Category Archives: Recipes

Recipe for Pork Dumpling Filling

Ingredients

  • 30 (3.5 inch diameter) wonton or dumpling wrappers.  See:  Recipe for Making Dumpling Wrappers
  • 1/2 pound ground pork
  • 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
  • 2 cloves grated or minced garlic (Optional)
  • 1 stalk of  green scallion onion, thinly chopped
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil (Optional especially if you have a sesame allergy)
  • 1 egg, beaten (Optional)
  • 1 cup finely shredded / grated cabbage (Chinese or regular)

Directions

  • In a large bowl, combine the pork, ginger, garlic, green onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, egg and cabbage. Stir until well mixed.
  • Place 1 heaping teaspoon of pork filling onto each wonton skin. Moisten edges of wonton with water and fold edges over to form a triangle shape. Roll edges slightly to seal in filling. Set dumplings aside on a lightly floured surface until ready to cook (or refrigerate until ready to cook).
  • Using a Steamer:  Arrange dumplings in a covered bamboo or metal steamer so they don’t touch to prevent them from sticking together; steam for 15 minutes, or until pork is cooked through.
  • Using a Hot Pot: Put your favorite package of hot pot spices in the pot full of water and bring the broth in the hotpot to a boil.
  • Add about a half dozen of the wonton / dumplings (at a time) into the boiling broth and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the pork inside the dumplings are cooked.  Repeat until a sufficient number of dumplings are cooked for yourself and your guests.
  • Serve the dumplings hot with dipping sauces, such as a thickened teriyaki sauce or your favorite pepper base sauce or sweet garlic hot pot sauce.

Making Dumpling Wrappers

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • between 2/3 cup to 1 1/4 cups hot water
  • flour or cornstarch for dusting the work surface

Instructions

  • Sift the flour into a bowl and add the salt to the flour and whisk together.
  • Pour in the hot water and mix with a fork or chopsticks until the water has been absorbed by the flour.
  • Place the dough on a working surface and knead with your hands for about 3 to 5 minutes until a smooth and soft dough forms.
  • Then form the dough into a ball, wrap it tightly in thin plastic wrap (cling wrap) and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  • After chilling in the refrigerator, then divide the dough into 2 or 4 pieces and wrap each piece, except for one, in cling wrap again. Work with one piece at a time and place the others in the cling wrap back into the refrigerator to prevent them from drying out.
  • Roll one piece out on a lightly floured work surface to be about 2 mm thin. To make wonton wrappers, cut out squares with a pizza cutter (approx. 3“ x 3“). Or to make gyoza wrappers, cut out circles, using a round glass or cookie cutter (approx. 3″ to  4“ in diameter). Combine any leftover dough to roll it out again and use it to cut and make more wrappers.
  • Then fill and fold each wrapper however you like with your desired filling (or stack them up for later use (See storage below).
  • Remove the next dough portion from the refrigerator and repeat this process to make more wrappers.

Notes

The total amount of wrappers may vary depending on the thickness of your dough and the size of your wrappers.

Storage

  • Dust the prepared wrappers with a little cornstarch before stacking them up, otherwise, they will stick together. Since the wrappers tend to dry out quickly, be sure to either use them immediately or store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freeze them.
  • To freeze the wrappers, first, dust them with some cornstarch, then stack them up and wrap the stack tightly in cling film. Put them in a freezer bag, seal it airtight and then freeze.
  • If you want to use them, simply thaw them in the fridge overnight

This recipe is derived from an article at: https://biancazapatka.com/en/homemade-dumpling-wrappers/

Pizza Recipe

Pizza Dough Ingredients

  • One cup of hot tap water (tepid).  Hot enough to activate the dry yeast, but not too hot to kill the active yeast.
  • One Package of Fleishman’s Dry Active Yeast
  • One Teaspoon of Sugar
  • One-half Teaspoon of Salt
  • Two Cups of Flour / Unbleached. (and possibly up to an extra 1/8 or 1/4 cup of flour if necessary).
  • Two Teaspoons of Olive Oil

Pizza Directions

Fill a medium-sized Pyrex glass mixing bowl with about a quart of hot tap water in order to warm the bowl for a minute of two.  Spill the hot water from the mixing bowl down your sink drain (discard the quart of hot tap water).

Add one teaspoon of sugar to the warmed Pyrex glass mixing bowl, then add the one (1) cup of hot (tepid) tap water, and immediately pour one package of Fleishman’s dry active yeast into the cup of tepid tap water, and use your finger to stir the water and dissolve all of the yeast. Cover the bowl loosely with some plastic wrap and wrap a dish towel over the mixing bowl, and let the yeast bubble into a foam for about 3 to 5 minutes.

Now, add two (2) cups of flour (unbleached flour) into the yeast/water in the glass mixing bowl along with one-half teaspoon of salt (for taste), and then use a metal spoon to briskly stir (whisk) the flour and yeast/water mixture until the mixture becomes a ball of dough.  If the dough is too sticky to knead it by hand, then add a little bit more flour (about 1/8 cup to 1/4 cup extra flour) and finish kneading the dough by hand until it is moist and still elastic. 

Shape the dough by hand into a round dough ball and seal the outside layer of the dough ball with about one  teaspoon of olive oil, and place the dough ball back into the glass mixing bowl.  Cover the mixing bowl loosely with plastic wrap, and wrap a dish towel around the mixing bowl to keep everything warm.

Allow the dough to rise for about 10 to 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 400 degrees F

When the dough has risen (about double its original size), then grease a metal pizza pan with some olive oil and hand-spread the pizza dough evenly throughout the pizza pan into a pizza pie shape.  (Optional) Cover the pizza dough in the pizza pan loosely with plastic wrap and a dish towel and allow the dough to rise another five (5) minutes covered.

Pre-bake the pizza dough into a pizza shell.  Remove the plastic wrap and dish towel from the pizza pan if you allowed the dough to rise a second time in the pizza pan. When the oven reaches 400 degrees F.,  place the pizza pan with the spread pizza dough into the oven on an oven rack that is about 6 to 8 inches from the bottom of the oven, and set your cooking timer for 3 minutes–in order to pre-bake the pizza dough into a pizza shell for about 3 minutes.

After 3 minutes of pre-baking, remove the pizza pan and prebaked pizza shell from the oven.

Spread a thin layer of your favorite pizza sauce (or a thin layer of tomato sauce) onto the top of the pre-cooked pizza shell, and top the sauce with cheeses (such as, mozzarella and cheddar or Colby), and your other favorite toppings, and finish baking the panned pizza in the oven for 10 to 11 minutes at 400 F on the rack that is about 6 to 8 inches from the bottom of the oven. 

Remove the pizza pan from the oven when the cheese is melted and is beginning to slightly brown in a couple places, and when the underside of the dough of the pizza shell is becoming a little firm or slightly browned, and when the crust on the edges of the dough is baked sufficiently crisp for your taste. Be careful not to burn the cheese.   

After baking the pizza shell, with added sauce, cheese and toppings, for about 10 to 11 minutes, then remove the pan and finished pizza from the oven.  Carefully remove the cooked pizza pie from the pizza pan using a couple of large spatulas to loosen and separate the bottom of the pizza shell from the pan, and lift the intact pizza pie from the pan, and place the pizza pie on a sheet of waxed paper that is spread on a large cutting board.  Slice the pizza and serve it hot after the cheese has had an opportunity to slightly cooled for only a couple of minutes.  Enjoy!

Tzatziki Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 16 ounces of sour cream (or substitute plain Greek yogurt)
  • 3 or 4 cloves of minced or grated garlic (the more garlic – the hotter the tzatziki sauce)
  • 1/2 cucumber grated and thinned (drain and discard the juice from the cucumber)
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of finely ground white pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt (or more to your taste)

Instructions:

Combine ingredients and stir to blend.
Keep refrigerated. 
Use to top gyros, or to top pork or chicken souvlaki.

Pipo’s Slow-Cooked Pork

Pipo’s Pork Ingredients:

  • 2 to 3 pounds of pork tenderloin or pork shoulder
  • 4 garlic clovers, pressed (or less is fine)
  • 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano, rubbed
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 10 ounces of sour orange juice – Naranja Agria / bitter orange (or substitute 2 parts fresh orange juice and 1 part lemon or lime juice)
  • 1/2 cup dry white cooking wine
  • 5 whole peppercorns (or more)

Directions:

Cut the garlic cloves in half or in thirds, removing skin.  Press the garlic cloves (smash them with the flat side of a knife on a wooden cutting board) and continue removing the skin. 

In a small bowl combine and whisk together the sour orange juice, white cooking wine, pressed garlic, oregano, cumin, and Kosher salt.

Place pork in slow cooker (crock pot), pour sour orange mixture over the pork, and add the peppercorns on top.

Cover and cook on low setting for 4 to 6 hours.

When the pork is sufficiently tender (almost falling apart), remove and place it on a cutting board, and use two forks to shred the pork (pull it apart). 

Either serve the pork using the reserved cooking liquid as au jus, or return the shredded (pulled) pork back into the slow cooker along with the cooking liquid for another 10 to 20 minutes cooking on low. 

Serve with black beans and raw diced onions over rice.  You can use white rice or find a good recipe for yellow rice.

 

Scalloped Potatoes Recipe

SCALLOPED POTATOES

White Sauce Ingredients:

  • 3  Tablespoons butter
  • 2  Tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2  Cups milk

Make a white sauce of the first 3 ingredients.  Melt the butter in a small pot on stovetop low heat.  Add milk and flour and raise heat to medium high.  Stir until white sauce begins to thicken.

Potatoes:

  • 6  Medium potatoes, pared and thinly sliced (6 cups)
  • 2  Tablespoons of diced onions
  • 1  Teaspoon of salt
  • 1/8 Teaspoon pepper

Use some butter to grease a 2-quart Corning-ware casserole dish/pot having a glass cover.  Place half of the sliced potatoes in the casserole dish/pot.  Add half of the white sauce to the potatoes in the casserole dish/pot, and sprinkle about half of the salt, pepper and diced onions over the potatoes.  Create a second layer with the other half of the potatoes in the casserole dish/pot, sprinkle the remaining salt, pepper and diced onions.

Bake:

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Cover the casserole pot/dish with the glass lid and place the casserole pot/dish on the 2nd to lowest oven rack.  Bake covered for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  Uncover and bake an additional 30 minutes at 350 degrees.