaffrey) intended for the chicken and the pilaf to be served together, so I might as well share the pilaf recipe, too. I would be careful if you choose to use ground spices in lieu of some of the whole ones. You would probably have to use very little, as the effect you're going for is subtle and fragrant. Also, I specified a sweet onion to give the pilaf something to directly contrast with the spicy chicken. Trust, it's worth it.

1 cup basmati rice (or other long grain rice)
1 medium sized sweet onion, chopped
2 tbsp unsalted butter (or vegetable oil)
4 whole cardamom pods
1 stick cinnamon
5 whole cloves
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
4 bay leaves
2 cups water
1 tsp salt

In a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat, saute the onion in butter until golden. Add the cardamom pods, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric and bay leaves and saute for 2 minutes or until your kitchen begins to smell like a buttery spice market. Add the rice and stir for another two minutes so that all the grains are coated. Add the water and salt, bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down to the lowest setting and cover. Let it simmer undisturbed for 20 minutes and then take it off the heat. Keep covered until ready to serve, at which point you can fluff with a fork. It's really fluffy!

Madhur Jaffrey's Spicy Indian Chicken

2012-01-18T21:23:00.002-05:00

I loved this dish so much that I'm going to actually share a recipe! I don't normally cook Indian food at home because I don't like handling so many spices and oil over a stove, especially turmeric, but this one cooks in the oven. It's fast, and it's incredibly easy.

So much thanks to my friend Stephen for sharing. Here's the recipe as I have adapted it for my pantry. I would use more freshly ground spices if I had a grinder. Working on it!

1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp smoked hot paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
juice of one very large juicy lemon
4 leg-thigh pieces of chicken, skinned and cut apart
3 tbsp vegetable oil

Combine cumin, paprika, cayenne, turmeric, pepper, salt, garlic and lemon juice and mix into a paste. Rub the paste all over the chicken pieces until they're well coated. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for several hours (I did this late at night and waited until the next day around lunchtime to cook).

Let the chicken temper for about half an hour before cooking.

Preheat the oven to 400degF. Place the chicken pieces on a baking dish and brush with the oil. Bake for 20 minutes, turn the pieces over and bake for about 20 minutes more or until done. Transfer to a serving platter and let rest for at least 5 minutes before serving with rice pilaf.

If you want to save all the tasty bits in the baking dish, add a little water and stir over high heat on the stove until the sauce comes together and is a bit reduced. If the dish isn't stove safe (like glass), add the water and place back in the oven, stirring occasionally until you reach the desired consistency of a sauce.

Homemade Pork Ribs in NY

2012-01-03T23:24:00.000-05:00

I hate when I make something delicious and forget to photograph it because I'm so caught up stuffing my face. It's my last night in New York visiting family and friends. These two weeks have been kinda crazy. Yesterday my mom pointed at a huge package of frozen pork ribs in the freezer and told me I had free reign. Sure! Three giant racks of ribs? I didn't really put too much thought into a recipe (like I ever?), but I put something together with what was in the house.

1:30pm - Rinse and pat dry the ribs. Salt generously then rub with white pepper and Chinese five spice powder.

1:45pm - Place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Put in the oven at 450deg F.

2:15pm - Cover tightly with foil and then lower oven temp to 275deg F.

4:45pm - Check on ribs. OMFG it's really tender and tastes great even though it wasn't pre-rubbed or marinated.

5:00pm - Prepare sauce. Mom had frozen some super ripe pineapple a few months ago. Took 2 cups of that, pureed it in the Magic Bullet, then mixed in 1/2 cup Chinese BBQ Sauce, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and a 1/2 cup honey. Brushed the sauce on the ribs. Re-cover.

6:00pm - Remove foil cover, baste, and set oven to broil. Move oven racks up. Baste every 3 minutes until toasty and toasted looking.

6:15pm - Remove from oven. Let sit for a few minutes under tented foil. EAT.

You simple cannot avoid the amount of time it takes to cook ribs, but this was seriously very little effort for a whole lot of amazing product. Tender, fall-off-the-bone meat that was really porky with a nice crispy and savory crust. You can't ask for much more. Except maybe for it to be smoked, but there's where more labor comes in. I'll settle for this.

Christmakkuh Dinner

2011-12-26T11:35:00.003-05:00

Today I'm heading over to my sister's place in Brooklyn for our annual Christmakkuh hot pot dinner, a combination of our joined families' cultures: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Chinese cuisine. In preparation, I put together this graphic of a Christmas tree using a Chinese food menu and chopsticks as a Star of David at the top. I'm soooooo clever.

Jewish-Chinese Christmas Tree

(click to enlarge)

Nutter Butters at Home

2011-10-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

These cookies are absurd. Imagine a Nutter Butter, but made fresh and probably 10 times worse for your health.

peanut butter cookie sandwiches

Food52 has given me no end of ideas for cooking and when the picture of these cookies arrived in my inbox, I HAD TO HAVE THEM. And now I really want to give them away because they're so dang rich. Delicious, but one is enough. Each sandwich is two peanut butter cookies stuffed with a peanut butter and chocolate chip buttercream frosting. All made from scratch so I had the tearful opportunity of mixing all these heart-healthy ingredients. Seriously, any takers?

TIP: If you decide to make these cookies, stick to the size suggestion. They really are that rich and the miniature size is appropriate.

Crispy Pork Belly + Sweet Adobo

2011-09-19T18:13:00.000-04:00

Here's a dish that came together way too easily because everything was incidentally pre-prepared. The pork belly was roasted last week and these were two strips I hadn't used. The adobo sauce was saved from some chicken adobo I also made last week and reduced to concentrate the flavors. And this past weekend, I had made a drunken meal at about 3am and two of the carrots that I cleaned and peeled didn't make it into the food.

crispy pork belly with a reduced Filipino adobo sauce

Put this all together with some finely chopped onions and we have an accidentally luxurious and decadent meal in less than half an hour. Which I find kinda silly, because pork belly is not often a luxurious food in Chinese cuisine.

All I did was sweat some onions with the carrots and some garlic in a small saucepan. Add the reduced adobo sauce with a spoonful of sugar and a splash of dry sherry. Low simmer to soften the carrots and further reduce the sauce. Cut the pork belly into cubes and brown-crisp on all sides. Serve together on steamed rice.

The most interesting part of this was that the altered, re-reduced adobo sauce had a hint of hoison flavor.

I Shitake You Not

2011-09-12T18:04:00.000-04:00

These are mine, betches! I love the gentle earthiness of fresh shitake mushrooms.

garlic sauteed sugar snap peas, fresh shitake mushrooms and shallots

Plum Tart

2011-09-05T21:44:00.001-04:00

This came out exceedingly well. Instead of using the food processor (which I lurv dearly) to make the pastry dough, I went for a manual approach with a pastry cutter. It was a pain and I wasn't entirely sure I was getting the butter down to the right grain size, but what do you know? IT WORKED. It worked better than any other crust I've made in the past, and I've made many. Flour, butter, sugar, salt, ice water and that was it. Perfectly flaky. I'll have to try this out a second and third time to confirm, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying the fruit of my labor.

plum tart, pre-oven

I had some leftover Fig Almond Spread in the fridge from a wine and cheese thing a few months ago. Expensive, but it had been sitting there for a while so I figured that I'd spread the stuff on the bottom of the tart. Worked like a charm. Arranged thin slices of dinosaur and black plums on top and then sprinkled a healthy dose of brown sugar above. Done.

plum tart, shitty photo

UPDATE:


plum tart, better photo

Pasta With Zucchini and Chicken Garnish

2011-07-31T18:23:00.000-04:00

I often get blown away by what a meal costs in a restaurant, particularly if it's something easy to put together with cheap ingredients. This meal at home took 20 minutes to prepare and the cost per serving is somewhere less than a dollar. Zucchini squash is deliciously in season and dirt cheap. Pasta, red onion, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper... nothing exotic, but the ensemble is mighty tasty. And I had some leftover chicken salad in the fridge so I sprinkled some of that on top. I love a little irony.

pasta with zucchini, chicken garnish

Leftover Pork Butt Tacos

2011-07-20T15:48:00.000-04:00

These tacos made from leftovers have a remarkable semblance to the tacos I originally made with the roasted pork butt on Saturday. Fresh corn is missing and the chopped onion got mixed in with the meat when packing it away, so those got cooked in the reheating. The turmeric pickled zucchini I made is the same. Sriracha is an addition. All leftovers are delicious when you know what to do with them...

pork shoulder tacos with house-pickled turmeric zucchini, sriracha

Just Popped My Ice Cream Cherry

2011-07-19T12:02:00.000-04:00

For years I've been putting off making ice cream because I don't have an ice cream machine. I finally sat down and did some research and found a way to do it manually. Actually, it's a brilliant technique that involves no churning except at the very end, and with a food processor! By reducing the water content of the solution and increasing the rate of chilling, there's absolutely no hassle while it's in the freezer. Minimal ice crystals form. Set it and forget it. Will post on this some more later. For now, I'm just enjoying some of the best vanilla ice cream I've ever had, topped with some macerated cherries. Dense, smooth, creamy...

homemade vanillla ice cream with macerated cherries

Sopressata and Something Else

2011-07-18T00:00:00.000-04:00

Spent the weekend up at a friend's house on Lake Lanier. Each of us brought food for one of the meals. I roasted a boston butt (how predictable) for some tacos with red onion and some homemade turmeric pickled zucchini. Connie brought some fresh cut sweet corn that went absolutely wonderfully with the tacos. They actually didn't photograph well in the evening, but here's a pic of the sandwich spread David brought for lunch. Ciabatta, sopressata and all sorts or other tasty things.

Poutine Part Deux (ou trois)

2011-07-14T08:57:00.001-04:00

Where there's a will, there's a way. It's not on the menu at Ormsby's (it wasn't at Cypress, either), but I put together an ad hoc version. They've got a selection of sauces to dip fries into, so I chose the pot roast gravy, the housemade Cheese Wiz and the server got me a side of mozzarella, too. I should've ordered the sausage, but by the time I realized that, the order was already in.

ad hoc poutine at Ormsby's

We were on a roll by that point, having drank at Abbatoir's 2yr anniversary party (free booze and food) and then more drinks at Ormsby's. Poutine, however unorthodox, was perfect. Is Leon's the only place in the city that has poutine?

Quick Pickled Carrots

2011-07-12T16:44:00.000-04:00

I hate the look of grated carrots, whether with a hand grater or a food processor. They look sloppy. Furthermore, I feel like you lose a lot of the crunch. Whatever. I'm personally a fan of hand cutting them, and depending on the purpose, I'll slice them very finely. Like for my quick pickled carrots. 3:1, sugar to salt. 30 minutes.

quick pickled carrots

The Rice Bowl Saga Continues

2011-07-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

I have a bunch of ground pork and napa cabbage left over from the dumplings I made yesterday. I also had a bunch of jellied sauce left over from this chicken with fermented black beans and basil I had made last week for a departing friend. Browning the pork with some onions and deglazing with that chicken sauce and some dry sherry turned out to be fabulous over some rice. For the napa, I toasted up the usual ginger/garlic/scallions on the pan, but this time I added some small dried shrimp (it's a Chinese thing) before adding the vegetables. Tossed it around, added a little water and covered it to pan-steam. And that's an early lunch.

CleaverFever Returns

2011-07-05T22:53:00.000-04:00

Years back, I had created a food blog called CleaverFever, much in the same vein as FelixFood. It was a little less focused and in my attempt to drive hits, I posted all sorts of random crap on a daily basis. I eventually forgot about it because the blogging became tedious. FelixFood, on the other hand, has so far worked for me because I'm not seeking hits so much as just recording what I'm doing in the kitchen with the hopes that it will become useful in the future.

CleaverFever is returning, though. This time around, I'm hoping to curate something much more like a magazine with editorials and recipes. And merchandise, of course. Girl's gotta eat!

Linguini + Caramelized Tomato Oil

2011-07-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

For the past few days I've been caramelizing tomatoes to bring over to friends' dinner parties. The process is simple, but takes a while. Fill an oven-safe dish with small, ripe summer tomatoes (campari, cherry, etc..). Add red wine vinegar and olive oil at a 1:6 ratio to at least half the overall height of the tomatoes. Add a spoonful of brown sugar (maybe half the amount of the vinegar? I didn't measure). Fresh thyme, salt and pepper round it out. Place in the oven for at least two hours at 275F.

linguini with caramelized tomato oil

The resulting globes of caramelized fruit collapse with the slightest amount of pressure, oozing sweet juices and eliciting all sorts of pleasurable noises and "omg summer." They went great on homemade pizza on Thursday. On Friday I reused the caramelizing liquid with more tomatoes to serve with steak (amazing) and that further intensified the flavors.

In my typical fashion, I reserved those liquids for another purpose and in my hungover state today, that purpose was linguini. Browned some garlic in butter, added the caramelizing liquid and reduced it to half. Tossed it with hot linguini pasta and chopped parsley. It was a little on the sweet side, so I added more salt and pepper, but my god did it taste amazing.

FAIL: Cookies

2011-06-30T13:20:00.000-04:00

I hate baking. I feel like there's this little gnome hiding in the oven with a crowbar, waiting for me to close that door so he can bash my cookies and pastries in. Ugh. Anywho, I tried out Merrill's recipe for Crispy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. I was short half cup of the rolled oats and I was also out of both aluminum foil and parchment paper. What's a girl to do? Just stick it in! And this was the mess that resulted. Still tasted good.

crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie fail