blog — molly yeh

dumplings

A DUMPLING A DAY: ALGERIAN BUREK

in

There are many types of burek (thin dough filled with meat) around the world, but this Algerian version is the stuff of my youth. When I met my Bosnian husband and he claimed that one of his favorite things to eat was burek, I knew it was fate. While the two versions differ mainly in shapes — a spiral versus a cigar — the main point is that when you fill thin pastry dough with good seasoned meat, something so magical happens that it can even bring two people together who come from vastly different places. Yep, I'm saying that burek = love. 

My mother-in-law makes her dough by hand and then patiently stretches it and oils it until it is paper thin. I've done this with her before and it's as difficult as it sounds. There is just no way I'm about to do that by myself, so I use fillo dough or wonton wrappers. Yay for shortcuts! Once the dough is thawed, all you need to do is to cook up the meat with onions and cumin, salt and pepper, and get to rolling some cigars. When I was younger, I preferred to fry them in oil on the stove but now that I'm 4 years away from 30 and my hips are of concern, I choose to brush them with a little oil and bake them. Either way, you'll end up with a crispy shell and a savory, meaty, salty filling. Oh yeah.

Here's what you need:

Fillo dough or wanton wrappers, thawed

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 pound ground beef (I used ground longhorn beef which is leaner)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon cumin

canola oil

1 lemon

Here's what you do:

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add meat, salt, pepper, and cumin and cook through. Drain off some of the fat, if you wish. 

Lay a couple of layers of fillo dough in a square or rectangular shape. Spoon some of the meat mixture in a line along one of the edges of the dough. Fold the edges over (like a burrito) and roll it up! Seal the burek by wetting the edge of the dough with some water and closing.

If you choose to fry, fill a heavy bottomed pan with canola oil (about 1/4 inch deep is all you really need). Let the oil heat up and then drop in (carefully!) the burek. Turn regularly until golden brown, and set on a paper towel to drain. 

If you choose to bake them, brush your cigars with a little bit of canola oil and bake in a 400 degree oven until they're crispy and golden brown. You may need to turn them once!

Serve hot, and squeeze lemon over the burek as you eat them. We also like to dip ours in a traditional Algerian lamb soup!

-camilla salem

 

this post is part of the dumpling a day while i'm away  guest blogger series. i'm in israel right now so i've gotten some awesome bloggers, photographers, and writers, to showcase delicious dumplings. if you're interested in being a dumpling guest blogger, send me a note at yeh.molly@gmail.com. yay!

A DUMPLING A DAY: HUMMUS DUMPLINGS

in ,

by nina yu

“WTFun” dumplings are an original idea, inspired by my hungry stomach. Thank you, stomach.

If you’re short on time or too tired to make absolutely everything from scratch (it’s okay, there are those days), hummus, dumpling wrappers, and heck, even cooked chicken, can all be store-bought. Isn’t America amazing? If you choose to buy hummus and dumpling wrappers, you can go ahead and direct your attention to the latter half of the post, as that’s where you’ll find how to construct and cook the dumplings. You’ll be done in 15 minutes, max.

I found out I didn’t own a rolling pin last minute (whoops), and used a cup to roll out the dough instead. So if you’re thinking what the funk is up with those dumpling shapes? I know, I’m thinking the same thing. Trust me, they don’t alter the taste though.

Thank you to my friends Eun Sun, James, and Susie for eating the ones that turned out beyond creatively interesting and into butt ugly. :’) And thanks for letting me share this, Molly!

Hummus

Makes: 2 1/3 cup hummus

Ingredients

4 fresh garlic cloves (fresh makes all the difference!)

4 cups canned chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)

juice of 2 freshly squeezed lemons

3 tablespoons liquid from the chickpeas

Directions

1. Blend all ingredients.

2. Taste, for seasoning, and set 1.5 cups aside for the filling. Refrigerate remaining hummus as a side dip for the dumplings.

Dumpling Wrappers

Makes: 40 wrappers

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup warm water

Directions:

1. Sift all-purpose flour and salt.

2. Add warm water gradually into the dry ingredients, using a spatula or fork to mix until you can form the mixture into a ball with your hands.

3. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, adding more water or flour depending on the consistency.

4. Cover and rest the dough at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

5. Quarter the dough to form 4 logs and cut a total of 40 even pieces.

6. On a lightly floured surface roll out each piece into a 3-inch circle.
7. Dust each wrapper again with flour and stack them up.

TIP: For the logs/dough pieces that aren’t being rolled out yet, cover in plastic wrap to prevent the dough from drying out. Dried out dough is bad. news.

Filling

Makes: Enough for 40 dumplings

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 mini (or 2 large) avocados

1 pint grape tomatoes

salt and black pepper, for seasoning

Directions

1. Boil chicken breasts in salted water for 10 minutes, or until cooked through.

2. Meanwhile, dice avocados and tomatoes into small, filling-size pieces.

3. When chicken is cooked through, allow chicken to rest for 5 minutes.

4. Shred chicken into filling-size pieces.

5. Season chicken with black pepper, to taste.

6. Mix chicken, tomatoes, and avocados evenly with 1.5 cups hummus.

TIP: I suggest wearing sanitized dish gloves and shredding the chicken to protect yourself from the heat, as the chicken will still be hot after 5 minutes. To super expedite the process, use scissors to chop into small pieces. 

Dumpling

1. Fill the center of the wrapper with 1 tablespoon filling.

2. Moisten the edges of your wrapper with water, fold to create a semicircle, and seal dumplings tightly. At this point, you can jazz up your dumplings by pleating the edges.

3. Heat a pan with 1/2-1 inch vegetable oil at high heat

4. Fry dumplings for ~1 minute on each side. These bad boys cook fast so make sure you’re distraction free!

TIP: To test whether the oil is ready, stick a wooden chopstick into the middle of the pan. If bubble form around the chopstick, the oil is ready

Get that extra hummus out from the fridge and serve immediately. Enjoy!

-nina yu

this post is part of the dumpling a day while i'm away guest blogger series. i'm in israel right now so i've gotten some awesome bloggers, photographers, and writers, to showcase delicious dumplings. if you're interested in being a dumpling guest blogger, send me a note at yeh.molly@gmail.com. yay!

A DUMPLING A DAY: SOUP DUMPLINGS AT JOE'S GINGER

in

by rochelle of foodle

Ok so what happens when you take a naive pastry student and place her smack dab in the middle of Manhattan for 3 days? Crickets… Well I’ll tell you because that is exactly what I did, with due reason of course. I am pretty good at a little something called pastry, it’s a kind of weird talent or knack of mine that I cannot explain and prevented me from pursuing my parents' dream of my becoming a doctor. Note to all: If you have the grades and the book smarts (aka you're a nerd, like myself) try your best not to disappoint your Jewish mother’s dreams or she will throw a few tantrums and lecture about how you better marry a jewish doctor or lawyer, not a chef. Well I must say it was quite lovely delivering the news that I will be staging at Per Se, arguably one of the best restaurants in the country, definitely on the east coast! Though she had no idea what Per Se was or that a stage was a production based interview and not a Broadway performance, my mother was able to grasp that it was kind of a big deal and for a lapse of time forgot that her little angel would be roaming around the big bad city for a few days.

Equipped with a box of chocolate chip cookies from one of the freshman classes I TA’d for at Johnson & Wales, I began my trip via Megabus to NYC where I’d stay at my friend Nick’s apartment for the duration of my time in the big apple. The bus dropped me off at 28th and 7th, the middle of busy Manhattan, on a Saturday afternoon. I know I looked like a lost outsider as I bounded for my suitcase from below the bus before some stranger swiped it! I proceeded to turn in circles to find which street was next up, left, right, so confused. A lovely stranger assisted me with directions and asked for some change or monetary donation. The moment of truth! Will the naïve, clumsy chef give the needy some change and reveal to the entire city the exact location of her wallet? My friends would certainly be proud because I told the nice man that I had no cash on me but I would be happy to give him some cookies! Yes, you read correctly, the first thing I did in New York City was trade chocolate chip cookies made with couverture for directions, and guess what? I kept doing that as I proceeded to get lost on the Manhattan Subway System for two hours before finding my friend Nick’s apartment at 71 Broadway, not 71st and Broadway. Whoops! Well needless to say, Nick and his roommates were lucky to get half a box of cookies.

Back at the apartment, I attempted to explain my mission for the next three days to the boys residing there: Eat my way through the city at restaurants and cafes recommended by my chef instructors and wise friends. Crickets… similar to the crisp, crunchy, crack of a kosher dill pickle, Nick’s roommate Eamon bites into a raw potato with salt. What did I just walk into? In a city where the food is everything, at least in my view, these college kids have moved past ramen and straight to raw, starchy vegetables! I tried this culinary abomination and was surprised to find that it was in fact edible, but lacking all flavors any normal human should desire. In a food world brimming with modernist cuisine I could see brunoise raw potatoes in some strange salad, they do have a unique crunch, but these guys were in dire need of a food revolution.

Our first stop was Joe’s Ginger for dumplings. Eric, a fellow TA and good friend of mine, told me I had to try these “soupy” dumplings in Chinatown and he recommended Joe’s Ginger. It didn’t look all that special amongst the array of Chinese restaurants. But all around us were Chinese New Year festivities so generally everything besides the confetti covered streets was lackluster. The place was packed so that was my indication we hit the jackpot and were in for something good. Because we had many more restaurants to covet, we decided just to order these renowned soupy dumplings for the table. In a jiffy the steamer was brought to our table and beneath the lid were the little pockets of heaven. As we took our first bites, everyone’s face grimaced then smiled because after the squirt of hot, oily soup shoots in your mouth you get to the warm meatball in the center. I try to slurp the last bit of soup out of dumpling and then eat the tender shell that encapsulated it. Mmmm…so savory, umami, delicious! After one bite I knew I’d have to get the recipe someday. I am so glad I am going to Israel on the Birthright trip because I have now met who I presume to be the Dumpling Queen, Molly Yeh and I believe she is willing to share her tasty recipe for “Soupy” Dumplings.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my guest post. Big shout out to Molly Yeh!

-rochelle cooper

 

 

this post is part of the dumpling a day while i'm away guest blogger series. i'm in israel right now so i've gotten some awesome bloggers, photographers, and writers, to showcase delicious dumplings. if you're interested in being a dumpling guest blogger, send me a note at yeh.molly@gmail.com. yay!