What I learned today

[Jenise]

Yesterday I learned that setting out frozen pot stickers in a pan and leaving them there to thaw rather than starting from frozen is a great prep method. The tops dry out, so that once taken thru the usual steps (brown, add water, cook off water) the upper part stays a little chewy. I love that.

For me that chewy texture is a big part of the joy of pot stickers. I always thaw frozen ones before cooking them. The downside is you have to beware of them sticking to the surface you're using for defrosting.

A lot of the Chinese restaurants around here brown the tops of pot stickers as well as the bottom. I don't like that.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I put a layer of cooking spray in the skillet I intended cooking them in, then placed them in upright position to thaw so they never had to be moved until removed for service. I love that chewy texture, and I agree wouldn't like them browned anywhere but the bottoms. If it came to all over or nothing, then I'd go with full steaming (nothing).

Jiaozi are good boiled as well as steamed--both best served with a dipping sauce. Guotie (pot sticker) is the third way to make them. It's pretty clear that pot stickers originated when a potful of jiaozi boiled dry and the dumplings partly browned or burned. Legend of course has it that this occurred in the imperial kitchen.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Jiaozi are good boiled as well as steamed--both best served with a dipping sauce. Guotie (pot sticker) is the third way to make them. It's pretty clear that pot stickers originated when a potful of jiaozi boiled dry and the dumplings partly browned or burned. Legend of course has it that this occurred in the imperial kitchen.

-Paul W.

Good theory. I just know that when I've cooked them from frozen, there's always one or two that don't get entirely immersed so they're chewier. I've learned I like those best, so this was my attempt to achieve that for all in the pan; and I did!

[Jenise]

Made bangers and mash for dinner last night in an hommage to Lilibet. What I love and do is a heretic version--no brown onion gravy, but thinly sliced sweet onions tamed in vinegar, then drained and rinsed and redressed with vinegar, water, salt and oil, and augmented for color with parsley and tiny dice of bell pepper if available. The sausage are slashed on the diagonal but not cut all the way thru so that they bend and drape over the mound of potatoes, then this wet onion mix is spooned over the top. Very light and clean--you might call it California style. We absolutely love it. And I'm able to get real Brit sausage in Canada so keep some in the freezer at all times.

Tonight, with a nice claret, we'll have small filet mignons in a mushroom-brandy sauce. Not sure what else will go with that.

Today I learned that it makes a difference to the color of the meat if you slaughter a pig while it's exhaling vs. inhaling (at around the 40-second mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c77tWTcgGgQ&t=508s.) From one of my favorite YT cooking channels; no extraneous crap, no handholding 3-minute long explanations of how to peel an onion, just direct instruction with hints and tips only when needed. I've really upped my Chinese food game since watching Chef Wang, particularly his in-studio vids. The only downside is I can't source a lot of the ingredients he mentions. But the technique instruction is always solid.

And I've got a bridge to sell that uncle. If he likes, I can offer a six-pack.

[Jenise]

Tom, did he instruct you on how to catch the pig in the first place?

He has posted butchering videos, but as for collaring them in the first place...hmmmm...gotta check

[Jenise]

That's some stove he has. I've never seen one like it, with the constant stream of hot water but I can see where that would be major important in Chinese cooking.

Yeah, I see those running water stoves all the time in the open kitchen Chinese take-out places around here. It's cold water btw, and that apparently important. Chef Wang actually did a whole video a while back about the feature, as a number of people had written comments about how wasteful it was. His explanation was pretty interesting, and made a lot of sense once I heard it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTSsXQ-9bnQ

What I learned this week was to STOP printing out recipes. I have two large binders full of tried and true, mostly marked excellent, of recipes, plus a family recipe binder, plus a lovely cabinet I had built in my kitchen for cookbooks. I print out piles of recipes that I think I will make but I would have to increase my family by 10 at least to cook all of them in my lifetime.. So I had a long hard talk with myself and yesterday I got out my Ina Garten books and today I am starting a new hobby of cooking my tried and true, and exploring my cookbooks.

[Jenise]

Karen, I feel you. I do occasionally take a book out of my bookcase and target several recipes to try. I want to get use out of them, and I also want to keep what I do varied and fresh because it's so easy to get into a rut and just do things the same old way.

But I have sympathy for the Old Karen: even with my very favorite cookbooks, after I've done everything once then there are only a handful of recipes I go back to. I'm always going to Google with an ingredient that I'm craving or something nice I saw at the store/market, e.g., "recipe butternut sesame", "recipe guinea hen apple". Sure, you get back a bunch of stupid results but you also get a couple interesting ideas stirred in. Then it's on me to tailor it to suit.

I have a huge collection of cookbooks and theses days rarely use them unfortunately. It is so easy to consult chef gooogle and pop the tablet on the bench. I do,when I think of it, go online to ‘eat my boooks’ where I can interrogate the indices of my collection to find references for appropriate recipes, then retrieve the book/s. It is nice to then flip through and get sidetracked
Actually, yesterday I pulled a bunch of stuff from the shelves and did a flick and sort and put them aside to move on. They are just magazine style volumes from Vogue and Women’s Weekly so very dated. It’s a start. I will need to move house down the track and want to disperse things in the best way possible so clearing out anything I have no interest in is a good thing.

I have a beautiful Staub red enameled cast iron pan. I have taken good care of it until this week. I cooked a sirloin tip tender which had been marinated in balsamic, honey, soy. My heat was only on medium, cooked just a few minutes on each side. Between the balsamic and the honey, an ugly black crust was left on part of the pan. I soaked in Dawn and water overnight, and scrubbed but not much came off. I used a plastic spatula tip to scrap and that worked better.
My next step is to make a white vinegar and water solution and boil for a few minutes. I am so upset with myself, I should have known better. However, I did read that it is perfectly normal for this to happen on a Staub cast iron pan....it just takes a lot of scrubbing. Never again.......

I have a heavy-gauge copper skillet that got a coating like that from some oil spillover when I was frying pappadums. With a lot of soaking in soapy water and patience, that hard carbon coating starts to flake off. You just have to be more stubborn than the carbon deposit..

-Paul W.

As a car nut I used to keep a sand blasting booth in my shop. I bought a few venerable cast iron pieces and simply sand blasted the finish off the inside, and then reseasoned them carefully - worked a treat and renewed a pan/pot that had a hard life.

I bought a beautiful little non-stick pan -- I like the size for scrambling an egg or toasting spices, tasks like that -- made of some wacky material I cannot even begin to guess at. Anyway, of course, first or second use I tipped it to serve, grease ran down the outside and blackened into place. Cannot budge it. Pan is fine but has a, um, er, beauty mark.

I took Paul's suggestion and was persistent. Did the vinegar and water boil and that did not do much. So again, moved on to the Bar Keepers Friend, wet the pan, sprinkled it onto the wet bottom, and let it sit for a few hours, then went to work with a No Scratch scrubbing sponge. Took about thirty minutes of scrubbing, and I got it all out with no damage to my pan. Whew, that was a relief.

After my fiasco with my Staub pan and cooking a marinated sirloin tip tender, and spending way too much time on cleanup, I tried a different pan for my last tender I wanted to make a couple of tacos with. I have a large Tramontina, non-stick pan. Nothing sticks to it, so I cooked the last tender last night...WOW, it cooked up beautifully, did not stick. Now I know when I do anything with balsamic, or honey to use that pan.

[Jenise]

I don't even know the brand Tramontina, will check that out.

I don't even know the brand Tramontina, will check that out.

Tramontina is a good Italian brand. I have two Tramontina enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens. I love them. If you can't afford Le Cruet, these are the ones to buy. They also make other cookware.