Tuesday Taste Test: Happy Chinese Jew Year

Never has there been a sweeter love affair than the one between Jews and Chinese food. In honor of that enduring affection, and also because Chinese New Year is this week, we asked a couple of food bloggers to share their favorite Chinese recipes.

Dylan over at Eat, Drink & Be Merry served up his beloved formula for Beef Noodle Soup. "Since there are hundreds of variations in China and Taiwan," he explained, "I picked two of my favorites and mixed them together: Szechuan and Taiwan style." Ever the embodiment of good taste and consideration, he specifically selected a dish that he felt would be appropriate for Jewcy Jews: "It's easy to make, and beef shank, as I have seen, is readily available in most Kosher markets."

Food-obsessed, Vietnamese-Chinese American blogger "Wandering Chopsticks" weighed in with her recipe for Shanghai-style Sticky Rice Siu Mai Dumplings. "Many Chinese are superstitious and want to start off the year with lots of luck," she explains. "Everything takes on symbolic meaning, including food. So, eat dumplings for wealth (because they resemble little money bags), and noodles for health (because they'll give you long life). One of my favorite recipes is for these Shanghai-style sticky rice siu mai dumplings. You may be more familiar with the pork versions often seen at dim sum restaurants. This version includes sticky rice, vegetables for color, dried shrimp, and Chinese sausage." The talented and generous gourmet hopes that these dumplings, which resemble little money bags, will bring lots of wealth to you in the coming Year of the Rat.

Whether you're Chinese, Jewish, both, or neither, feel free to share your own favorite Chinese dishes and recipes in the comments section.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry: with this delicious, Chinese Beef Noodle Soup

Some of the best Chinese cooking comes from the kitchens of peasant families in China. Due to the high costs of more desirable meat, some have no choice but to use meats that are sinuous and higher in fat content. The use of beef shank in this dish does not come by accident. The only way to make such a tough meat edible is by braising for hours. Introducing: Beef Noodle Soup – a Chinese favorite with hundreds of variations throughout China. Although it is traditionally eaten during colder months, I can eat this dish year-round because it is affordable and simple to make. Approach the following as a rough ingredient guide - I normally don't measure by units, but rather by the senses. Feel free to add more of any ingredient to your own liking. Enjoy.

Ingredients for 6-8 Servings in a 5 qt pot:
2-3 lbs. of beef shank
hot chili bean paste (mild is available, but hot is recommended)
dark soy sauce (also labeled as Mushroom Soy Sauce)
soy sauce
sesame oil
6 garlic cloves
6-8 slices of ginger
2 bunches of green onions (cut off the green part)
3 small tomatoes, quartered (or whole canned tomatoes for a more punchy, hearty tomato taste)
2 cans of beef broth or beef demi-glace
1 large onion
8" piece of daikon radish
star anise (or five-spice powder)
shao xing rice wine
sugar
salt
white pepper
whole black peppercorns
sichuan peppercorns
dried flour noodles
cheesecloth/string (for star anise, sichuan red peppercorns and whole black peppercorns) - omit sichuan red peppercorns if unavailable

Garnish
green onions
cilantro
bok choy or spinach

(1) Cut the beef shank into 1.5" square pieces. Place in a pot of water and bring to boil to remove blood and impurities. Remove from pot and rinse off the meat – set aside.

(2) Add oil to a pot, once it's hot, add garlic and ginger to flavor the oil for 1 minute. Add the beef shank back into the pot and brown the meat - don't overcrowd the pot. Take out the meat once it's browned, and repeat till finished. Add all the meat back in and add 3 tablespoons of hot chili bean paste, 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, 1 cup soy sauce, small handful of salt, tablespoon of white pepper, 1/4 cup of shao xing rice wine and 2 tablespoons of sesame oil. Fry for about 8 minutes.

(3) Add tomatoes, green onions, spice packet (consisting of a handful of star anise (or 2 tablespoons of five-spice powder), a handful of sichuan red peppercorns and a handful of whole black peppercorns) along with 2 cans of beef broth, and filling up the rest of the pot with water. Bring to a boil with lid on and lower the heat to a simmer for 2.5-3 hours.

(4) When the meat is tender, adjust the taste of the soup with soy sauce, white pepper and sugar to your liking. If the soup is too dense, add water to balance it out. The soup may appear oily from the hot chili bean paste, but keep that in there for flavor. And add another tablespoon of sesame oil to wake up the broth. To ensure a beautiful clean bowl of beef noodle soup, ladle the soup into a sieve over your noodle bowl. Aesthetics count! Boil some water and cook your dried flour noodles al-dente. The Chinese refer to the chewiness of the noodles as "Q" and it's important in making a perfect bowl of NRM. Garnish with green onions, cilantro and whatever boiled vegetable.

Shanghai-style Sticky Rice Siu Mai DumpliLet Your Chopsticks Wander: on over to these delectable dumplingsngs from Wandering Chopsticks
(For gorgeous, step-by-step photos on how to make these, go here).

For about 2 dozen dumplings, although the recipe can easily be doubled, you'll need:
1 cup sticky rice
1 lap xuong (Chinese sausage), diced
1/2 cup mixed frozen vegetables
1/4 cup dried shrimp
1 package wonton wrappers
2 dozen chive leaves

Put 1 cup sticky rice, 1 diced Chinese sausage, 1/2 cup mixed frozen vegetables, and 1/4 cup dried shrimp in the rice cooker to cook. 1 rice cup is equivalent to 3/4 measuring cup. My rice cooker cooks in 15 minutes. If you don't have a rice cooker, add all the ingredients with 1 cup water and nuke it in the microwave for 10 minutes. Don't worry if everything isn't fully cooked as the filling will get re-steamed again in the dumplings.

Put a pot of water on to boil while you're assembling the dumplings. If you don't have a bamboo steamer, you can substitute with any mesh steamer or colander. If you don't have that, you can try upending a bowl into the bottom of the pot, and put a plate on top. Make sure you oil the plate so the dumplings don't stick. Actually, I also use oil spray on the bottom of my bamboo trays as well.

Your work station should have bamboo or any other type of steam trays, your sticky rice mixture, chive leaves, and wonton wrappers. I like using square wrappers for the fold-over effect on the top of the dumpling, but round wrappers would work too.

Place a small spoonful of the mixture into each wonton.

Gently tighten your fingers around near the top of the dumpling.

Tie a chive around the dumpling. You can stop at this point if you want a closed dumpling, but I like how colorful it looks with some of the vegetables spilling out over the top. If you like that too, gently open the top again and place a bit of the sticky rice and vegetables on top of that. You can alternatively overstuff the wonton wrapper, and basically do the same steps. But I think this method offers a little more control so the filling doesn't burst through the wrapper.

Steam for about 15 minutes or until the wrappers become more translucent.

I think the dried shrimp and Chinese sausage already adds plenty of flavor, but if not, you can serve this with small dipping saucers of soy sauce and rice vinegar.

Enjoy!

Previously: Kosher Haggis