Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Category: Cooking

Cooking

Savory Version Naan – WOW!

If you have read and tried my basic version naan bread recipe, you will know that basic version is quite universal. You can use it for flat breads, pizzas, tortas, dessert breads by spreading jam and fruit on top.  But I made a savory version the other day, because I also made brisket. I wanted to make a savory version, open it up like a pocket and stick sliced tender brisket and some juices inside.. Mmmm!

 

The steps are exactly the same. All I did was adding more savory ingredients into the dough:

1 bunch of green onions, thinly sliced

2 tbsp of ground Sichuan pepper corn (you can get these in any Asian market, but if you don’t have access to these, regular freshly ground pepper will do)

2 tbsp of sesame seeds (I personally prefer black seeds in this recipe, but I only had white on hand, so those did the trick)

1 tsp additional salt than basic naan bread recipe

I mixed these additional ingredients into the dough, and let the mixture do all the work for me. This way, all the additional flavors will be evenly distributed in the dough, and I would not have certain bites have strong flavors and certain bites are bland.

 

 

After cleaning up my mess, and made sure everything I could wash was washed. I really can’t stand the sink is full of dirty dishes.

 

After letting the dough rise, I cooked these breads in the dry pan, same as regular naan recipe. I made these a bit thicker because I was planning to cut a pocket into the middle. WOW. I would eat these just by themselves!

Cooking

Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

I made this one today, totally by accident. But let me tell ya, I am making this Chocolate Cheesecake Pie from now on! Best part? There is no guilt! Notice, I did not add a single granule of sugar! When we tried it, it tasted seriously, restaurant quality. All I needed was some coco powder dusting or shaved chocolate on top for presentation. I may also add some orange zest into the cheesecake mixture.

To tell you the truth, I was making a cheesecake, but after I softened and dumped my cream cheese into the bowl, I realized I was out of one of the key ingredients – sweetened condensed milk. What?! How did this happen? I always have some on hand! But oh well, what can I do at this point? I already leaked out the excitement to the kids that we are having a cheesecake! I was searching my pantry for inspiration, what can I used that may mimic the thick texture of sweetened condensed milk, and gives amazing flavor? Then my eyes gazed on the white mini chocolate chips. I had some left overs from making cake pops for my daughter’s birthday party. That’s it! Here is what I did.  A hint: this is a no bake cheesecake pie! How much easier can that be?

 

Ingredients:

2 packages of cream cheese, softened (either leave the cream cheese on the counter for at least 2 hours in the packaging, or simply follow the instructions printed inside the box, you didn’t know there was instruction there, did you? Took me years to realize that too!)

1 cup of mini white chocolate chips, or  baking chocolate, cut into small pieces (a lot easier to melt)

1/4 cup of unsweetened coco powder

1 store-bought pie crust

 

Method:

I already dumped the 2 packages of cream cheese into a medium size mixing bowl. I melted white mini chocolate chips in another glass bowl in the microwave. 45 seconds on high to start out with, stir, added 30 seconds more, that did all the trick. Or you can melt your chocolate chips in double boiler. Again, I didn’t feel like using the stove and another pot. Now, if I didn’t dump out the cream cheese earlier, I would add my softened cream cheese into my chocolate mixture at this point to save another bowl.

I mixed the cream cheese and chocolate with a large spoon. Don’t use a whisk, the cream cheese will get stick in the middle of the  whisk and that doesn’t really help. Once chocolate and cream cheese is mixed together, I added the coco powder. Slowly press the coco powder into the cream cheese mixture using the back of the spoon. If you try to stir, chances are, you will make a huge mess with the coco powder. The mixture will feel a bit too dry at first, but it will loosen up a bit as the coco powders are incorporated.

Simply remove the plastic cover from the pie crust, pour the chocolate cream cheese mixture into the pie crust. Using the back of the same spoon, even out the top of the cheese mixture. I don’t know any kid doesn’t like chocolate, or cheesecake, or pie… I had a little helper, really a little taster. She was also playing with a spatula, and had tons of fun tasting the cheesecake pie.

 

After smoothing out the top, doesn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t fee like adding extra bells and whistles to this one, I put the lid back on and stuck the pie in the fridge to let it set  a bit.

 

If you want to go fancy, shave some chocolate shavings and sprinkle on top, or you can arrange marsh mellows on top, and quickly torch it before serving, it would be a s’more version! The alteration is endless!

Have fun making this one! Everyone would love it!

 

 

 

Cooking

Naan Bread

If you know me, I am a giant carb sucker. I really can’t say no to any kind of carbs, rice, noodles, pasta, breads, you name it, I love it. I also have this passion for cooking. Except for growing my own rice, I have made pasta, baked my own breads, pizza dough and all. Today I tackled naan bread. I have to say this first, I really haven’t learned how to make naan bread from my Indian friends, so I can’t really claim this is authentic. If you have constructive criticism or suggestion, please leave a comment below or contact me, I’d love to hear from you.

It’s been a while since I used my trusty Kitchen Aid mixture. I immediately wondered how did I let this happen. Fast forward to after I tasted this naan bread, I told myself, this mixture is staying on my counter tonight, cause I am gonna make more tomorrow.

Here is how I made it:

 

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons of active dry yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar

1/2 cup of luke warm water

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup of plain yogurt

3 cups of flour, may need up to 1/2 cup more depends on your location

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Tomorrow, I am going to throw in 1/4 cup of finely chopped green onion, and additional 1/4 cup of vegetable oil for brushing

I made 7 naan breads out of all the above today, but only the 5th one started staying on the plate. The first 4 never really made it to the plate for more than 1 minute. It’s not just me, I promise.

Method:

Add sugar and active dry yeast into luke warm water in a large bowl, mix and set aside. Attach dough hook on the mixer. Put about 2 1/2 cups of flour into mixer bowl, add in salt, turn on the mixer to combine flour and salt. Yeast does not like salt. Once the yeast water is bubbly, crack in the egg, add in oil and yogurt. Mix until it’s combined. Slowly add liquid mixture into flour mixture, with the mixer on low speed. My kids loved watching the dough come together and being pulled away from the sides of the bowl. This takes a few minutes. You can walk away, or clean up the yeast water bowl. If the dough seems too wet and the bottom of the mixing bowl never really gets clean, gradually add in some more flour. Don’t worry, the dough hook will be able to thoroughly mix the dough.

Once the dough ball is able to pull from the sides and bottom of the bowl, your dough is ready. Turn off the mixer, clean the dough off hook. quickly knead the dough on a lightly floured surface to shape a smooth ball. I threw mine back into the mixing bowl, covered the top of the bowl with a dry clean kitchen towel and left it next to the stove. I had something cooking at that time, so this is the warm place in my kitchen at that time. I moved on to play with the kids, clean up the kitchen, made iced tea, and who knows what else.. about an hour later, I came back to check on my dough, it puffed up and doubled in size. Kids went crazy wanting to punch the dough for me. The dough was soft but not sticky, exactly how I wanted it. I took the dough out kneaded it quickly on the lightly floured surface to shape it into a ball again.

Heat up a dry pan on the stove on medium heat. I teared off a piece of dough, about fist size. My daughter – my sous chef for the hour – was in charge of rolling the dough into about 1/2 inch disc. She also poked some dough, after it was rolled out, made her focaccia version.

Lay the flattened out dough into the center of the dry pan. You should hear instant sizzle from the pan. Leave the dough alone for a couple minutes. You will see some bubbles forming on the top of the dough, sort of like heating up a tortilla. Flip the dough when the bottom if golden and cook the other side. The bread will puff up a bit during the cooking process. This means the inside of the bread is soft and fluffy!

In a couple of minutes, the bread is ready to be plated. Like I said, the first 4 pieces were gone instantly. I didn’t get to try it till the 5th piece. Even though it was the first time I made it, and really effortlessly, my kids were impressed, so were my parents! I am making these again tomorrow with my awesome brisket. Can’t wait!

 

Cooking

Chicken and 40 Cloves – my way

If you have never tried this recipe, you are missing out, unless you are a hard-core vegetarian. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe, and gave it a twist, well, pretty much every time I made it. Chances are, I would never really duplicate any of the times I made it, but, surprisingly, every twist I threw in, made the dish tasted equally amazing.  Hint, that’s my way of saying, you really can’t mess it up!

Ingredients:

40 cloves of garlic, peeled. Honestly, I never really counted, but a good 4, 5 handful of garlic. If you don’t feel like sitting at dinner table peeling garlic for an hour (which is quite therapeutic by the way), most grocery stores sell these already peeled in a bag, this cuts your prep time drastically.

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces. Or, you do what I do, buy a package of drum sticks, or skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs. You can ask your butcher to cut these into smaller chunks, like 1-inch pieces, or use them whole. Either way it works beautifully. If you use whole thigh, or drum sticks, you can always score the skin and meat a bit, using a sharp pairing knife. This allows the flavor to penetrate into the meat and also speeds up the cooking process. If you are using drum sticks or thighs, I’d estimate 3 drum sticks per person, or 2 thighs per person. It may sound like a lot, but you will be surprised how delicious this dish is, and wish you made more.

1 cup low sodium soy sauce, for flavor. You can use dark soy sauce, but your chicken will come out much darker, and be sure to lower your heat for cooking. Dark soy tends to burn a bit quicker.

1 cup fresh basil leaves. I used sweet Italian basil, Thai basil, a mixture of both, all works. Depends on what you have on hand – this is one of my twist, and I LOVE the aroma basil leaves add to the dish.

1 inch of ginger root, no need to peel, you won’t eat it anyway. Just slice the root, don’t even need to be paper-thin, the cooking process will release all the goodness of ginger.

1 cup chicken stock. Or, do what I do, use a cup of water and a chicken bouillon cube and call it a day. Seriously, what am I going to do with the rest of the stock? And nowadays, who has the time and patience to freeze stock in ice-cube trays?

You will need a heavy bottom pan with lid, the best is a dutch oven. They are my favorite in my kitchen. I swear I have like 5 of these, different sizes and colors, and I use them all. I think they help me feel better on the days I don’t do any exercise just by taking these out, washing them and putting them away. That, my friend, is intensive upper body workout!

2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish, optional. Highly depends on if I have them on hand, and if I totally forget about it at the end. Yes, I do that all the time.

 

Method:

Prepare chicken pieces. Either cut them into smaller chunks, or score the skin and meat with a sharp knife. Put chicken pieces into a large bowl. I use about 1/4 cup of the soy sauce and a couple turns of freshly ground pepper to marinate the chicken. Mix and set aside.

While the chicken is marinating, set aside garlic cloves, slice ginger root, pick and rinse basil leaves, slice green onions. Once you have everything good to go, the rest of the cooking will be a breeze. Heavy bottom pan on medium high heat, go in with a couple of table spoons of mild flavored cooking oil. Let the oil heat up and add ginger. Give it a few seconds and let the ginger smell infuse the oil, go in with chicken pieces. Don’t over crowd the pan. If you really have the patience, put chicken in skin side down to let the chicken get some color and let the skin crisp up. Or, you can go with the lazy way, like I always do, dump the chicken into the pot, spread it out a bit with a spatula and leave it alone for a few minutes. Once the chicken / skin is ready, the chicken will be very easy to be flipped. If you have to really scrape the pan, or pull the skin off the bottom, it’s not ready yet. Be patient.

Turn the chicken to let it cook evenly. Once the chicken is browned on all sides, go in with all the garlic. It may seem awful lot of garlic, but just bear with it. Stir the chicken and garlic around, lower heat to medium. Add remaining soy sauce, chicken stock and basil leaves. Lid on, lower heat to medium low once the liquid is boiling. Let it go for about 10 minutes. Lid off, stir around the chicken a bit. At this point, garlic cloves are soft, but still hold their shape. Some smaller pieces may have melted, that is what makes this dish incredible. If you like the sauce a bit thicker, leave the lid off and cook for a couple more minutes, the sauce will thicken up.

This dish goes beautifully with some roasted vegetables, or a nice crisp mixed green salad. Or, you can add potatoes into this dish, it would be amazing. Serve over steamed white rice, or pasta, or pull the chicken off the bone, serve in a warm tortilla, or eat it as is, mop the sauces with naan bread…

I have not read the recipe since the first time I made it, which was about 2 years ago. That’s why every time I made it, something was different. But I have never messed it up. If you got a bunch garlic cloves and chicken, soy sauce you are good to go.

Give it a try, and let me know what’s your twist.

Cooking

Easy Snow Peas with Garlic Sauce

This is a keeper, I promise. Even my 5-year-old gave me a two thumbs up! It’s a super easy and nutritious dish.

Ingredients:

1 lb snow pea, trimmed and veins on the edges pulled. Snow peas are tenderer than snap peas, they seem slightly sweeter to me as well. This is a great choice for kids. For some reason, kids love to bite into slightly crunchy, sweet snow peas and from time to time, find the smallest and cutest little peas inside.

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced.

Salt, powdered chicken bullion to taste

2 tbsp of corn starch

1/2 cup of water or stock

 

Method:

Pan on medium high heat, add in 1 tbsp mild flavored oil, throw in garlic and move around for 30 seconds. Immediately, your house is going to smell amazing! Add snow peas into pan and about half of the water or chicken stock, lid on lower heat to medium. This allows the liquid to evaporate, hit the lid and comes back down to steam the snow peas gently for about 3 minutes. In the mean time, dissolve corn starch in the remaining liquid, keep the liquid moving just before adding into the pan, otherwise the starch will sink to the bottom. Move the snow peas around, and let the sauces thicken up. It only takes about 20 to 30 seconds. Add salt to taste, and it’s DONE!

 

Cooking

Cold Day Beef Stew

This is one of the easy comfort food recipes. It’s easily prepared, basic techniques, doesn’t require exotic ingredients. Once you are comfortable with the basic method, you can put your own twist on it.

Ingredients:

2 lb beef chuck roast, cubed into 1 inch chunks.  Doesn’t have to be exact on the weight, a bit more or a bit less doesn’t really make much difference in the final product. Chuck roast is a great cut for beef stew, the connected tissues will break down during the cooking process and the meat will be tender and flavorful.

1/4 c plain flour, salt and pepper to taste

2 carrots, peeled and roughly cut into chunks.

3 golden potatoes, scrubbed clean and cut into rough chunks about 1 hours into cooking process. Or you can cut them early and soak in water to prevent browning.

1 large yellow / white / sweet onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1 large sprig of rosemary and 2 sprigs of thyme, perfect aromatic for beef stew. If you don’t have access to fresh herbs, use about 2 tsp of dry herb instead, no biggie

about 3 cups of beef stock, or water (or 1 cup of red wine + 2 cups of stock / water, flavor would be much deeper)

1 tbsp tomato paste

 

Method:

In a large bowl, season beef with salt and pepper, mix to combine. Dust flour onto beef cubes, mix to even coat beef with flour. This will help thicken the sauce in the end. Heat a dutch oven or a heavy bottom stew pot on medium high heat, drizzle about 2 tbsp mild flavored oil until oil is heated up. Drop beef cubes in and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Brown beef cubes in batches if needed, please do not crowd the pan, otherwise the temperature will drop too much and beef won’t be properly browned. Don’t be tempted to move the meat around, just drop the beef in, and let them alone. Once the beef is browned, they will be much easier to be turned. There will be some darker bits at the bottom of the pan, don’t worry about it at all, it’s all good flavor. Put browned beef cubes into a bowl and set aside.

Drop in onions and sweat in the same pot, no need to clean after browning beef! Moisture released by onions will help loosen up the brown bits in the pan, just scrape the bottom of the pan as needed with your spatula or wooden spoon, while moving onions around. After a couple of minutes, add in garlic. Again, no need to finely chop, the long cooking process will break them down for you beautifully. In about 30 seconds, you can smell the aroma of garlic. Add carrots and cook for a couple of minutes. Push the veggies towards one side, add the tomato paste into the open area and let the heat “wake up” the flavor. Move it around with the spoon, and mix with the veggies after about 10 seconds. Drop in herbs, let them wake up. Add red wine, if you are using it. De-glaze the pan and give the alcohol a chance to cook out. Add the remaining liquid in a couple of minutes. Mix it together. Add beef back into the pot, juices and all. Mix and bring the whole thing to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and walk away.

Return after about 1 hour,  add potatoes into the stew, mix to combine. Lid back on and let it simmer for another 40 minutes or so. Stir every 10 minutes or so to make sure nothing is stuck at the bottom and there is enough liquid. When the stew is done, taste and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.

I’d like to serve the stew over white rice, pasta, or with nice warm tortilla, make a beef stew taco! You can also mop the juices with dinner rolls, use left over beef chunks on pizza, make empanadas or even enchiladas! The possibility is truly endless.

How do you like your beef stew, and how would you serve it?

Cooking

Tomato Soup

I don’t really know why I never made tomato soup before. I love tomatoes, and it’s really just summery goodness in a liquid form, what’s not to love? So I tried to make it the other night, turned out, it is blog worthy. So here it is.

 

Ingredients:

About 4 large or 6 small plump ripe juicy tomatoes, any kind would do really, but apparently the juicier, the more tomatoy, the better. Or you can use a couple large cans of good peeled whole tomatoes.

1/2 of a loaf of good crusty bread, roughly cubed to about 1 inch cubes. White bread or even left over bread would be fine too. I personally prefer plain bread in this case, something that has milder flavor.

Chicken stock, about 2 cups, or 2 cups of vegetable stock, or water and bullion, or even plain water, no biggie.

A few basil leaves, for flavor and garnish. Of course, I had to have some fresh basil in my garden, so that’s easy for me.

1 whole onion roughly chopped, again, any kind would do. But I’d prefer yellow, white or sweet, purple onion may turn the soup a bit darker in color? If you tried it, please leave a comment and let me know!

4 cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped.

1+1 tbsp olive / avocado / vegetable oil, something mild flavor would do

Salt and pepper to taste, and you will need a blender, either a stick blender (which I love and less mess to clean up), or a good counter top blender

Any kind of cheese for garnish, if you prefer. Hint: mozzarella, tomato and basil is ultimate combo

 

Method:

In a large soup pot (larger ones are easier to stir vegetables around, and when blending, less soup splatters outside the pot), drizzle in 1 table spoon oil, heat on medium high. Sweat onions for about 3 minutes or until onions are soften and translucent. During this time, rough chop tomatoes and smash and rough chop garlic, move the onions around every now and then to ensure they don’t burn. Add in garlic and stir around veggies for about 30 seconds. Add in tomatoes, juices and all. If you are using canned tomatoes, use a wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes a bit. I know a lot of major chefs like to squeeze tomatoes through fingers in a separate bowl and dump into the pot, I am not a huge fan of doing that, simply because I can’t seem to ever be able to maintain the cleanliness of the counter or my clothes.

Stir all veggies together, add in the stock. I don’t really fuss about buying boxed stock, or making my own. I am sure it tastes wonderful, but I only do that for special occasion. I like to use water and bullion. Nowadays you can use powder form, cubes, or even refrigerated paste type. They are a lot easier to handle and store. I like to throw in about half of my basil leaves at this point. Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low, lid on and let it go for about 35, 40 minutes. Cube your bread and set it aside. Hint, good time to start cleaning up the mess on the counter, or pour yourself a drink and enjoy the amazing smell of the house.

Check your soup, stir it around from time to time, make sure nothing burns at the bottom. Add in bread cubes, and use the spoon to push the bread down and soak up all the goodness. Lid on again and let it go for another 5 minutes or until the bread cubes are all softened. Notice, I still have not put in any salt or pepper. Depends on what kind of tomato you use, you may not even need ANY salt at the end, amazing, right?

Break out your stick blender, or counter top blender. Blend the soup to desired consistency. Now is the time to try a little soup and adjust seasoning, if needed. Be careful not to burn your lips, it’s HOT! Dish up, stick some pretty basil leaves and sprinkle the cheese on top. You will be glad you made this super simple, healthy and delicious soup!

Cooking

Tres Leches Cake – Speedy Version

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe. It’s super easy, literally no work at all. And the recipe and process is so easy, that I only followed the recipe the very first time. The best part of it? The cake is SO delicious, my kids prefer this cake over fancy expensive professionally made birthday cakes since 2 years ago! However, before you promise your little one you will make this cake for them, make sure tell them it’s going to be ready tomorrow, because the cake needs to sit in the fridge over night to soak up the milky goodness.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 box of store bought yellow cake mix (yep, that’s a great start, isn’t it?)

Eggs, vegetable oil and water as required by the yellow cake mix box instruction

 

For the tres leches part:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk, any brand

1 can of evaporated milk, any brand

2 cups of any kind of milk you have in your fridge, or a mixture of milk of what you have. Can’t be simpler than that! I used half and half, heavy cream, 2%, whole, fat free, soy, almond, coconut milk…

 

If you want to go fancy and want to cover up imperfections:

1 can of whip cream (or you can whip heavy whipping cream, which I think is actually worth the effort)

2 cans of fruit jam / spread of your choice (I made strawberry jam myself this time. It’s my son’s birthday after all)

 

How to:

Follow the instruction on the cake mix box and bake the cake. Use either 9″ x 13″ pan, or 2 off 8″ pans (especially if you want to gift one and keep one, and you will be GLAD you kept one!) Pay attention to the different time required to bake the cake, based on the baking dish size.

After the cake is done, take it out of the oven, leave on the stove top to cool (I am not a cooling rack person, and always seem to lose mine anyway) for roughly 10 minutes.  Use a wooden spatula, or small rolling pin, poke the cake all the way to the bottom, literally every 1 inch distance or so. Don’t worry about the look of the cake, you will either keep it for your family, in which case, trust me, everyone will devour the cake and no one will pay attention to the look of the cake, or, you can cover it up with the whipping cream.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and whatever milk you have on hand. The third kind, don’t stress too much about the quantity, a bit more a bit less doesn’t really matter. That’s another reason why this is my kind of recipe. Make sure scrape the bottom of the bowl with your whisk, the sweetened condensed milk tends to stay at the bottom, way longer than you may think it would. Have fun with this process, put on your favorite music and dance a little, it won’t hurt! Or, you can recruit your little helpers, they always love this part.

Carefully pour the milk mixture onto the poked cake(s). Divide evenly, if you are baking 2 cakes. It may seem like the cake(s) are swimming in the milk mixture. Don’t panic, the milk goodness will be all absorbed by the cake, and the cake will be so luscious and soft, and melt in your mouth.

At this point, I normally cover the cake with plastic wrap and stick them into the fridge and fight the urge to taste it. Next day, take the cake out of the fridge, slather the fruit jam / spread and cover with whipped cream. I promise you, proper dessert is served!

 

Alterations to the cake:

In the cake mix, add a can of drained and pressed crushed pineapple, use coconut milk as the third milk, you have your piña colada version cake

You can add a can of any sort of chopped fruit, very well drained into the cake mix

At the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkle brown sugar, arrange rings of pineapple and put a cherry in the center, dump the cake batter on top and follow the rest of the recipe – fancy pineapple upside down cake version

The changes are endless, let me know what you did with this, I’d love to try your version too!

Cooking

Chinese Wontons

Yes, these are the authentic Chinese wontons. Nope, they are not the fried tortilla strips in a bag you get from a fast food chain restaurant. And guess what, they are super easy to make, you should try it too!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground pork (you can use super lean, lean, regular, any type you like)

1 inch worth of ginger root, don’t worry about peeling, freeze ahead of time if you can

2 green onions, green part and white part

2 eggs

salt, pepper and chicken bullion powder to taste

1 package of store bought wonton wrappers (I like super thin type, it will say on the packaging, can be found in refrigerated area or frozen area, better yet, check out your local Asian market!)

You will also need a large clean surface to store the wontons. I normally use my cutting board, baking sheet or pizza pan. And I normally make a large quantity, so I choose the pans that fit my freezer. I freeze my wontons on the pans over night, and bag them the next day for a quick and easy wonton meal any time.

How to make wontons:

Take out the frozen wonton wrappers from the freezer, leave them in the packaging, on the counter to defrost, or leave them in the fridge over night to defrost. Do not microwave or heat it up, the wrappers will stick together and you might as well make meatball soup instead.

Dump all ingredients into a mixing bowl, doesn’t matter the sequence, just dump them all in. Please don’t mind my not so clean bowl in the picture, I only remembered to take pictures after I ran out of fillings, so the picture was second batch fillings.

Use a spoon, a fork or a pair of chopsticks (if you feel extra Asian today), mix the filling mixture vigorously in either clockwise or counter-clockwise direction for a good 5 minutes. This is the workout session for me for the day. Normally I would be able to feel the upper body muscles that I didn’t know I had. Take breaks if you need to, I certainly took a bunch breaks. Use a standup mixture if you have one, especially if you are making a large portion of wontons. One thing to keep in mind, when mixing the filling, keep it in one direction. This one directional thing is quite serious, if you ask people selling wontons in my hometown farmer’s market. They say it helps the filling to be soft and it will melt in your mouth.

This is the time to take the wrappers out of the packaging. Use your thumb and index finger to grab the entire stack of wrappers in the middle, shake it to loosen up the stack of wrappers over the sink, you will have some loose flour falling off, that’s fine. Notice in the picture below, I have the stack of wrappers fanned out all pretty on the cutting board. This is easy to do, and it helps when you need to grab one wrapper at a time, because most wrappers would be offset a tiny bit and already separated, but not exposed with a large surface to dry out. What I did was after shaking the stack, I put them on the cutting board, firmly pressing down the stack with the palm of my hand and turned my hand clockwise. You can use either hand, turn either direction. It may take a bit practice to feel the right pressure to apply. If too firm, you can press the wrappers together more, and they won’t fan out, if not firm enough, only the top layer of wrappers will fan out. Another essential for wonton making, a glass of your favorite drink. I got one there shown in the picture too!

Making the wonton is actually quite easy, probably a lot easier than you think. There are multiple ways of making wontons. I do not mean any method is better than others, but I am showing you how wontons are made in my home town. They look like sailor hats.

Grab a wrapper and lay in one hand, grab roughly 1/2 tbsp of filling and put in the center of wrapper. Fold wrapper over towards yourself, offset a bit, so it’s not a perfect rectangle, it will make the wonton look prettier in the end. Dab some water at one corner on the fold, lift middle finger up a bit and push the “meatball center” up a tiny bit, bring the 2 corners on the fold together, with the corner with water on the bottom, pinch the corners together, water will act like glue. Viola! Your first wonton is done! Now based on how your wonton turned out, you can adjust filling portion, add a bit more water on the corner or put on less.

Here is a video of how I made my wontons.

 

Common things to adjust:

Filling portion. Always start with less filling, you really can’t mess up with tiny bit of filling. It’s a good practice. Worst case, you can consider your first ever wonton a cross between flat noodle and wontons. There really is no right or wrong on the filling portion.

Wonton wrapper cracks, this is because the wrappers are dried out. The cracked wrapper you might as well toss it out, not much you could do to fix that. But the rest of the wrappers, you can lay a damp piece of paper towel over the stack for a while, or keep it on until you need another wrapper. I work pretty fast, so I don’t do this. If you are practicing making wontons, you can do this to your wrapper stacks, so you are not under pressure and feel like you are on a timed cooking show.

 

Cooking

Wing-it Pizza and Arugula Salad

Pizza and Salad anyone? We made this super simple and restaurant quality pizza and arugula salad the other night. It looked stunning, smelled amazing and made us feel like a million bucks eating super yummy yet healthy dinner!

Here is how we made it.

At the super market, we felt like home made pizza for dinner. So, without searching for a recipe, we just winged it. We grabbed some assorted olives from the olive bar (majority was for snack, shhh), a chunk of fresh mozzarella cheese, an heirloom tomato, a bag of arugula and a can of whole tomatoes (I followed experts’ advice, bought a 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes) and we went fancy, bought 4 slices of prosciutto, and a ball of fresh pizza dough (this is a true life saver, I didn’t have to slave myself kneading the dough and spending quite some time letting it rise, and store bought fresh pizza dough is always spot on). I know I have onions, shaved Parmesan cheese, fresh lemon, shallot, garlic, fresh basil from my garden, we are good to go!

After we got home, first thing first, the pizza sauce needs to be made (or you can cut corners even more, and get a good jar of pizza sauce). I diced a small onion, smashed 3 cloves of garlic, and threw them into a heavy bottom sauce pan with a table spoon olive oil heating on medium high heat. Then I moved onto opening the can of tomatoes. I let the onions and garlic sweat in the sauce pan for a couple minutes, I dumped the can of tomatoes, juices and all, into the pot. I was too lazy to squeeze the tomatoes through my fingers and didn’t feel like making a mess. So, I poked them with a wooden spoon and broke them up in the pan. Don’t worry, at the end of the cooking process, the tomatoes will break down beautifully anyway. Immediately, I filled the tomato can with tap water and dumped that into the pan too. I didn’t want to waste any flavor of the tomatoes. Once the sauce came to a boil, I lowered the heat to medium low. I added a pinch of chicken bullion (or instead of the water and bullion, you can add chicken broth, or even good white wine). I loosely put the lid on, and let it go.

I took out the pizza dough, stretched it out to fit the nonstick pizza pan I have, sliced up the onions, mushrooms, pitted black olives, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. I gathered my fresh basil leaves. Music was on, a glass of wine was served, life was good! I had a few more minutes to spare while waiting on the tomato sauce, I pulled out the baby arugula and dumped the whole bag into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, I mixed 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about half a fresh lemon), 2 tbsp avocado oil (figured it’s a nice alternative to good old extra virgin olive oil, and it turned out I was right!), I put in a finely diced shallot, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground multi color pepper (black is good too, multi color pepper corn was what I had on hand, it does give any dish a nice little color boost, it’s fun). I whisked the dressing until it is emulsified. Here is a mistake I made, I dumped the dressing into the arugula bowl at this point, and mixed it up. The baby arugula wilted a little by the time the pizza was finally done. Even though I had a good time sampling the salad along the way, because the slightly peppery salad was really good, next time, I would leave the dressing separate until the last minute just before plating.

By now, the tomato sauce was done. I turned on the oven to a piping 450 degrees Fahrenheit,  I added in just a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. I ladled some sauce in the middle of the stretched out pizza dough, mirroring exactly what I see on TV from pizza restaurant commercial, spreading the sauce from center outwards, in a circular motion, using the bottom of the ladle. We had fun laying out the mozzarella slices, vegetables, and half of the basil onto the pizza. Can’t forget the prosciutto slices. We hand torn those and laid those pieces loosely on top of everything else.  Into the oven it goes. One thing to pay attention, don’t over load the pizza with veges, it will be too watery and makes it soggy.

We turned on the oven light, acted like little kids, sticking our faces on the oven door, waiting for the pizza to be done. 20 minutes and a facial tanning session later, the pizza is finally done!

A slice of pizza heaven, a handful of simple yet scrumptious baby arugula salad, some fresh basil and shaved Parmesan, dinner is served.