Chinese Scallion Pancakes and Google Reader

I love my google reader page. It gives me the warm fuzzies. I want to curl up with it on the couch, a steamy cup of genmaicha tea in one hand and my browsing finger on the other. For the uninitiated, it is a web-based organizer of RSS feeds. In my line of hobbying, I follow a lot of food blogs as well as pop-culture and some educational feeds. My close friend Google Reader consolidates and organizes all of these feeds into one pleasant-looking interface. You can also share items on google reader with your google contacts. It is the mf bomb, people. I am telling you.

On a completely different note, a couple weeks ago I inspected a restaurant near Chateau Elan owned by this nice Korean couple. Seeing pounds of marinated galbi in her fridge, I asked if she would give me her galbi recipe. Of course she would! I am the health inspector, and restaurant owners are terrified of me. So I grabbed some short ribs from the local Super H and had a barbecue with some friends. As one of the banchan for the barbecue, I whipped up some Chinese scallion pancakes. My boyfriend and I had eaten these at Chef Liu's off Buford Hwy. Chef Liu's also has decent soup dumplings, but I don't have the time or patience for making soup dumplings at this point in my life.

The pancakes are super easy to make and the ingredients are simple. Some recipes use yeast, but I am not a baker and should not be encouraged to buy anything that is going to sit longer than a month in my little pantry.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes

2 cups flour

1 cup hot water

Green onions, sliced into thin rings

Sesame seeds

Kosher salt

Extra virgin olive oil

Sambal oelek chili paste to spread over pancake

Mix your 2 cups flour and 1 cup hot water until the dough is fully mixed and slightly sticky. Flour your rolling surface and your hands. Scoop a small handful of dough onto the floured surface and press flat into a circle. It doesn't have to be perfect, people, any circular shape will do.

Place a small handle of slice green onion and a sprinkling of sesame seeds onto the flat dough and press the ingredients gently into the dough so they will stick. Now roll the dough into a tube like a taquito, lengthening and forming it into a cylinder. Take the cylinder and curl it around itself like a snail shell. Press the rolled up dough flat. The snail shell you created should ensure that the pancake is relatively circular once you press it out.

Brown the pancake in a skillet on medium heat in about 1/3 tbsp of olive oil. For heat, spread a small amount of chili paste on the pancakes. The pancakes can by somewhat dry, so serve them with a moist food like scrambled eggs or soup.

Please Save Me! Roasted Pumpkins

It is 4 o'clock in the morning here in Hazlehurst, GA. Hazlehurst is a tiny little town 30 minutes south of Vidalia. I am holed up at the cleanest hotel I could find for on-site sewage management systems (or septic system) training. I work as an environmentalist, and one of my responsibilities is inspecting septic tanks and helping people get the most out of their septic system. It isn't glamorous, but I love fiddling around outside with a hand-held auger and playing in the mud.

Hazlehurst is a typical south Georgia city. Beautiful flatwood pine forests, heat-worn buildings, and good ol' boy politics. The most apparent problem I have with this place is that I can count the number of restaurants in this town with both hands. Burger King, McDonald's, Krystal, and Dairy Queen. There's a small pizza buffet place that didn't make me sick. The last two nights I've been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with yogurt and fruit from my hotel fridge. We had a "cookout" one night with fried quail, venison sausage, and an assortment of carbohydrates including french fries, biscuits, gravy, grits, and coconut cake. Needless to say, I was starved for anything that wasn't fast food, so I chomped into that little quail like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, on the second bite I crunched down into a piece of birdshot. I just sat staring at the small metal ball in my hand, wondering what I had done to deserve this punishment.

Last night my boyfriend told me he was eating Peking duck and Chinese broccoli. A part of me died.

I am starved for wholesome, nutritious, and appealing provisions, and that is why I am up at 4:30 am writing about pumpkins. Here we go.

Roasting a pumpkin is very easy, and it is an excellent way to eat pumpkin in its unsweetened, unprocessed form. (Plus, you get to roast the seeds for extra credit.)

Roasted Pumpkin

1 small sugar pumpkin (or pie pumpkin)

1 tbsp butter, melted

Enough water to cover the bottom of your roasting pan

Slice the pumpkin in half, being careful not to dismember yourself. Gently remove the seeds from the pulp with a gentle pinching action. The less pulp you pull off with the seeds, the better. Scrape the stringy pulp out of the pumpkin with a large spoon. (Note: I was doing this all outside. It can get messy and dried pulp is hard to scrub off the kitchen counter.)

Baste the inside of the pumpkin with the melted butter. Turn the pumpkin upside down on a roasting pan so the rind is facing up. Fill the pan with water so that the entire bottom is covered. Preheat oven to 350 and roast for 45-55 minutes.

I used a mixture of roast pumpkin and roast acorn squash to make Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup from 101 Cookbooks. I went a little crazy on the red thai paste and the sambal oelek chili paste, but it was delcious. My boyfriend was drinking it up. I would also recommend trying any of these pumpkin dishes from Pinch My Salt.

Panang Curry (Tin Drum Cafe Style)

A long, long time ago in Atlanta, a young girl who hated Thai food fell in love with her first Thai dish. Panang curry. Sweet. Spicy. Pink-ish red-ish oh my god delicious.

It may not be an epic story, but as a college freshman at Georgia Tech, I was tethered to campus by the August heat and MARTA, a Atlanta's pathetic public transportation system. Tech Square, an extension of the main campus, is located just over the 5th Street bridge in midtown. Nestled against the Georgia Tech hotel and conference center is a hip little chain restaurant called Tin Drum Cafe. They offer an interesting mix of Asian-inspired dishes, from Pad Thai to Singapore Rice Noodles to Japanese Katsu. The walls are whitewashed acoustic nightmares, and the voices of urban professionals, professors, and engineering students can reach overwhelming levels during busy hours. This is the place where, staring at a giant print of a sumo wrestler, I first experienced the magnificent blend of spices known as panang. Since then, I have discovered many types of curries, but panang remains my all time favorite. Below is an easy to follow recipe, and though I do not admit to perfectly recreating Tin Drum's delicious panang curry dish, it's enough to satisfy my cravings. Unfortunately, no pictures again. I will work on taking photos before I devour every morsel of food.

Easy Peasy Panang Curry

3-4 large strips of bulgogi-style cut steak (I get this at Super H Mart, but you can use any type of meat. Tofu is good too. I may do a post on just making fried tofu.)

1 Red Bell Pepper, sliced into strips

1 large broccoli crown, cut into smaller pieces

Handful of Green onion, chopped

Small handful of Taiwanese basil leaves

Maesri brand can of panang curry paste

2 cans of coconut milk

1/3 cup chicken broth

Pour broth and coconut milk into a large pot and bring to a gentle boil. Mix in almost all of the can of panang curry paste slowly while it is heating up (add more or less curry paste to taste. I prefer a flavor explosion.) Add green onions and broccoli. Allow broccoli to cook 8-9 minutes. During this time, broil the beef in a shallow pan for 5 minutes. Allow the meat to cool and cut into 1 inch pieces. Add the pieces of beef, red bell pepper, and taiwanese basil leaves, and cook for another 3-4 minutes. When broccoli is soft but firm, remove the pot from the heat and allow the curry to cool and thicken for a bit. Serve over jasmine rice.

Sew Perfect: Purse Organizer

If you've ever been around me when I'm leaving the house, you might think I am a tad bit absent-minded. I can't find my keys or I have on socks but no shoes. I completely forget to bring my sports bag when I'm going to the gym, and I don't remember it till I'm in the building. I leave things all over the place. Hairbrushes. Sweaters. Underwear. Tennis Balls. You name it, I've forgotten it or left it somewhere. It's kind of ridiculous.

In the face of these apparently uncontrollable tendencies, I am going to let you in on a little secret. This carelessness is just a facade to hide my hilarious wit and razor sharp intelligence. The more you underestimate my limitless capabilities, the more likely you are to leave me alone when I'm doing the things I enjoy...like arts and crafts.

So, today, when I decided to make this purse organizer, it was purely for the joy of crafting and not because I desperately need to be able to vacate my apartment without looking under every piece of furniture I own. Really for really reals, people.

Check this out. Handsewn purse organizer with fabric from Hobby Lobby. I got the idea from the www.pincstuff.com diary. There is a pattern for it here, but I took a little poetic license when making mine.

Three hours, two Say Yes to the Dresses, one What Not To Wear, and two A Baby Stories later, wah-la! And it's purty too. There are little pockets for all of my stuff, and it curls up like a snake to fit into my small Ann Taylor Loft bag. I'm thinking of adding a pink ribbon to tie it together later.

Char Siu: A boyfriend with food baggage.

Comfort foods are a delicate issue in my apartment, and for good reason. Those drunken 4 A.M. cravings that can only be satisfied by Jello-brand butterscotch pudding mix don't hold a candle to the insanity that fills my mind at the thought of a botched baked mac and cheese. Be it strawberry-rhubarb pie or guacamole, everyone has an opinion about what it should taste like and which ingredients are best. Thus, when I offered to make my puppy-eyed boyfriend his childhood favorite, char siu or Chinese BBQ, I knew that my endeavors would come with insurmountable expectations and god knows how many historic competitors from Toronto and New York. My boyfriend LOVES this stuff, and during our trip to Toronto, he would not shut up about its many virtues.We had it in congee, we had it in steamed buns, we had it straight from the takeout box. We had it for dim sum, for New Year's dinner, and while we were hanging out at the mall. Char siu, char siu, char siu.

On top of this food baggage, it is difficult as a poor college kid to invest in an $11 pork shoulder and a quick trip to the Asian market, knowing there's a 40.56% chance that whatever you do with this hunk of meat, the product could end up inedible. But puppy-eyed looks continued, and the whimpering began, and I knew that it was time to spread my Asian wings and fly.

I scoured the web, and created a delicious congolomeration of ingredients. I tested my engineering skills by creating meat hooks out of "S" hooks so I could roast the hanging meat in my boyfriend's oven. The final product was fantastic, crispy on the outside and soybeany, porky, delicousy on the inside. According to my worst critic and best friend, I "nailed it." This recipe made two meals of plain char siu and three of char siu fried rice.

I failed to take pictures of my miraculous hanging meat rods as well as the final product. I am going to blame that on my inexperience as a food blogger...that and the fact that the char siu was being consumed (by me) faster than I could slice it. This google image search picture will have to do until I can manage to control myself.

Ingredients:

5.5 lb boston butt or pork butt

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp Chinese 5-spice powder

1/4 cup ketchup

1/2 cup hoisin

1 heaping spoonful of red soybean paste

2 tbsp. sesame oil

2 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine

1/4 tbsp. red food coloring (for the distinctive coloration)

Honey for basting

Mix the above ingredients together to make the marinade and reserve about 2 tbsp. Cut the excess fat off the pork butt with a sharp knife and slice the meat into long 2-3" thick strips. Try to make them as uniform as possible and cut with the grain of the meat. Marinate these strips for 24 hours in the fridge.

Run by your local hardware store and pick up some small "S" hooks that will hang freely on the little bars of your oven rack. You will need between 8-10 hooks. Wash the hooks well with soap and water and set aside to dry. Move the uppermost oven rack to the highest position and the lowermost oven rack to the lowest position in your oven. Place a large, wide cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil on the bottom rack. Take the strips of meat from the marinade, pierce one end with a hook, and jerk the hook a little bit to make sure the meat will stay hanging. Hang the other side of the hook on the top rack of the oven, and make sure you hang it over the cookie sheet to catch the drippings. Repeat for all the strips.

Your oven is going to look like a butcher's shop. Turn your oven on at 450 for appx. 13 minutes. Crank it back down to 350 and roast for another 20-30 minutes. I just pinch the meat to see if its done so it may take more or less time. During the last 10 minutes, baste the meat with a mixture of about 5tbsp honey and 2 tbsp reserved marinade. BE CAREFUL! THE OVEN IS DANGEROUSLY HOT! (I burned myself on the oven rack.) This will give it that familiar glazed look and amplify the traditional red color.

Once cooked, simply yank the meat off the hooks and let each strip sit for about 5 minutes or you'll have a juicy mess. Slice the meat thinly against the grain. Serve with steamed rice and a salad.