yup.
AMPERSAND TATTOO was not a hotbed of fun and excitement,
but i was a whole helluva lot warmer there than
at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
where the power kept failing over and over again,
and the dark of the day was invading all corners of the ol' haunted house.
that's cool.
a snow day means anything can happen.
like, there could be a giant bonfire of leftover christmas boxes and papers.
(and there was)
or,
there could be shoveling mountains of plow-packed snow from both ends
of my J-shaped driveway.
(and there was)
or,
there might even be a fresh hot batch of DUMPS ON MY FACE.
(and there was)
F* yes, friends. check the teleport:
WU-TANG!
that's right, b!tches-
i went all in on 21 jackpottin' powerful homemade expert vegan dumplings,
and FIVE motherF*ing SAUUUUUUUUCES!!!
the interiors of the dumplings are SO good...
charred shredded cabbage, blackened on a HOT pan, with a dab of sesame oil.
plus finely minced red onion, green onion, carrot, cilantro, and mushrooms.
AND there's a lotta microplaned garlic and grated skin-on organic ginger, too.
and you gotta get ground mustard and black pepper and sichuan red pepper
and rice vinegar and tamari and GPOP, too.
i don't measure anything for this part.
exxxtra filling is great,. because now i can make exxxtra dumplings, y'know?
the cabbage has bigger flavor when it's charred.
i kept it in wedges throughout the process.
the mushrooms were dry-fried in a big pan before i added them to a food processor
with a quarter of a red onion, the bottom half of a bunch of scallions,
a whole carrot, and three cloves of garlic, where i pulsed it that up to a crumbly consistency.
did i also add that trader joe's umami mushroom powder?
F* yeah i did.
then i added it all together in the hot pan, and let it sizzle until i added all those spices.
if i'm taking a hot dump to eleven, it's gotta have ALLLLL the hottness in there.
...and these do.
i made the filling the night before,
and let it hang out with fresh cilantro and scallion in the fridge until i was ready.
-
the wrappers are easy, but also pretty powerful.
in my stand mixer i combined:
1 cup + 2 T king arthur ap flour;
1 T dried crushed shallot;
1 T black sesame seeds;
1/4 tsp sea salt;
1 T minced green onion;
1/3 cup + warm water-
and i beat that up with a dough hook and got it beaten up into a shiny ball of dough.
that took a minute, and a little more water, too.
y'gotta cover it with plastic and rest the dough for like half an hour at least.
then, roll it out on a well-floured surface, and cut out all the circles.
mine are 3". and like i mentioned, there were 21. that's a lot.
but also, that's what you want.
less than eleven dumps make you a loser.
-
fill 'em with a spoonful of that good stuff, fold 'em over, and pinch the edges together,
then crimp 'em and give 'em a crescent bend.
nobody likes an ugly dumpling.
ugly ducklings have their purpose, but unattractive dumplings are NOT invited.
-
i fried mine in a blend of very hot sesame and olive oil- like, a teaspoon of each.
and after arranging them in 3 rows in a 10" nonstick pan,
i let them sizzle and sear just a baby bit, like two minutes,
before i added a slurry of hot water and flour-
a spoonful of flour in a few tablespoons of liquid,
and i dumped that into the screaming-hot pan, lidded it,
and let the water absorb and disappear,
but with the doughy thickening doing some extra bulking-up
along the sides of my little pouches.
YES!!
i gave them a flip, and i added some red chili oil,
and gave them another 'nother couple minutes to get browned up even MORE.
i was not about to let the last dumplings of 2019 be weak ones, neighbors.
look at that crispiness!
i garnished them with fresh ripped leaves of cilantro,
and pea shoots,
and scallion sprankles.
look at the textures. look at the golden goodness. look at the extra bottom thiccc jauns.
i impressed myself.
-
so, you already know that too much is the right amount, right?
well,
what about those FIVE separate sexxxy SAUCES?!
c'mon.
if you can't appreciate the diversity and intensity
and the over-the-top optimization available to each bite of each dumpling
then you are probably an A*-hole.
and that's no joke.
you wanna know about each one?
okay. here we go:
*
HOMEMADE RED CHILI OIL!
-
heat up about half a cup of vegetable oil to like 350 degrees.
in a small ceramic bowl, combine:
black pepper;
crushed red pepper;
sichuan peppercorns;
whole dried red chili, partially crushed;
ground korean red chili flakes;
paprika;
sesame seeds;
cayenne;
all of that, shaken in by eye,
with whatever proportions you feel might taste best.
i mean, you know what you like-
and with about half a cup of hot oil poured over the whole thing,
you will toast everything up while cooling it off fairly quickly-
then add a drop of sesame oil to kick it into high gear,
and also, maybe a touch of hot paprika for flavor and color
it's more nutty than hot,
and it's F*ing delicious and red and awesome all at once.
-
*
SWEET SICHUAN SOY SAUCE!
-
this one is F*ing tiiiiiiiight AF.
i didn't need a ton, but i made more than enough-
1/3 cup of tamari;
1 T sugar;
1 T brown sugar;
a dash of fennel, dried chili, dried ginger, a pinch of peri-peri chili spice,
a drop of lime juice, black pepper and a just few sichuan peppercorns,
all slowwwww-simmered until it's thiccc.
y'all think you be knowin'- but y'all don't be knowin'.
now you do kinda know a little... but until you make it,
you can't truly appreciate how expert it is.
-
*
SESAME GINGER PEANUT SAUCE!
-
a tablespoon of peanut butter;
two teaspoons of tamari;
a drop of toasted sesame oil;
a dash of white and black sesame seeds;
1/4" grated fresh ginger;
1 tsp rice vinegar;
1 tsp agave;
a dash of chili flake;
a pinch of Garlic Powder...
it's very rich.
it's very good.
it goes great with the sweet soy,
and even better with the next sauce:
-
*
SMOKY SRIRACHA CHILI SAUCE!
-
5 tsp sriracha;
1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds;
1/2 tsp rice vinegar;
2 drops liquid smoke;
a shake of GPOP;
two shakes of habanero ho'sauce;
a pinch of powdered sugar;
1/2 tsp tamari;
a drop or two of sesame oil.
HOT!
but not offensive or intrusive or distracting.
it's just a little zap of extra-tangy spice, and that's nicey-nice.
-
also, after all that, there's also the old standby.
the original.
the site-specific situationally-appropriate SAUCE that started it all.
-
*
CUSTOM DUMP SAUCE!!
-
3 T tamari;
1 T rice vinegar;
1 tsp powdered sugar;
1 tsp agave;
1/4 tsp sesame oil;
GPOP, ground mustard, black pepper.
1 clove grated garlic;
1 small bud of grated ginger;
3-4 crushed sichuan peppercorns;
a scoop of toasted sesame seeds;
a pinch of fresh green onion;
a few drops of ho'sauce-
stirred -up and allowed to marinate all damned day.
this one gets better with time.
and when it is DUMPLING TIME,
this is what you need to make it expert o'clock.
***********
2019 is just about done.
and it's another snow day.
it's wet and cold and icy and snowy and it looks beautiful and terrible outside.
it's still coming down.
i'm thinking about this year.
i'm thinking about my whole life.
i'm thinking about love.
i'm thinking about business.
i'm thinking about the future.
i'm thinking about right now.
i'm thinking too much, and it's making me tired.
i'm grateful for all the enormous events this year provided.
i'm grateful for the old people and the new people and the newest person,
and i'm positively electrified with the prospect of a better tomorrow.
i've got more to say about all of this.
and i will write it down before we start a whole new year.
but right now i have to work off some of that dumpling feast with
an hour or two of snow removal.
snow man, snow man, yeah that's me;
NQNS.....
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