Baked Shumai Stuffed Mushrooms in Tomato Sauce

As you can probably tell by the title, this dish has a Chinese and Italian inspiration. Shumai is one of my favorite dim sum dishes and how can you ever go wrong with Italian style tomato sauce. The mushrooms are a perfect vessel to bridge the two dishes together. This shumai is made of ground pork and shrimp and the tomato sauce has a hint of cream to help balance out the natural acidic flavor of the tomatoes.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:

1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28 oz)
4 garlic gloves (minced)
1 large shallot (minced)
5 sprigs fresh basil (finely chopped)
1 tablespoon olive oil
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
2 tablespoon dry oregano
1 teaspoon dry crushed chili peppers
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces mozzarella cheese (thinly sliced or grated to spread on top of dish)

Preheat a stock pot with olive oil on medium high heat for 1-2 minutes. Then add the garlic and shallots, cook until shallots are translucent (about 3 minutes). Add the tomatoes with the sauce from the can and begin crushing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon in the pot. Add the basil, thyme, oregano, chili peppers, salt, black pepper and bay leaves. Bring the heat down to a simmer and cover the pot. Let this continue cooking while creating the shumai stuffed mushrooms and stir every 5 minutes. Stir in the cream in the last 5 minutes before adding to the mushrooms.

Shumai Ingredients:

9-10 large button mushrooms (stem removed and saved for stuffing)
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound shrimp (finely chopped)
2 scallions (finely chopped)
1 teaspoon grated ginger
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Accompaniments:

Pasta (Spaghetti or Angel Hair is perfect for this)
Garlic bread

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Finely chopped the stems of the mushrooms and add to a mixing bowl. Then add the pork, shrimp, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, salt, and black pepper. Gently mix all the ingredients in the bowl. Take the mixture and stuff the hollow area of the mushrooms, I like to over stuff mine and have quite a bit of the stuffing stick out from the mushrooms.

Place the mushrooms in a cast iron skillet (I like using a cast iron skillet because it retains heat and keeps the food nice and hot while serving) or casserole dish with the stuffing side up. Add the tomato sauce and cover entire contents. Bake for 30 minutes and then add the mozzarella cheese on top of each of the mushrooms. Continue baking for another 20 minutes to allow the cheese to melt into the dish. Carefully remove the dish with oven mits and serve with pasta and garlic bread.

Demi-Glace Pork Chop with a Napoleon of Egg, Mushroom, and Rice

I received a text shortly after lunch from a friend who asked "what's for dinner?". After just having lunch it's hard to think about dinner already but I replied back "what are you hungry for?". Her answer was either pork or chicken but said she would be happy with eggs and steamed rice. When I thought about making this dish I didn't think it was going to be very complicated but after starting on it, it took a lot more ingredients than I anticipated. What you see from left to right is: a napoleon of eggs cooked over easy, braised mushrooms, and steamed rice. The pork chop was seasoned with salt and pepper and seared before topping off with an apple demi-glace and baked in the oven. The "jus" on the right is the remaining liquid from the braised mushrooms.

Ingredients:

4 - 1 1/2 inch cut pork chops (bone in)
32 ounces or 4 cups beef stock
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 carrot (peeled and chopped)
1 leek (roughly chopped - white parts only)
1 green apple (diced)
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
4 eggs (cooked over easy)
10 button mushrooms (1/4 inch slices)
4 cups cooked Jasmin rice

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Season both sides of the pork chop with salt and pepper. Let this sit while creating your demi-glace.

To start the demi-glace add 16 ounces or 2 cups of beef stock to a stock pot on medium high heat. Wrap the green leafy part of the leak around the thyme and bay leaves and tie it up. Add this to the beef stock.

In a separate pan, add olive oil and turn the heat to medium high. Next, add the carrots, leeks and apples. Sauté this mixture until the leaks are caramelized. Then add the hot beef stock that was previously heated up. Cover and cook on medium heat for 25-30 minutes.

In another stock pot, add the butter and flour and create a roux. Next, using a fine mesh sieve, strain the liquid from the beef stock and vegetable mixture into the stock pot and whisk for about 4 minutes or until it starts to thicken a bit and should have the consistency of light gravy.

Time to sear the pork chops. On a hot grill pan or cast iron skillet, sear each side of the pork chop for about 3-4 minutes. Searing the pork chops will seal in the salt and pepper flavor. Place the pork chops in a casserole dish and top it off with the demi-glace. Place pork chops on the middle rack of the preheated oven and cook for 25-30 minutes or when the internal temperature has reached 165 degrees (If you don't have an instant read thermometer, you should go get one - this is a time where you don't want to guess if the meat is cooked or not and slicing into will release the internal juices.) Let this rest for at least 5 minutes before serving.

The prepare your braised mushrooms, add 16 ounces or 2 cups of beef stock to a stock pot on medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 sprig of fresh thyme. Let this cook and reduce to half the amount of liquid you started with (or 1 cup). Separate the mushrooms and the "jus". You'll use the mushrooms for the napoleon and the "jus" to dip your pork chop into.

To create the napoleon I used a round ramekin and layered the bottom with the mushrooms and rice. Make sure you push down so that it is compact and tight, otherwise this may fall apart when removing from the ramekin. When plating, flip the ramekin upside down and give it a gentle tap and the contents should easily come out. Next, place the egg on top of the mushroom (I trimmed the egg whites around the yolk off with a round cutter).

This dish took about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish. Like I stated earlier, this may seem  complicated but it really isn't. It just has a lot of ingredients and components but your end result will be delicious.