Kitchen Chick

Paella — a hint of more to come...

Above: Paella about to go into the oven.  (Click for a larger image, as always.)

A year ago, Joe and I were getting ready to leave for our trip to Spain and Morocco. (and I swear I will be posting about Morocco. I think the one year anniversary is a good time to finally get around to it) Anyway... we oddly did not eat much paella in Spain. I think we had some at a couple tapas bars. But we did not sit down at a restaurant specializing in paella and stuff ourselves silly.

Last weekend, I fixed that oversight by making my first paella. I made a "tourist's paella" of mixed meat and seafood, with chicken, pork, Spanish chorizo, tilapia, squid, and mussels using a recipe from Penelope Casas's Paella! cookbook. I served this up to a group of friends and was incredibly pleased when one of them said "The seafood and meat are good, but the rice is fantastic."

Hooray! They get it. They get what paella is about!

And yeah was that rice delicious. I used arborio rice as the closest substitute I had on hand for the Spanish rice. Flavored very simply with Spanish smoked paprika, saffron, chicken broth, salt, and of course the juices and flavors from the seafood and meat.

Sadly I did not achieve the magical bottom crust. Obviously I must practice more. (Oh, the hardship!) I am going to hold off posting paella recipes until I know how to make that crust.

Below: at a later stage -- you can see a lot of the liquid has been soaked up -- with the chicken and mussels added...

Waffle Toast!

Joe says to me, "We have that stale brioche. I bet it'd make fantastic French toast."

And it would. No betting about it.

But I didn't really want French toast. I was thinking that buttermilk waffles sounded better. Fresh, hot, with melting butter and syrup pooling in the little squares. Sadly, we were (still are!) out of buttermilk, but that sadness didn't last because being buttermilk-less lead me to the idea of "waffling" the brioche.

"Waffling the brioche?" Joe was intrigued.

Let me just say if you have a waffle iron and some stale brioche, I can think of nothing more fun to do than reforming your brioche into a crispy waffle grid.  And you know what?  It's really good!

Waffle Toast!

Soak slices of stale brioche (or other bread) in an egg and milk mixture until thoroughly soaked, just like for French toast. Heat waffle iron. Carefully place slices in the iron. You may need to use a spatula to keep the slices from falling apart during the transfer. Cook in the waffle iron until brown and crispy (but not dry!). I pressed on the waffle iron lid to make sure that the bread was well imprinted with the waffle grid. Serve with butter and maple syrup.

We used Zingerman's brioche, which by the way is awesome, even if we somehow didn't manage to finish it before part of it got stale.  You can use whatever sounds good...

Chia Shiang — Photo Essay

Pan-fried pork dumplings made from scratch at Chia Shiang

For many years Chia Shiang has been the Chinese restaurant of choice for local vegetarians with their wide range of soy and wheat gluten faux-meat dishes, as well as being one of a couple that serve Malaysian dishes. They have since expanded their restaurant to cover Shanghai and Sichuan dishes, and now seem to be the place to go for the local mainland Chinese community. We discovered this when I asked a co-worker from Beijing where I could find the best Sichuan food in Ann Arbor, unknown to me Joe was reading about Chia Shiang on the Ann Arbor Food email list. (I'm on the list, but I am woefully slow at checking my email.) So in one of those odd moments, we both suggested the place for dinner on the same night. When we got there, a large wedding reception was in full swing, complete with wedding toasts in Mandarin.

I recommend starting at the back of the menu and working forward — many of their most interesting and authentic dishes are in the last half of their extensive menu.  They've got all the standards up front, as well as the meatless and Malaysian items, but we've been enjoying exploring the latter half of the menu.

Get there before noon on Sunday and you may get a chance to try the above fabulous dumplings or "soup" or sticky rice dumplings in the following photos.  (REMEMBER: you can click on any of these images to get a larger and tastier version!)

Xiao Long Bao!  Pork and crab stuffed "Soup" dumplings — a burst of broth in every dumpling, so watch out! We advise letting them cool a bit.  They definitely make these on the premises, because we've gotten to watch...

Shanghai-style vegetable salad with the gluten meat substitute. A bit sweet and a bit spicy. Served cold.

Chicken with chestnuts — Chinese bbq sauce-like flavor with whole roasted chestnuts. (Not water chestnuts, chestnuts as in "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...")  Remember to order this without bones, unless you're culturally Chinese enough to enjoy disarming small pieces of chicken with tiny bones — in your mouth.

Boiled fish in Sichuan sauce. Mmmm... spicy goodness. Chunks of fish with lettuce in a spicy sauce made with chili bean paste and Sichuan peppercorns.  This is large — that's a full-size serving spoon in there.  This dish is an obsession with us. We had it first in China, then at Chung King in San Gabriel, CA. You can find versions of this dish also on TK Wu's and Middle Kingdom's menus, and similar recipes for cooking it at home in Land of Plenty.

More photos in the extended post...

Chili/Chowder Cookoff

Joe and I often do things on a whim. After our morning walk, my friend Patti and I met up with Joe at everyday lunch for — what else — lunch. That evening everyday lunch would be hosting their Chili and Chowder Cookoff fundraiser for Think Local First. We got swept up in the general enthusiasm — Patti was volunteering, and chefs Chewy and Brendan were cooking up their own entry — and Joe and I both knew where we'd be eating dinner.

There was a catch, of course. We had tickets to the UM Department of Theatre & Drama's performance of Shaw's You Never Can Tell, which meant we'd need to watch the clock so we'd have enough time to get to the theater. And, of course, since we'd be a bit dressed up (I like dressing up for the theater), we'd have to be extra careful to not spill chili on ourselves. So it was that I tottered around in my heels with a heavy camera and flash slung around my shoulders, trying to balance a small paper "bowl", a spoon, a score sheet, a pencil, and a wine glass.

(Really, wouldn't we have all been better off with four arms and hands? Just think! You could play your own piano duets. Or cook twice as much, twice as fast!)

And Joe and I had a grand time, running into old friends and meeting new people. And in spite of my insufficient number of hands, I still managed to stuff myself with chili and chowder. Seven chowder entrants and eight chilis, all of them different. Smoked haddock, applewood smoked clam, basil-flavored, and a nice rich traditional New England chowder, a just corn chowder, etc. On the chili side there were two chicken chilis, an assortment of different beef and bean chilis, including an espresso beer flavored one, ox tail, and even a vegan chili. I managed to try most of them, but sadly I missed a few. Our only regret was that we had to leave before we were ready to go. We're looking forward to next year's Chili & Chowder Cookoff.

NOTE: If any of the entrants reading this actually have recipes for their entries (which I realize is a long shot), please post them. I might try to make one or two later and do a full post on it.

In Second Place:

2nd Place Chili winner Jane, daughter of fellow food blogger Mom's Kitchen, with her Spring Chili. The homemade tomatillo sauce took this chicken chili to the next level.

(2nd Place Chowder went to Laura M. I did not get to sample this one, but I think this was the C.S.I. chowder, which Joe did try and thought was great. If so, it included squid and fish balls, and was orange.)

In First Place:

Chewy (left) serving up his 1st place winning Spanish Bullfighter's chili, and "Most Original" winner Alex (right) with his Wisconsin Chili.

The Spanish Bullfighter's chili was made of ox tail, and was smooth and rich — gourmet chili. Alex's Wisconsin Chili used golden raisins, which contrasted especially well with the cheddar cheese they supplied.

The belles of the evening: Chowder 1st Place Winner Kate, and her sister Courtney who took "Best Overall."

Kate served up her delicious Basilicious Chowder, and Courtney was mobbed by the crowd (Joe, um, had two bowls) for her "Lobster Loves Sweet Potato" Chowder. Their chowders were not only fabulous, but they demonstrated excellent use of garnish that enhanced both the appearance and the flavor.

Wok Hay: The Breath of a Wok

Chiu Chow-Style Pork Spring Moon from The Breath of a Wok

I've been seeing Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok around for several years now, but had always skipped over it. Though I do love a good Hong Kong style meal, when I'm cooking Asian dinners at home my preferences lean toward Sichuan and Hunan (and, of course, the spicy cuisines of Thailand and Korea). I picked it up at a bookstore and was quickly captivated by Grace Young's tale of her quest for "wok culture" and wok hay, that elusive seared taste that can only be achieved in a well-seasoned wok.

Young guides her reader on a trip across China, touring a factory where skilled craftsmen fashion  increasingly hard to find hand-hammered woks, seeking out street vendors with their woks set over portable stoves, visiting a village where an immense communal wok set over a stone hearth is use for everything from boiling soybeans for tofu to water for washing for clothes, and venturing into restaurant kitchens with their high powered wok stoves. (I want one!) All of this is fascinating reading in itself — a mix of cooking tips and culinary travelogue. The home chef will appreciate the detailed descriptions of types of woks, how to season and clean them, and cooking tips for achieving wok hay. Before reading this, I hadn't realized that there was a reason some woks have a single long handle and others have two "ear"-like handles (it's a Northern vs. Southern thing relating to cooking technique), or that there was even such a thing as a cast iron wok (but don't drop them on a hard surface because they'll crack!).

The recipes include both traditional and contemporary ones, including a few influenced by American ingredients. They're adapted from a large group of chefs including Ming Tsai, Martin Yan, Florence Lin, Ken Hom, and a host of other highly skilled professionals, as well as her own family and friends and author Amy Tan. If you're wanting a detailed, authentic exploration of Sichuan or Hunan regional cuisines, I recommend Fuchsia Dunlop. If you want to see a pleasing range of dishes from Northern China down to Hong Kong, with a focus on the more subtly flavored side of Chinese cuisine, and you want to understand the techniques of wok use, The Breath of a Wok is a good place to start. And if you're serious about Chinese cooking, you should have both.

All her recipes call for flat-bottomed woks — probably out of the assumption that most American kitchens are not equipped with a gas stove that can supply the heat needed for a round-bottomed wok. If you're lucky enough — as we are — to have a powerful gas stove with a good wok grate that holds the wok close over the flames, a flat-bottomed wok isn't necessary. (Wok rings that sit on top of your regular grate don't get the wok close enough to the flames.) If you aren't, you can still do this stuff, but you probably will need a flat-bottomed wok. And don't bother with electric woks; they aren't powerful enough and are mostly non-stick, which believe it or not messes up the flavor by preventing the food from caramelizing properly. (Though a brief search suggests that this 1500 Watt one might prove me wrong on the power issue...)

Recipe in the extended post...