Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

A few weeks ago I had eaten some pasta with bolognese sauce at Basta Pasta in Cambridge, and afterwards, I was totally craving more of the savory meat sauce. I remembered that The Kitchen had posted a recipe for making it using a slow cooker which sounded perfect, since I didn't really want to have to deal with hours in front of a hot stove during the summertime. Even so, you do need to spend some time sweating the vegetables, browning the meat, and reducing the liquids, but the end result is so totally worth it. The only changes I made to the original recipe is that instead of adding 1 cup of the reserved tomato juices, I reduced all the tomato juice from the 2 cans until there was only about 1 cup of liquid left and added that to the slow cooker. Also, I used a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork instead just ground beef.

Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce (from The Kitchn)
makes 6 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup milk (whole or 2-percent)
1 cup white wine
2 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes, drained and finely chopped (juices reserved)
1 cup reserved tomato juices

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and cook until the onion is translucent and all the vegetables have softened. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the pork and beef, breaking it apart with your spoon and cooking until it is just browned. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Stir in the milk and bring it to a rapid simmer. Continue simmering until the milk has reduced completely and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes. Stir in the wine and simmer again until reduced completely, about 10 minutes. Transfer the beef mixture to the slow cooker.

In the same, now-empty pot, reduce the reserved tomato juices until you have about 1 cup left.

Add the chopped tomatoes and reduced tomato juices to the slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.

In the last half hour of cooking, remove the lid to allow any excess liquid to evaporate and reduce the sauce. The finished sauce should be chunky and creamy without being soupy.

Serve over spaghetti with a hunk of crusty bread for mopping up the sauce!

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Kalua Pork

Nope, that's not a typo. This isn't pork made with Kahlua. This is kalua pork, the Hawaiian roasted pork served at luaus. Traditionally, a whole salted pig is put into a pit filled with hot rocks and banana leaves and covered so that it can cook all day. I got to go to Hawaii years and years ago for a family reunion (relatives from Taiwan and the US met halfway) and still remember loving this dish. The pork was moist, fall-off-the-bone tender, and had a depth of flavor that I thought could only be delivered via cooking in a pit for hours and hours.

Luckily for those of us who don't have easy access to whole pigs, pits, hot rocks, and banana leaves, you can make kalua pork in a slow cooker with only 2 ingredients: pork butt and smoked salt! The first you can get from almost any grocer store; just make sure it'll fit into your slow cooker. Apparently, pork butt is actually the same thing as pork shoulder, so either would work.

I found smoked Hawaiian sea salt at Narrin's Spice and Salt in Cleveland's West Side Market. I had actually bought this a couple of years ago but never figured out what to use it in until now. This particular product has a blend of Hawaiian black and pink salt along with regular white sea salt. If you can't find smoked sea salt, you can also use liquid smoke with regular sea salt.

Kalua Pork
makes about 6 servings

2.5 lbs. pork butt (or shoulder)
2 tablespoons smoked Hawaiian sea salt

Using a steak knife, poke the pork all over and then rub the salt all over.

Place the pork in a slow cooker and cook on low for 20 hours, turning once halfway through. Pork is done when it can be easily shredded with a fork.

That's it! With only two ingredients and two lines of instructions, you'll be surprised how flavorful the finished product is. During the slow cooking process, all the fat starts to render out of the meat so that at the end, it's cooking in its own juices, a sort of pork confit if you will. While I wouldn't consider the top half of the meat (that isn't sitting in the juices) to be dry, it is drier and less salty than the bottom half. I tried to turn the meat again when it was done to try to even it out, but the pork was so tender, I wasn't sure I could get it flipped without totally mangling it. If I had had more time, I would've shredded all the meat and served it with the reserved juices on the side for people to add if they wanted. Instead, I just brought the whole thing to a potluck and served it with some shredded cabbage sauteed with garlic and rice, letting people shred off as much as they wanted.

One year ago:  Mayonnaise Shrimp with Candied Walnuts, Char Siu Bao

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Wah Guay, or Taiwanese Rice Cake with Meat Sauce

It's been a while since I've posted any recipes from my mom, and I just received a random request for this recipe, so I'd like to introduce you to wah guay, of Taiwanese rice cake with meat sauce. The name of the dish is Taiwanese, so I don't even know how to correctly pronounce it, much less romanize the spelling. My mom makes this dish a lot for pot lucks, and it's one of her specialties; I believe she even made up the recipe herself. All the flavoring comes from the meat sauce which is really pretty salty plus a little sweetness, heat, and umami. You need all of the saltiness because the rice cake is just steam-baked rice flour and water. That's it. But if you make it right, it should come out with a thick, custardy texture that jiggles like Jell-o.

Make sure that you use a soy sauce paste for the topping and not regular soy sauce. Soy sauce paste is more viscous and also slightly sweeter than the normal stuff. We used it a lot growing up in dipping sauces for things like boiled dumplings and hot pot because the water that inherently deposits with each dip wouldn't dilute the soy sauce paste as much as it would with normal soy sauce. And if you can find the sweet chili paste, definitely try that. It's barely spicy, but does cut through the saltiness of the meat sauce just enough. In a pinch, I guess a little sriracha sauce could do.

Wah Guay
makes 24 servings

1 (16 oz.) bag of rice flour (not the glutinous kind)
1 lb. ground pork
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons fried shallots
4 tablespoons rice wine
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoons five spice powder
6 tablespoons soy sauce
Soy sauce paste or chili soy sauce paste
Sweet chili paste (optional)
Cilantro (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 °F and lightly grease a 9" x 13" casserole dish.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the rice flour with 2 cups of water using a spatula. Continue stirring and add 9 cups boiling water in a continuous stream. Once fully incorporated, transfer to the casserole dish, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and bake for 45 minutes.

In a medium-sized pot, heat oil on high until hot. Add the shallots and fry for 20 seconds. Add the pork, rice wine, sugar, five spice powder, and soy sauce and continue to cook until meat is no longer pink, breaking the pork into smaller pieces. Cover, lower the heat, and let simmer for 2 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let sit covered.

Once the rice cake is done, top with the meat sauce. Drizzle with soy sauce paste and sweet chili paste and top with cilantro, if desired.

I am not a big fan of cilantro, so my mom usually just garnishes three-quarters of the dish with the cilantro, leaving an unblemished quarter for me. Isn't my mommy the best?

One note I should make, I tried making this once in grad school in a toaster oven and the rice cake never really "set". And even my mom has said that it hasn't set correctly for her on a few occasions. Neither of us could figure it out; I'm guessing it has to do with having the perfect ratio of water to rice flour and the ideal conditions for steaming and baking in the oven.

One year ago:  Beef Noodle (Soup) and Lu Dan

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Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Soup Dumplings)

New word of the day: as⋅pic [as-pik]– noun, a savory jelly usually made with meat or fish stock and gelatin.

Of course, when you say it, it sounds like the action of relieving an itch in your butt crack. Anyways, aspic is the secret ingredient for making xiao long bao, or steamed soup dumplings. Because aspic is solid, you can easily wrap it in a dumpling along with the meat filling, and when you steam it, the aspic melts and becomes the hot, gushing soup that squirts out of the bun and burns your tongue.

You can make your own aspic by either making fresh stock and boiling it down and chilling it so that it solidifies or dissolving unflavored gelatin (like Knox) in chicken broth and chilling it. I found out that if I chilled the leftover braising liquid from making my mom's beer duck (sorry, it's a classified recipe now, but you can probably find it on-line somewhere else) it solidifies into an aspic. And since I had made some beer duck the night before and Liv and Ruth were making fresh dumpling skins, I figured we should try to make some xiao long bao as well!

First, to make the homemade dumpling skins, all you need is flour and hot water. Ruth doesn't really use measurements and mostly goes by feel, but I found this recipe on the chowhound forums that works pretty well.

Homemade Dumpling Skins (adapted from here)
makes 56 skins

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons cold water
Flour for dusting

Pour boiling water into the flour, quickly stir with a fork or chopstick, mix well, then add the cold water. Mix and knead into a soft dough about 5 minutes.

Cover with damp cloth or paper towel. Set aside and rest for 20 minutes.

Knead the dough for 1 minute and divide into 4 quarters. Roll one quarter into a long snake and pinch into about 1 inch lengths.

Dust flour on work surface. Roll each piece into a circle of about a 3 inch diameter.

You'll want to make the edges a little thinner than the center, and for xiao long bao, you definitely want the edges very thin since you'll be doing a lot of pleating. The great thing about making your own skin for wrapping dumplings is that it's much stretchier than the kind you buy so you don't need to worry as much about overfilling. Also, you don't need to add that ring of water around the edge to make the dough stick. In fact, if you get the dough wet (from the filling or whatnot), it doesn't stick as well. If that happens, just set it aside and work on the next one. When it dries out a bit you can try pinching it again to make it stick.

Now back to making xiao long bao. Actually, this is a very un-traditional version since I was just using my mom's pork and cabbage dumpling filling and beer duck aspic. A more traditional xiao long bao filling wouldn't have the napa cabbage or bean thread vermicelli in it and maybe would have shrimp or crab meat in it instead. But I wasn't about to make a separate filling or aspic for this experiment so tough cookies.

Joy's Untradiational Xiao Long Bao
makes however many you want

Leftover braising sauce from Mama Huang's Beer Duck, chilled overnight to form an aspic
Pork and cabbage dumpling filling
Homemade dumpling skins (recipe above)
2 large napa cabbage leaves per steamer tray, washed
Ginger, peeled and julienned
Black vinegar

Take a dumpling skin, spoon some dumpling filling into it and spread it out to form a thin layer.

Add a 1/2 teaspoon of aspic. Add a little more dumpling filling on top.

Gather one edge of the dumpling skin and start pleating all the way around, twisting at the end to seal. Here's a video of Ruth showing us how to do this, with Liv reminding us how to pronounce the gelatinous soup.

Place two napa cabbage leaves on the bottom of each steamer tray, cutting off the white stem if necessary to fit.

Place the wrapped dumplings on the leaves and steam for 10 minutes.

Serve with a dipping sauce of julienned ginger and black vinegar.

I didn't really notice the addition of the cabbage and vermicelli in the filling that much because the duck aspic melts into this wonderful broth that almost overwhelms everything else. In fact, I wish the pork filling I used wasn't seasoned because the duck aspic was more than enough seasoning by itself. Just remember to be careful biting into the soup dumplings because the soup may be really, really hot!

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Char Siu Bao

Liv and Ruth came over yesterday to make some bao zi, or more accurately, Ruth and I made bao zi and Liv washed the veggies, diced the meat, fixed my chairs, set up my HDTV, and cleaned up afterwards. I'm not complaining! =) At first we were going to just make veggie buns (su cai bao) and pork and cabbage buns, but I thought it might be fun to try to make char siu bao. I really like the big, fluffy, white char siu bao you can get a Cantonese dim sum, but after trying to find the recipe on-line, it looks like the only way to get that is with a Vietnamese mix, and I didn't really feel like heading back out to try to find some. And I was all ready to make char siu pork from scratch using a marinade of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, five spice powder, and honey, but then I found a jar of char siu sauce at the Asian grocery store, all mixed up and ready to go. So I copped out and bought that since, after all, this is my first time trying to make char siu, and I was making the dough from scratch.

Char Siu Pork
makes enough for 16 buns and one or two servings over rice

1.6 lbs. pork butt or shoulder (you want something fatty, pork loin wouldn't work)
1 (8.5 oz.) jar of char siu sauce

Cut the pork into long strips about 1 cm thick. Using a fork, prick the strips all over to tenderize and also to help the sauce marinate the meat thoroughly. Add 5 tablespoons of the char siu sauce and marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 °F. Boil 2 cups of water.

Place the pork strips on a grilling rack in a single layer. (I used the racks from my toaster oven with a baking pan underneath.) Add enough boiling water to the bottom of the pan to come to a depth of 1/2 inch. Roast for 10 minutes.

Turn the strips with tongs and baste with more char siu sauce. Repeat every 10-15 minutes until the pork has roasted for at least a total of 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Slice the pork on the diagonal against the grain. You can serve the pork with rice and vegetables, on top of ramen, or use as a filling for char siu bao.

I liked how the sauce made the pork (artificially) red just like the kind you get from Cantonese restaurants, and the taste seemed similar enough, although the texture wasn't as crispy as what you get at a restaurant. Maybe next time I will try making this without the water bath or on a barbecue grill.

To prepare the char siu pork as filling for char siu bao, you'll need to dice the pork into small pieces and add a little more char siu sauce to bind it together.

Char Siu Bao

makes 16 buns

1 recipe for hua juan dough, mixed, kneaded, risen once, and re-kneaded
1 lb. char siu pork, either homemade or from a store, diced
2 tablespoons char siu sauce

Toss the diced pork with the char siu sauce, adding a teaspoon or two of warm water if necessary.

Divide the dough into 16 equal parts. Take one piece, roll it into a ball, and flatten with your hands. Stretch the circle out so that it is about the size of your palm. (You could use a rolling pin to do this, but there's no need.)

Add about 1 tablespoon of filling to the middle of the dough. Cup your hand so that the dough comes up around the filling. Using the hand not holding the dough, pinch a bit of the edge, pull it up and away from you. Then grab another piece further away from you and continue around the dough, rotating as you go. Once you have gone all the way around, twist what you have left between your fingers and seal.

Here is a (mostly silent) video of Ruth showing how to do it with her su cai bao:

Place the bun sealed side down on a square of parchment paper. Return the filled buns to the oven (set at the lowest possibly setting) for 20-30 minutes to proof.

Add water to your steamer (I use my stock pot with the pasta insert and steamer insert for two levels) and heat on high. Once the water is boiling, place the buns in your steamer and steam for 13-15 minutes.

I found that when I made this I had added too much char siu sauce to the diced pork so it was too salty, so I reduced the amount in the recipe above, and I would suggest adding a little water to dilute the sauce even further so that you have enough sauce to bind the meat all together.

If you're not going to eat all the buns right away, you can freeze them in a freezer bag and reheat them individually in the microwave for 1 minute, wrapped with plastic wrap or in a sandwich bag.

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Pork and Cabbage Dumplings

Another favorite thing my mom makes are her dumplings. She also taught me how to wrap them, and I've definitely become something of a dumpling wrapping nazi when I'm at dumpling making parties. I really, really don't like the dumplings without pleats, the ones that just lay there on its side looking so pitiful. Not only do they just not look like real dumplings, they can't sit upright so they take up more space both on the tray and in the frying pan. This is a problem because a) you don't want the fresh dumplings to touch one another or else they will stick together, and b) you want the dumplings to be able to stand upright on the frying pan so that you can fry the bottom and steam the rest (I'll tell you how below).

And while I'm on the topic of personal preferences, I like my dumplings thin-skinned. Not really sure why, other than it's a texture preference. I also do not like the ones with Chinese chives--the flavor is way too strong! I find that pork and cabbage are the perfect fillers because they are innocuous enough to deliver the flavors of the seasonings used. Another weird quirk of mine: I don't like black pepper. But to compensate I use white pepper which is a little less piquant.

A couple of tips for making dumplings:

• If you don't have a food processor (I didn't have one for years until Carsten gave me his, thanks Carsten!) you can use a blender for the cabbage and scallions, but you'll need to add water so that the cabbage and stuff can move around. Just make sure you squeeze out the water thoroughly afterwards. I haven't tried using a blender to mince ginger, but I have a feeling it wouldn't work properly. Fortunately, there is much less ginger than cabbage to mince, and there's always the chef's knife and a cutting board.
• To taste test the filling, just microwave a teaspoon or so for about 20 seconds. Yes, this is a tip from my mom. Isn't she the smartest?
• You want the filling to be moist, but not swimming in liquid because the excess liquid will often seep out of the wrapped dumplings and cause them to stick to each other. If you see a lot of excess liquid in your filling, transfer it into a sieve placed over a bowl (but not touching the bottom of the bowl). The liquid will seep out on its own, and you'll be back in business. Another way my mom combats this issue is to add bean thread vermicelli so that it soaks up some of the liquid. It also adds a wonderful dimension to the texture of the filling.
• One of the hardest parts of folding a dumpling properly is getting the skin pliant enough. If you have really fresh dumpling skins, this won't be an issue as they'll be elastic enough for you to stretch and fold to your heart's content. If they've been in the fridge or freezer for a while, one way to get the edges softer is to wet them with warm water before you add the filling so they have some time to soften.
• To keep the freshly-wrapped dumplings from sticking to each other, place a few tablespoons of flour on the tray you'll be using to set the dumplings on after you wrap them. Dip each dumpling in the flour so that the bottom won't stick to the tray. Make sure that when you set them down they don't touch each other. When the tray is filled with fresh dumplings and if you are planning on freezing the dumplings, place the tray in the freezer for about 15 minutes or until they are starting to feel a little stiff. Then pop them in a freezer bag or Tupperware and put back in the freezer.
• Here is a quick video (thanks Annie for her videography skills) for how to wrap the dumplings. I'm especially proud of the serendipitous Taiwan-shaped imprint I leave in the flour after dipping my dumpling. You can also check out step-by-step photos for how to wrap starting here.

My Mom's Pork and Cabbage Dumplings
makes about 124 dumplings

2.5 lbs. ground pork
1 medium head of napa cabbage, roughly chopped
4 scallions, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and roughly sliced
2 bundles of bean thread vermicelli (dong fen)
1 cup soy sauce
5 tablespoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons white pepper
3 tablespoons sugar
124 round dumpling wrappers (2 packs)
flour

1) Soak the bean thread vermicelli in a bowl filled with hot water for 15 minutes.

2) While the vermicelli is soaking, use a food processor to mince the cabbage, scallions, and ginger. Transfer to a large mixing bowl by handfuls, squeezing out the extra water.

3) Squeeze out the excess water in the vermicelli and use the food processor to chop into about 1/2" pieces. Add to the mixing bowl.

4) Add the ground pork, soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, and sugar to the bowl and mix well. Taste test the filling by microwaving about a teaspoon of the mixture for about 20 seconds and tasting the result. Add more soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, or sugar as necessary.

5) Prepare plates or trays with flour for dipping and have a small bowl of warm water ready. Hold the wrapper in one hand and use the other to dip a finger in the water and wet the edges of the wrapper. Put a spoonful of the filling in the middle of the wrapper and fold in half. Seal center portion of the joined edges. Make two pleats on both the left and right side of the dumpling. Make sure that the whole thing is totally sealed and then dip the bottom in the flour and place on the tray. Repeat 123 times.

6) Once a tray is filled, if you are planning on freezing the dumplings, place it in your freezer and work on the next tray. By the time the second tray is ready, the dumplings on the first tray should be solid enough to place in a freezer bag. I usually add another tablespoon of flour to the bag just to make sure that nothing sticks together.

7) To boil the dumplings (i.e. to make shui jiao): bring a pot of water to boiling. Drop the frozen or fresh dumplings in and stir occasionally to make sure they don't stick to one another. After a few minutes, they will start to float, and they are ready once the skin is swollen (a few minutes after they start to float).

8) To pan-fry the dumplings (i.e. to make guo tie): heat a frying pan on high and add oil once it is hot. Once the oil is hot (I sprinkle a few drops of water onto the pan and wait for them to sizzle and evaporate), add the dumplings one at a time so that they are sitting upright. Once the bottoms are browned, add about a 1/2 cup of water (for 8 dumplings, my usual serving size). If you like your guo tie extra crispy, add 1 T of flour or cornstarch to the water and mix to get rid of the lumps before you add it to the pan. Be very careful as the steam coming off the pan may burn you. Cover and let cook for a few minutes until the water is almost all gone. Remove the lid and let the rest of the water cook off.

9) Serve with a dipping sauce. Straight soy sauce works, but if you have the time, add some vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar.

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