Tara Austen Weaver, What Are You Reading?

Tara Austen Weaver’s recently published book The Butcher and the Vegetarian grabbed my attention because I too have meat issues. My issues are more of the picky-eater sort, but I was still intrigued by her journey into meat land after living as a vegetarian for her entire life. The book is full of great information about responsible, sustainable farming, ranching, and meat production, in addition to entertaining stories about what she was cooking and eating throughout this adventure. Tara has also been published in several anthologies, written for Edible San Francisco and other print publications, and her blog, Tea and Cookies, was selected as one of the top 50 food blogs in the world by the Times of London. I asked Tara, what are you reading?

Tara:

I just finished reading Kim Severson’s new memoir, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life, which I loved. She profiles a series of women whose work in food has inspired her, but it is Kim’s own story of finding her way back from alcoholism that is perhaps most inspiring.

On the cookbook front, I am mesmerized by David Lebovitz’s gorgeous new book Ready for Dessert. The recipes and photos are so enticing I can hardly stand it.

Other current inspirations are Andrea Nguyen’s Asian Dumplings (dumpling party, anyone?), Monica Bhide’s Modern Spice (I’m fixated on Indian food lately), and Lorna Yee’s just released The Newlywed Kitchen (Lorna’s an amazing cook).

The book on my bedside table is Auberge of the Flowering Hearth, by Roy Andreis de Groot. It’s the story and recipes of a small inn high in the French Alps. The book had been highly recommended but I’m finding it slow (Twitter has ruined my attention span, I’m afraid). It’s lovely and lyrical, but old fashioned (published in 1973). I pick it up from time to time and read a bit. It’s like a very rich dessert.

Gaia's Garden (dreadful hippie name), by Toby Hemenway. It’s a book on Permaculture, which is a more sustainable way of living and growing food. It’s incredibly inspiring.








Thank you for participating, Tara! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.

Previous WAYR posts:
Jaden Hair
Michael Ruhlman
Monica Bhide
Michael Natkin
Sara Roahen
Andrea Nguyen
David Lebovitz
Rick Bayless

Andrea Nguyen, What Are You Reading?

Andrea Nguyen is an author, freelance writer, and cooking teacher. She is a contributing editor to Saveur and has written for the Los Angeles Times and San Jose Mercury News. Her first cookbook was Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, and Andrea’s site Viet World Kitchen is where you can learn about Vietnamese cuisine as well as other Asian culinary traditions. Last year, her book Asian Dumplings was published, and the site Asian Dumpling Tips was created as a place to share information about dumpling making. I’ve been enjoying the book Asian Dumplings since grabbing a copy as soon as it appeared. The book taught me how to make dumpling wrappers which were very fun to flatten, fill, and shape. I was sure Andrea would have an interesting list to share, so I asked her, what are you reading?

Andrea:

1. When I have spare moments these days, I leaf through David Thompson's Thai Street Food. It was released last year abroad and will be available in the U.S. come September. It's a giant book, weighing over eight pounds. Thompson and I were both invited speakers at the Sydney International Food Festival last October and the book had just been released. Few copies were available and he let me walk away with one of them.

The extra luggage weight was worth it! The book is full of amazing location photography and it also contains recipes that work. There is a dearth of good Thai cookbooks in English and Thompson knows his stuff. I learn new techniques and ingredient combination from his works all the time.

2. Michael Pollan's Food Rules is another book that I find myself leafing through now and again too. It's the opposite of Thompson's book in its small format, light weight, and single color print. It's not graphically sexy. However, Food Rules distills many ideas down for the American eating public. And though I'm one of the long-converted, I read Pollan's work and ponder ways of how I can communicate those eating and lifestyle parameters in what I do to explore and promote Asian foodways.






3. I also read the newspaper, food magazines such as Saveur, Sunset, and Bon Appetit and BusinessWeek, Wired, and GQ. A crazy mix of information but it works for me!


Thank you for participating, Andrea! Check back to see who answers the question next time and what other books are recommended.


Previous WAYR posts:
Jaden Hair
Michael Ruhlman
Monica Bhide
Michael Natkin
Sara Roahen

Vegetarian Crystal Dumplings and Chiu Chow Dumplings

When I first heard the news about this book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. In Asian Dumplings, Andrea Nguyen presents various kinds of dumplings from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. This is a very informative guide to dumpling making, and homemade wrappers are encouraged for all of them. I had been curious about making dough for wrappers for a long time, and I was a little afraid of it, but with these instructions the process was a breeze. There are also ‘lazy day tips’ throughout the book that explain how to use packaged wrappers for quicker versions of recipes, but there are advantages to making your own. For one thing, I gained a new appreciation for carefully made-from-scratch dumplings. Of course the fresh dough is delicious and chewy, and it’s also fun to shape. With homemade wrappers, you don’t have to moisten the edges to seal it, and it’s much more forgiving and stretchy when being filled. I learned so much from cooking from this book just once that I’m already looking forward to whatever I might learn next time. I noticed this morning that Heidi at 101 Cookbooks just posted a list of Andrea Nguyen’s favorite cookbooks, and it’s a great list.

So, for my first dumpling adventure, I chose the vegetarian crystal dumplings and chiu chow dumplings. Both are made with wheat starch dough, and this was a fun dough to make. Wheat starch was combined with tapioca starch because the tapioca gives it more elasticity. The two starches were combined in a mixing bowl with a little salt, and just boiled water. After stirring in the water, a little canola oil was added. I doubled the dough recipe, but before kneading it, I divided it in two equal parts. I thought kneading would be easier that way. The dough was kneaded for a couple of minutes on a flour-free surface, and it quickly became smooth and white. It’s noted that it should feel like Play-Doh, and it really does.

For these dumplings, each half (since I doubled the original quantity) was divided into three balls. The balls of dough were placed in a plastic bag and left to rest for five minutes. Then, one ball of dough was removed at a time. It was rolled into a log, and the log was cut into eight pieces. Each of those little pieces was then placed between pieces of plastic cut from a zip bag that had been lightly oiled. The dough was then pressed with the bottom of a glass measuring pitcher (or any heavy, flat, round-bottomed object) to form a three and a half inch round. A tortilla press would have been ideal for this. Each round of dough was then filled, the edges were sealed, and the goal was to crimp the edges for a pretty ruffled look. I did what I could. I’ll have to keep practicing for pretty edges, but the important thing is to be sure the dumpling is sealed.

To backtrack just a bit, it’s actually a very good idea to prepare the dumpling filling a day or two before assembling the dumplings. My first choice was the vegetarian filling including dried shitakes, dried wood war mushrooms, shallot, garlic, jicama, carrot, and scallions. The dried mushrooms were soaked and then drained and chopped, and the other ingredients were either minced or finely diced. The shallot and garlic were sauteed, and then the mushrooms, jicama, and carrot were added. A seasoning mixture of sugar, soy sauce, and reserved mushroom soaking liquid was added to the saute pan followed by the scallions and then a small amount of cornstarch dissolved in water. That cooked together just briefly, and then the mixture was left to cool. I decided to go all out and make a second filling as well because since I was doing this whole homemade dumpling thing, I thought why not. And, I thought two kinds of dumplings would be even more fun than one.

The second filling I made was for chiu chow dumplings. That filling is flavored with dried shrimp and includes some kind of meat, usually pork but I used ground chicken thighs, and it includes some vegetables which make it less dense. It’s made by sauteing garlic and chopped dried shrimp before the ground chicken was added. Once the meat was browned, chopped re-constituted dried shitakes were added, with finely diced jicama, and chopped peanuts. A seasoning mixture of sugar, oyster sauce, soy sauce, shaoxing rice wine, and water was then added to the saute pan. Once again, a cornstarch slurry was added along with scallions. Both fillings were refrigerated overnight before being made into dumplings.

It’s suggested that the dumplings be steamed right away once assembled and not refrigerated until after they’ve been steamed. So, as I assembled them, I placed them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and covered them with plastic wrap. When they were all assembled, I lined steaming trays with parchment so the dumplings wouldn’t stick, and let them steam for seven minutes. Then, I placed enough for dinner in the refrigerator, and the rest went into the freezer. To re-heat them, they went back into the steamer for just three minutes. To serve, soy sauce and/or chile garlic sauce are suggested as accompaniments. I made the homemade chile garlic sauce from the book which included red chiles, garlic, salt, sugar, and distilled white vinegar. If you cook the sauce, which I did, it can be kept refrigerated for about six months.

Does the whole process take some time? Yes. Is it worth it? Definitely. I was thrilled with the dumpling dough and how easy it was to shape. I was also really thrilled that every step of the process turned out exactly as described in the book. The quantity of filling for each type of dumpling was exactly right. The texture of the dumpling wrappers was chewy and springy and delightful. The fillings were full of umami, and I really mean that. There are a lot of savory flavors at work in each, and I kept thinking that both were very good examples of umami. The freshly made chile garlic sauce was bright and hot but not painful in small doses. The whole experience from cooking and assembling and steaming to eating was a fun one, and there will be a lot more dumplings in my kitchen in the future.