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.

Trio of Pizza Dough and Waffle Cut Parmesan Fries with Kaffir Lime Aioli

I'm heading Houston this weekend and still refuse to do any grocery shopping. I was going to just make pizza but that was too simple so I decided to utilize the pizza dough in 3 different ways. From left to right there's your standard margarita pizza with fresh tomatoes and basil, calzone stuff with mozzarella and pepperoni, and an open pizza roll stuffed with pineapples, mushrooms, basil, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. For an appetizer I made waffle cut fries topped with Parmesan cheese and fresh parsley.

Pizza dough ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup warm water

Directions:

Add yeast to warm water and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then add yeast and water mixture along with salt, sugar, and olive oil to flour. Knead dough well and let it rest for an hour.

Pizza sauce ingredients:

14 ounce San Marzano tomatoes

1 large shallot diced
2 garlic cloves diced
2 sprigs fresh basil
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a sauce pan and cook on medium high heat. With an immersion blender blend mixture until it is all the same consistency. Set aside and keep on simmer until ready to use.

Margarita pizza ingredients:

1/3 of pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Roma tomatoes sliced

Fresh basil
Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Cut 1/3 of pizza dough, create a ball and begin rolling out the dough into a circular shape (you can make it as thin as you like it). Add pizza sauce with a ladle on top of the pizza in a circular motion. Then add your toppings, for this application simply add mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and basil. Bake for approximately 10 minutes at super high heat (500 plus degrees).

Calzone ingredients:

1/3 of the pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Pepperoni

Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Roll out pizza dough into a circle. On one half of the dough add, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Fold the empty side of the dough over the top of the filled side. With a fork seal the edges of the dough and brush with olive oil. Cook at 500 degrees for 10 minutes. Serve with a side of pizza sauce.

Open pizza roll ingredients:

1/3 pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Pineapples

Mushrooms

Basil

Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

This one is a little tricky. I was trying to find a way to roll the pizza dough into a cone shape and the only thing I could find was an empty tomato sauce can that I split in half and roll into a cone. Roll out the pizza dough and then cut it in half. Then wrap the dough around the metal cone and brush with olive oil. Cook in a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes. Retrieve the crust and let it cool down before pulling it off of the metal cone. Stuff crust with ingredients other than the pizza sauce and place in oven for another 3 minutes. Add pizza sauce into the roll prior to serving.

Waffle Cut Parmesan Fries:

1 russet potato

Grated Parmesan cheese
Parsley finely chopped
Canola oil

Directions:

Cut your potatoes with the waffle fry insert into a bowl of cold water. Heat oil to 375 degrees while drying potatoes on a towel; when oil is ready, cook potatoes for approximately 5 minutes. Immediately after you pull fries out of the oil add cheese and parsley and mix well.

Kaffir lime aioli ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise (store bought or homemade)
7 large kaffir lime leaves (spine removed)
2 garlic cloves

Directions:

In a food processor add garlic and kaffir lime leaves. Blend to very fine consistency and add mayonnaise. Continue blending until all ingredients are incorporated.

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Bruschetta - Zesty Tomato and Mozzarella

I've prepared this dish for a friend's birthday party tonight. Of course there was a lot more of it. I also made papaya salad, which I will be posting later. The initial reason why I came up with this recipe was because I had half a can of Cento Whole Peeled Italian Tomatoes and some bread endangered of going stale. Actually, a lot of my recipes come together at the very last minute just because I try not to let anything go bad or spoil.

Classic bruschetta

Ingredients:

1 medium can cento whole tomatoes
4-5 garlic cloves
2 small shallots
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
6 sprigs fresh basil (chiffonade)
3 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed Thai chili pepper
1 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
1 loaf french baguette
Several thinly sliced mozzarella cheese
Several pepperoni (julienne)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

In saucepan saute shallots and garlic in olive oil. Add tomatoes and with scissors cut tomatoes into small bite size chunks. Add salt, oregano, bay leaves, chili peppers and black pepper. Let simmer for 15 minutes then add most of the fresh basil (save some for garnish). Slice bread on bias about 1/2 inch thick. Add tomato sauce on top of bread, then add cheese and pepperoni. Place bruschetta under broiler until cheese melts. Finish off by topping it with fresh basil, dried oregano and Parmesan cheese.

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