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Recipe: chinese egg dumplings (dan jiao)

I’ve spent the better part of the past week getting ready for Chinese New Year, so much so that I nearly forgot about my mammogram and ultrasound from mid-week. I’m not traumatized by these appointments. The medical center I go to has really wonderful staff and technicians. I sandwiched the medical imaging into my busy errands schedule that day. At the end, the techs always walk me to the front desk, shake my hand, give me a card explaining to expect my results in 10-14 days, and wish me good health. For that split moment I wonder about those results. It’s the difference between nothing and everything. And then I strode briskly out the doors, my brain in grocery-hunting mode.

making dumplings

Most of the food is prepped or cooked for the big feast on New Year’s Eve. The house is nearly clean because once the new year arrives, you can’t clean for 2 weeks lest you sweep the luck out. Speaking of luck, it’s tradition to hang the Chinese character for luck (fu) on your front door, upside down (dao). Dao is also a homonym for the verb “to arrive” – so you definitely want luck arriving at your door, at your house.

here’s what fu looks like right-side up

Jeremy and I reached a stopping point in the housework Saturday afternoon and took Kaweah for a walk before the snow storm arrived in the evening. It was ridiculously warm out – 45°F! It felt like spring except for the sun low in the sky. There were patches of bare ground dotting the snow… sad, but not uncommon. What horrified me were the puddles. Liquid water shouldn’t be making an appearance around here until May!

splashy splash!

kaweah is an all-terrain kinda girl

Kaweah had a blast sniffing every.darn.thing.on.the.ground. Back home, a message waited in my in-box from my health care provider. Strange. I wasn’t expecting anything. It was a note from my oncologist that my scans were clean. I grinned. That was only four days ago. And my oncologist is working on a weekend AGAIN (of course – he is amazing). It’s been over four years since my first mammogram did NOT detect my cancer, so I take these negative scans for what they’re worth. I trust my yearly MRIs more. Even so, it’s a really nice way to start the new year.

Every Chinese New Year’s Eve we enjoy a big pot of cellophane noodle soup, a type of hot pot (huo guo) that is different from the more common Chinese hot pot. I make the cellophane noodle soup several times a year, but Chinese New Year’s Eve is the only time I go to the effort of making egg dumplings (dan jiao) to add to the soup. They represent wealth (any dumpling represents wealth).

the filling: ground pork, green onions, black mushrooms, bamboo shoots, ginger, napa cabbage

mincing the ginger

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Recipe: chicken congee

Is everyone back into the groove now? Holidays are over and all of the new calendars are up for 2012. I’m chomping at the bit to get this party started: things to do, places to go, people to see. There’s been more emphasis on the first two, but hopefully I’ll remedy the third one this week. I’ve been getting my physical and digital houses in order here (still not done, not by a long shot). How did the weekend treat you guys? Mine went a little like this:

we started with a nice show at sunrise

it only took me 6 months to get to our new ikea

It’s a bit of a haul from our house to the new (well, new to me) Ikea in Centennial, Colorado – just under 90 minutes. But hey, that’s better than a 9-hour drive to Salt Lake City, Utah. I think of Ikea as the OCD adult amusement park. They even provide sofas, beds, and a restaurant because you’re basically going to be there long enough for your body to require sustenance and rest as you try to find your way out of the store. If it sounds like I hate Ikea, I do not. It’s just that I am occasionally distracted from our seek and destroy shopping mission. Jeremy will have to come and fetch me from the children’s section or he’ll find me standing mesmerized in front of the colorful lamps and lights. And if the “we’re only going to be there for an hour or two”-trip-turned-7-hour-adventure wasn’t enough, you get to spend as much time assembling everything when you get home. But now we have clever Swedish storage for all of our junk!

did i mention it finally snowed? (why yes, we skied it)

and a hot bowl of ramen to warm up après ski

Mmmm noodles. I am a noodle girl. Every now and again I’ll wonder if I’m a rice girl, but no – I am true to the noodle. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my rice. Now that we’re acting like winter again, it’s the perfect time to be making congee, jook, or xi fan – Chinese rice porridge. I like my mom’s chicken congee.

start with short grain rice

My parents used to make congee on the weekends for breakfast when I was growing up. It is a savory porridge which might explain why I have never been a huge fan of sweet breakfasts. In college, I’d make the basic rice porridge when I wasn’t feeling well because it was neutral and settled my stomach. These days I make my mom’s chicken congee because I love the ginger. I called them up last week to verify the recipe in my head with the recipe in their heads.

rice, chicken, ginger, green onions

i like to make my own chicken broth in my pressure cooker

Mom is so cute when I tell her I have a question about a recipe. She’s eager to help out and to make sure I do it right. Thing is, when they see that it’s me calling, they put me on speaker phone. So as soon as Mom starts to share her method, Dad butts in and says, “Let me tell you how to do it the right way…” See, Dad is just as eager to explain how he does it. It happens practically every time and I try my hardest not to laugh, but it’s really entertaining and a little insane to get a recipe from them. Most of my recipes are a marriage of the two versions and I think that’s a good thing. Whenever I eat these family foods, I feel a little tug in my heart.

wash the rice

add water to the rice and cook until mushy

add chicken broth when the porridge is thick

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Recipe: chinese char siu bao (barbecue pork buns)

Fork. Stick it to me. I am done. Done with the frenzied holiday baking schedule! And just in case you might be racking your brain for a few ideas, I wanted to share some of the other items we tucked into the gift bags for Jeremy’s wonderful staff. Supporting local businesses is pretty easy if you live in Boulder. We make a point of going to Savory Spice Shop on Pearl Street for creative and beautiful gifts. This store is perfect if you are looking for a variety of little items which you can taste to help you decide. They have something to suit cooks, non-cooks, and unknowns. You can also mail-order from them.

cute little jars of two kinds of cheese sprinkles

Just a few blocks east, we stopped by Atlas Purveyors so Jeremy could grab a latte (shopping makes him drowsy like… instantly) and pick a loose tea from their impressive selection. He went with the Carrington Blend of black tea, lemongrass, orange peel, eucalyptus, and wildflowers.

citrus and floral

Of course, we had to drop a mini bar of Chocolove into each bag. They’re local, make terrific chocolates, have love poems inside the wrappers, and are all around Boulderlicious.

A few weeks ago I made a double batch of char siu pork and I’m sure some of you knew where that double batch was headed (I mean, besides mah belleh). I love char siu pork, but what I really, truly, deeply love are the steamed Chinese barbecue pork buns, char siu bao.

the revered bao

I made one filling, but tried two different doughs because I didn’t care for the first dough. The first dough was cakey and sweeter than I’m used to, although it could very well be my elevation. The second dough was spot on to what I was looking for – a yeast-based dough that is delicate, elastic, fluffy, and less sweet. Let’s start with the filling.

it’s a lot of stuff, but comes together lickity split

dice the char siu pork

everything diced, measured, and ready to go

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