Sourdough Cranberry Linguica Oyster Stuffing

 

For the first recipe of 2015, I am posting a recipe that I’ve been making every year for my family’s Christmas dinners and has now has become a standard dish. Like the Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No⁶ Mai⁵ Faan⁶) recipe, the dish’s preparation starts a few days before cooking and some ingredients are stir fried before assembling the dish to add flavor.

I’ve been making this variant of the original Sourdough-Cranberry Stuffing Recipe at Epicurious.com for many family Christmas dinners. The most notable additions are linguica and dried oysters. Given the aversion of one of my family members to celery, that ingredient is left out of this recipe, but definitely should be included if you make this dish (use the same quantity as the carrots and onions – 1 cup/125 ml.). I was always intrigued by the use of cranberries in this dressing, which is probably why I keep making it year after year.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to get my linguica from the Goulart Sausage Company. They are a small family owned business and I’ve been buying from them for many years (they make other products besides linguica). You know that their products have to be good when you see hardwood, used to smoke their products, stacked at the front of the business and smelling their smoker at work. I keep telling them that I need to visit them more often! Hopefully you can find such a gem of a meat producer, but if you can’t, store bought linguica or Italian sausage are good substitutes in this dish.

Oysters in stuffing is nothing new, but the oysters used are usually fresh. In this case, I’ve added dried oysters, an Asian ingredient, to a traditional American dressing. The dried oysters are of course rehydrated and are much smaller than their fresh counterparts. The oysters are a fairly recent addition to this recipe. I’ve made this stuffing without oysters for many years, so feel free to omit them since I think you’ll still like the results.

The thing about stuffing that I like are that the quantities of ingredients can vary and the resulting dish still tastes good. The recipe is very forgiving if you use too much of one ingredient or not enough of another. Some years I’ve used more linguica because I bought more than I thought I needed. Sometimes the onion I used is just a little too big, so I use it all. I’ve used other root vegetables, like turnips and parsnips, and in the end the dish was still tasty. So what I’m saying, is that you should feel free to experiment with the ingredients and quantities, and after all, you’re only experimenting on your family. 8-)

Enjoy!

Steamed Lemon Garlic Black Bean Pork Baby Back Ribs (檸蒜蓉豆豉蒸排骨, Ning4 Syun1 Jung4 Dau6 Si6 Zing1 Paai4 Gwat1)

Steaming is one of my favorite methods to cook pork spareribs since the cooking time is relatively quick when compared to other methods. Using salted black beans with garlic is a classic Cantonese preparation with steamed pork spareribs, which are usually cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces. I also use this method for whole pork baby back ribs, which are just as tasty. The added twist to the recipe is the addition of lemon juice just before steaming, which adds another flavor to the dish. You can prepare this dish ahead of time (i.e. the night before) and even used a prepared black bean garlic sauce (I recommend the Lee Kum Kee brand), but don’t add the lemon juice until just before the dish is steamed.

Enjoy!

Lime Chili Garlic Sauce Shrimp (青檸蒜蓉辣椒酱蝦, Ceng1 Ning4 Syun3 Jung4 Laat6 Ziu1 Zoeng3 Haa1)

 

This recipe was updated on 27 Oct 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

Lime juice adds a tart flavor to this spicy dish of shrimp, sugar snap peas, and baby corn. In the USA, the terms shrimp and prawn are used interchangeably and prawn usually means a large shrimp. For this dish, it doesn’t matter which one you use, since they both taste good! Chili Garlic sauce is a hot tasting prepared sauce and the amount can be adjusted to taste.

Enjoy!

Grilled Ginger Peach Chicken (燒烤薑桃子雞, Siu1 Haau1 Goeng1 Tou4 Zi2 Gai1)

 

This recipe was updated on 13 Sep 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

So what do you do with a peach that’s too ripe to eat? I always hate to throw out overripe peaches that you can’t eat. I thought about the Korean beef marinades that have pear juice in them and wondered how a peach would taste in a homemade chicken marinade. I also thought about needing another flavor in the marinade besides peach and my mind wandered to ginger. The ripe peach can be crushed by hand, after removing the peel and the pit, into the marinade. The resulting chicken tastes slightly sweet from the peach that goes well with the ginger flavor.

Enjoy!

Greek Yogurt Cantaloupe Pasta Salad

This is a nice dish for those hot days when you want something cool to eat. You get the sweetness from the cantaloupe and a nice sour tang from the dressing. This recipe is very similar to the Greek Yogurt Soy Sauce Chicken Pasta Salad dish (whose recipe can be found here). The main difference in this recipe is the use of cantaloupe instead or chicken, making this dish vegetarian.

Enjoy!

Greek Yogurt Soy Sauce Chicken Pasta Salad

This recipe is very similar to the Soy Sauce Chicken and Peach Pasta Salad dish (whose recipe can be found here). The main difference in this recipe is the use of nonfat Greek yogurt and the addition of artichoke hearts and Kalamata olives. The Greek yogurt actually holds up better at being a dressing than regular yogurt. I made this dish for a family gathering the night before and mixed the dressing with the salad the day of the gathering. The dressing was still emulsified after being refrigerated overnight.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Cookie Crust

I don’t bake very often, but I was asked to bring a dessert to a Thanksgiving gathering. I like pumpkin pie, and since it was Thanksgiving, a pumpkin cheesecake sounded really good. I got inspiration from the Cranberry Orange Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust recipe at the For Two, Please website and the Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe by Ethan Howard, pastry chef at Cavallo Point, Sausalito that was published in the local newspaper. Well, the cheesecake turned out to be a hit!

The chocolate cookie crust uses chocolate cookies with a crème filling (the most famous brand in the USA being Oreo – but this is not an Oreo cookie recipe!). After separating the cookies from the crème filling, the filling is usually discarded (or eaten!). So I had the wild idea to use the filling in the crust to help bind the crushed cookie pieces together. Well, I tried it and it worked. Since the filling already has sugar in it, I didn’t add any sugar to the cookie crumbs. I did have to add some oil (or melted butter) since there wasn’t enough of the filling to bind all the crumbs together.

You need to make the cheesecake and the filling the night before you want to eat it, so plan ahead!

Enjoy!

Seafood Pasta Salad

 

This recipe was updated on 11 July 2013. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

I was thinking about making a pasta salad with seafood, and low and behold, shrimp came on sale. So my timing was good since you can really use any available seafood to make this salad. I decided to add two “fake” seafood ingredients, imitation crab flakes and imitation shark’s fin. Most people are familiar with imitation crab flakes, but probably not with imitation shark’s fin. I’ve always used imitation shark’s fin in soup, so this is the first time I’ve used it in a salad.

Imitation shark’s fin is a gelatin-based product that is made to resemble the real shark’s fin long transparent cartilage strands. Both the real and imitation shark’s fin have no taste, but it’s the texture that makes it an interesting ingredient. The imitation version comes packaged frozen and when defrosted, look like transparent brown noodles. I prefer to use the imitation given how the real version is obtained.

Another interesting ingredient is fresh seaweed. You can get fresh seaweed (and the imitation shark’s fin) at your local Asian market and it comes as long strips or tied into bow-ties. I used the bow-tie version in this dish and it gives an added crunch to the dish, as well as a distinct flavor.

Enjoy!

Soy Sauce Chicken and Peach Pasta Salad

There was an article in the local newspaper’s food section on barbequed peaches. That gave me the idea to include peaches in a chicken salad that I was about to make using leftovers from the Grilled Soy Sauce Chicken (Siu¹ Haau¹ Si⁶ Jau⁴ Gai¹, 燒烤豉油雞) recipe. While I didn’t barbeque the peaches, they tasted great after briefly baking (after halving and pitting) in my toaster oven.

I used a balsamic yogurt dressing and it turned out to be an OK dressing, but it lacked the tang I expected. The next time I made this dressing, I used rice vinegar, instead of balsamic, and upped the amount of lemon/lime juice, and it tasted much better. The yogurt dressing is also healthier than a mayonnaise based dressing.

The first crop of cherry tomatoes from my garden was also available, along with some very small Sungold tomatoes (some no larger than ⅛ of an inch). I also included button mushrooms and some basil to complete the pasta salad. In addition to the pasta salad, I made Garlic Garlic Bread to complete the meal.

Enjoy!