Steamed Dumplings

Day 140: Ambitious though I may be in some regards, making my own dumpling/wonton wrappers is a lot of work, so I generally default to commercially-prepared ones. As it happened, I discovered two packages of them under the butter in my freezer, so I thought I'd make wonton soup, not considering that the skins might not be in optimum condition after being frozen for...wait, did that pull-date say "2019?" Oh, dear. I had already made the filling, a delicious combination of ground pork, green onions and napa cabbage flavoured with soy and oyster sauces, and I suppose if I'd thought about it, I could have put it in steamed buns, but I decided to go ahead with Plan A. As I had feared, the wonton wrappers had become rather dry and brittle, and even when left to rest under a damp towel for several minutes, they just became sticky. What to do? What to do? They certainly weren't suitable for soup, not with holes in the sides, so I did the next best thing. I steamed them. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that this story has a happy ending. They were delicious.

When Life Gives You Fungus

Day 135: They say that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. What course of action is recommended when life gives you fungus? Having no idea how much cloud-ears would swell when rehydrated, I broke off an ambitious half of a block which when whole measured 2 1/2" x 1 1/4" x 3/8", to reconstitute for my hot-and-sour soup. The resultant expansion filled a quart jar! Not one to waste a single scrap of fungal material, I did a quick assessment of the contents of the fridge to see what other main dish I might make to include them. A stir-fry of carrot, napa cabbage, green onion, bamboo shoots (also left over from the soup), barbecue pork and fungus quickly came together, flavoured with soy sauce and brown sugar, and topped with a garnish of spring onions and sesame seeds. This was served over white rice with a snowskin mooncake on the side for dessert (let it be noted that these mooncakes freeze beautifully with no loss of taste/texture to the skin or the custard filling). Even after preparing enough for three meals, I still have a pint of cloud-ears in the fridge!

Hot-and-sour Soup

Day 131: Now THIS is a good hot-and-sour soup! And it couldn't have been prepared more timely. The overnight low is forecast to be 9 degrees F. on Tuesday night. That said, I didn't plan it that way. I just wanted to make the soup because the pandemic has kept me out of my favourite Chinese restaurant for over two years now, and that's too long to go without eating hot-and-sour. I've made this dish on many occasions, but never with quite all the right ingredients. This time around, I decided to remedy that, although I did substitute a blend of white rice vinegar and balsamic for the black Chinese vinegar. For me, the flavour of hot-and-sour soup pivots on two things: cloud-ear fungus and "fun see," the latter being the first Chinese term I learned for glass noodles (also known as "sai fun"). I prefer the Korean-style sweet-potato glass noodle (jap chae noodle) to those made with mung beans. The shiitake mushrooms give the soup a bit of extra "chew," but be sure you rehydrate them well. And be warned: cloud-ears reconstitute to an amazing size when soaked in warm water. You'll only need a loose tablespoonful of the dried form.

1 16-ounce can of chicken broth
1 1/2 cans water
1 tsp chicken bouillon
2 Tbsp (or more) black fungus - hydrated, sliced
3-4 dried shiitake mushrooms - hydrated, sliced
1/8 cup julienne bamboo shoots
1/8 cup thinly sliced napa greens (optional)
1 green onion, greens only, cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp minced ginger
several pieces of Chinese barbecue pork (char siu) sliced thinly (optional)
1/4 block extra firm tofu, sliced into strips (firm will also work)
2 beaten eggs
1 3/4 oz. Korean sweet potato glass noodles, prepared
1 Tbsp sesame oil

SEASONINGS 1:
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch mixed with water

SEASONINGS 2:
2 Tbsp black rice vinegar (or substitute 1 Tbsp. each rice vinegar and balsamic vinegar)
1 tsp white pepper

Rehydrate mushrooms for 4 hours. Prepare glass noodles separately by boiling for 5 minutes. Then toss with sesame oil to prevent sticking and set aside. Slice rehydrated mushrooms thinly. Combine stock, mushrooms, vegetables and ginger (not tofu or eggs) and cook until vegetables are done, but still firm. Add tofu. Add beaten eggs, drizzling them into the soup while very gently stirring it, but be careful not to break the tofu. Add prepared glass noodles and bring soup back to the boil. Then add first seasonings and stir gently until cornstarch clears. Just before removing from the heat, add rice vinegar and white pepper. Serve with a garnish of scallions or cilantro if desired.

Snowskin Mooncakes

Day 128: Never mind how long it took to collect all the ingredients, never mind the hours spent watching YouTube videos until I finally found a recipe which addressed all the whys, wherefores and pitfalls. The fact is, this project began roughly eight hours ago with a countertop full of little bowls with carefully measured amounts of various flours, oils, salt, sugar and so on, and a Crow blithely oblivious to the amount of work ahead. That said, everything went smoothly and according to the instructions, and despite the fact that my kitchen looks like the aftermath of a Holi festival, the dishes are washed and my first batch of Snowskin Mooncakes is complete. One small mishap occurred when I pressed too firmly while molding the first one. I chalked it up to a learning experience and ate the evidence, all but that last bite you see in the foreground. These mooncakes do not require baking. The dough is cooked before it is molded around the filling (in this case, a thick custard). The word "sticky" has achieved a new status in my vocabulary because both the rice-flour skin and the custard centers are worked by hand before chilling. Even cold, both have a consistency which could put Gorilla Glue out of business. However, once dusted with cooked glutinous rice flour, these treats can be molded and handled without sticking to anything. Although the flavour and texture of rice pastry might not appeal to some Western palates, I think these are delicious! But damnation, they're a lot of work!

Mushroom Hunting

 

Day 126: Armchair mushroom hunting can be almost as daunting as searching the woods, as I've recently discovered. With the pandemic limiting my access to any of the Asian markets I'd normally visit, I've been constrained to mail-order several of the ingredients for my best version of hot-and-sour soup, not the least of which were dried shiitakes and cloud-ears (Auricularia polytricha, aka "black fungus"). Yes, I could have bought fresh shiitakes at a grocery store, but the dried ones have a better flavour in the soup, and since I already needed to order cloud-ears, I bought a bag of shittakes big enough to last me the rest of my life. By the end of the week, I should have the last thing I need: glass noodles. I could do without or replace them with rice noodles, but I prefer the round Korean glass noodles made with sweet potato. It's been over two years since I had a bowl of hot-and-sour soup, so I'm going to make a potful big enough to last a month!

Crow's Culinary Adventures

Day 125: If my needlearts storage spaces are crammed with devices which would mystify many people, my kitchen is only slightly less endowed. I do not pretend to be a knowledgeable cook or a good one, but what I make, I make well (breads, for example). Most of the odd objects in my cupboards and drawers are somehow dough-related: rosette irons, krumkake forms, fondant cutters, etc. Perhaps I've leaned that direction because I like the feel and energy involved in manipulating doughs. In any event, the pandemic has driven me to broaden my skills, particularly in the area of Chinese foods which I enjoy greatly. Thus, I've decided to take a great leap to try my hand at mooncakes.

From what I gather (and admittedly, I'm out of my depth here), there are at least two basic types of mooncake: baked and snowskin. The latter is purportedly easier to make and requires fewer specialized ingredients. Snowy mooncakes are a fairly modern invention. The traditional mooncake is baked, and may be filled with anything from sweetened red-bean paste to combinations of nuts and seeds. In either case, a mooncake mold like the one shown above will be needed if the end result is to look like those found in Chinese bakeries. They are most often offered for sale during the Moon Festival in autumn, but may be available at other times as well. Once I have all the ingredients in hand, my first attempt will be custard-filled snowy mooncakes. The YouTube videos make it look easy. Famous last words, right?

Sprout Farm

Day 116: Insofar as growing produce is concerned, I am a notorious failure. I can grow beautiful flowers and don't do too badly with berries, but vegetable science eludes me. However, as with most rules, there is an exception: alfalfa sprouts. I've been hankering for Chinese food, and of course because of the pandemic, I won't go in a restaurant or even order take-out, so the obvious solution is to make my own. YouTube has been remarkably instructive in this regard, although I began my search for recipes with a small degree of experience in my background, hence the presence of sprouter trays in the back of a kitchen cupboard. It's been at least fifteen years (probably twenty) since I used them, and while I could have made do with a Mason jar and a piece of screen wire, the trays are much easier to use. The seeds are spread on the perforated tray with sufficient water in the lower level to just moisten them. The water should be changed out every day to prevent molding, but within five or six days, your alfalfa sprouts should be ready to use. They can go on salads, in spring rolls or stir-fries. Sometimes, I just pinch up a few and eat them straight.

I'll Take A Bao

Day 114: Permit me to take a bao. I have just made a dozen utterly delicious pork steamed buns using a recipe I found on YouTube made by Mandy of "Souped Up Recipes." Out of respect for her generously-provided, clear instruction, I will direct you to look her up rather than repeating the recipe here. She has dozens of videos on Chinese cooking.

Bao (steamed buns) sounded fairly daunting, but I wanted to try it and I hoped my familiarity with various types of dough would give me a leg up. As it was, the pastry turned out drier than anticipated, probably due to the fact that I was using bread flour rather than all-purpose. I added a little more water to compensate. The amount of yeast suggested in the ingredients list had me a little worried, but as it turned out, a teaspoonful was plenty, despite other YouTube versions calling for as much as a tablespoon plus other leavening agents. For my filling, I did not follow Mandy's recipe exactly. I used pork sausage for two reasons: it's what I had on hand, and it's what I usually use to stuff wontons. Fillings for bao can be as creative as you'd like, and they do not have to include meat if you're vegetarian. Use sprouts, bok choy, carrots, peas, water chestnuts and spice them to your individual taste. My steamer would only accommodate three buns on each of two levels, so I cooked them in two batches. These are BIG bao! Two are easily enough for a dinner, and they can be frozen and re-steamed. Oh, I probably should add that I practiced pleating bao using a circle of fabric until I was confident I could make a presentable spiral. Honestly, that's the hardest part of making this Chinese treat.

Xiao Long Bao

Day 98: Yesterday, a much-anticipated large box arrived on my doorstep in a light dry-ice mist: soup dumplings, "Chinese street food" per the label, a gift from my sister-of-the-heart Mousie. All plans for what I was originally intending to eat for dinner went out the window. I simply had to try these right off the mark! And nothing would do but that they should be presented for my dining pleasure in the proper setting, so I climbed up on a chair and pulled my Chinese tableware down from the highest shelf. To prepare the flash-frozen xiao long bao, I lined my aluminum steamer rack with parchment paper and arranged five dumplings with appropriate space between them. After the water had reached the boiling point, I placed the rack inside the pan and steamed them for 11 minutes as directed. Now because a soup dumpling has the soup on the inside, they're a little tricky to eat. You don't just pop one in your mouth, because the soup is quite hot. One method is to open the dumpling with chopsticks. The alternative way is to bite off the top of the cute little twist. In either case, the soup can then be slurped out or poured out into the spoon or a bowl (I did the latter), and then the dumpling itself can be consumed in one or two bites. They were absolutely delicious! Although I don't aspire to making xiao long bao myself, other bao recipes are easier to make from scratch, and at some point in the near future, I'll be giving that a try.

Celebratory Dinner

Day 164: Tonight, I am celebrating. After dinner last evening, I hopped on the exercise bike and put in my last three miles for the day, a figure which put me over the team goal of 1200 miles by one mile. I have a colleague to thank for inspiring me to complete the whole "trail" on which the challenge was based. Early on when she saw the mileage I was recording, she asked, "Gee, Crow, are you going to do the whole trail all by yourself?" I eyeballed the mileage, balanced it against the days remaining and said to myself, "Y'know, I might-maybe just could do that!"

The exercise required for the challenge is based in aerobic equivalents. To accrue the equivalent of one aerobic walking mile, the participant must put in a certain number of minutes at a specific exertion level. For example, here toward the end, I've cranked up the resistance on the bike to the point that 13 minutes equals one mile of walking. When I started, I was riding 16-minute miles. On the other hand, odometer miles will be significantly higher. Sixty-five minutes of riding the bike may read out that I've travelled 18 "road miles," but in fact only has a value of five miles (5 x 13 = 65).

So here I am, 10 weeks and 1200 miles later, and I've lost nine pounds. I feel better than I've felt in 25 years. My energy level is up, as is my endurance and strength. I'm tearing up hills which would have had me gasping last fall, sprinting up them like they aren't even there. My uniform fits comfortably now (never mind that I've worn the soles off two pair of boots). Our team was the second to complete the trail in all of the participating parks, and the first in Mount Rainier. We still have two weeks to go, and I'm not stopping now! I plan to put in somewhat shorter days between now and the end of the month (maybe only 20 miles instead of 25-27), and then in April, I'll switch over to a "maintenance routine," augmented by my regular hiking and kayaking activities.