Posts Tagged ‘Flatbread’

  1. Pumpkin Spice Toaster Oven Scones and Wok Parathas

    April 17, 2013 by MaryAnne

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    Given that it’s already, oh, mid April and the skies are light and fluffy and sometimes blue, and temperatures have already soared into the high 20s and it’s definitely shirtsleeve weather, I fear that the title of this one is a terrible misnomer.

    It isn’t though. I’m just a terrible, terrible procrastinator.

    [ETA: I've just edited the title so it's less confusing! It used to be visibly part of the Eating My Way Through Winter series; now it's just in the category]

    You see, this has been in my drafts folder since last November.

    My drafts folder, I might add, is ridiculously plump with unfinished posts.

    This one? This is actually the third time I’ve hauled it out to write up. The previous two attempts were just me going on in really vague terms about how crappy I was feeling and how hard it was to write about pumpkins without letting my malaise seep into the text.

    Which is tedious as hell to those who are not emotionally invested in my life.

    Like, all of you.

    The pumpkin scones themselves were baked, photographed and eaten about two months ago.

    I was going through a rather brutal and cataclysmic change in my life at that point, which I dealt with through lots of creative experimentation with pumpkins and squash.

    See the size of the ones you can get at the market up the street? The one in the photo below is the size of a small toddler.  You have to really whack at it ferociously with a massive cleaver to cut it into roast’able rings. That one made a ton of scones, parathas, curry, mash, fritters, and hash.

    I roasted it in slices, ring by ring, rubbed with olive oil and whatever spices took my fancy. The paneer curry spice mix my aunt sent me ages ago was my favourite. My Moroccan blend from a spice shop in Fes was also amazing.

     

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    Would you believe, this thing cost me about a buck in the market…

     

    I’m doing much better now and so don’t need to rely on the catharsis of hacking up a poor defenseless gourd to feel at least somewhat sane.

    I am, however, still buying smaller segments of gourd from the market and making wok parathas to go with whatever soups or stews or random leftovers find their way into the fridge.

    I don’t normally do two recipes in one post but I figured I might as well in this case. After all, you just need to roast up some pumpkin and, lo! You have the makings of two really awesome- and yet not at all the same- quick breads! (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Eating My Way Through Winter, Improbable Things, Sweet Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 4 Comments

  2. Lavash crackers qui rit (and crockpot hummus)

    May 21, 2012 by MaryAnne

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    Oh. Hello. You might remember me from such diverse posts as Xinjiang Noodle Dough Tacos and Xinjiang Noodle Dough Pierogies.  I’ve been slightly out of commission recently, what with suddenly having 5 jobs and all.

    I must say, it sure is a lot easier to cook when 1. you’re actually at home (I’ve been either in Hangzhou or down in Xinzhuang and Qibao in deepest, darkest South Shanghai for much of the past month) and 2. not up to your ears in new and scary work projects with terrifying deadlines.

    For the past few weeks, we’ve been living on crock pot soup, take away pizza, and neighbourhood Hunan restaurant yummies.  My drafts folder here doubled in size, full of links and titles but no actual finished product. No time.  Also, no energy.

    Today, for the first day in yonks, I didn’t have to go somewhere immediately to do something workish (that would be scheduled for this afternoon). I cleaned the flat, drank 2 pots of coffee, and made lavash crackers and hummus. By hand. Which is still cramped. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 11 Comments

  3. Wok Fajitas! Fajitas in the Wok! Fajitas con Wok!

    March 30, 2012 by MaryAnne

    When it's slathered in cheese it looks almost exactly like the tacos I made last week...

    I bet you all think I live on tortillas and cookies, yearning for cheese and chocolate and fearfully snubbing the culinary options that surround me here in Shanghai.

    I mean, that’s pretty much what this blog indicates in its persistent quest narrative, chasing after elusive sachets of gelatine or powdered sugar (found the sugar but not the gelatine), with long hours spent over a hot keyboard trying to figure out how to make mozzarella cheese without rennet (or citric acid or lightly pasteurized milk, for that matter).

    I probably come across as a laowai so firmly jammed into her expat bubble that the thought of backing away from the toaster oven sends waves of homesickness and palpable fear coursing through her body.

    This is actually more indicative of how I eat outside the flat, on a day to day basis:

    Dumpling porn

    See, I can get marvellous stuff like this for cheap (these were 10rmb, or $1.50) everywhere around me.

    Most of my breakfasts are made up of a pot (or two) of coffee at home followed by steamed buns stuffed with tofu and greens or drippy barbecued pork, or hot and savoury tea eggs, or crispy fried rice cakes or savoury mung bean flour crepes stuffed with crispy fried wonton wrappers, chives, minced pickled veggies, cilantro and hoisin sauce en route to wherever I’m going.

    I like to maintain a balance. Cheese, chocolate and tortillas on the homefront; tofu, lotus root and grated radishes outside.

    (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 15 Comments

  4. 2 Sino-Hibernian Breads for St. Patrick’s Day

    March 16, 2012 by MaryAnne

    farl 2

    I’m a day early, I know. And possibly two days early depending on time zones. However, today was the last free day I have for the next seven days (oh, damn this freelancing- I work more than usual, in such weirder ways) so I decided to go all out in my potato and soda infused frenzy.

    I used to live in Ireland. That was a very long time ago in a previous existence. I lived for a while on a sofa kindly donated to me by a fine Kiwi woman back in the mid ’90s (thank you, Kaye).

    I spent days wandering around Galway, drinking tea in the Roisin Dubh when I really ought to have been drinking more Guinness (oh, so young!), wandering out along the promenade to Salthill, past the spiral stones, kicking the wall at the end and then turning around and walking back again. I was a music groupie who had no idea that I ought to have been sleeping with the band instead of inviting them out for tea (I’m the most promiscuous of the tea-groupies, I’m sure). I bootlegged dozens of concerts with my recording studio that I kept in my hat.  I hitchhiked out into the Burren, out into Connemara, down to the steep cliffs of Moher, peering over the rim then stepping back again, sleeping in chilly, empty dorms, sipping mugs of strong tea, coughing from chronic lung crap. Ireland hated my lungs.

    That was yonks ago. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Improbable Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,, | 16 Comments

  5. The Lazy Laowai’s Guide to Toaster Oven Focaccia

    March 4, 2012 by MaryAnne

    And this would be the money shot.

    As you’ve probably noticed by now, I have a thing for unleavened bread, especially unleavened bread made in the wok using a highly unlikely Uyghur noodle dough recipe. I’ve turned that into chapatis, tortillas, pierogies, spaghetti, medieval dumplings and ravioli. I keep a ball of it in the fridge at all times, just as others might keep, say, a tube of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough or a jar of Velveeta.

    Now, although I still have my softball sized lump of Uyghur dough in the fridge (made lovelier by using the leftover whey from last week’s foray into cheese making), I wanted to celebrate the fact that neither I nor Doug is working this weekend. You have no idea how rare an occurrence this is. Usually I’m away, and sometimes if I’m not, he is.

    This weekend, we are both at home and we’re honouring this by barely leaving the house, drinking a ton of coffee, watching Ancient Aliens (Mayan Prophesy! The Greys! Giorgio and his enormous hair!) and generally being immobile sloths. I made tacos for lunch yesterday (noodle dough tortillas!) and we ordered pizza for dinner.

    And that pizza got me thinking.

    Pizza here, the edible kind, doesn’t come cheap. I think we paid about 120rmb for ours from a place in Taikang Lu, from a joint that has access to proper jalepenos, ricotta, artichoke hearts, salami and all. I think that’s approximately the monthly salary of a goat herder in Yunnan.

    I thought, hm, I wonder if I could make pizza? I mean, if not in my wok with Uyghur noodle dough, then maybe in our oversized counter-top toaster oven? (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Improbable Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,, | 8 Comments

  6. Awesome Slow-Cooker Spicy Shredded Beef Tacos

    January 2, 2012 by MaryAnne

    Dinner of champions. You know you want one.

    I’ve been meaning to do a taco post for ages. It’s one of our dinner staples here these days. I’ve made beef tacos that were browned in the wok, then marinated in the jus from the de-glazing, sliced thinly and sauteed in garlic, onion and chilies. I’ve also done pulled pork ones and ground beef ones. All have been awesome and utterly Sino-friendly.

    About 3 years ago, we spent some time in Mexico before moving to Shanghai. It was there that I discovered the glories of piping hot soft tacos with spicy shredded beef and fresh salsa. These were tiny little flour tortillas the size of your palm, not the hard shells and certainly not those gargantuan wraps that you find in the supermarkets. They weren’t drowned in sour cream or fake cheddar. They were very simple and very good.

    Each little tortilla we found at street stalls had a dollop of something meaty (or beany) on it- maybe sauteed chorizo or shredded chicken or grilled beef or pork or some crispy body part hacked up into bite sized pieces- and was served with a few fresh salsas (verde, roja, fresca), cilantro, lime, maybe some onion. I was partial to the salsa verde but you can’t get fresh tomatillos here. They were magnificent.

    What we do here is very similar, or at least as similar as you can get when living in China.

    For the tortilla, I tend to use my Xinjiang noodle dough (3 cups flour, 1 cup water, 2 teaspoons salt, mix, knead, rest, roll-out) and roll it out very, very thinly. You could also try this one or this one. The thinness lets it puff up like a chapati in the wok and gives it a soft airiness that is delicious and chewy.

    I make my own salsa fresca with cherry tomatoes, cilantro, onion and chilies, marinated a few hours with lime juice (when limes are available) and a bit of crunchy kosher salt. If you can’t get fresh limes, then lemons will do, as will Chinese rice wine vinegar.

    Those are the basics.

    Today I want to show you how to make spicy shredded beef in the crock pot to go in the tacos. The recipe said it’d take 10 hours but mine was done in barely 5 hours. Go figure. (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 10 Comments

  7. Not Your Grandma’s Bazlama: Turkish Wok Bread!

    December 5, 2011 by MaryAnne

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    As you probably already know (or don’t care), I lived in Turkey for 6 years before moving to China. For the first 2 years before I moved to Istanbul, I lived in a small city called Kayseri, on the edge of Kapadokya (aka Cappadocia to the tourism brochures). For a single foreign woman moving to Turkey, it was probably an odd choice of first destinations. It’s isolated, traditional, religious and quite conservative.  I was one of maybe 4 foreigners in a city of 800,000 people.

    My friends there were big on, well, fresh local food.

    Most of the women there who were my age were busy at home being housewives and a huge percentage of those (if I ever saw them) wore headscarves and those ubiquitous raincoats outdoors. I was pretty much alone in my uncovered pixie cut bright red hair and, um, unique fashion sense, a glaringly bright foreign beacon amongst the sea of dark mustached men in the streets. Genders were segregated, marriages were often arranged ones and unspoken social rules were complex and frequently, embarrassingly broken by me. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Improbable Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 14 Comments

  8. Half 荞 Chapati, Half 荞 Noodle: It’s Wonder Dough!

    November 13, 2011 by MaryAnne

    Isn't it lovely?

    I’m starting to think this blog should be renamed, “Watch me make flatbreads! That’s all! Kthnxbye!”

    Although I’ve been busy cooking all sorts of other lovely things for our meals (remind me to tell you all about that spicy chicken noodle soup with the 2 heads of garlic some day), what has been weighing heavily on my mind has been an obsession with seeing how many different noodle dough recipes can be successfully re-jigged as unleavened flatbread dough.

    I know, other people have more sensible hobbies like philately and methamphetamines but, really, I’ve got a thing for dough. Particularly multi-purpose dough. I want to mess with the noodle dough’s head until it has no doubt that it was ever anything but a chapati. Like Gaslighting but for flour products. I’m a bit sadistic that way, I guess. (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Pasta Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 7 Comments

  9. Spicy 卡罗来纳州 Style Crock-Pot Pulled Pork

    October 26, 2011 by MaryAnne

    Lunch of champions: I ate mine with a blorp of home made yogurt. It was stunning.

    I should preface this one by noting that I’m sick today. Part cold, part sore throat, part achy dopiness. Which is why I kind of screwed up some key parts of this recipe.

    If you look below at the recipe, you’ll see it calls for 5lbs of pork shoulder.

    On Monday afternoon, when I bought and initially prepared the piece of pork, I didn’t look at the size or weight or cut. I just bought a reasonably sized piece, fit for a household where one person doesn’t really eat meat (me) and the other doesn’t really like pork (Doug). However, I really like the pulled pork sandwich at Boxing Cat Brewery (about 80rmb) and thought it would be worth attempting at home. (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Soupy Stewy Things, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 9 Comments

  10. A Tale of Two Tortillas

    September 21, 2011 by MaryAnne

    Yes, I know they should be circular.

    Note: For best results, this recipe should be attempted whilst accompanied by a very large pot of strong coffee and a little Nina Simone in the background. I used Anthology Disc 1. 

    This morning started out quite optimistically. I had done my research and had a fairly clear idea in my head what I wanted to achieve. I was going to attempt a small batch of corn tortillas, followed by a small batch of flour tortillas, just to see which turned out best for use in tonight’s quesadillas. Since I had done so well with the chapatis, I was feeling a bit cocky. Yeah, no.

    Let me tell you about what you shouldn’t do first. (more…)

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    Category Baked Things, Improbable Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,, | 11 Comments

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