use real butter

While I was pondering a non-trad Thanksgiving menu, HolyBasil reminded me of a favorite dish from my childhood: Chinese hot pot. Call it what you want, huo guo, shabu shabu, fondue… it’s delicious and fun. My mom prepared this on cold nights and it was perfect for someone as picky as my sister. I distinctly recall the steam rising from the broth in the electric wok, fogging the insides of every window in the kitchen. The wok was the centerpiece of the table, surrounded by plates and bowls of colorful vegetables, meats, noodles, and tofu - ready to be picked and cooked. My mother hand sliced everything with such precision and laid out all of the ingredients in beautiful fans.

a modest spread

Typically I like to serve beef (flank steak), chicken (breast), shrimp, tofu, cuttlefish balls, tempura fish cake, bean thread noodles, spinach, napa cabbage, preserved mustard green, and green onions. Wash, peel, chop, slice everything in advance. To slice the meats thin, I freeze them for an hour or more until they are firm, but not rock solid. I soak the noodles in cold water for 30 minutes and then drain. In the electric wok, I usually pour a carton of chicken broth (I happened to have homemade broth this time - woohoo!) and dilute it with some water. Cover the wok and let the liquid come to a boil, once boiling add half of the noodles, some tofu, some fish balls, and some of the greens. When the broth returns to a boil, reduce to a simmer.

bean thread or cellophane noodles are a staple in my version of hot pot

love the greens

The key ingredient that goes into your own bowl is a spoonful (or two) of sa tsa jian - barbecue sauce. The only brand we ever get is Bullhead. I include the picture because like most of you, I can’t read Chinese *hangs head in shame*. Good thing I have such a visual memory because that is how I shop in Asian markets - labels. The ingredients aren’t anything scary, just ground up dried shrimp, brill fish, chili, garlic, oil, salt…

chinese barbecue sauce: it makes the meal

Good stuff. We add the green onions and preserved mustard green to our bowls and in my case, some wonderful chili garlic paste for kick.

awaiting soy sauce

Pour in as much soy sauce and sesame oil as you desire. The bowl will be fantastically salty at this stage, but you are supposed to dilute it with ladles of broth, noodles, and vegetables from the hot pot. As the liquid level lowers during the meal, replenish with hot water (we have a kettle of hot water at the ready).

Shrimp is something I only include when we have guests or if I am feeling particularly indulgent. Fresh is best. I peel and devein my shrimp and then I butterfly them open. It helps them cook more evenly - in the hot pot, they cook in less than a minute - and they curl up into a beautiful shape, like a blossom.

lovely shrimpies, i cannae resist ye

Chinese hot pot is a veritable mini buffet. People get their bowls ready with the spices and seasonings they want, then select what to eat, place it in the hot pot and let it cook. As food becomes ready to eat, they place it in their own bowl. You can graze (eat as it comes) or feast (fill your bowl and chow down). Whenever I serve this dish to my non-Asian friends, they go nuts over it. Beautiful in its simplicity, I just prep the food and they cook it to their liking - everyone is happy. The whole meal is remarkably fresh and healthy.

cooking a slice of flank steak

In my family, some things are communal - like the bean thread noodles, spinach, fish balls… Other items are personal: chicken, shrimp, beef. Let me rephrase that, Kris and I considered the meat personal and we would cook them in our own little “corner” of the pot. My parents seemed to regard the whole thing as communal and we would have to be vigilant for The Stir. That is when one of my parents, deep in conversation, would take their chopsticks and give the entire pot a huge stir while our cries of lost shrimp or beef would go unheeded. You see, Kris and I liked to cook our beef pink, not gray and the difference was literally seconds.

Of course, you can get as simple or as elaborate as you like. My parents have included scallop, grouper, pork, fried tofu, chinese mushrooms, snow peas, pork meatballs (similar to the filling in dumplings)… and Jeremy and I have prepared it with what I consider the bare essentials: beef, spinach, noodles, fish balls. I just want to warn folks that if you don’t have a trusted electric wok or electric cook pot, be sure to get one that is well made and safe. Our old one had a frayed cord, so we bought a new one two years ago on sale for $40. It has horrible temperature regulation and we have to use a heavy duty extension cord because it will melt a standard extension cord due to its 1500W draw. Don’t want your hot pot to turn into a house fire, okay?

a delicious party in my bowl

Chinese Hot Pot - Huo Guo
to serve 6

3/4 lb flank steak, sliced thin
3/4 lb chicken breast, sliced thin
1 lb fresh medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, and butterflied
1 pkg fishcake tempura, sliced
1 pkg cuttlefish balls
16 oz tofu, sliced
16 oz bean thread noodles (aka cellophane noodles), rehydrated in cold water and drained
8 oz baby spinach leaves, washed
12 leaves napa cabbage, washed, trimmed, cut
1 quart chicken broth
1 quart water
extra hot water on reserve

sauce
Chinese barbecue sauce (Bullhead brand)
soy sauce
sesame oil
chili garlic paste (optional)
1 bunch green onions, washed, trimmed and minced
6 oz preserved mustard green, minced

special equipment
electric wok or electric cook pot

Pour broth and water into wok and turn temperature to high. When liquid begins to boil, add half of the noodles, half of the tofu, half of the fish balls, handfuls of spinach and napa cabbage. Cover and let return to boil. Prepare individual bowls with sauce ingredients. When soup is boiling, remove the lid and reduce heat to an active simmer. Select various meats or other ingredients to place in wok and cook. When items are cooked, retrieve them from the wok and place in your own bowl. Ladle a few spoonfuls of soup, noodles, and vegetables into your bowl. Continue to add hot water to the wok as the level decreases. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, my favorite hockey-playing baker in the whole world just moved into her New House! Not only did Peabody and Co. buy a fancay new abode, but she is throwing a virtual housewarming party potluck - and we are all invited! Sweeeeet.

And I do mean sweeeeet. If you follow Peabody’s culinary forays, you know she bakes tons of beautiful pastries. Of late she has dazzled us with pumpkin, ginger, and all things that make us think autumn. Well, I decided to bring a dessert that is easy to share. It echoes those autumny sentiments as well as indulging in the decadence of delicate layers of flaky pastry: baklava. I hope she likes it.

walnuts

the filling: sugar, cinnamon, walnuts

I learned to make baklava in fourth grade, if you can believe it. My local 4-H leaders included a chef who taught us to make baklava! I didn’t actually remember the recipe, but I learned the tricks to handling phyllo dough so that when I made baklava in college, it was a cinch.

phyllo sheets

The trick is to first make sure you defrost it properly, either 24 hours in the refrigerator or several hours at room temperature. Next, it is important to keep the sheets covered with a damp towel whenever you are not removing a sheet. Be patient and gentle with the thin sheets of dough. And lastly, remember that with baklava, a few tears or folds will be barely noticeable.

keep a damp towel over the stack

I generally prefer to work with my phyllo sheets on a marble board. Most of the packages I buy come in full sheets. That’s not a big deal - each sheet represents two layers of phyllo and I just brush one half with butter, fold the other half over, and brush the top of that half with butter… two sheets. They fit into a 9×13 baking dish just fine. Don’t worry over the rounded corners if you have them, because people will eat those too.

work quickly and brush with butter

The filling is simply chopped walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together. When spreading the filling, it will look incredibly scant and you may worry that there isn’t enough. Trust me, it’s fine because there are about a thousand layers of phyllo and filling. It’s quite a lot, really.

sprinkle the filling between phyllo layers

At the start and end of the baklava assembly, there are 8 layers of phyllo to be stacked - top and bottom. Probably the only place you might care about using a good (i.e. not torn) sheet is on the very top. Once that is done, find your sharpest knife in the kitchen and slice the baklava into the sizes you want to serve. Be sure to cut all the way through the bottom layers or they will be pesky to deal with later when serving. I cut mine into 16 rectangles and then cut those rectangles into 32 diamonds. It helps to hold the top layers of phyllo down with your fingers because they like to drag.

use a sharp knife

The baklava bakes for over an hour. While that is in the oven, you can get the syrup ready. Don’t look at the picture below. I screwed it up because I didn’t read the recipe, just the ingredients. You are supposed to boil the sugar, water, lemon and orange peels, and cinnamon stick for 15 minutes and then add honey, but I added the honey and heck - was too lazy to try again. It turned out fine, but I do prefer the proper method to my screw up method.

don’t do this, follow the recipe instructions

When I was in graduate school, I baked a lot because it was a stress reliever and well… there was a lot of stress. I always brought batches of cookies, whole cakes, or other sweets in for the geology department. In my department was a geophysicist from Syria - one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Muawia would sample each treat and grade me on the overall quality. The first time I brought baklava to a party, he gave me an A- and said in a stern Syrian accent, “too sweet!” The next time I made baklava I was terrified of making it too sweet, so I reduced the sugar and Muawia’s verdict, “A+”. I know the recipe is now correct, because it has Muawia’s stamp of approval. Amazing what you learn in grad school.

pour the syrup as soon as the pan come out of the oven

Yes, be sure to pour the syrup over the baklava when it is hot. I love the sound, smell, and vision of the sizzling syrup as it gets sucked into the layers of the pastry. Spread it evenly over the whole pan. It’s easy enough to leave everything in the pan and bring it as is. I prefer to put each piece in a dessert paper ruffle (like muffin papers) if it isn’t an intimate gathering - and it looks like Peabody invited the WHOLE food blogging community to this shindig!

Happy Housewarming, Peabody. I see you have already made good use of the kitchen :)

sprinkled with ground pistachios

Baklava
Muawia approved

1 lb. phyllo pastry, thawed
1 cup butter, melted
4 cups walnuts (first measured, then fine chopped)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

syrup
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick cinnamon
2-inch slice of lemon peel
2-inch slice of orange peel
3/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 300F (I don’t preheat until I’m almost done with the assembly). Brush bottom of a 9×13 pan with butter. Layer phyllo then butter so that you have 8 sheets/layers. If your sheets are twice the size of the pan, then butter one half, fold the sheet over the buttered half and butter the top half. That counts as two layers. Mix the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon together. Sprinkle 1/3 cup of mixture over the phyllo in the pan. Set down two layers of phyllo/butter. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup of mixture. Repeat two layers of phyllo/butter and 1/3 cup of mixture until you finish with 8 layers of phyllo/butter on top. Cut slices in the pan with a sharp knife - either diamonds or squares/rectangles. Bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes. Meanwhile, boil the water, sugar, peels and cinnamon stick for 15 minutes. Add the honey (careful that it doesn’t boil over) and let boil for 2 more minutes. When baklava is done, pour the syrup over the hot pan. Cool. Serve.

As a child, I only knew of sugar plums through The Nutcracker and Twas the Night Before Christmas. Several years ago when I had a subscription to Saveur, I jotted down a recipe for sugar plums, mostly because I had never tasted one before. These sugar plums are confections, not the fruits that you can read about on Wikipedia. They are quite easy to make and tend to be a huge hit with people who either don’t care for chocolate or just enjoy the autumny spices and dried fruits. It’s a heady aroma that wafts through your house when you make a batch: orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, toasted almonds, honey.

almonds, dried dates, dried apricots

I have used Medjool dates in the past, but while shopping for dates this weekend, I saw Deglet dates and had to get them. They are not as juicy, not as mushy, not as sugary as Medjool, but I love Deglets. It dates (ha ha!) back to my time spent in Death Valley. We used to go there a lot to climb, hike, camp, and to catch spring desert blooms in March. They sell Deglets at Furnace Creek in large bags and I tried them over ten years ago and have been hooked ever since.

The almonds get toasted and chopped. Since I bought Deglets, they weren’t pitted, so be sure to pit your dates unless you don’t mind killing your food processor. The dates and apricots were also chopped. In a small bowl, I combined the spices with grated orange peel and some honey.

cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, orange peel, honey

Mix everything together in a large bowl. It’s sort of ludicrous to mix by spoon because it’s such a sticky mess. I use a clean hand to make sure the spice mix is well distributed.

you need to mix it with your hand

To roll the sugar plums, pinch off about a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Your hands will become coated with gooey goodness after a while and soon all of the ingredients will stick to you rather than each other. Scrape as much off as possible and wash your hands periodically.

a delicious bite-size morsel

Dust the sugar plums with confectioners sugar before serving. They have a decent lifetime, and are perfect for the holidays. I’m sending some to my pal, Sam, for Thanksgiving.

great to serve or to ship

Sugar Plums
from Saveur Magazine

2 cups whole almonds
1/4 cup honey
2 tsp grated orange zest
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup dried apricots, finely chopped
1 cup pitted dates, finely chopped
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 400F. Arrange almonds on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast in oven for ten minutes. Set aside to cool and then finely chop. Meanwhile, combine honey, orange zest, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Mix almonds, apricots, dates and spice mix in a large bowl. Mix well. Pinch off rounded teaspoon-sized pieces and roll into balls. Dust the sugar plums with powdered sugar and refrigerate in single layers between sheets of wax paper in airtight containers for up to one month.