Green Onion pancakes (蔥油餅)

This recipe doesn't necessarily taste like restaurant quality green onion pancakes.  It's really more of an activity you can do w/ kids.  

Allergen Info: gluten, dairy free, egg free, nut free
Prep Time: 5 minute

Ingredients
1-2 green onions
1 package Trader Joe's Pizza dough
dash of salt
flour for kneading 

Instructions

• Chop the green onions.
• Sprinkle cutting board with some flour and cut the dough into 4 pieces.
• Roll out the dough
• Add a handful of green onions.
• Fold it up into a ball 
• Roll it out again
• Sprinkle some salt for taste. You don't need it if kids are going to eat it.
• Using a frying pan, add a bit of oil and cook it slowly on both sides till it's golden brown.

Garlic Eggplant - 魚香茄子

Sorry the pic isn't more professional.

I finally mastered a new restaurant style dish! And its really good too cuz it's spicy. I used to use Lee Kum Kee black bean sauce. But I spent 15 minutes browsing Ranch 99 the other day and finally found the Kim Lan sauce. Kim Lan is a very good brand because most of their food are made from simple ingredients without weird additives that the other companies have. And it's still all made in Taiwan.

Allergen Info: gluten free, dairy free, egg free, nut free
Prep Time: 15-30 minute

Ingredients
1 long Chinese eggplant
1 small red bell pepper
0.25 lb or less of ground pork
1 Tbsp KimLan spicy black bean sauce
1 Tbsp rice wine
1 tsp black vinegar
dash of gluten free soy sauce
dash of sugar
3 Tbsp water

Instructions

• Cut eggplants in a roll-cut style.
  
• Slice the red bell peppers
  
• Fill a quart sized pot half way with oil. Put the eggplants in when the oil is very hot. Be careful as it may splatter (due to water in eggplant). Take it out when the eggplant turns bright purple, about 1 minute.
  
• Heat up pan with some oil and put in garlic and ginger when it's hot.
  
• Add ground pork, then the bean paste. Stir fry.
  
• Add eggplant when the pork is almost done and add all the other spices. Stir it together.
  
• Add green onions when you're ready to take it out. Add a bit of corn starch + water to make sauce before you take it out.
  
  

Tips

• Make sure that the oil you're frying the eggplant in is HOT. The partner told that Alton Brown says that when it's hot, then it'll just seal in the moisture on the outside. The eggplant won't soak up all that oil. I made that mistake on the first try and the whole thing was too greasy.
  
• You may want to mix all the spices together first and then just dump it in. Since the eggplant is already cooked you don't want to cook it so much it becomes limpy.
  
• The KimLan sauce is already salty so you have to add salt to taste. The sauce is very spicy!
  
• For presentation, you can save a bit of the green onion and put them on top after you've plated the dish.
  
• The original recipe called for 1 Tbsp of black bean paste but the Kim Lan brand's paste is very spicy so I cut it down. You can increase it if you buy another brand.
  

Strawberry Jam

We made strawberry jam today. It's a combination of May 2011 Chiao Hu book and Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) Strawberry Jam recipe.

Ingredients
1 lb of strawberry
1 lime
1-2 cups of rock candy

Instructions
1. Chop the strawberry into small pieces. I think they should be as small as you like, but remember that they will shrink as you cook them.
2. Combine strawberries, lime juice and rock candy into pot.
3. Boil under medium low heat for 40 minutes.
4. Put a plate into the freezer. To see if the jam is done, pour a bit of cooked juice onto plate. Return onto freezer for a minute. Take it out and run finger through it. If the liquid doesn't try to run back together, then it's done.

Gluten Free Chow Mein noodles

Came across a dish in my new recipe book on napa cabbage. It was only after I made it that I realized that it was a chow mein dish! That made me so happy as I'm currently gluten, dairy, and egg free. My first attempt was a 5/10. But only because the recipe book was not detailed in its instructions and I didn't realize that I was making Chow Mein so I didn't know when to add the spices. It ended up being under salted. But I was so surprised at how good it actually looked. Almost like the recipe book!

Ingredients

• 1 package Chinese vermecelli noodles 冬粉
• 1/2 lb napa cabbage
  
• 3 oz sliced pork
  
• 1-2 wood ear or substitute mushroom
  
• 1 green onion
  
• garlic
  
• 1/4 large carrot
  
• salt, sugar, white pepper, wheat free soy sauce, rice wine
  

Instructions

1. Soak rice noodles for an hour or two till it's not hard anymore. To make it easier to stir fry, you can cut it up into shorter pieces.
   
2. Cut up green onions into 2 inch pieces & chop up 1 clove of garlic
   
3. Cut up the pork into slices, not big flat pieces.
   
4. Peel and cut napa cabbage into small pieces. Usually you cut it lengthwise in half then into 1 inch pieces.
   
5. Once oil is heated, add green onion and garlic.
   
6. Add pork till it's mostly done. You have to kind of judge it so that you don't overcook the pork by the time the rest of the ingredients are completely cooked.
   
7. Add carrots and wood ear and stir fry a bit.
   
8. Add napa cabbage, a bit of water, and some salt, cover a bit to help it soften. Don't add all the salt you need as you may need to add more to the noodles later.
   
9. When napa cabbage is slightly soft, add noodles.
   
10. Add 1 Tbsp soy sauce, a bit of white pepper (a couple shakess), a bit of sugar (~1 tsp), 1/2 Tbsp of rice wine. Stir fry everything together till it's mixed well. You may need to cover at this point to get the cabbage to soften.
    
11. Take it out when napa cabbage looks cooked. Usually this is when the white part becomes kind of clear.
    

Notes Did you know those rice noodles are sometimes made of mung beans? Sometimes they also have wheat in them so you have to read the ingredients list.

This is basically a chow mein recipe. So you can be fairly liberal with what you add to it. You just need your noodles and one main veggie, everything else is really just so the dish looks good. So just add enough for looks and a bit of taste.

When it comes to spices I'm always not too precise. It's hard unless you're weighing every one of your ingredients! For the soy sauce, the idea is to get the noodles to look a bit dark in color. Pretty much like how it looks in recipe books. You then add salt to make it salty enough. Add water when necessary to soften/cook the napa cabbage. The rice noodles will also soak it up, which means you may end up adding more than you think you need. But be very careful or else you'll make the noodles too soggy.

Modified Nestle Toll House Cookie

Decided to make modified version because we lacked some of the ingredients and I don't like really sweet cookies. Plus, we just bought the chocolate chips at the local grocery store.

The original cookie recipe also calls for mixing in a specific way which I was too lazy to do.

Ingredients
* 2 1/4 cups organic all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) organic butter, softened
* 1 cup turbinado sugar or cane sugar
* 1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
* 2 large organic eggs
* 1-2 cups chocolate chips
* 1 cup chopped nuts

Instructions
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

Dump all dry ingredients except nuts and chips together in mixer. Add wet ingredients, eggs last, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix at low speed till creamy. Stir in chips and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes.

Things I learned
The butter is what makes the cookie expands from a ball. That's why the Tassajara cookie didn't expand much.

The brown sugar in original recipe is what gives the cookie the golden color. Ours did not look brown at all with cane sugar. Will try turbinado sugar next time.

Cranberry Walnut Bread with Stand Mixer based on Tassajara Recipe

Google The Tassajara Bread Book for detailed instructions.

Ingredients
I.
2.75 room temperature water + 0.25 hotpot water
1.5 Tbsp dry yeast
1/4 cup cane sugar (OR honey, molaases, brown sugar), 1/2 - 1 cup for sweet version
1 cup buttermilk powder (optional)
4 cups whole wheat flour

II.
1 Tbsp cinnamon
4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp butter
3 cups white flour
1/2 cup chopped cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts


Instructions
See the Raisin Walnut Cinnamon Bread Recipe for instructions.

Modified Tassajara Chocolate-Chocholate Chip-Walnut Cookie

I don't like really sweet things, I didn't want to buy chocolate, but I wanted chocolate chips, so here's a modified Chocolate Walnut Recipe from The Tassajara Bread Book. The Tassajara cookie doesn't expand like Tollhouse Cookies so make them as big as you like.

Makes about 3 dozen or more cookie

Ingredients
12 Tbsp (3/4 cup) sweet butter, softened
1/4 cup cane sugar
1 egg
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup finely ground walnuts
1/2 cup tiny chocolate chips
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 cups unbleached white flour

Instructions
1. Dump everything into a stand mixer and mix. Add the egg in without beating it. The dough should be dry enough to shape into balls with your hands without too much sticking to your fingers, and wet enough that it does not crumble apart. If necessary, add more flour to make it drier. Add a spot of water or a bit more butter to moisten.

2. Roll dough into ball size of 1 tablespoon and place on aluminum sheets (ungreased cookie sheet), leaving 2 inches in between. Press them flat with a cookie stamp, a glass, or a teacup. Flour the bottom of the pressing implement if it stick to the cookies.

3. Bake at 375F for 8 minutes. They're done when the tops of the cookies are cracked, and the bottom slightly browned.

Tips
Dough will not form using the stand mixer. Just mush the thoroughly mixed ingredients together and they will mush together if you added enough butter.