Make Your Own Take Out vol. 2

How do you stretch 1/2 pound of ground pork to feed 6 people? Easy! Make Potstickers!

I'm not sure whether to say that potstickers are convenience foods or that they are labor intensive. In a way, they are both. They are a food that if you invest time in preparing, you will have a convenient Asian meal another time. Here's what you need:

1/2 lb ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
2 tbsp finely chopped red bell pepper
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp ketchup
1 tsp yellow mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
35-50 small wonton wrappers (1 package will be a little more than you need)
a little cup with water in it

and later on when you cook them:
3-4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/3 cup chicken stock for every 6 or 7 potstickers you plan to cook

You could season the pork any way you want. I'm not crazy about worchetershire sauce, so I usually substitue with soy sauce.

Assembling the potstickers is the labor intensive part. If you grew up shelling peas, you might find this relaxing! I can wrap up 1/2 lb worth in about 45 minutes.

Mix up the ingredients (pork thru cayenne pepper) in a bowl, then set up a work area including these elements:
1 plate with wonton wrappers on it, cover with a damp paper towel
1 empty plate (the assembly platform)
bowl with pork mix in it
little cup with water
teaspoon sized measuring spoon
2 cookie sheets - lined with parchment

Take one wonton wrapper and put it on the assembly plate so that it looks like a diamond, scoop up a modest teaspoonful of the filling and place it directly in the middle. Dip your finger in the water and dampen just the edges of the bottom half of the diamond. Fold the wrapper over and work the air out (important!!!) of the potsticker sealing it where you put the water.

You could leave it like that, but that leaves two big "ears" that have no filling in them, I fold them a 2nd time like this (left picture is front view, right is back):



Place each potsticker on the cookie sheet. When the sheet is full, put the whole thing in the freezer. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Once these little guys have been in the freezer half an hour or so, you can dump them into a zip top bag and keep them in your freezer. When you want to eat them, you can just take out however many you need - 6 is good for me, 10 leaves me feeling overstuffed. (Note: There is no need to defrost.)

To cook these you heat up (med-high) a pan that is NOT non-stick - sticking is part of the cooking process here. I use a back burner to heat up my chicken stock. Use a pastry brush to "paint" the pan with oil. When it's hot, put the potstickers in and wait 2 minutes. In 2 minutes they will be totally stuck to the pan. Reduce heat to low and pour in 1/3 cup chicken stock - it will hiss and steam a lot! Put on a tight lid and cook 2 more minutes. After 2 minutes, they should let go - remove to warm plate.

Before cooking the next batch, reheat the pan, add water and scrape off any "stuff" that gets left behind. Each batch takes about 6 minutes including cleaning.

Serve with whatever sauce you want (I like hoisin) and some egg rolls (Chung's is the best, IMHO). With homemade Asian cuisine this easy and cheap, you might never go our for Chinese food again!

According to the Joy of Cooking cookbook, this is also the most authentic stir frying method for vegetables. I've tried this and the result is crisper than just stiring it until it seems done.

Recipe by Alton Brown

Make Your Own Take Out vol. 1

Hope no one is going hungry for lack of meal plans! I'll be posting a new one soon.

For Christmas, Rob's parents gave me Rachel Ray's new cookbook Express Lane Meals. I've already made 4 recipes from it. We ate this one last night:

Sweet Soy-Glazed Chicken with Carrot-Sesame Noodles

Whew, well all of her recipes have "Titles"! It is really good! Actually I've tried several Asian themed recipes in the last year that I plan to post, this is the first of the series.

Don't be too overwhelmed by the ingredient list - there are a lot!

Salt
1 lb long cut pasta - spaghetti, vermicelli, whatever
1/4 cup tamari, plus 1 tbsp
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup chicken stock, plus 1/4 cup
The Juice of one Lime
4 large garlic cloves - 1 crushed, 3 chopped
3 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated or chopped
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus some for drizzling
1 large onion, chopped
5 or 6 carrots, peeled and shredded
black pepper
3 big chicken breast or 6 cutlets
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup each fresh chopped cilantro, basil, and parsley

While cooking the pasta, preheat a grill (I used George Forman), and make the soy glaze by combining 1/4 c. of the tamari, the brown sugar, 1/4 cup of chicken stock, the lime juice, crushed garlic, 1/4 of the ginger, and the red pepper flakes. Simmer in a small pan over medium-high heat and cook for about 4 minutes. Set aside.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, add 2 tbsp of oil, then carrots, onion, chopped garlic, remaining ginger, and a little salt and pepper; cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, season the chicken with pepper, drizzle it with oil and slap it on the grill. Cook it for a couple of minutes to get "grill marks" then brush it with the soy glaze several times throughout the cooking. When it's done move it to a plate, tent it with foil and let it rest.

Back with the carrots - add the rest of the chicken stock and tamari and bring it to a boil for 1 minute. Add the drained pasta, stir and let cook about 30 more seconds. Kill the heat, sprinkle with sesame seed and herbs. Stir it up well, slice the chicken on the bias, top the noodles with the chicken and voila!



Caleb says, "It's finger lickin' good!"

By the way, Tamari is a special kind of soy sauce. Regular soy sauce is cheaper, but tamari tastes better to me! It's not that expensive, so I'd rather use it.