Flashback Friday - Dim Sum

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on August 14, 2005. This was the very first post on this blog.

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I love to eat. I love to cook. I think about food all the time. No, I obsess over it. What's for breakfast? What's for lunch? What's for dinner? These are questions that are running through my mind at most times of the day. I talk about food on my knitting blog. I even started a food-related thread on a TV show forum that I frequent. One of my favorite Web sites is egullet.com, and I must admit that Steven Shaw (a.k.a. "Fat Guy") is one of my heros. I figured it was high time that I start my own food blog.

Welcome to Minxeats.

Dim Sum
My first installment on the world of food starts in China. More precisely, in Hong Kong: Jesse Wong's Hong Kong, a Chinese restaurant in the hectic burg of Columbia, Maryland. Today Neal and I set out for only our second dim sum experience without the accompaniment of native Chinese speakers.

I've been eating dim sum (Chinese for "a little bit of heart") since I was in my mid-20s. Back then the only place to find dim sum was a now-forgotten restaurant in glamorous and exciting Glen Burnie, MD. There, dim sum consisted mainly of an assortment of dumplings stuffed with various things, mostly shrimp and pork. There were few other delicacies to speak of, but what they had was fried, and fried is good. Right?

Many years later, I befriended LaRaine, born in Hong Kong but raised in the U.S. She still prefers Chinese food over all, and she introduced me to good dim sum, at a place in Wheaton, where the Asian population is much higher. At Good Fortune, I had snails in black bean sauce for the very first time, eaten with toothpicks in order to pick the tiny morsels out of their small shells. She would also order steamed spare ribs and chicken feet, both of which were fatty and bony and, in my opinion, too much trouble. The dim sum here was otherwise heavy on dumplings, but all were delicious, and I was always astonished at the amount of food three of us could put away in one sitting. (The average price per plate is $3.00; once our bill came to $60. You do the math.)

We later found a even better place with a great variety of goodies but even farther away from home, in Gaithersburg. New Fortune is huge, noisy, and delectable. They have platters of meats (roast duck) and vegetables (Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce), as well as the usual dumplings and body parts. There was even a dessert cart full of shiny, jiggly, gelatin-based, super-sweet sweets in garish colors. The best time to go is for Chinese New Year, when they feature a raucously loud Lion dance and martial arts demos.

Over the years, I've developed a list of favorites, items that are "must-haves" on trips to the local dim sum palace.

• Shrimp crepes, cheung fun are number one on my list - slippery, pure-white tubes of glutinous-textured noodle filled with large shrimp and topped with a sweet soy sauce.
• Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf - sticky rice filled with dried shrimps and chinese sausage, wrapped in aromatic lotus leaves. The taste is slightly medicinal, slightly fishy, very comfort food.
• Hom Sui Gok - deep-fried, football-shaped, slightly sweetened glutinous rice flour balls with a wonderfully chewy texture, encasing a filling of ground pork, green onion, and minced shrimp.
• Pork Humbow - a baked or steamed bun filled with chopped bbq pork. I prefer the baked ones, as a steamed one that has been sitting around for too long takes on the texture of damp terrycloth dishtowels.
• Turnip Cakes - grated cooked turnips pressed into square cakes with dried shrimp and Chinese sausage, fried until crisp on portable grills
• Fried whole (head-on) shrimp with ginger and scallions - Crisp. Hot. Delicious! I take the heads off but eat the legs and shell and sometimes the tail too.

Here are a few photos from today's dim sum adventure.

The place was full when we got there, and we got seated in what must be the wastelands of Jesse Wong's despite being directly in front of the kitchen door. After mugging a few of the cart ladies, here's what we started out with. The "Jade Dumplings" were filled with shrimp pieces and had a distinctive cilantro flavor. The chow mein was what I assume to be "real" chow mein - skinny fried noodles with bits of scallions and bean sprouts. Very plain but very tasty. The Soy Sauce Chicken was, as all meats are at dim sum, served cold. The meat was very tender and had a slight flavor of five spice powder. The scallion dumplings had a doughy wrapper and were filled with chopped green onions. They get sizzled on the same little portable grill as turnip cakes.

By the time the cart with the shrimp comes around, they are pretty cold, but I managed to snag a plate hot from the fryer. These were heavenly! The shells were crisp and the meat perfectly cooked. They were slightly salty and a tad garlicky. My plate soon became a dumping ground for discarded shrimp heads and tails. Neal tried one with the head still on, proclaimed it "mushy and fishier." Mmmm! Shrimp brains! I'm not particularly fond of their little black eyeballs staring at me accusingly.

So much food (we got offered congee--a rice gruel-- tripe, several varieties of tofu skins, stuffed tofu and eggplant, myriad other dumplings, beef, jellyfish, and chicken feet) but where the heck were the shrimp crepes?? I spotted a guy come out of the kitchen with the telltale bottle of sweet soy on a tray with stacks of covered plates and managed to flag him down. Here they are - my all-time favorite dim sum yummy! Neal doesn't like them, it's a textural thing, so I got them all to myself.

I made sure to take this pic especially for my pal Fara, who lives in the wilderness of South Carolina and has no access to dim sum. This is sticky rice in lotus leaf, unwrapped to show off the rice. I did take another pic with the filling exposed, but Neal and I both decided that it wasn't at all appetizing. It was probably the cylindrical pink bit of Chinese sausage that stuck out of the rice.... :)

We usually skip dessert, although sometimes I'll give in to the mango pudding (almond flavored milky gelatin dessert served with mango bits and topped with canned fruit cocktail). Today, however, we tried the fruit tartlets. I had never seen a Western-style dessert here in the past, but there they were, three of them, each about 1 1/2" across. Tiny tart shells filled with a spoonful of pastry cream and topped with kiwi, half a strawberry, and a blackberry. Yum. Sorry - we ate them before I thought to take out the camera again.

Were we not going to the Mall afterwards, we would have ordered more food and then taken home a doggie bag. As it was, we ate just about everything on the table, except the condiment caddy. No, we have no plans to eat dinner tonight.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour. Please leave a comment!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Bob's Red Mill Pan-Baked Granola #sponsored

I have always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with granola. I love the concept of it--nuggets of seasoned oats and dried fruits held together with a bit of sweetness and fat--but have found that commercial granolas were usually too sweet, processed-tasting, or just boring. So once in a while I make a pan of it at home, adding just the right amount of maple syrup or brown sugar and coconut oil and seasoning it to my liking (which usually involves cardamom).

When Bob's Red Mill contacted me with an offer to send me flavors of their new Pan-Baked Granola, I agreed. In general, I really like their products and when given the choice between brands of this or that, I tend to choose Bob's Red Mill. I figured the granola was probably quite good, but still perhaps not what I was looking for in a breakfast cereal.

Damn, I was wrong. This pan-baked granola is GREAT. At least to my palate; as with everything, YMMV. It comes in four flavors: Maple Sea Salt; Coconut Spice; Lemon Blueberry; and Cranberry Almond. It's made just the way I would make it, in small batches, using maple syrup, brown sugar, and coconut oil, and the flavor combos are right up my alley. My favorites are the Lemon Blueberry (lemon flavor granola! It works!) and the Coconut Spice (I love all things coconut). I enjoyed eating the granola the traditional way, as a breakfast cereal with milk, but also sprinkled on yogurt and eaten straight from the bag. Ok, which is maybe the most "traditional" way of consuming granola.

Though we ate it before I could experiment further, I'm thinking this pan-baked granola would make a nice streusel-style topping for muffins or as an addition to an apple crisp. I'm going to re-stock my pantry and do some granola-based winter baking pretty soon. 

Thanks, Bob, for hooking me up with my new favorite cereal! 

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Avocado Leaf Tea

I drink a lot of tea, particularly during the cooler months. Once I've had my morning cup of coffee, I switch to a milder beverage, preferably one with less caffeine. Too much of that stuff not only makes me jittery, but also gives me heart palpitations. Rooibos is my go-to, and while I really enjoy it, sometimes I am looking for a different flavor profile.

Then I discovered tea made from avocado leaves. I know! Though avocado toast doesn't thrill me, I do find the beverage made by steeping the leaves of the avocado tree rather exciting. For one thing, it's actually quite delicious--smooth, and non-tannic--and naturally caffeine-free, which is a huge plus. And it is purported to have all sorts of health benefits. Avocado leaves contain flavonoids, polyphenols, terpenes, and serotonin, substances which have been known to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke, help kidney function, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, elevate mood, promote alertness and memory retention, reduce stress, and aid in forming healthy sleep patterns. All the things.

I realize I'm making a cup of tea sound like a miracle cure, but there is strong scientific evidence that tea made from the leaves of Persea americana Mill can control blood pressure and help reduce the formation of kidney stones. Avocado Leaf Tea (the brand name, so easy to remember) has information on their web site, along with links to health studies that corroborate this.

I brought home a few samples of Avocado Leaf Tea from the Fancy Food Show last year. It was summer and I don't drink as much tea then so put them away and forgot about it. When I stumbled upon the bags recently and made a pot, I realized how much I liked the stuff. So I ordered both the natural and lemon flavors (flavored with lemongrass and honeybush, a relative of rooibos) which have become my brew of choice recently. And they don't have me bouncing off the walls, like my recent experience with a couple of pots of Earl Grey.

If you're looking for a healthful tea beverage, I recommend you try Avocado Leaf Tea. The folks who own the company are really nice too, and I like to support and promote nice people who make good things.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Best of 2019, Part Two

Though I ended up making most meals this year, I wasn't particularly creative. Mr Minx gets home from work about 90 minutes after I do, which should leave me plenty of time to cook. But once I walk home from the bus stop, then take the dog for his walk, I am not really in the mood to get creative. It's great when I've remembered to defrost something pre-made, like a quart of Cajun Kate's gumbo, or some chili, but most of the time I'm ordering Indian food and reheating it. I feel like I'm in a real culinary rut. I have done a decent amount of baking this year, despite being on Whole30 from about May on. I can't eat the goodies that come out of the oven, and Mr Minx shouldn't, so I've been passing them on to a friend with a sweet tooth. He gets snacks (but hopefully not diabetes) and I get to bake, so win-win.

I do end up cooking every Sunday though, and have tried the vaguely creative thing here and there. Like the golabki I made in July. I'd never made them before, and I don't remember my Grandmother making them at all (though she apparently did before I was born), so I didn't have a go-to recipe. My cousin Dianne had sent me a few, so I took what I thought were the best parts of all of them and then added my own spin. I think they turned out pretty well, and the recipe made enough that I was able to put three more dinners-worth in the freezer for other times.

I always think my crab cakes are pretty good, and was able to make those a few times this year. I like using leftover meat from steamed crabs, but have even stooped to using imported crab. The best ones, of course, use the meat from Callinectes sapidus, as these did.

For Valentine's Day, my sweetheart made me a heart-shaped meatloaf. Mr Minx's meatloaf is the best. He uses the recipe from The Joy of Cooking, but adds a festive tunnel of cheese. Doesn't this look great?

Shakshuka is a hot thing these days. Typically a tomato-and-bell pepper stew, it's often topped with eggs and served for brunch in the US. I am partial to the Lebanese version, shakshouky, which contains eggplant but not tomatoes and pomegranate molasses. In the dish pictured, I combined the two recipes to make my own, delicious, thing.

Some years ago, I had a creamy tomatillo soup at SoBo cafe. I reverse-engineered it in 2014, and then I made it again in 2019, this time adding toasted pumpkin seeds and sauteed shrimp. And perhaps too much yogurt, but it was still a great light dinner on a hot summer night.

Last, but certainly not least, as they are my primary substitute for pasta these days: zoodles. I bought a spiralizer so I can make them myself, but sometimes I resort to using a Y-peeler to cut thin pappardelle-like strips from green or yellow squash. Topped with fresh ripe tomatoes from the garden, toasted pumpkin seeds, fresh pesto, cheese, and parsley, zucchini noodles are like the best cross between a pasta dish and a hearty salad. I hope to eat a lot more of them in 2020.

And that's it. See? Boring and mostly uncreative. But tasty.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.