Happy Chinese New Year's Oscar

These Sunday's potluck coincided with both Chinese New Year's and the Oscars, so I decided to bring some Taiwanese comfort food to watch the festivities.

Some years ago, my mom gave me cookbook full of homestyle Taiwanese recipes printed by The North American Taiwanese Women's Association, and since then it's been my home away from home bible. Too bad, it's out of print! Two of the recipes I make over and over again are personal favorites from my childhood... brown sticky rice (or Chinese risotto), and pickled cucumbers.

Some of the ingredients may seem somewhat exotic, but they are pretty much staples in an Asian kitchen... which my kitchen is not as Asian as it ought to be. Thankfully, an Asian grocery store just opened two minutes from our house (on Mission just past 280 in case you're a neighbor) and the place ROCKS. So head on over and check it out.

Sticky Rice

• 2 cups long grain sweet rice (the most common brand you'll find at the Chinese grocery store is Koda Farms Sho-Chiku-Bai Premium Sweet Rice, sold in 5 lb bags)
• 6 dried shitake mushrooms (found EVERYWHERE in Chinese cooking)
• 10 chunks of ginger, smashed
• 4 oz boneless pork, sliced into thin strips (e.g. pork butt or center cut pork chops, although tonight I used Tofu Jerky purchased at the Ferry Building yesterday)
• 2 T sesame oil
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 4 T soy sauce
• 1 1/4 cup hot water

1. Place long grain sweet rice in a large bowl and rinse thoroughly. Cover with water and soak for at least 4 hours. Drain.

2. Soak dried mushrooms in hot water for 10 minutes or until soft. Finely slice into thin pieces.

3. Crush ginger chunks with the side of a knife, or in a plastic bag with a rolling pin. The purpose is to release the flavor from the ginger.

4. Heat non-stick pan with sesame oil and vegetable oil. When oil is hot, brown crushed ginger. When browned, remove ginger from pan.

5. Brown pork (tofu) and mushrooms in remaining oil and thoroughly cooked.

6. Add sweet rice and soy sauce to pan. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

COOK IN PAN OPTION

7. Add 1/2 cup of hot water, cover pan, and cook at high heat for 2 minutes.

8. Stir mixture and add remaining hot water. Keep stirring until the rice is cooked or becomes translucent.

9. Cover pan and cook at low heat for additional 10 minutes. Serve.

COOK IN RICE COOKER

7. Move sweet rice mixture into rice cooker.

8. Mix 1 1/2 cup of water with the rice mixture and cook according to rice cooker instructions.

Baked Apples

The theme was comfort food and I had apples to spare, MZ recently having decided that it's not nearly as entertaining as she thought it was to eat them whole on her own.

So, gussied up baked apples, following Cook's Illustrated's technique but fiddling with the ingredients to suit my own dislike for the apples and cinnamon combination, and the need to avoid nuts if I want MZ to be able to have some.

8 small apples, one strip of peel from stem end removed, rinsed, dried, and cored from the stem end to just above the flower end (do not puncture the apple)
1/4 c golden raisins
1/4 c chopped dried figs
4 t unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c + 2 T maple syrup
1 c unfiltered apple cider, or enough to come 1/2 inch up side of the pan
1/2 cup marscapone cheese

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place apples in Pyrex or ceramic baking pan so that the fit together closely enough to stand up. Combine the softened butter with the raisins and figs and fill the apples generously. Pour the 1/2 cup maple syrup over the apples, and pour the cider into the pan.

Bake the apples, basting every 15 minutes, until tender when pierced with thin, sharp knife or cake tester, 35 to 45 minutes. Do not overbake -- the skins will split.

Meanwhile, combine the remaining maple syrup with the marscapone. Remove the apples from the oven and allow to cool a bit. Top each apple with a dollop of the maple-marscapone mixture and serve, warm.