Bragging about Potstickers

In December, I got a copy of last fall’s donna hay magazine, and in it was a little dossier about the versatility of wonton wrappers. Being a dedicated follower of all things hay, I immediatly got hooked onto the very idea of anything to do with wonton wrappers. sadly, it took me a long time to actually purchase them. I had planned on stuffing and steaming them dim sum-style, but the package said ‘for deep-frying only’. Being that I have a deeply ingrained fear of deep frying (probably better that way anyway!) and that I was unsure as to wether I was gonna be able to steam whatever I was gonna make, I decided to go the potsticker route. I have not looked back.

I made them today, and I feel incredibly proud, as proud as the time I made my first cake. I also feel the ridiculous urge to repeat the word ‘potsticker’,'potsticker’,'potsticker’ over and over again, quite like my oldest son who is hooked on ‘Anhängerkupplung’(trailer hitch) right now. Except he says ‘Anhängerpupplung’ and he says it about, oh 20 times/h. It’s funny at first, really, but then you start to wonder about the title of that book ‘your three year old, friend or enemy’ and start to mentally ticking that ‘enemy’ box… Potstickers are friends. definitely.

Potstickers

prep time: depending on how many you make, about 40 min, cooking time: 5 min

mixing bowl, kitchen towel, pastry brush, non-stick frying pan

300 g of minced chicken/pork or fish
1 egg white
zest of one lime
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tbsp chopped mint (or thai basil, if on hand)
1 cm fresh ginger peeled and grated
a minuscule amount of garlic (I pressed a tiny clove, which yielded the perfect amount for my taste)
1 tbsp sesame seeds
about 20 wonton wrappers

Mix the chicken with the egg, lime zest, the herbs, sesame, ginger and garlic together in a bowl.

Place a single wonton sheet onto a dry kitchen towel (if the wonton wrapper gets wet, it will stick to any other surface), place a tablespoon of the filling unto the center of the wrapper. Brush the edges with the some water and press them together to form a little parcel. Repeat until no wrappers are left behind.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat, fill the bottom wiith water, bring to a boil and place the potstickers in it. They will stick. Cover, and cook until nearly all water has evaporated and the bottom of the parcels is brown. Serve hot with soy sauce, chili sauce, hoisin sauce, lime juice etc.

You could make the raw parcels ahead of time and freeze them until ready. The would cook for about 10 min straight from the freezer.

Dip It!

The weather being the best conversation starter there is, let me just tell you that I have nothing but complaints on it. It’s been a continuation of winter for about as long as spring has officially started.

As much as we WANT to buy spring fare, what I really want to EAT are stews and roasts and real mac’n'cheese.

The produce vendors however, are plowing on and trying to convince us of the season by offering asparagus, rhubarb and (globe) artichokes. And because I am a sucker for marketing, i fell into their terrible ploy (for the third time, might I add!), caved and bought artichokes.

As a child I have never been incredibly fond of artichokes, and a bout of stomach flu a few years back left a truly terrible memory involving the lovely thistle hearts(variation, a pseudo-writers best friend!) paired with spaghetti, and I will leave the rest to your imagination. I mainly got them at the markthalle because my toddler boy is absolutely in love with dipping. Dipping for him, is food at it’s funnest (as opposed to funnIEST). i figured therefore, that artichokes (how many times will I type artichokes in this post, hmm? well, better read on and count!) were a nice change and a bit of fun for the rainy dinners.

The artichokes were steamed and I served them with two dips: a variation on the classic italian salsa verde - a green sauce (my linguistics skills are unparalleled) made with fresh herbs, capers and anchovies - for the husband and me, and a surefire winner for all of us, which is a tahini-yoghurt sauce spiced with ras-el-hanout (a very fragrant north african spice/herb mix including cumin, fenugreek, coriander and mild chili, to name a few).

Artichokes with Double Dip

prep time: 5 min/dip and 40 min total for the artichokes

For the Artichokes

count one artichoke per person

pot with a steamer inlay or a pressure cooker fitted with a steamer inside.

Cut of the long Stem of the artichokes to about 1/2 cm of the globe. Chop pf the tips of leaves with scissors or simply cut a couple of cms of the top. Place in a bowl of cold water with a splash of lemon to prevent them from turning black.

When you are ready to cook, place the artichokes ionside the steamer basket and steam them for about 15-20 min or until tender. Reduce the cooking time appropriately if you are steaming them in a pressure cooker ( my guess would be about 10 min after the cooker is starting to vent steam)

Serve the artichokes hot or cold. to eat, pull out the leaves and dip them into a classic vinaigrette, or even just olive oil and lemon or this, or whatever else you like. To eat the artichoke heart, pull or cut out the hairy fuzzy part, the heart is what lies underneath.

For the Salsa Verde

4 tbsp olive oil or more
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp mint
1 tbsp flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp cilantro (optional)
1 tbsp capers (either salted or brined, be sure to rinse the salted ones well!)
3-4 anchovies, packed in oil or salt (again, if salted, make sure to rinse them well)
splash of lemon juice, or more to taste

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz together until it all comes together. Alternately, you can chopp up the herbs, capers and anchovies finely and blend with the lemon juice and the olive oil. Your sauce needs to look green, and solid, between a vinaigrette and a pesto.

For the Yoghurt-Tahini Sauce

1 tbsp tahini (sesame butter)
1/2 cup of yoghurt
juice of one lime/lemon
1 tsp mint
1 tsp ras-el-hanout

salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together all the ingredients and let stand for a little while. The tahini will cause the sauce to thicken slightly. If you find it a little to runny, add some more of the sesame butter.

Both sauces/dips will keep covered in the fridge for a few days, but make sure to check because mint can sometimes cause dishes to go bad quickly.

Spargelzeit…

In Germany, there is a fifth season. During the spring, there is a time dedicated solely to asparagus (Spargelzeit), which in Germany is the absolute symbol of spring. A huge deal is made out of this by marketers and consumers alike (speaking of marketers, I now have the stupid jingle for Thomy hollandaise sauce for Spargel in my head, and I know everyone who has ever watched TV in Germany in the spring knows what I am talking about), and this was very intriguiging to my husband when he moved here, since every single restaurant was advertising it and you could
eat it just about as ubiquitously as Berlin’s n°1 food — the curry wurst. The region around Berlin is particularly known for a thick white asparagus, the Beelitzer Spargel; but I personally really like the green kind, which has only been available for a few years here.

Anyway, enough silly stories. I like asparagus in a risotto, so here goes.

Asparagus Risotto with Herbs

prep time: 10min, cooking time: 20-25 min

heavy saucepan

a bunch of asparagus (about 500 g), washed and roughly chopped with heads reserved
3 tbsp of various fresh chopped herbs (I used basil, parsley and cilantro)
1 small onion, diced
2 cups of risotto rice
5 cups of chicken/vegetable broth, hot
2 tbsp of butter
lots of parmesan
olive oil

Break of the ends of the asparagus, remove the heads and chop into bits. Melt 1 tbsp butter with some olive oil in a heavy saucepan and add the onion and about half the herbs. Fry on low heat until translucent. Add the rice and stir until translucent. Add the chopped asparagus, stirring until everything is well coated in the butter/olive oil.

Slowly add about 1 cup of the hot broth to the rice, stirring until the liquid has been absorbed. Kepp adding broth while stirring, until the rice has softened. When the rice still has some bite to it, add the reserved asparagus heads and the rest of the herbs. Turn of the heat, add the other tbsp of butter and parmesan to taste. Cover and let it rest for a few min before serving.

This is my basic way of doing risotto, you can subsitute the add on ingredients and some wine/vermouth for one cup of liquid if you like. You could also be extra indulgent and serve it with a dollop of mascarpone

Still Going Strong!

alright, that’s the third post in three days. Am i on a roll, or what? are you taking bets as to whether I will disappear again for a few weeks after this one, blaming another ‘technical malfunction’? Well, who cares, I had a backlog of a few dishes, and haven’t posted anything savoury in a while.

The dish I am about to post is the dinner equivalent of that awesome top/jeans/jacket that you got on sale at h&m and that gets you compliments each time you wear it. A dinner that you will get everybody ooohhing and aaahhhing on you, while you can be all like ‘oh, that old thing? Psshaw, it was done in no time!’. Seriously, all you’ll ever do for this dinner, is slapping some fish in tinfoil, sprinkle some glitter here and there, and open 2 cans of beans.

You can also totally decide to get all pretentious with the name and call it Fish Pillowed in Smoked Hot and Sweet Paprika with its Canellini-Cilantro Mash. Notice how that little fish pillow thing has ITS very own mash? Fancy, huh? In that case, I recommend taking the oohs and aahs very seriously as well as waxing about where exactly the smoked paprika is from, and how you imported those beans yourself, and soaked them. And gently boiled them in kabbalah water or something. Anyway, you get the picture. This dinner, it is dead easy, anyone can do it and so they should. On to the ‘recipe’.

White Fish Fillets with Smoked Paprika

Prep time: 5 min, Cooking time: 12 min

2 white fish fillets (mine amounted to 500 g, and easily served 4)
1 tsp of smoked paprika*, hot or sweet, depending on your taste
some olive oil

tin foil to make ‘parcels’

Preheat the oven to 180°. Take enough tinfoil to make an envelope for each piece of fish. Place the fish on the tinfoil, sprinkle some oilive oil and half the paprika. Close the parcel as hermetically as possible. Repeat with the other fish. Stick in the oven for about 12 min. When the fish is done, it will be all tender and fallin apart. Be careful not to burn yourself when you open the packages.

White Bean Puree with Cilantro

Prep time: 2 min, Cooking time: 5 min

2 cans of white beans, drained.**
100 ml (a scant 1/2 cup) of chicken broth
lemon juice, to taste
cilantro, to taste

saucepan, masher

Pour the drained beans into a saucepan, add the broth. Heat up until the beans are hot. Mash up, add some lemon juice and the cilantro. Serve.

Arange the fish and the purée on a plate and reap the reward of your hard work!

* I had to really, really look for smoked paprika powder — Berlin isn’t exactly full of gourmet supplyiers. In the end, I found both sweet and spicy smoked paprika, and generally use a mix of both.
** You really don’t need fabulous beans for this. The simple storebrand will be enough, no chichi-italian import necessary!

Bringing Bunny Back - Rabbit Saddle Stuffed with Dried Fruit

Rabbit doesn’t seem to be very popular anywhere but in France where we are also known to be eating such weird things as frog legs, snails and the other clichéed mouldy cheeses. Anyway, after posting so many sweet recipes, i decided to finally post something savory, and to make sure i had all your attention, I chose to cook a shocker - hence, the bunny.

The taste and smell of rabbit is to me forever linked to the house in Savoy where my grandmother (not the parisienne, obviously!) was born and raised, and where my great uncle and great aunt lived up until their death. This house you see, was a farm. A real farm, with crops, raspberry patches, a chicken coop, a rabbit house, a tractor that could be climbed upon, a well and an outhouse (no indoor bathroom!). It also boasted a real wood-fired cast iron stove that was used to cook and bake everything the farm produced.

Whenever we would come and visit, my great aunt would invariably either serve us a chicken, or a rabbit. Both were ‘readied’ for the meal right before our eyes. My great uncle would hang the rabbit by its leg on top of the ladder that was leaning on the barn and with one smooth gesture, he would skin it. I don’t really remember being grossed out, but it really stuck in my memory and comes back whenever I eat rabbit.

The dessert by the way, was even more invariable: a custard tarte with pink pralines. My mother and my grandmother have both tried to replicate it, but it seems the flavor would always pale in comparison to the one my great aunt made in her old stove. My grandmother gave me a copy of this particular recipe in a book of family recipes that she compiled for our wedding, and I have since sworn to try the recipe as well. But I digress. Back to the bunny…

The recipe comes from the fall issue of ‘Elle à table’, which featured different ways to prepare rabbit saddle (aka bunny back). The one with dried fruits in a honey-ginger-soy marinade caught our eyes, but since the original recipe called for skewers and that is both a bother to prep and a bother to eat, my mother and I decided to roast the saddle as a whole in the oven instead.

The meat was delicious and tender, and we served it alongside peppered pears, as the recipe suggested. However, with dried fruit, the honey-bases marinade AND the pears, there was a a slight sweet overkill. Next time, I’ll use fewer dried apricots.

Rabbit Saddle Stuffed with Dried Fruit

adapted from Elle à table
Prep Time: 15 min roasting time: 40 min

For the stuffed saddle
500 g rabbit saddles
16 dried apricots (I’d use less, 12 maybe?)
8 prunes
For the marinade
4 Tsp sesame (again, 2 Tsp would have been plenty)
1 cm peeled and grated ginger
2 Tbsp soy sauve
4 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
For the pears
4 middle sized ripe pears
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 Tbsp butter
mixed pepper, to taste

roasting pan, non-stick pan, twine

Preheat the oven to 190. Lay the saddles back side down on a cutting board and stuff them with the dried fruits. Roll up and bind them shut with twine and lay them in the pan.
Next up, make the marinade by mixing the honey, soy and ginger together. Pour over the saddles and chill while you prep the pears.
Peel and slice the pears. Toss in the lemon juice
Stick the saddles in the oven. You might want to cover them up with a lid or aluminum foil for part of the time (I covered mine for the first 25 min or so) to prevent them from drying out. About 10 min before your rabbit is done, melt the butter in a pan add the pears and cook until translucent. Serve hot.