Potato Balls with Spicy Chinese Dipping Sauce Recipe

Who doesn't love mashed potatoes? Imagine biting into a deliciously smooth and savory bite of mashed potatoes. Now imagine that wonderfully creamy bite with a slight crunch! In China's southern Yunnan province, Nate and I encountered these tasty tater tot-like fried mashed potato balls (傣味香辣土豆球, dai wei xiang la tu dou qiu). The insides are mashed potato-soft and the outside is just the right amount of crunch. It's a dish made by the Dai minority who largely populate the picturesque Xishuangbanna territory of Yunnan that borders Myanmar (Burma) in the South of China. The Dai peoples have a lot of similarities to the Thai and their fantastic Southeast Asian cuisine is largely unknown and under-appreciated in the world. Some of their other fantastic dishes can be found in our book, including Dai Pineapple Rice, and Grilled Banana Leaf Fish. These are dishes that are really rewarding to make because they are ones you can't find elsewhere and leave your guests asking for the recipe every time.

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peanut butter dipping sauce for chinese hot pot

My best friend Krista is moving to Boston this week to start Harvard Law school and she came to visit me in New York for her last weekend outside of a library. I really wanted to show her a good time in the city. I got us on the list for a party at the Tribeca Grand hotel. I didn't know it was going to be such a big deal, but a band was playing that Mark Ronson produced. Next thing I know, Mark Ronson is standing right next to me and Nate is talking to Mischa Barton (crazy Marisa from the OC). He offered to buy her a drink, which as I told him later, was not such a good idea because according to Perez Hilton she just got out of rehab. The girl who checked our names at the door had a red sequin shirt on with shoulder pads glued on the outside, if you can picture her, you can picture this crowd.

Krista and I met in Chinese class in college and we bonded as the only two white girls in the class completely new to Mandarin Chinese. We ended up studying abroad together in Nanjing and we both love eating Chinese food. She's been living in India for the past year working as an intern at a law office and she hasn't had good chinese food for a year. That's why Nate and I wanted to cook our favorite dinner party meal for her-- sichuan hot pot.

Nate made a different broth and a different sauce than we normally make. Both were a disappointment. The broth wasn't nearly as spicy as we wanted it (even though we dumped in two bottles of chili sauce and a bunch of sichuan peppercorns). It's frustrating when you have people over to eat and the food sucks. It wasn't a disaster, just bland. Note to self: it's not a good idea to make up a new recipe when people are coming over to eat whatever you come up with in two hours. We're going to have another dinner party again soon and we'll make the broth spicy enough even for a restaurant in Sichuan, China to serve-- the kind of steaming pot that is so spicy everyone at the table is crying. I also think adding cumin and a few other spices in there as well will make it more flavorful.

 The main reason I think dinner could have better is if we had served Mongolian peanut dipping sauce for people to dip the vegetables and meat they cooked in the pot into. The sesame paste sauce is great, but only if the broth in the pot has a balancing strong spicy flavor. The Mongolian peanut sauce is good enough to eat with a spoon. 

-mary kate

Here's our recipe, smooth and delish:

Peanut Butter Dipping Sauce for Chinese Hot Pot

½ cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon chili bean paste
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ cup hot water
fresh cilantro

Whisk together peanut butter, soy sauce,
chili bean paste, sugar, and hot water in a mixing
bowl. Spoon equal amounts of sauce into 4 small
serving bowls and top with a heap of chopped
cilantro. Give each guest a bowl of sauce and a
bowl of white rice.

 

shrimp with chili soy dipping sauce

I went to a rooftop party for my friend Adam's 28th birthday over the weekend.  Rooftops are the city equivalent of suburban backyards: you can grill out, play paddle ball, get a suntan, and even grow sad little plants in pots.  Adam and Renee's apartment is in Brooklyn Heights near the Brooklyn bridge and their view of the Manhattan skyline is amazing (you can see from the Statue of Liberty all the way up to midtown). Everybody invited brought foods to throw on the grill. I brought shrimp skewers with a Chinese chili-soy dipping sauce.  I went grocery shopping in Chinatown earlier in the day to get a good deal on jumbo shrimp ($5 a pound!) and planned on going back home first to make the skewers and sauce but after waiting for 45 minutes on the sweltering JMZ subway platform I decided to take a cab directly to their apartment so I wouldn't be too late. When I got to Adam's apartment the coals on the grill were already hot and I had to hurry and make the dipping sauce and skewer the shrimp. It's a good thing it's really easy. The shrimp was a hit and the dipping sauce turned out great. It's a nice change from boring cocktail sauce.

Because it was a rooftop barbecue party I grilled the shrimp but when I had this dipping sauce at a restaurant on Hainan Island, it was with steamed shrimp. In China they normally prepare shrimp with the heads and shells still on which makes for a messy eating experience.  I was trying to be quasi-authentic so I kept the shells on but bought headless shrimp.  If I grill shrimp again I will forego heads and shells all together because the shells are hard get off after they're grilled.  The recipe below is for steamed shrimp. Leave the shells on while you steam them but make sure to peel the shrimp before dipping and eating.

 Steamed Shrimp with Chili Soy Dipping Sauce

1 1/2 lb medium size shrimp, shell-on and headless

1 cup soy sauce

3 tablespoons peanut oil

6 dried chilies, roughly chopped

2 green onions, chopped

1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger

Place a steamer basket in a pot with water just touching the bottom of the basket.  When the water begins to boil add the shrimp, cover, and cook for 5 minutes or until the shrimp is firm and cooked through.  

To make the dipping sauce, mix together the soy sauce, oil, chilies, green onions, and ginger in a bowl.  Let sit for 30 minutes to let the favors come out then serve in little bowls for dipping.

chili oil gives a kick

I like my food HOT.  And by hot I mean mouth-tingling, forehead-sweating, SPICY.  I first started reaching for the hot sauce when I lived in Waco, Texas and ate Tex-Mex every other night but I didn't get serious about my sauce until I lived in China. The two most common condiments on tabletops in China are hot sauce and vinegar. They are about as common as salt and pepper on tabletops here.  Sometimes it's chili paste but normally it's a little bowl of chili oil with a small spoon for spooning small amounts of the fiery stuff on your food .  

If you go to your grocery store's Asian food isle you're likely to see ten or more types of hot sauces.  A popular brand is Huy Fong's Sriracha Chili Sauce which some people call Rooster sauce because it has a big rooster on the label and a bright green cap.  It's thick and garlicky and not too spicy and great on eggs and noodles and... pizza.  It's also made in California and we've never seen it in China.  

We normally use chili oil when we want to add a spicy kick to a Chinese dish (which happens pretty often.)  The oil doesn't have a lot of flavor but it enhances the natural flavors of a dish and makes your tongue heat up just the right amount.  You can buy chili oil from the store in a jar or a bottle or make it yourself.  We like to make a big batch at home and keep in handy (it keeps for 2 months in a cool cupboard.)  Add a spoonful or two to a vegetable stir-fry or add a drop to a bowl of noodles and you won't be sorry.  Here's our easy recipe for chili oil:

Chili Oil

1/3 cup Sesame Oil

2/3 cup Peanut Oil

2 tablespoons Dried Chili Flakes

Heat the sesame oil and peanut oil in a wok over medium heat until a few chili flakes sizzle when added to the oil but don't turn black.  Add the chili flakes and then immediately remove the wok from the heat.  Cover the wok and let it sit over night or until cool.  You can strain out the chili flakes with cheesecloth or leave them in. We normally just leave them and let them rest at the bottom of the jar.  Store the  chili oil in a glass jar with a tight lid in a cool cupboard.  

-Nate