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.

Spicy Beef Noodle Soup

I used shredded cabbage here since I served all of the
bok choy and mustard greens to the guests.

This is one of those dishes that tend to work like magic on a Saturday or Sunday morning after drinking heavily the night before. With the knowledge that I would be hosting guests this past weekend I actually started this dish on Thursday so that it'll be ready for Friday night and Saturday morning. The true cook time of this dish is about 3-4 hours. I was first introduced to this dish at an Austin downtown restaurant, Chinatown. At that time my friend was a bartender there and after bar hopping all night long, this was the perfect dish to cure the hungriness that was a result of too much alcohol consumption.  There are many variations of this dish that use different noodles and vegetables, the Vietnamese have Bun Bo Hue and the Laotians have Kow Poon (both use vermicelli noodles). The variation that's presented here is closer to the Chinese version.

Ingredients:


2 1/2 pounds boneless beef shank (you can also use beef shanks with bones) (2-3 inch cubes)
1 large yellow onion (diced)
4 tablespoon granulated sugar
6 tablespoon chili soybean paste
6 garlic cloves (crushed)
12 cups water
2 tablespoon sea salt
4 tablespoon soy sauce
6 whole star anise
2 scallions (chopped)
5 Roma tomatoes (quartered)
1 tablespoon crushed peppercorns
3 tablespoon canola oil
1 package Shandong noodles

Directions:         

Add oil to a stock pot on high heat. Add meat and brown on all sides. Add
onions and garlic and half of the chili soybean paste. Cook until onions become
translucent. Add water and bring soup to a boil. Now add all other ingredients
and wait for water to boil again. Reduce heat to low to medium low and continue
cooking soup for another 2-3 hours or until meat becomes tender. Feel free to
adjust your soup with fish sauce for extra saltiness, sugar for sweetness,
chili soybean paste for spiciness, or lime juice for tartness. You'll also want
to precook the noodles in a separate pot of boiling water for 5-8 minutes prior
to building your bowl.

Accompaniments:

You can add almost any type of vegetables and herbs to compliment this
soup. I've listed the basic accompaniments and some other options as well and don't be afraid of using your own imagination to match with your palette preference.

Basic accompaniments:

Baby bok choy (blanched)
Pickled mustard greens (roughly chopped)
Scallions (sliced on bias)

Optional/alternative accompaniments:

Cilantro (roughly chopped)
Purple or green cabbage (paper thin slices)
Red or white onions (thinly sliced)