Handy kitchen tips

1. Have a lid that's glued to the jar?  Forget those silly house-shaped grips that your realtor unloaded on you.  Use a clean latex dish-washing glove.  Seriously, there hasn't been a single lid that I couldn't loosen using one of these. 

2. Need to halve or chop fresh cranberries?  Those little suckers are round, and rounds things roll.  To keep them under your knife, cover your chopping board with a damp paper towel.  Yes, you could use a food processor to chop cranberries, but really, what's easier to wash afterwards, a knife or a plastic bowl and fussy little whirly blades?

3. Egg slicers work on mushrooms and strawberries. 

4. If you bake frequently, buy a good scale.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  It's SO  much easier, and neater, to weigh out the flour instead of dipping, sifting, etc.  My cookies never came out the same way twice until I bought my scale. 

5. If you love warm, soft cookies, make a double batch, scoop portions onto a baking sheet and put it in the freezer.  When the dough is frozen, store in air tight plastic bags.  They can go straight from the freezer to the oven.  Then freshly baked cookies can be yours whenever the craving hits you. 

6. If you need to chop canned whole tomatoes, use long bladed scissors, like Fiskars, to snip them to pieces right in the can. 


7. If you are melting chocolate and it seizes up (gets lumpy), that means water or steam got into it.  Stir in a teaspoon of flavorless vegetable oil at a time until it's smooth again.


8. When you shell fresh shrimp for a recipe, toss the shells into a saucepan and simmer them for stock.  Keep the stock in the freezer for the next time you make a seafood chowder or risotto. 


9. When making rolled cookies, dust your board with sugar instead of flour for extra decadent sweetness.


10.  If you spill a large amount of oil on the counter or floor, mop up excess with paper towels, then sprinkle scouring powder, like Ajax or Bon Ami, over the spill.  The dry powder soaks up the remaining grease completely.

Year of the Tiger - New Year's Eve Dinner

My family likes to eat.  We eat to nourish, we eat to celebrate.  Oh boy, do we like to celebrate.  Have a look at the latest Lee Family celebration meal at Full House Seafood Restaurant in Arcadia:

We must have tea throughout the meal.  Cleanses the palate, warms the body and the soul. A good quality tea is essential.  Nothing is worse than bad tea.

Roast suckling pig.  Tender, succulent meat, crackling, slightly salty skin. 

Steamed chicken.  Yes, traditional Chinese cuisine includes parts of the bird that is left out in Western dishes.  There's the head.  I wonder where the feet went...

Shark Fin Soup.  If you've never tasted it, the fin is separated into thin threads that are gelatinous and slightly crunchy.  The soup base is a mix of chicken and crab meats.  This definitely a special occasion soup only.

Whole Steamed Fish with fish sauce and hot oil flash.  This fish was swimming just before we ordered, so it was absolutely fresh.

Bitter Melon Stuffed with Dried Scallop.  Underneath is braised spinach surrounded by ....I'll have to ask Dad what the heck those are.  They stood in for the traditional long noodles that symbolize long life.

Ah, Stir-Fried Clams with Garlic Black Bean Sauce.  My brother and I used to fight over this growing up.  The briny sauce spooned over steamed rice is to die for.  

Abalone Mushrooms and Mustard Greens.  If you didn't know they were mushrooms, you'd swear you were eating the most tender abalone ever.

Introduction--Hi!!

Hi everyone! My name is Courtney Lee, and I'm Debbie's 18 yr old niece as well as a new contributor to the FamiLee Cookbook.

When I found out that Goo Goo Debbie (that's what I've called her since I was born) started a blog to document our family recipes, I couldn't have been more excited. I am absolutely obsessed with cooking, grocery shopping (yes, I love spending time in markets--even the smelly Asian ones!), and preserving family tradition through our food. Unfortunately, my current enthusiasm for cooking didn't fully emerge until this recently past summer. Why do I say that this is unfortunate? Let's just say that as a freshman in college dorms, my ability to create comforting home-cooked meals has been stripped away by the evil required cafeteria meal plans and the lone microwave provided by USC Trojan Hospitality. Rest assured that the only purpose I use my dorm room's microwave for is to see how many more minutes I have to stall before I have to head to my next class, or to heat up an occasional cup of green tea.

Luckily for me, I have incredible parents who gladly brave the infamous downtown Los Angeles traffic every friday to pick me up from school. Don't get me wrong, I love the University of Southern California, but nothing beats being at home and being surrounded by the ones who mean the most to me. Plus, being at home means that I can cook! =) Stove and oven, here I come!

Restorative Pork and Cilantro Soup

It's no fun being sick.

No, I'm not oinking, so not to worry.  Since nothing prevents or cures a cold, we can only find comfort in a warm bed, a sympathetic friend and a steaming bowl of nourishing soup.

This particular soup is perfect in it's simplicity of preparation and richness of taste.  Add some freshly steamed rice for extra comfort.

1/2 pound ground pork (lean preferably, otherwise you will spend quite a bit of time skimming fat, something you don't want to do when you're sick.)
1  large bunch fresh cilantro, rinsed and roughly chopped
Water
Soy sauce or salt to taste
White pepper
Cooked rice (optional)

In a medium saucepan, cook ground pork over medium heat, using a wooden spoon to crumble the meat.  Season with salt or soy sauce, then add in cilantro. Pour in just enough water to cover.  Bring to a boil, then cover and let simmer for 15 minutes.  Ladle into a bowl and sprinkle with white pepper, stir and enjoy.  If you have it with rice, first add the cooked rice to the bowl, then sprinkle with white pepper before ladling the soup over it. 
Hope you like it.

Love,

Deb

Another Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Cookbooks and the Interwebz abound with "ultimate" Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes.  And I've tried so many of them: Cooks' Illustrated's, Debbie Fields', Roland Messnier's, classic Toll House to name a few.  But I've always gone back to this one: Sheldon's Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Sheldon was a buddy of mine back in the when days I was toiling at the USC Seaver Library.  He loved to cook and bake as much as I did, and for one of our staff potlucks, he brough a batch of the best cookies I'd ever eaten.  They were all at once crisp, soft and chewy, and you could actually see the chips.  He said the secret was melting one part butter and one part shortening and beating it with the sugars till fluffy.  The still warm batter allows the chips to "float" on top, so you don't need any of those silly "break the ball of dough in half and twist and smush back together" (sorry, Cooks Illustrated) steps for the chips to be visible in the finished cookie.

I've made some batches with the half butter half shortening formula and some with all butter.  I always thought the half and half recipe made a thicker cookie, but for this post, I decided to make two batches and do a side by side comparison, using my nephew as my guinea pig.

The half-shortening dough was a bit greasier, but they baked up the same.  But did one taste better than the other?  The difference as it turned out, was negligible.  My nephew said that if he HAD to choose, it would be the all-butter

So this is the final recipe - with all butter.  I just hope Sheldon will forgive me.

2 1/2 cups (12.5 oz) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (two sticks) butter
1 cup (8 oz) brown sugar
1/2 cup (3.5 oz) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs (preferably room temp)
1 cup (6 oz) chocolate chips
1 cup toffee bits

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix together flour, salt, baking soda in medium bowl and set aside.  In small, heavy bottomed saucepan, melt the butter.  Dump brown and white sugars into a large mixing bowl.  Pour melted butter into sugars.  Beat the heck out of it till fluffy.  I use a stand mixer, it makes things so much easier.  If you don't have a stand mixer, use a an electric hand mixer.  If you have to do it manually, use a wire whisk or wooden spoon and really put some muscle into it and show it who's boss.  You need to get the mixture to fluff level.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly.  Add the vanilla and stir some more.  Add the flour mixture and gently stir to combine.  Measure out the chip and toffee bits into one bowl and add to the batter.  Stir gently but thoughly so that chip and bits are evenly distributed.  Scoop by rounded tablespoonsful onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake at 375 for 6 to 8 minutes till golden brown.  They should look crisp around the edges but somewhat soft in the center. 

Note: I like to scoop out portions with my cookie scoop and freeze them in a ziplock bag.  This way I can bake just enough for me, the husband and each of the two kids.  And it's handy for when company shows up unexpectedly.  Just bake them at 325 instead of 375.  They will turn out flatter than if you bake them right after mixing, but they will be crisp around the edges and chewy in the middle.  Mmmmm....

Chinese Chicken and Rice

This was a favorite in our household growing up.  Grandma always knew she could put a smile on our faces when she made Gai Gok Fahn.  And like most cooks of her generation, she never measured; it was simply couple spoonfuls of this, a sprinkling of that.  But her dishes, every one of them, were amazing.  So in my little attempt to replicate one of my family's truly scrumptious meals, I kinda, sorta laid out measurements, but as with most recipes, ingredients and ratios can be adjusted according to taste or to whatever you have on hand.

Anyway, here is the recipe I made:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thigh (if you worry about silly things like fat or calories, you may certainly use breast meat, but the meat will be a bit dry at the end)

2 lengths Chinese sausage, cut into disks. 

6 oz. fresh shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced (if you're using dried, be sure to soak them for a couple hours beforehand, and you can use the flavorful mushroom water to cook the rice)

3 1/2 cups rice, rinsed

2 - 3 cups chicken broth or water

3 T soy sauce

2 T Hsao Sing cooking wine

3 teaspoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon white pepper

Oyster sauce to taste

Cut chicken into bite sized pieces, place into medium bowl, and add soy sauce, wine, sesame oil, white pepper, then stir to thoroughly combine.  Place in refrigerator for about an hour to marinate.  After the meat has soaked up the marinade, heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in a heavy dutch oven (I use a 5 quart enameled cast iron pot), and cook the chicken over med high heat until it has lost it's pink color, but not quite cooked through.  Quickly remove meat to a bowl and place in refrigerator while you prepare the rice.  Dump rice into the pot and add just enough broth or water to cover the rice by about a quarter inch.  Don't worry if this doesn't seem like enough liquid, you will get extra moisture from the mushrooms and the chicken at the end.  Bring to boil over medium high heat then cover and turn down to low.  Check after 15 minutes.  The rice should have soaked up the liquid, but still won't be quite done.  Add the sliced mushrooms and the Chinese sausage.  Cover again let cook for another 10 minutes. When the sausage is shiny, and the mushrooms are fragrant, add the chicken pieces in a single even layer over the top of the rice, and be sure to add whatever juices that accumulated at the bottom of the bowl.  Cover, and turn heat up to medium to finish cooking the chicken.  Check after 10 to 15 minutes.  When the chicken is cooked through, pour a few tablespoons of oyster sauce evenly over the chicken then stir to mix up the rice, meat, and mushrooms.  Turn off heat, cover again to let the whole thing steam and soak up the oyster sauce, about 5 minutes.

This dish is especially comforting on cool evenings, or when you have a major starch craving.  Kids seem to like it, we did as kids, in fact, my son calls this "Mom's Famous Chicken and Rice."   I hope you enjoy it, too.

Love,

Deb

Brown Butter Apple Muffins

Monday is little girl's last day of preschool.

She wanted to bring one last treat to share with her friends before venturing out into the wild world that is the public school system. We decided on apple muffins baked in heart-shaped silicone cups.

Most apple cake recipes I found call for so much oil, I don't get it. Why can't we use butter? I wanted a butter muffin. Butter, butter, butter. Finally I chose Mark Bittman's Sweet and Rich Muffins, browned the butter, added some cinnamon and nutmeg and stirred in a grated apple.

They actually turned out quite yummy, though they they rose more than I expected and aren't exactly heart-shaped. But hopefully once the little ones bite into them, they won't mind that the cakes look more like rocks. But they'll know Sabrina loves them.

Brown Butter Apple Muffins

Adapted from Sweet and Rich Muffins from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

6 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups (about 9 ounces) all-purpose flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 medium apple, peeled, cored and grated

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the butter on low until it turns a dark golden brown and smells caramel-ly. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.

Beat eggs with the milk.

By hand or using a mixer, cream together the sugar and browned butter. Add about a third of the flour mixture and a third of the milk mixture and stir. Repeat until flour and milk are used up. Stir in the grated apple until evenly incorporated.

Scoop into muffin cups about two-thirds full. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Makes about 18.