Carefree Cooking

Emergency Food Ideas (Part 2)

There are a lot of microwavable dinners out there (or TV dinners as they are commonly referred to) that taste nothing like you would expect after looking at the picture on the box. I tried a few of them and I always end up being disappointed. Since then, I never bought any of those and would not eat them unless there are no alternatives. If you go to your local chinese supermarket, they always have frozen foods for sale. The two main type that I would recommend as emergenfy food are frozen dumplings (gyoza), and frozen shanghai pork buns. There are generally two ways to make these: pan frying or steaming.

Steaming:

This is the easiest way to cook the dumpling/pork bun since it requires minimal supervision. It helps to have a steam rack especially if you find yourself steaming a lot of dishes (e.g. steamed fish). Just like how it is served in chinese restaurants, it would be good to put some broad leaf vegetable like lettuce on top of the steamer to prevent the food from sticking. How do you know when it is done? I usually just see if it looks cooked or not. If in doubt, cook longer. Since it is steamed, it will not burn the dumpling/pork bun if you leave it for a longer period of time. For those who want to have a more exact time, 10 minutes should be sufficient. Of course, if the dumpling/pork bun package has a recommendation, follow this. I usually set my stove to the middle heat setting for steaming.

Pan Frying:

This is the tastier way of cooking the dumpling/pork bun. But it somewhat requires a little bit of supervision. Pour some oil on the pan until the pan is fully coated. Put the dumpling/pork bun on the pan and fry for around 30 seconds. Pour some water on the pan until it covers roughly 1/4 the height of the dumpling/pork bun. Cover and wait until all the water evaporates. The steam from the water will cook the dumpling/pork bun, while the oil will prevent the food from sticking to the pot. The oil is also required to give the food the golden brown appearance. Once the water has fully evaporated, move the dumpling/pork bun a little bit just to make sure that they are not stuck to the pot and fry it a little bit until the desired golden brown color is reached.

There are many different types of sauces that you can use for these: vinegar, soy sauce. It's really up to you to experiment on what suits your taste. After all, it is your dish. There are some pots/pans that need to be washed when making this dish, but I never said it was carefree cleaning.

posted by carefreecooking @ 12:46 AM