yunnan tomato salad, a surprising end to a hot summer day

Do you ever just have a day where everything you do seems like deja vu, like you've done it before, and like it's the same thing you do everyday day in and day out? Well, I do and I did yesterday except on my way home I walked through the Union Square green market as it was closing and came across an end of the day sale as the farmers were pulling out of the city with their trucks and going back to upstate new york or to some faraway land where trees and grass and vegetables grow and people get natural tans. Tomato season is over but the farmers still had some big red ones that looked amazing and were dirt cheap. I also got a bag of fresh Thai basil and a container of homegrown mint sprigs for just 5 bucks. I wondered all the way home what I was going to use it for (I normally only buy groceries after I've made plans) other than open the lid of the basil on the subway to mask the b.o. of the guy next to me.

We have a recipe in our book for Dai Tomato-Mint Salad--It's a salad from Xishuangbanna, a region of Yunnan Province in southern China, and in the recipe the spearmint sprigs are left whole and tumbled
with a little chili oil, juicy cherry tomatoes, and punchy garlic. I ended up doing a variation on this recipe yesterday with my green market spoils but I used more tomato, less mint, and added a little Thai basil (Thailand is not far from the Xishuangbanna border and Dai cooks use a lot of Thai spices like basil). I think the salad tastes even better today after the the tomatoes marinated in all the flavors in the fridge overnight.

This calls for chili oil. You can buy it or if you want to make your own, see our chili oil recipe.

-mary kate

yunnan tomato salad

4 medium tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/3 cup mint leaves
1/3 cup Thai basil leaves (or regular basil)
3 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt or sea salt
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 tablespoon chili oil

Slice the tomatoes into small wedges.  In a large mixing bowl, combine the garlic, mint, basil, green onions, salt, and chili flakes. Use a wooden spoon to mash the contents of the bowl until all the leaves are crushed and bruised. If you think you've mashed too much, keep going.

Toss the tomatoes into the herb mixture and then drizzle the chili oil over the tomatoes. Use the wooden spoon to lightly mash the tomatoes until they lose their structure and are limp. Chill the salad for at least an hour before serving.

chinese pumpkin and corn stew, halloween is here

You can hand carry pumpkins on planes. How do I know this wonderfully obscure fact? Nate slipped one into my carry-on on our way back from Ohio when I wasn't looking. I set my bag, suspiciously heavy for only containing my clothes, onto the airport x-ray conveyor belt and the security guard was waiting on the other side to escort me aside to undergo "additional screening." When he pulled the pumpkin out of my bag, I said, "I did not put that in my bag," which only made matters worse. 

Fortunately, my pumpkin cleared the x-ray machine again and the explosive detector and I was free to go on my way with my pumpkin in hand for others passengers and my obnoxious brother to see. This pumpkin is the pumpkin you see cut up below. We made a pumpkin and corn stew out of it and a picture doesn't do it justice. 

Pumpkins are obnoxious too, to peel and carve with all their gooey bits inside, a likely reason why people only cook with them when they're in season and why I think the smell and taste of pumpkin has come to mean for me that yet another October is here, another fall, another Halloween, another week just before the holiday season rush that will drain me of my savings and end with the need for me to make a slew of new resolutions.

This Chinese pumpkin and corn stew, 南瓜玉米湯 (nán guā yù mǐ tāng), is bright in color and simple in flavor-- don't be dismayed! Simple in this case is a good thing. Fresh pumpkin, hearty carrots, juicy corn and onions, stew together in a pot with pork and ginger to create the flavor of fall, if their is such a thing, and if not, at least the colors. The pork loin lends just the right amount of meatiness. I'm dining on this homey stew this drizzly late-October evening and I'm thankful that I have enough to last me the week. 

This soup is normally made with Chinese nangua squash instead of pumpkin. Nangua squash has a dark green skin and yellow flesh that tastes a little sweeter than pumpkin. You can find it here in the States hiding under its Japanese name "kabocha." I decided to use pumpkin in the stew instead because I picked one up at a pumpkin patch and the stew turned out delicious.

I've made this stew with and without ginger. I prefer with. In the picture above Nate is finely chopping the ginger but I think adding slices of ginger to the stew and then removing them before eating works better.

I also roasted the seeds of the pumpkin with salt and a sprinkling of oil like my mom does every year. I burned my hand on the hot pan while pulling them out of the oven. The roasted seeds went flying across my apartment floor and that was the end of that. I'm not carving another pumpkin.

-mary kate

Pumpkin and Corn Stew  

1 1/2 lb pork loin

5 cups 1-inch cubed peeled pumpkin or squash

2 large carrots

1 medium onion

2 ears of corn

1 quart chicken stock

1 quart water

1/2 cup shaoxing rice wine

5 slices ginger, smashed with the flat side of a knife

1 1/2 cups teaspoon salt

Cut the pork into 1-inch cubes. Slice the carrots into 1-inch segments. Chop the onion. Trim the ends of the corn and cut each ear into 3 segments. Bring the chicken stock, water, and shaoxing rice wine to a boil in a large pot. Add all the remaining ingredients and when it boils again, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. Remove the ginger slices with a slotted spoon and serve.

nyc dumpling festival and eating contest highlights and recap

So, who knew the NYC Dumpling Fest was huge? I only heard about it last minute and we showed up to the Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Manhattan expecting 50-100 people and a dumpling cart or two. No. There had to be over a thousand people there even though it was raining and about ten stands selling dumplings from countries around the world (Mexican tomales, Italian gnocci, Chinese bao and potstickers, India dumplings, etc.). The festival was rockin-- Akon's album played over the speakers.

The lines for dumplings were insane. I stood in line for 45 minutes only to find out when I finally got to the front that I was not in the Chinese bao line like I wanted. I was in the whole wheat dumpling line. Who wants to wait in line for whole wheat dumplings? I don't anyway, but there was no way I was waiting in line again. It ended up being a good thing. They are actually really great. I think it's a new product-- Tang's frozen whole wheat potstickers available I know at least at Whole Foods. Try them and tell me what you think!

The largest whole wheat dumpling in the world weighing in at 786 lbs. was also on display at the festival.

Joe Menchetti (I've also seen it spelled Manchetti) won the dumpling eating contest for the fifth time in a row. I watched him stuff 53 dumpling in his mouth in 2 minutes. This was my first time to see an eating contest live and I found it kind of disgusting (see the short video we filmed below). I still can't get the image of the guy vomiting on stage out of my mind. The grand prize was $1000 for the men's and women's division. Here's a pic of the winner of the women's being interviewed. I can't remember how many she ate but I remember wondering how she could possibly fit them all in her stomach.

An interesting tidbit I picked up from the to star "athletes" who came in 1st and 2nd. Both of their scores were about 10 dumplings lower from years past. In their interviews, they attributed this to the fact that this was the first time that the dumpling were whole wheat and they were more difficult to eat. Good to know if you plan on stuffing your face.

-mary kate

dragon fruit drinks

You know when you learn about something and then you start seeing it everywhere? Well, since I bought dragon fruit last week in Chinatown, I've seen them for sale at Dean and Deluca and I took a drink out of Nate's fridge at random (shhh... it was his roommate's!) and it happened to be dragon fruit flavored: Glaceau Vitamin Energy. It tasted sweet like the fruit, but carbonated with 2000mg of Taurine which if you don't know, is very good stuff. I don't really know what it is, or does, but it's in all my favorite energy drinks (red bull, tab energy, bawls) that keep me wide awake on days like today when my office desk starts to look soft, fluffy, kind of like a pillow.

I think dragon fruit could catch on as flavoring in drinks and things here in the U.S. It wouldn't even need the extreme PR treatment that the south american acai berries got a few years back because dragon fruit actually tastes good. IMHO acai berries are overrated and over marketed (and I'm a marketing person who likes marketing). See here where acai berries can cure you of ugliness and obesity and here's a CNN article about their hype and the rumor that they can cure cancer. 

Maybe dragon fruit prices will come down too. The dragon fruit I saw at Dean and Deluca cost $10 each and they were too ripe. I paid about $2 each in Chinatown. See our video on dragon fruit here.

Does anyone know of any other dragon fruit flavored drinks... candies... food?

-mary kate

ingredient stalker: what are chinese black mushrooms (shiitake mushrooms)?

Chinese Black Mushrooms or 香菇 (xiāng gū), are medium-size brown mushrooms that have a strong, meaty flavor. They taste good in soups, stir-fried in vegetables (I stir-fried them with snow peas and chicken broth in the video above), or sliced-up and thrown into a lettuce salad. If you've never heard of them, you've probably heard of Shiitake Mushrooms which is their Japanese name. Contrary to what you might think, you should buy the mushrooms dried rather than fresh. The drying process intensifies the flavor and makes them taste better. Fresh ones can taste a little ho-hum. In the video above, I show you how to prepare Chinese Black Mushrooms, talk about some of their health benefits, and we have a blind taste test to see, once and for all, if re-hydrated mushrooms taste better than fresh.

Chinese Black Mushrooms or Shiitake Mushrooms can be found at most grocery stores these days. Oddly, fresh mushrooms are what I find the most but if you go to an asian grocery you can find the dried version.