Blanching is very helpful for reducing the bitter flavor that exists in mustard greens. So is simmering mustard greens for a long time after the blanching.
For other easy soup recipes, check out my creamy Tuscan sausage soup.
The post One-Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup appeared first on Jenn's Kitchen Diary.]]>Bones have lots of blood and impurities in them. To make a nice and clear bone broth, boiling them at high heat and then rinsing out impurities is essential. That is a critical step for any clear broth, but especially this lotus root pork bone soup.
Set a pot of water to boil. There should be enough water to submerge the bones completely.
Once the water is boiling, add in the bones (e.g., chicken, beef, pork). Allow blood and other impurities to boil out into the broth for at least 5 minutes.
Then remove the bones from the heat and pour out the liquid. This is not suitable for making a broth so it is discarded. Then rinse the bones in cold water, using your hands to remove any coagulated blood and other impurities. Repeat as needed.
Once bones are clean, then add into a pot with new clean water to start cooking a broth.
I have to thank Emeril Lagasse for inspiring this recipe. He is my childhood celebrity chef hero and I finally got to eat at his restaurants in 2012 and in 2019. His restaurant served a version of shrimp bisque that changed my world. I loved how he incorporated little crunchy bits of goodies in his shrimp bisque. Kept things interesting with different textures to contrast the creaminess.
For other comforting soup recipes check out my curry butternut squash soup.
But rather than spending $10 on a quart of store-bought bone broth, I highly encourage you to make it on your own. You got much more bang for your buck. It tastes much richer and has better nutritional value. Plus, you got the nibble on the bits of slow-cooked meat-yum!
For other recipes featuring bone broth, check out my Chinese Pork Wonton Soup Recipe.
For other beef stew recipes, check out my French Beef Burgundy Stew and American style Classic Beef Vegetable Stew.
The post Hong Kong Beef Stew appeared first on Jenn's Kitchen Diary.]]>On cold days, there is nothing you crave more than a huge bowl of piping hot, steamy, soup. Especially pork wonton soup. And even better if it’s homemade.
The Asian in me really comes out during the fall and winter months because I am eating pho at least once a week.
Beside pho, you can try other Vietnamese noodle soups:
Bun bo hue- a spicy lemon-grass flavored beef and pork noodle soup
Bun rieu- noodle soup in a garlicky tomato and crab + pork meatball infused broth
Chinese chicken noodle soup- big chunks of chicken with rice noodle, fresh gingery broth, with cilantro and green onion.
If you just drooled a bit, then you are on the right track. These are delicious Vietnamese noodle soups that will add significantly to your noodle soup game!
Speaking of delicious noodle soup, homemade pork wontons soup is something that is a labor of love, but is so comforting and delicious. It will be worth every painstaking effort that you take to wrap these delicious dumplings.
For other winter comfort foods, check out:
French Beef Burgundy Stew
Albondigas Soup
Chinese Sticky Rice with Preserved Meats
Whenever I make dumplings or wontons of any kind, I make them in bulk. They are quite the undertaking and require lots of elbow grease….well, finger grease is more like it. Fine motor skills are very important in wonton wrapping and you might find your palm cramping after an hour or two of wrapping.
I laugh every time I think of myself wrapping anything-dumplings, spring rolls, wontons. I was notoriously bad at wrapping anything in my family.
You see, I am not exactly known for being graceful or precise with my motor skills. So I’ll often bump into furniture, stub my toes…yes, I am a very dangerous person to have in the kitchen.
But I couldn’t stay away from the kitchen. No matter how many burns I would get on my hands; no matter how many times I accidentally nicked my fingers, I would come right back to the kitchen. With time, I have become more skilled at wrapping wontons. Although my husband Ray will tell you that I often scare him with my moves in the kitchen.
With that, have some faith in yourself. When you’ve practiced enough, you will get better and better! Please see tutorial below for step-by-step instructions.
1. Take a wonton wrapper and place it with a corner pointing down toward you (it will look like there is a kite on your plate). Place ~1 tbsp of filling onto the top half of the wonton. Take the eggwash with your finger and spread it along the top edges of your wonton wrapper.
2. Then fold the bottom half up and over the top half, pushing out any excess air. Use your fingers to press down firmly on the edges to create a tight seal. You should end up with a triangle with the base on the bottom.
3. Take the two corners on the left and right, and fold one over the other until they slightly overlap. Press down firmly to create a strong seal. Repeat.
4. Repeat and you will get a beautiful plate of wrapped pork wontons. Tada!
There are many ways to eat wontons. Most people boil them and serve them with either a sauce or flavorful bone broth soup. Sometimes people deep fry them, but that is not traditional.
I feel like Asians were the OG bone broth lovers way before it became cool. Asian broths are not to be taken lightly. They are simmered for hours on end to extract every ounce of flavor from the ingredients you place into the pot. Lots of aromatics, bones, and meats go into the soup to give it tons of flavor. The soup that I made for this recipe was flavored with dried shrimp, which packs a strong umami salty bite, and pork neck bones.
Dried shrimp is a very common Cantonese ingredient and is treated like an aromatic similar to garlic. It adds a nice rich funkiness to the broth. But I realize that dried shrimp is not everyone’s cup of tea. So feel free to omit.
Common ingredients are:
Yes! Yes! Yes! Buying pre-made wonton wrappers is a huge time saver. I have never made my own wonton skins. The fun part is that you can use them as a quick ravioli wrapper as well if you are short on time.
In any Chinese meatball dish, picking up the ball of meat and slamming it back into the bowl is essential in creating the perfect texture. This and the addition of a glutinous component-usually corn starch. Chinese meatballs are springy and bouncy. They do not fall apart or melt in your mouth like Italian style meatballs. So make sure you give your meat mixture a few good slams into the bowl before you start filling your wontons.
Pro tip: Always cook and taste part of your meat mixture to check for spices and seasoning before stuffing it into the wonton wrappers. You do not want to spend hours on a large serving of food, only to discover it was under or over seasoned.
What a total bummer. Prevention is key, folks!
Do the same for your burgers, meatball mixtures, meatloaf, ravioli fillings and whatever marinated mixture you make.
This last one is more of a tip of life. Make shallot oil. Lots of it! It will add a burst of flavor to all of your Asian dishes. Many Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, and Thai dishes have this as a garnish, but it is so much more than that. It packs so much caramelized rich flavor that it acts more as a spice or seasoning. Do it. You’re welcome.
When you buy a bowl of pork wontons soup, it usually costs between $8-12 depending on the restaurant you are at. While you may not save much money in making these yourself, they will almost always taste better when you make homemade pork wontons. Why? Restaurants tend to put less of the good stuff-shrimp, pork, and filling overall. Asian restaurants also tend to put too much MSG in their pork wontons soup rather than pulling out the flavor stops that we do in this recipe.
Without further ado, here is the recipe.
Happy cooking! Tag me on Instagram @jennskitchendiary if you’ve made this dish! Would love to see how it turned out.
The post Classic Chinese Pork Wonton Soup-The Ultimate Comfort Food appeared first on Jenn's Kitchen Diary.]]>Use whatever you have lying around. Popular proteins for kimchi stew include tuna, shellfish, and even pork belly.
A full Korean meal set includes a stew, rice, and a bunch of side dishes called banchan. These side dishes usually are comprised of various pickled vegetables, marinated eggs, dried seafood. You can find a link to some of these banchan recipes in my Easy Korean Barbecue at Home post.