Pickled Red Chiles: "Beyond the Great Wall"

Feeding my addiction has never been so good for me. Some people say chocolate is better than sex. I say chiles are better than chocolate, and I've had good chocolate.I ran out of Guizhou Chile Paste. You have to understand, that stuff is meant to last a long time. It's not like you eat it by the spoonful. It is addictive, though, and I went through it like it was candy. No, really, the sichuan peppercorns are actually addictive, I think. They would be illegal if someone who had power over such things actually tasted them or knew what they could do. Fortunately, most business lunches don't end up at Chinese restaurants that would dream of using the stuff. In fact, I don't know any restaurants at all in Montreal or Toronto that use them. They probably do, but I don't know them. They're hard enough to find, (both the peppercorns and the restaurants) and even harder to find good quality (both, again).

Fortunately Épices de Cru is an amazing company that is feeding my addiction. Also fortunately, no recipe that calls for these things actually calls for very much, so a small container lasts a long time. Much longer than my chile paste did. They're pungent, to say the least. I bit into a whole peppercorn the other day and subsequently couldn't feel my lips for half an hour. It's not that they're hot or "spicy", whatever that means, but they actually do have an anesthetic quality. It's weird, though, because it's not like a drug that knocks you out. You won't be able to feel your lips, but you'll be high on endorphins and have so much energy. You know how certain foods are supposedly aphrodisiacs? Things like oysters, which I don't understand. They're slimy and delicious but physically I don't think there's actually a property in them that excites you. Sichuan peppercorns elicit a physical response. You'll probably also feel hungry after eating the tiniest bit, because your metabolism will be in overdrive from the endorphins. So you'll want to keep eating, which probably means having more of the dish with the peppercorns...and the cycle continues.

Addiction.

I'm trying to be a careful addict. I don't really want to recover, but I don't want to push my obsession too far. So instead of making the guizhou chile paste again, I decided to try the recipe in Beyond the Great Wall for pickled red peppers. Really I did this because the long red chile peppers looked so fresh at my favourite mushroom shop in Atwater Market (any idea why they put the mushrooms and chile peppers together in a large horizontal display in the middle of the store? I mean, I don't usually cook mushrooms and chilies together). The recipe also calls for a quarter the amount of the sichuan peppercorns needed for the other paste, so the effect shouldn't be so acute. It'll be like going from 8 cups of coffee a day to 2.

There are two ways to do this recipe - the fast way and the not so fast way. Since I don't know how to safely sterilize a jar for pickling, I went with the fast one. I also wanted to eat the pickled chilies with dinner, not in 2 weeks. Even my kitchen forethought tops out at a few days. There's a reason I don't make my own vanilla extract or age bottles of wine.

Ingredients:
4 long red chile peppers
1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt (I used Himalayan crystal salt)
1/8 tsp sichuan peppercorns (it didn't say ground, so I assume whole was fine)
1/2 star anise, whole or broken (I found a whole half).

I like that this isn't a sweet pickle. Actually, the chiles are kind of sweet on their own, so I don't think it needs any sugar, but feel free to add some the second time you make it if you're not happy with your first batch.

Take out the seeds of the chile peppers. This is where the flavourless heat comes from. If you don't take them out the chiles will just burn you. Without them, you can actually taste the freshness of the peppers.

Now the recipe said to remove the tops and slice the chiles into half inch slices, but it didn't specify how to cut them length-wise. I decided to make thin strips and estimate 1/2" slices. I think I misread the directions and actually cut them into 1 1/2" slices, but that's what teeth are for...when you mess up. Place the chiles in a heat-proof bowl large enough to press a small plate on top of them later, or a lid that touches the surface of the chiles. This will make sense in a minute.

Heat the vinegar in a saucepan (don't boil, just warm) and then add the salt, sichuan peppercorns and star anise. Bring the mixture to a boil and then pour over the chiles in the bowl. Now you want to put the small plate or lid on top of the chiles to weigh them down and completely cover them in the pickling liquid. If your bowl is too deep the liquid will just spread out and not do its job, and if the bowl is too small you may not be able to get a weight or plate in there to keep the chiles submerged and covered. Let them stand 30 minutes, or longer to infuse.
So I did, and then I drained off the pickling liquid and and used it to pickle some radish that I had cut into matchsticks. I am thinking of now draining the radishes to use the liquid to pickle some corrots. If I do this I will add some sugar to the liquid. I like the sweetness of the carrots.

Despite two marriage proposals this past week, I am still in search of high-quality chocolate.

So Many Dumplings: Turkey and scallion & Shiitake and Bamboo Shoots

Ground Turkey and Scallion Dumplings

The first course of the Asian-Inspired Dinner Party meal for 8 was a whole lot of dumplings:

Turkey and Scallion Dumplings
2 lbs ground turkey
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tbsp green onions, chopped
2 tbsp sake

Shiitake and Bamboo Shoot Dumplings
2 cups, shiitake mushrooms, diced
2 small cans bamboo shoots, drained and diced
1 tbsp green onions, diced
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted and ground

These work the same way. Combine all the dumplings ingredients in no particular order, stir well, and let the mixture marinate in the fridge, covered, for at least 5 hours (make them in the morning and cook them at dinner, or prepare the mixture the night before). You can also the marinating and the turkey dumplings just won't be quite as tender. The shiitake ones won't really suffer. Oh, bamboo shoots might be tricky to find in smaller grocery stores, but big chain ones and those specializing in Asian products will definitely have them.

Dumplings Wrappers
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cold water (approximately)
1/4 tsp salt

Seriously, there are only three ingredients in dumplings wrappers. For this reason I find it ridiculous to buy pre-made wrappers. The labour involved, however, is a lot, so I'm understanding of those who choose to not make their own.This took me about 3 hours total time at different periods throughout the day to make. It was worth it, but I had a rare excess of time on my hands.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and then pour in the water. Stir to just combine the dough and form it into a ball. You may need more water, or you may need more flour if the ball is too sticky. It shouldn't stick to your hands or the bowl. Don't knead the dough now and don't over-mix it. Place the ball in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for 30 minutes. It doesn't rise like bread, so you don't need a warm place, but you do need a draft-free place. After 30 minutes take the ball and knead it for 5 minutes, or until the ball is like elastic.

Well, my ball was sticky and needed (kneaded?) more flour, but after 30 seconds elastic-y so I wondered if 5 minutes would have been excessive. I tore the dough into 4 balls, and then tore one of those balls into large gumball-sized balls (like the ones you put a quarter into the machine to get and all the balls are different colours and you have to turn the handle and one comes out but you really wanted the blue one because it tastes like...well, nothing real, but something delicious...but you got the pink one instead so you tried to pawn it off on your sibling to get a second chance at the blue-flavoured ball. Or maybe that was just in my family. Anyway, about that size).

Now you need to roll the individual gumballs out so they're really thin. Use a rolling pin (or wine bottle or olive oil bottle...) coated in a lot of flour and toss a lot of flour on a clean counter. I needed to knead more flour into each little ball because they were too sticky. I guess I hadn't kneaded long enough initially after all. They shouldn't stick to the rolling pin and they shouldn't stick to the counter. Roll them out into circles and as you roll, rotate the dough on the counter to make sure they don't stick to it. Having to scrape them off the counter like cookies does not result in good wrappers.

When they're very thin (you can make them as thick as you want, but the skin will be more appealing and tender if they're thinner, in my opinion) coat them in flour and place them on a plate covered in a towel. You don't want them to dry out and you don't want them to stick to one another. I rolled out about 80 wrappers and thought I'd floured them enough, only to discover an hour later that some had decided to stick together. Fortunately I hadn't stacked them all directly on top of each other, being scared that this would happen. Instead I'd scattered them around a few large plates, so they mostly could be peeled apart when I tried to pick them up. I could kind of wedge my fingers between them, but if they'd been one on top of the other my entire afternoon's worth of dough rolling would have been for naught. Some weren't salvageable as it was, but I still ended p with just enough wrappers for all my fillings. I would have broken down and cried, probably, if the whole stack had turned into a mis-shapen glob-like hill of failure. It would have wrecked the dumpling course of the meal and would, more importantly, have been very unattractive, what with me crying on the floor. If this had happened (the dumplings having no wrappers, not the crying bit) my fall-back plan was the turn them into meatballs and just brown them in a frying pan and then bake them, which would have worked for the turkey but the mushrooms would have been a disaster. So, please remember to add a good layer of flour to each wrapper after you've rolled it out. On both sides, the flour. I couldn't bear to cause you any dumpling wrapper-related tears by inadequately warning you of impending disaster.

Shiitake Mushroom and Bamboo Shoot Dumplings

Okay, so now you've rolled out all your dough and you're tired, but your wrappers are happily floured and piled randomly around a few plates covered in kitchen towels. Take one wrapper at a time and dip your index finger into a small cup of warm water. Trace the outline of the wrapper with your finger to wet it. Now fill the wrapper with about a teaspoon (or 2 if the wrapper is large. My gumballs of dough were not as uniform as the ones in the gumball machines...so some were small and some were larger, whic makes for uneven steaming) of either the mushroom or turkey filling. Then bring all the edges of the circular wrapper together and try to twist the top to seal it. If you've over-filled the wrapper it may not want to close. Also, the mushroom dumplings are pretty liquidy and like to spill, so you may need to kind of drain your spoonfuls against the side of the bowl of filling before adding it to the dough. The nice thing about rolling the dough is you can make the wrappers thinner at the edges (it usually just happens on its own, but you can do it intentionally) so that the twisted part at the top isn't too thick and doesn't turn into a glob of paste-y steamed dough after cooking. It can get kind of dense and unappetizing, so the thinner and smaller the twisted top of the dumpling is, the better.

To steam the dumplings (hurray! You're on the home stretch!) line a steamer basket with lettuce or cabbage leaves (large ones are better so they don't stick to the individual dumplings) and place the dumplings in them so they're not touching. If they touch they'll stick together when you try to remove them from the steamer. Set a large pot filled with a bit of water (not so high in the pot that it will touch the bottom of the steamer apparatus) on high heat and when it comes to a boil add the steamer insert with the first batch of dumplings. Lower the heat a little and steam for about 7-8 minutes, or until the inside of a turkey dumpling is no longer pink. You'll have to cut it open to check, but you can call it quality control. I did this with two pots steaming simultaneously. Traditionally a steamer basket would have multiple levels so you can steam more than one layer of dumplings at a time. Unfortunately, my steamer is not bamboo and doesn't tier, and my methods are not so traditional. They are also, therefore, more time consuming, but all the dumplings don't come out at once, which means, joyfully, that by the time you want to refill your plate with more dumplings there will be a fresh, hot batch waiting for you. Actually, if you do this with a traditional steamer you can recover the dumplings in the steamer until you want more. This is still less fuss. Traditions are traditions for a reason, I suppose. Years of evolution have led to tiered steamer baskets and the world is a happier place everywhere but in my kitchen.

Serve the dumplings with small dishes, cups or ramekins of (1) hot sauce, like the Guizhou Chile Paste, (2) soy sauce (or tamari) and (3) a sticky sweet sweet sauce, like hoisin. You can use or make a sweet soy sauce, or a black vinegar, or a soy-vinegar, and the sweet could also be oyster sauce. Different Asian restaurants will have different options on the table, so it's up to you what you want to serve even if you're going for authenticity. In fact, a lot of places just put a store-bought bottle of sauce straight on the table and don't even remove the lable. So that's fine too for a casual meal at home. Then diners can pour a little of their desired sauces onto their plate and mix them as they see fit. Let them take their own dumplings one by one from the plate or steamer basket on the table. This should be communal food, not "here is your allocation of dumplings" food, where you place a portion in front of each diner. Placing a whole plate of freshly-steamed dumplings on a table is quite a presentation, even if you need to take the steamer baskets back to the kitchen to start the next batch.

Next up, Miso-Marinated Cod with sake, mirin and lychee...

Chile Paste Verdict

I'm finally back with the results of the Chile paste. I got to try the Guizhou chile paste on a lot of different foods - a Chinese New Year noodle dish, on a mild thai chicken dish, and on potatoes. The verdict?

Flaming lips-hot. Not a whole lot of flavour to the heat, but very, very spicy. I should have saved it for the Valentines Day post. "How (opt. "Ow") to leave your lover...speechless". When their lips won't move...

Maybe better to market it to those who wish their significant other would be a bit less verbose. The leaving part could be optional.

Guizhou Chile Paste: "Beyond the Great Wall"

Getting a new cookbook makes me really excited. Opening it is like waking up on Christmas morning again and again because with each page turn there's a new recipe you didn't see before. I actually did get this book for Christmas, though, thus making Christmas even better. Combining my fake Christmas simile with real Christmas made for a pretty amazing morning.

"Beyond the Great Wall" book is much more than a cookbook. It's my first step into "culinary anthropology." Apparently that's a real degree offered at a University in Hawaii. Hawaii gets so many things right...not that I'm about to hop on a plane to Hawaii...but...

...the two authors of the book, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, are two curious travelers who spent upwards of 30 years trekking all over Asia, exploring food and customs. They were 2 of the first Americans to set foot in Tibet after it re-opened to foreigners in 1979 (After about 120 years of being closed) and to really delve into the lesser known parts of China. That's what this book is - recipes from "beyond the great wall", the food of the minority non-Han Chinese.

The recipes are arranged by type, from "Condiments and Seasonings", through "Noodles and Dumplings", "Breads", "Fish", "Lamb and Beef" to "Drinks and Sweet Treats". The photos make the book worth it by themselves, but the recipes sound so simple. Simple in ingredients, not in techniques. Chile paste goes on everything, soups and hot pots are flavoured by boiled meat and fish, and noodles are thrown in the broth after the meat is cooked. All that gets added to a whole steamed fish is salt, pepper, ginger, scallions and chile. Congee is water and rice, with optional chile paste or soy-vinegar dipping sauce. This is not sweet and sour sauce or kung pao Chinese. They do not believe in combos or complimentary fortune cookies.

So if I was going to make a recipe, I was going to use good ingredients. Otherwise, it would taste like a lot less than a North American is accustomed to, and as much as I usually keep my fish-steaming simple, I wanted to love this book. I want the first thing I eat from this book to be incredible so I can shout its praises, and say it's more than just stories and photos.

I decided I should start with the basics. This is supposed to be pungent..."Guizhou Chile Paste"

I bought a bag of Sichuan hot peppers, and a container of whole Sichuan peppercorns. The book says the peppercorns are completely different than black peppercorns. The book said to stem the chilis, but they didn't have much stem in the first place (to be honest I was a little scared because the book didn't specify the type of chili to use, whereas in other recipes it did, but I figured Sichuan hot peppers with Sichuan peppercorns?...When my tongue falls off I'll know, I suppose). You set the hot peppers in a bowl and pour over a cup of boiling water. Then let it sit for an hour.

When the hour's up, transfer it to a blender or food processor with a tsp. of salt. Then heat a skillet on high heat. No oil yet (I heated it with the oil but this turned out to be a mistake). When the pan is hot add 2 tbsp of peanut oil or vegetable (I used sesame, sorry. At least it wasn't olive. What a disaster that would have been) and reduce the heat to medium. Then added 2 tbsp of shallots, minced, with 1 tsp of ground Sichuan pepper, and sauté 3 minutes. The onion should get translucent, but it browned very quickly in my hot oil. If I'd added the oil only after heating the skillet, it would have worked better.

Anyway, after 3 minutes I added the chili purée from the blender, brought the pan contents to a boil and reduced the heat to simmer for 5 minutes. The liquid is supposed to reduce by half, and give you about 1/2 c. of liquid, but I ended up with a bit more, since the reference to half a cup isn't given until the end of the recipe.

Then I put the paste in a bowl and added a tbsp of rice vinegar. After the paste is cooled, transfer it to a glass jar and stick it in the fridge, not the cupboard. Since this isn't a pickled sauce that seals properly in a jar that's been sterilized, it doesn't last as long in the fridge, but the vinegar and salt will keep it around for awhile. The chilies also have preserving qualities. The recipe didn't say how long it was good for, but I'm going to guess at least a month. My tongue will be on fire by March 10th.

Tomorrow I'll try the paste and give the spiciness verdict. Big potluck. Lots to cook.