Too Much Food » Chinese

Eating Out: Brunch at Formosa Restaurant (台灣小館), Lake Forest, California

Pinjing — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 05:19:06 +0000

One of the few places in South Orange County to get a traditional Taiwanese breakfast is at Formosa Restaurant (台灣小館) in Lake Forest. We’ve been coming to this tiny hole-in-the-wall (attached to a Quality Inn motel) for as long as I can remember and it’s been turning out traditional versions of the comforting, starchy Taiwanese breakfast that my parents and I love. It’s a family-run business, with a cook that’s always willing to modify dishes to your liking and a friendly waitstaff. Charlie and　Vivian are the two family members that work the front of the house, and they always make efforts to make everyone feel like they’re family. Aside from hopping on a plane and flying over to Taiwan, Formosa is the best place to get your breakfast on. (Note: Formosa also serves great lunch specials and dinner entrees, so hop on by and give them a try as well).

We always start with a few bowls of savory soybean milk (鹹豆漿):

A bowl of this milk comes piping hot with chopped pieces of pickled vegetables and is laced with black vinegar; chopped pieces of Chinese cruller (油條) give it textural contrast. For those who prefer a less-savory start to their morning, Formosa also offers the sweet version of the soybean milk (甜豆漿); which comes out unadulterated and unsweetened but with a shaker of white sugar, and leaves it up to the diner to sweeten it to his/her liking.

Three of the best things to enjoy with your soybean milk are Chinese crullers (油條), sesame flatbreads (燒餅) and five-spice beef stuffed sesame flatbreads (五香牛肉燒餅). The usual way to eat the crullers is to stuff them inside the flatbread (yes, you just made a starch-filled carb sandwich, isn’t it glorious?) and eat it between bites of the soybean milk. It’s enough starch and oil to cure any hangover. The five-spice beef flatbreads here are quite good also.

Shrimp stir-fried rice noodles (蝦仁炒米粉). Some Chinese restaurants tend to ruin this dish for me, frying the noodles so dry it feels like you’re swallowing hay; others tend to overdo it with the sauce, rendering the noodles limp and overly salted. But Formosa manages to achieve the right balance: the noodles are just sauced enough so they retain some moisture, yet they retain a right amount of chew. I also love the fact that they don’t skimp on the fried egg; my chopsticks always tend to hunt out those glorious bits of scrambled egg hidden in the nest of noodles.

Fried chicken drummettes. I’m not normally into chicken but these are delicious. These wings fried until the skin is so crisp it shatters when you bite into it and flavored with an addicting white-pepper rub. Those who love wings should definitely order these.

. . . and here comes the offal. My vegan/vegetarian friends, please look away. This is MY dish (mine being the fact that no one else in my family besides my dad and I really like eating this). Pork intestines are stir-fried in a spicy/sour sauce with pickled vegetables (大腸炒酸菜). It’s umami to the n-th degree and these are definitely worth trying, even for the offal-phobic (rest assured, there’s none of the stinkiness that sometimes comes with eating pork intestines, Formosa has always cleaned them well enough). Gross-looking? Maybe? Delicious? Definitely.

Soup dumplings (小龍包). These come four to a steamer; hefty pork-filled dumplings that are filled with steaming porky broth. Be careful when you pick them up with your chopsticks; you don’t want to tear the skin and lose any of the broth. Do yourself a favor and put some black vinegar and shredded ginger that’s offered with the dish into a spoon, place the dumpling on top, and eat it all in one glorious bite.

The last dish: glutinous rice roll (飯糰). This is the ultimate Taiwanese comfort food: shredded pork floss, pickled greens and a Chinese cruller (yes, we Taiwanese like pairing our starches with MORE starch) are stuffed into a roll made of fragrant glutinous rice and steamed. Totally gut-busting but delicious anyway. Just make sure you remember to peel off the plastic wrap before you dive in.

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Formosa Chinese Restaurant (台灣小館)
23702 Rockfield Blvd
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 458-7125

Hours:
Tue – Fri: 11 am – 9:30 pm
Sat – Sun: 10 am – 9:30 pm

Happy Dragon Boat Festival! (端午節): Homemade 粽子 (Glutinous Rice Savory Dumplings)

Pinjing — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:06:26 +0000

Long time no post! Life has been a bit crazy around here, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t stopped cooking or baking. No recipe today, but since it is Dragon Boat Festival, my mom and I spent the day wrapping up homemade vegetarian 粽子 (pronounced “zongzi”, a type of stuffed glutinous rice dumpling). We decided to switch it up by using purple glutinous rice and filled it with deep fried taro cubes, marinated tofu, 5-spice boiled peanuts, and braised shittake mushrooms. It was my first time learning to wrap these, but I think I did all right!

The cross section.

Unwrapping.

And eat!

San Diego Eats: Yakitori Yakyudori and Sipz Vegetarian Cafe

Pinjing — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:57:49 +0000

From my backlog of restaurant visits that I have yet to post: Here are some eats from a recent visit to see my sister down in San Diego.

My parents and sister are all ramen lovers; so my sister decided to take us to Yakitori Yakyudori, a recently opened yakitori (skewers) and ramen place on Convoy in Kearny Mesa, a virtual mecca of Asian restaurants.

Note: When we visited, the restaurant had only ramen; they had yet to start doing yakitori. Another reason for going back, I suppose.

Starters: Takoyaki, (dumplings filled with chopped pieces of octopus, topped with mayo, a thick, sweet and sour sauce and bonito flakes, in the foreground) and gyoza (pan-fried pork dumplings, in the background). Both served piping hot and still sizzling (the waitress even warned us that the innards of the takoyaki were extremely hot and we would risk burning ourselves if eating right away). Both are two of my favorite “snack foods” from Japan, and these were delicious.

My order: I wasn’t in the mood for ramen, so I decided to go for a rice-based dish. I originally ordered the shiso-topped rice, but was informed that they were already sold out (sadness). Instead, I opted for the tofu-topped rice.

It sounds quite boring and pedestrian (chopped, mashed tofu on rice?), but its simple, light, subtle flavors were just right. The tofu was lightly seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil (I think?) and when eaten on top of the freshly cooked, chewy Japanese rice, this really hit the spot.

Miso ramen. Sister’s order. A hearty, full-bodied broth. Heady on the miso flavor. I think this is for those who like stronger flavors, or for those who don’t mind being thirsty after their meal. Quite delicious, but I don’t know if I’d be able to eat a lot in one sitting as I prefer lighter brothed soups.

Shio ramen. Mom’s order. Clearer broth, not as hearty or salty as the miso ramen, but full of flavor nonetheless. I preferred this one as the miso broth was a bit too strong for my taste.

For some reason I didn’t have a picture of my dad’s order of Chashu ramen, but he assured me that it was delicious.

Chashu (thin slices of fatty pork) comes in all the ramen varieties, and so often ramen places either skimp on the chashu or serve thick, tough, dry slices. At Yakitori Yakyudori, the chashu is quite soft and almost melts in your mouth. A success in my book.

Yakitori Yakyudori
4898 Convoy St., Suite 101
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 268-2888
Mon-Sun 11:30 a.m. – 3 a.m.

My sister and I decided to hit up a local vegetarian place (Sipz) for dinner:

My “caterpillar” roll: Brown rice, shitake mushrooms, avocado, yam, and some veggies, topped with avocado, teriyaki and sriracha. Isn’t it cute?

It was pretty delicious too. I kind of wish the rice had been seasoned more like sushi rice (vinegar, mirin and sugar, in the Japanese style); it’s the only thing that would have made this roll better than it already was. But it was good nonetheless. And incredibly filling.

My sister ordered their “chicken” chow mein: Eggless noodles stir-fried in a savory brown sauce with vegetables and their faux vegetarian chicken. I normally shy away from vegetarian faux meats (I don’t really agree with the idea and most meat alternatives that try to imitate meat fail miserable in both taste and texture). But this “chicken” was eerily chicken-like; if I didn’t know it was vegetarian I would have thought it was really chicken. It had me wondering what kind of process and ingredients they used (gluten? Too chewy. Soy? Beany tasting and would give you the wrong texture). Amazing. I imagine if you were someone who recently turned vegetarian but were missing meat, Sipz would be your to-go place.

This place was hopping on a Friday night and now I understand why. Their menu is extensive, offering Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and even Italian-inspired dishes. Apparently their vegan desserts are legendary for being super delicious (I glanced around at my fellow diners; most of them ordered some kind of dessert), but after our meal, we were simply too stuffed to eat sweets (what can we say, we’re lightweights!). In any case, it’s a definite reason to go back and try some of Sipz’s other offerings.

Sipz Vegetarian Cafe
5501 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117
(858) 279-3747
Mon-Sun 10:30 a.m. – 9 p.m.

Autumnal Sweet Squash Bao

Pinjing — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:53:36 +0000

It’s been too long since I’ve posted a recipe! Autumn is already in full swing and winter’s on it’s way and I have yet to write about something I’ve made. One thing I love most about autumn is all the great winter squash that arrives in the markets. I’ve had great fun just trying all the different varieties (this year, I’ve had delicata, red kuri, spaghetti, and buttercup in addition to my favorite, kabocha). What better way to enjoy autumnal squash than making some sweetened squash bao? These buns are made with half whole wheat flour, giving the bread a sweet, nutty flavor that pairs nicely with the sweet squash puree inside. Enjoy these for breakfast or for an afternoon tea snack!

Autumnal Sweet Squash Bao
Original recipe by me!
Yield: 5 mini bao

For the filling:

1/2 red kuri squash (or your winter squash of choice), ~500g after seeded *see notes about post-steaming yield
100g raw sugar
1/4t salt

For the dough

60g whole wheat flour
65g all-purpose or bread flour
3g instant yeast
1/4t kosher salt
2t agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup or your liquid sweetener of choice)
2t vegetable oil
60g water

Making the filling:

Steam kuri squash until flesh yields easily when poked with a fork. Let cool slightly, then scoop out the flesh and roughly mash (no need to make it very smooth, you’ll be working the flesh during the sweetening phase).

In a medium saucepan, combine the kuri squash flesh, raw sugar and salt, and over medium heat, stir until sugar is dissolved. Keep cooking the sweetened squash puree (this process helps to dry out the paste, you don’t want soupy squash as a filling for the buns) until it stops looking shiny and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Turn off the heat and let cool completely.

For the bao dough:

Whisk together the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, yeast, and salt. Add the agave nectar and vegetable oil and water, stir to combine until you get a rough dough.

Turn dough out onto counter and knead until you have a smooth, supple dough. I didn’t use my stand mixer as the amount of dough was small (and sometimes you just want to experience the pleasure of working with bread dough!). Knead until it passes the windowpane test, with a 5 minute rest halfway to allow the dough hydrate and the gluten to relax slightly.

Place in a medium, oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and proof until doubled in size. In my cold house, it took about 1.5 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Once the dough has doubled, turn it out onto the counter and give it a few kneading strokes, and let it rest for 5 minutes for the gluten to relax. Divide the dough into 5 pieces.

Divide the filling into 5 mounds in preparation for stuffing the bao.

Flatten each piece, and using a small rolling pin, roll out into a 5″ diameter circle, taking care to make the edges thinner than the center (so that when you gather the dough around the filling you don’t end up with a super thick bottom and a super thin top). Place 1 mound of sweetened squash filling in the center and draw up the edges of the dough around the filling; pinching the dough at the top to seal.

Place seam side down on baking sheet, and cover with a kitchen towel while you complete the rest of the bao. After filling all 5 bao, let proof for 20 minutes.

I mixed together a simple slurry of almond milk, cornstarch and a pinch of sugar for a matte-style wash. If you desire a shiny-type of wash, simply beat one egg with some water. Brush the tops of the proofed bao with your wash of choice and sprinkle with some sesame seeds for garnish.

Bake bao for 25 minutes (if they start to brown too fast, you can tent with a piece of foil to avoid overbrowning).

Let cool completely on racks for at least 8 hours (this allows the dough to finish cooking completely, if you were to eat them right away, you might find the dough directly underneath the filling to be slightly raw. After 8 hours, the dough will have finished cooking and the flavor will be better. This is generally true of most breads.)

Enjoy! My favorite way to eat these is to reheat them for 20 seconds in the microwave, then pop into the toaster for a little bit to get them slightly toasty on the outside. The outside becomes slightly crispy and the inside bread stays light and fluffy. Delicious!

Cooking Notes:

I know that squash comes in various shapes and sizes, and my kuri squash, after halving and deseeded, was about 500g. After steaming and making it into sweetened puree, the yield was about 250g. Basically, you’re aiming for about 50g of sweetened filling per bao. If your squash is abnormally large or small, you can scale up/down the dough component. Or you can just eat the extra filling as is, it’s delicious that way too!
Any type of squash, pumpkin, sweet potato/yam or even beans can be sweetened in this way; it’s really a universal technique that you can apply to many vegetables/legumes to make sweetened paste for bun/bao fillings, dumplings, etc.
This dough is pretty versatile, besides using it as a baked bao dough, this dough makes steamed bao quite nicely too. Give it a try!

“Lotus Pad” (Mandarin) Pancakes

Pinjing — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:12:46 +0000

I’m back in Taiwan! (I’ve blogged my first meal here). I won’t be doing much cooking or baking (there’s too many good things to eat and try here). I do have a few recipes queued up that I haven’t posted yet so I’ll work on that as well as posting about all the things I eat while in Taiwan . . .

This is another recipe I tried from the Wei-Chuan Chinese Snacks Cookbook way back in June for “Lotus Pad” (Mandarin) Pancakes. If you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant and ordered mooshu pork (a sort of “burrito” stuffed with a chopped pork, cabbage, wood ear mushrooms, bean sprouts and shredded egg filling), you’ll recognize these as the flatbreads that are used as the wrapper.

What’s interesting about these flatbreads is the technique employed to make these pancakes super thin: you must roll them out and cook them in pairs. After you finish cooking them, you peel them apart to get two super-thin wrappers (ideally they will be very thin; obviously I need much more practice). Give it a try!

“Lotus Pad” (Mandarin) Pancakes

Adapted from Wei-Chuan’s Chinese Snacks Cookbook

Makes 20 pancakes

What you’ll need:

2 1/2 C (300 g) all-purpose flour
3/4 C (180 ml) boiling water
1/4 C (60 ml) cold water
1 T (15 ml) sesame oil

The procedure:

In a large bowl, add the boiling water to the all-purpose flour and mix until you have a rough dough. It will be dry at this point, so don’t worry about obtaining a smooth dough.

Add the cold water to the rough dough and knead until smooth. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and set aside for 20 minutes to let it relax.

After 20 minutes have elapsed, remove the dough from the plastic wrap and knead it again, on a lightly oiled surface so that it is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a long roll approximately 20 inches long, then cut into 20 pieces, each 1 inch wide.

Place the sesame oil in a small bowl and have it ready on the side.

To shape the pancakes: For each piece of dough, and using the palm of your hand, flatten it until into a round, approximately 4 inches in diameter. Dip your fingers in the bowl of sesame oil and lightly oil the top surface of each pancake. Place two pancakes together, with the oiled sides touching, and roll them out until they are 6 inches in diameter. It helps to try to pair pancakes that are similarly sized. Repeat 9 more times to form 10 pairs of pancakes.

Preheat a griddle or skillet over medium-high heat, then lower to low heat and and dry-fry the pancakes for approximately 30 seconds, or until small, golden bubbles appear on the bottom. Try to keep rotating the pancakes with your fingers to fry them evenly. After 30 seconds have elapsed, flip the pancake over and repeat the same procedure, rotating the pancake and checking the bottom for the tell-tale golden bubbles.

Remove the pancake from the pan and gingerly separate the pancakes from each other. I am warning you, they will be hot, so be careful! Place the separated pancakes on a plate and cover with a kitchen towel to keep them warm and moist.

Mandarin pancakes are slightly chewy but not tough; the use of sesame oil also make them lovely and fragrant. They’re also really versatile; use them in conjunction with your favorite mooshu recipe, or anytime you need a tortilla-like flatbread. My mom liked smearing them with peanut butter, rolling it up and enjoying it for breakfast.

Enjoy!

My Comfort Food: Black Sesame Shaobing / 黑芝麻燒餅 (Taiwanese Flatbreads)

Pinjing — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:57:25 +0000

Taiwanese breakfasts have always fascinated me. As a Taiwanese-American born and raised in the US, I grew up eating stuff that most of my other classmates probably ate for breakfast: sugary cereals, poptarts, toast with peanut butter or jelly and the like. Once in a while though, my parents would take my sister and me to a tiny restaurant near our house that served traditional Taiwanese breakfast, which usually consisted of a steaming bowl of either a savory or sweetened version of soy milk (the savory version is the type I prefer, which comes garnished with small pieces of Chinese crullers (油條), chopped scallions, pickled vegetables and a dash of vinegar), potstickers, panfried turnip cakes, egg turnovers and fan tuan (a sort of roll made up of fragrant glutinous rice stuff with pork floss and a Chinese cruller). What my sister and I really craved, however, was the uber-Taiwanese breakfast of shao bing you tiao (燒餅油條). What is this, you ask? Let me enlighten you.

Take a shao bing (a flaky, sesame coated flatbread of goodness), split it open and stuff it with a you tiao (a glorified deep-fried breadstick). Close it to make a carbalicious sandwich. Eat as is, or dunk it in the soymilk and stuff your face. This ain’t no Atkins-friendly breakfast here.

Sounds weird (carbs with carbs? It’s like making a french fry sandwich!) but trust me, it’s delicious. So when I was perusing and old Chinese cookbook that my mom had and saw a recipe for these flaky flatbreads, I knew I had to try it.

Black Sesame Shaobing (Taiwanese Flatbreads)
Adapted from Wei-Chuan’s Chinese Snacks Cookbook

Makes 20 flatbreads

What you’ll need:

6 C (720 g) all-purpose flour
1.5 C (354 ml) boiling water
1/2 C (118 ml) cold water
3/4 C (177 ml) roux mixture
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 C (60 ml) sesame seeds
For the roux mixture: 1.5 C (365ml) flavorless oil (such as vegetable oil) and 3 C (360 g) all-purpose flour.

The Procedure:

Prepare the roux mixture: In a saucepan, heat the 1.5 cups of oil until hot. Add the 3 cups of all-purpose flour and stir to mix well. Cook the mixture over low heat for 10 minutes until the mixture is fragrant and lightly golden. Make sure you’re standing at the pan at all times as this can go from golden brown to burnt very quickly!

Set aside the roux mixture to cool.

Meanwhile, let’s continue on with the rest of the recipe, shall we?

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

Place the flour into a mixing bowl and add the boiling water and cold water all at once and mix well. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic.

Using a silicone mat (or a lightly oiled surface), roll out the dough until it measures a 16″ x 16″ square.

Evenly sprinkle the surface of the dough with the roux mixture, salt and 1 tablespoon flour. Roll up the square tightly ina jelly roll fashion and cut the roll into 20 even pieces (you may have to roll it back and forth a bit to stretch it out to a workable length). For each piece that you cut, pinch the ends together to make sure none of the filling spills out.

Here’s where you shape the pieces and obtain the “flakiness” that characterizes these flatbreads. It may be a bit tricky as I’m not the best at explaining how to shape the flatbreads, so I’ve provided a sort-of step-by-step tutorial to help:

For each piece, place it on the board, such that the pinched edges are on the sides. Take a small rolling pin or dowel, and holding it horizontally, place it on the lower 1/3 of the flatbread.

Roll away from, so that the flatbread is about 4 inches square.

Fold the lower third of the square up to the center.

Then fold the top third down over that (if you’ve ever made croissants or any other laminated dough, this will start to sound familiar).

Now rotate the dough piece 90 degrees so that it’s vertical.

Again, holding the rolling pin horizontally, place the rolling pin now at the vertical center of the dough piece and just press down (don’t roll).

Lift your rolling pin and fold the top half of the dough over.

Dip the piece of the dough, smooth side down, into the sesame seeds, pressing lightly, so as to get the surface fully covered in seeds. Place the dough, sesame seeds side down, on your board and roll out into a 6″ x 3″ rectangle.

Transfer to baking sheet with the sesame side down and repeat with the other 19 pieces.

Bake the breads on the cookie sheet, sesame seed side down for 5 minutes, then flip the breads over and bake them for another 5 minutes or until they are a nice golden brown. They should puff up slightly.

These breads are flaky, crispy on the edges and tender on the inside due to the roux mixture and “quick” laminated dough technique; the traditional way of enjoying these flat breads for breakfast is to stuff them with crispy chinese crullers (you tiao or 油條) and eat with sweet or savory soy milk. In Taiwan they also stuff them with thinly sliced roast beef and scallions (called 牛肉燒餅) and is equally delicious. But it’s up to you; on the rare occasions that my mom bought these from the Chinese supermarket, I was really fond of splitting these open like English muffins and filling them with peanut butter and jelly in my Taiwanese version of the PB&J sandwich. If you do make these, leave a comment as to how you enjoy them . . . I’m always looking for new ideas.

Note: While my version of these flatbreads use black sesame seeds, white sesame seeds are used traditionally. My mom informed me that flatbreads with black sesame seeds usually indicate a sweet version rather than a savory version.

Better Late Than Never: CNY Pineapple Tarts

Pinjing — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:12:58 +0000

Note: This is a “cooking-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” post. Recipe and instructions are approximate and to the best of my shoddy memory.

This year, I wanted to try my hand at making pineapple tarts, a traditional Chinese New Year treat. As I didn’t have any pineapple on hand, I substituted some frozen persimmon pulp, cooking it down with enough white sugar (to taste) until it had become dry and paste-like.

While it cooled, I made the pastry, using the dough from House of Annie. In order to make the construction of the tarts easier, I chilled the dough in the freezer for about an hour after making it.

I decided to try a closed tart (as opposed to the open version) to practice my wrapping skills. In the end, I was mostly successful, only a few of my pastries busted open while baking.

The results were tasty; the persimmon does lend itself to a pineapple-like taste but is more delicate. The dough from House of Annie is definitely a keeper; I later used the leftovers for the base a Honey-Caramel-Cashew Nut Slice and it was delicious. Making pineapple tarts is a bit time-consuming but well worth the effort.