Tag: homemade

Sichuan Ramen

July 28, 2020 / jwilmoredenton

I have always love spicy food, but when I first tried recipes from the Sichuan province of China, featuring the Sichuan peppercorn, they took my spicy fetish to a whole ‘nother level. Mouth-numbing, tingly, floral explosions combined with super-hottt spicy chilies. What’s not to love?

Today I made Sichuan Ramen and it is a good example of how I live, working on many ongoing projects, which can come together in many different ways, into amazing final dishes. Ramen is made up of four basic components: the dashi (broth), the tare (sauce), the noodles, and the toppings. These can be combined in endless combinations to suit any taste and provide lots of variety. I might be canning homemade bone broths one week, fermenting vegetables and curing meats another, and finally watching them come together on a random Monday night, in one perfect bowl of Ramen.

Dashi – Broth

I have recently found a local source for Springer Mountain Farms chickens. They are American Humane Certified and raised up in these same Blue Ridge Mountains as I am raising up my family. I have raised and butchered my own Cornish Cross chickens in the past, but it is a lot of work, and I’d rather leave it to the experts. In my opinion, they put out the best chicken products aside from me doing it myself. For this Ramen dashi, I used just the carcass from one of these chickens, discarded from a hot chicken recipe I am working on (spoiler alert). I browned it slightly in my Instant Pot, along with a white onion sliced in half and a couple of slices of ginger, on the saute setting. I then filled the IP with water and cooked under pressure for 30 minutes to develop a nice broth. Finally, I removed the bones and veggies, poured the stock through a fine-mesh strainer, and seasoned with a little salt. You can cool it down in the refrigerator and remove any fat, if you like.

Tare – Sauce

The Tare, or seasoning sauce of the Ramen is where the Szechuan comes in. I combine oyster sauce with grated ginger, grated garlic, cayenne pepper, habanero powder, and toasted, ground Sichuan peppercorns. Instead of the traditional sake, mirin, or shaoxing wine, I used some of my homemade hard apple cider! this is what I mean by having many ongoing projects that come together in different ways. Last fall I made a bunch of homemade hard apple cider from some leftover apple juice that I gained as a byproduct of making applesauce. I don’t drink alcohol and no one in my house really does either, so it’s been sitting around for a while and I had a light bulb moment to use it in my cooking. My wife used it in her chicken piccata in stead of white wine a few nights ago and it was perfect. This may have influenced my light bulb moment.

Noodles!

The noodles I chose for this Ramen were buckwheat soba noodles. I was toying with the idea of using spaghetti squash as a noodle substitute, which I have done before with great success as a low-carb option. Any noodle will work in a pinch, but I’ve been trying to find the perfect noodle for some time that both satisfies the rest my family’s carb needs, and satisfies my need for healthy carb options. Soba noodles are a quick and easy healthy cheat. Another of my favorites are shirataki noodles, a zero carb “noodle” made from some yam or something.

Toppings

Another example of my projects that come together in serendipitous, fulfilling ways is my Char Shui pork belly. We butchered a pig a few months ago and ended up with a lot of pork belly which I had sliced into thick-cut bacon. What I didn’t know was that bacon has to be cured, and it was my first time attempting this at home. I covered the bacon in pink Himalayan sea salt for a few days and then cooked some up. It. Was. Not. Great. I guess there is no substitute for the other pink salt, sodium nitrite. So I mused to myself, maybe I should smoke it? I smoked some of the bacon as low and slow as I could. It kind of melted a little bit and when I cook some of it up again, it was not great. I had a stroke of genius while looking at some packets of store-bought Char Sui I had in my pantry. I took a bunch of the pork belly I had left and marinated it in the Char Sui seasoning (basically a mixture of sugar and red). What I ended up with after a quick broil was awesome. Char Sui, grilled to perfection, slightly blackened around the edges, is totally delicious. Our little Bash calls this candy chicken, and it is one of the few foods that he will eat without being threatened. This was the protein I chose for my Ramen.

A few more choice toppings I like are sweet corn, cilantro or basil, red onion or green onion, soy sauce, and hoisin. Also, a few days before I planned to make the Ramen, I prepared some soy-marinated eggs. I soft-boiled a dozen eggs (to perfection) and then marinated them in one part soy sauce, one part hard cider, and one part water. They marinated for two days.

To assemble the Ramen, I placed some tare in the bottom of the bowl, ladled in some chicken dashi, and placed a ball of soba noodles on top. I topped the Ramen with sweet whole kernel corn, the Char Sui pork, a sliced Ramen egg, cilantro, and in my case, a thinly slice spicy chili, the first from my garden this year. I hope yall like this post, and please reach out with any questions!

Making Sugar Scrub is Easy and Fun, by Amyna Denton, age 12

April 27, 2020 / jwilmoredenton

My aunt Kat came to visit from Connecticut. She hitched a ride with my mom when she was driving home to North Carolina. Aunt Kat hadn’t been down to our house for a while. With her, she brought her two little girls, Leeloo and Eppie. She really likes making homemade stuff. Aunt Kat makes all her own stuff at home like toothpaste, deodorant, and sugar scrub. So when she was here, she decided to teach us how to make sugar scrub. Sugar scrub is an exfoliating scrub used to take dead skin off of your hands and body. It is all natural and super easy to make. I like it because of how it makes your skin feel silky and smooth.

It was so fun and easy to make sugar scrub that I wanted to share it with other people like you! Here are the ingredients and steps for how to make sugar scrub. The ingredients are sugar, olive oil or avocado oil, essential oil, and food coloring, which is optional. You will need a big bowl and a wooden spoon to mix it up with. 1 ½ cup sugar, ½ cup olive oil, as much essential oil you want, and 2 drops of food coloring. I just add 2 drops of essential oil and food coloring.

First, get a bowl and add the sugar and the olive oil and mix it all up. Second you can add essential oil and food coloring (optional). Third, make sure you mixed it all up well. After mixing, make sure you have a consistency like play dough. If the scrub seems too wet, add a bit more sugar. If the scrub seems too dry, add a bit more oil. The last step is to put it in a jar or container.

Sugar scrub can be used all over your body. Anywhere you have dry skin, apply the scrub and rub it lightly over the area. Then, wash the area with soap and water. The sugar removes the dry skin quickly and painlessly, and the oil leaves your skin feeling fresh and soft. The essential oil leaves you smelling great.
The best places to use it are your hands and feet. I have dry skin on my hands and feet. They are usually dry and cracked. Using sugar scrub on these areas makes them nice and smooth because of the sugar. It is a simple and fun way to treat yourself well. It feels like going to get a pedicure. Especially in the winter. Here in the mountains, where we live, winter leaves our skin drier than normal. Sugar scrub not only removes the dry, damaged skin, but the oil it leaves your skin protected from the cold.

This was my first time making sugar scrub, and the first time I learned a skill from my Aunt Kat. It was fun to watch my cousins Leeloo and Eppie squishing the sugar and oil together with their hands and choosing their colors. I was amazed at how it came out. I had no idea how it would look. I made mine with peppermint oil because it is a strong and relaxing smell. I added green food coloring so it would match the peppermint smell.
This was a great project and it was the best because my Aunt Kat was teaching us. Aunt Kat showed us how to make these and now I can make it all by myself. Next time she comes she’ll probably teach me to make toothpaste or deodorant. I really enjoy making things like this. I hope you enjoy making and using your own sugar scrub. If you have any questions or comments, please write below.

Asian Dumplings aka Potstickers aka Gyoza, by Lilli, age 13

April 26, 2020 / jwilmoredenton

Our family cooks amazing dishes. One of the many things we love is Asian dumplings. Who doesn’t love dumplings? They’re amazing, delectable, and mouth-watering, especially homemade dumplings! We live in rural Western North Carolina in the middle of nowhere so we have to keep ourselves busy and content and one way we do that is by cooking ethnic foods that we can’t get otherwise. We moved here from Connecticut, where there was plenty to do.

We make the good homemade stuff right here in our kitchen. Take a moment and think of the things you get in a sit-down restaurant, drive-thru, or somewhere besides your kitchen. Ask yourself: is the food that I make better than the easy alternative from a drive-thru? Your answer should be a big fat yes! Of course, if there is work needed to make good food then you know it’s better. We as a family like to avoid drive-thrus and other less-healthy restaurants. We try to work hard as a family to eat healthily and in order to eat healthily, you have to make the food. So, if we want Chinese food, we make it!

It’s hard sometimes, but we don’t just change our minds and say “let’s go to KFC” because the work is hard, or it takes a long time. No! That is all wrong and I don’t like to think like that. I like to think positively and ask myself “what am I trying to do here? What am I getting out of this?” We do the hard work and make homemade food as a family because it creates so many significant memories and there’s something at the end of our hard work to enjoy after.
I am an adopted child. Making food with my adoptive family is especially fun for me because in the past, living with my birth family, I never had the opportunity to do things like making homemade food. We hardly ever bought our own ingredients to make recipes at home together. We barely had a full meal in front of us to eat! If we did eat something it was food from the bodega down the block (if you’re wondering what a bodega is, it’s a small grocery store that sells different authentic Latin food, usually found in urban areas). Don’t get me wrong the food was good for someone who hardly ever ate a full meal but it’s sad to me now because I realize what I was missing.

I really enjoy making home-cooked food with my family. Making food with my family like dumplings makes me content and helps me stay busy. Everyone in my family has a role in making dumplings, whether it be prepping ingredients, washing dishes, or making other sides to go with dumplings. Have you ever heard the quote “many hands make light work”? It is actually true! We have many people in our family to help and with many people involved, less work is needed from each person.

My aunt Michelle makes the dumpling filling for us and cooks the dumplings afterwards. My uncle Will helps with cooking the dumplings and makes other flavorful dishes to go with them. My dad, my sister Amyna, my aunt Michelle and I help fold the dumplings together. My mom and grandma help with cleaning up after everyone by washing the dishes and counters.

Some of the dishes we eat with dumplings are fried rice and hot and sour soup. Sometimes we also have Char Shui pork or Lo Mein. Making our meals is time-consuming but just remember it is also worth it.
I help with folding the dumplings as I said earlier. They’re really fun to fold. The way I learned to fold dumplings was to put at least three pleats on each side. We lay the wrappers all out on a big tray. I’m going to explain the way I fold them by step.

Nurse’s hat shape is similar to tortellini

First, make sure you have all the ingredients and equipment laid out: a small bowl of water, a big bowl of your dumpling filling, a stack of dough wrappers, and a tray to put your finished dumplings on. Most importantly, wash your hands! Now you want to lay one of your dough wrappers out on a flat surface and scoop a small amount of filling on to your dough wrapper. Then dip your finger into your water dish and rub around the edges of your dough wrapper. This is to make them stick together instead of falling apart. Next you pick your dough wrapper up and add pleats on each side. Finally, put your finished dumpling on the tray to rest before cooking.

We make dumplings all the time so when I make them I try to strive for more pleats every time. I seem to do more and more pleats as I grow. The more time you spend making food with your family at home, the more important moments you make together.
Learning these basic cooking skills to make dumplings is important. Being with family and getting to do things together and be there for each other is also important. Now that I’m finished with giving you the basic steps and my experience with making homemade Asian dumplings, I recommend trying it one day. Gather your friends and family to help you with this meal. It is time for you to make an involved home-cooked meal for yourself, family, and friends!

Beginner Sourdough Loaf: Basic Technique

February 6, 2020 / jwilmoredenton

Nothing says “I love you” like fresh-baked bread. Nothing says “I love you so much that I am willing to risk a lifetime of failure” like fresh-baked sourdough bread. Lucky for you, I have already experienced a lifetime of failure and I have a few tips to help you along your way.

Baking sourdough bread can be tricky. I am a firm believer, however, that anybody can do it, with some determination and a little practice. I have read countless blogs, watched countless videos, and baked countless loaves, and by far, the later was the most educational.

That being said, if I can provide you with some entry-level guidance and help you avoid some common mistakes long enough to see some success, I believe you will be more likely to stick with it! Breadmaking is a labor of love and I hope it brings you as much joy as it does me. These steps are about maximizing your CHANCE of getting a perfect loaf, but in bread, as in life, there are no guarantees.

If you want to skip ahead to the recipe, by all means, be my guest. I am often frustrated when I am looking for a quick recipe for dinner, kids yelling throughout the house, only to have to scroll, or worse yet, read, through pages of someone’s opinions and descriptions of their recipe. (tl;dr) No judgement here.

Basic Sourdough Ingredients

Sourdough breads are made from a few basic ingredients:

Sourdough Starter – A mixture of flour, water, and naturally-occurring yeast. There are several mail-order places you can buy one, or I’m sure that they are available in all of the fancy organic yuppie hipster supermarkets. If you want the best sourdough starter money can buy, from 1847 on the Oregon Trail, it’ll cost you a forever stamp: carlsfriends.net Expect a whole lot more on this topic in future posts.

Flour – Any old all purpose flour will do for now, but if you plan on opening a bakery, you may want to explore some different brands King Arthur is a good one) and types, including bread flour, which has a little more protein, and thus produces more gluten, which is totally unnecessary for the home baker.

Water – You’d think that this one would be self-explanatory, but not quite. If you have “city water” which is treated with chemicals, this could hinder the growth of, or even kill, your yeast. You can remove chlorine from your tap water by filling up a big pot and letting it sit for 24 hours. If you still have problems with chemicals after that or just don’t want to wait, store-bought filtered water works great!

Salt – Bread without salt is like life without love…

Basic Sourdough Technique

In this method, sourdough starter is combined with water and flour (by weight) and allowed to “colonize” for an hour or so to get established, before the salt is added. Salt draws water out of substances, so if you skip this step you will still get bread, but your yeast may be less active which may give you an inferior rise.

If you really want to be a nerd, you can just combine the flour and water for an hour or two before adding the starter. This is called Autolyse and allows the flour to fully hydrate and to begin developing gluten, before the yeast gets to work. It is not necessary for your first loaf but may be something you want to explore in the future. Remember, these steps are about maximizing your CHANCE of getting a perfect loaf!

Next, we add in our salt and give the dough a good kneading. This can be accomplished a few different ways. For the purpuse of this simple post, I’m going to say eight minutes in your KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook on medium speed.

Our dough is then covered and allowed to rise until it is doubled in volume, which will probably take at least four hours at room temperature. This is called bulk fermentation. A cool way to watch this happen is to use a clear cylindrical crock we use in foodservice. You can mark the cylinder and wait for the dough to double in height. Usually, I just leave it covered in the bowl of my KitchenAid on the counter.

Preheat your oven to like a thousand or as high as it goes. We want our bread to explode upwards as soon as we pop it in the oven, and we do this with the highest temperature we can get. 450-500 would be great.

For our simple loaf, we will now dump our dough out on to our lightly-floured counter (or fancy bread board if your brother-in-law happens to be a master carpenter).

Courtesy of Sanders Architectural Woodworking

To shape our basic sandwich loaf, we will basically “punch” the dough down flat, and then roll it towards ourselves, into an oblong shape. Drop it, seam-side-down, into a loaf pan and set it on the counter to do it’s final rise while the oven is preheating.

When the loaf has risen up above the loaf pan, and the oven is good and preheated, we want to slash our loaf so that we can control how it rises. If we don’t do this, it will erupt (called an “ear”) unpredictably and not be as pretty. A clean razor blade works well. A serrated kitchen knife should work in a pinch as well. We want to cut the dough without disturbing it or dragging it too much. you can absolutely go over your cuts more than once to get them deeper. Notice how I didn’t slice these guys and how they split?

Bake for 15 minutes before checking on it. If it is nicely risen and developing some color at this point, you can turn off your oven and let it continue to cook for another fifteen minutes. Remove the loaf pan from the oven and then remove the loaf of bread from the loaf pan and let cool completely before cutting into it (yeah, right).

Basic Sourdough Recipe

Here is the basic dough recipe I use to keep it simple. I use this for sandwich loaves, baguettes, boules, batards, rolls, pretzels, pizza dough, etc:

300 grams of active sourdough starter

600 grams of water

900 grams of flour

1 Tbsp salt