Comments on: Dear Cooks Illustrated

By: Amos the Poker Cat

Amos the Poker Cat — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 23:37:36 +0000

Dilbert was spot on. Besides, how many times have you seen a comic use the word “fungibility”?

I prefer dumplings at either extreme, either more toward the pierogi end. Check out Ukranian Ortho churches in the Bottoms for handmade ones. Thick doughy filled with starch and fried with butter, and onions, and maybe cabbage. It must be a genetic predilition. Or toward the gyoza end, super thin bright, gingery, and crispy. Especially if you can get them to all stick together in a line when you fry them.

Check out the food porn:
http://maki.typepad.com/justhungry/2004/08/is_my_blog_burn.html

As for Cook’s Illustrated. Salt. Grain. Double it.

I started watching their weekly PBS TV Show America’s Test Kitchen. Some good ideas. Some stuff completely out in left field.

By: objbuilder

objbuilder — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 01:58:38 +0000

Since I’ve been on a pot sticker craze the last couple of weeks.. thought I’d share how I make the frozen ones:

Coat your pan w/olive oil and get it HOT! When it just starts to sizzle.. add the frozen pot stickers and let them sear for a minute or two.

Add a little over a cup of hot, hot water and cover immediately. Turn down the heat to medium-high and let it go.

Now here’s the simple secret.. just keep letting them cook till it actually burns the bottoms. Let the little suckers burn until they’re nice and crispy!

Remove the pan from the heat and add about 1/2 the packet of dipping sauce and ~3tbsp of fresh crushed chili paste. Swirl the pan around until the pot stickers are well coated.. they should soak up everything rather quickly.

There you have it.. fast, easy and delicious.

By: H. Stan Fordyce

H. Stan Fordyce — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:37:08 +0000

I’m not being sarcastic or facetious, I agree: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Cooking, clothes, cars, politics. Maybe not movies. Most of the home-made movies I’ve seen just don’t have that studio gloss.

By: psu

psu — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 23:51:04 +0000

Apparently you forgot to take your mental stability pills this morning.

All I said was that if you wanted *perfect* dumplings, you should make the dough by hand. Otherwise, feel free to buy the frozen stuff. Be my guest. I have no objection. IT IS FINE WITH ME.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the recipe in COOKS will be any better though.

By: H. Stan Fordyce

H. Stan Fordyce — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 20:59:12 +0000

I agree completely with the need to make everything from scratch. For example, the major automobile manufactuers are providing “internal combustion” vehicles when there are plenty of perfectly good ways to make batteries charge from wind farms. This kind of thing only supports the terrorists, regardless of what Dilbert says about fungibility.

By: Weiguo

Weiguo — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:47:58 +0000

we’ve had good results before by refrigerating the filling overnight after mixing it. In the morning, dump out the pooled blood/Napa juice and get folding. (I also find the texture easier to work with when it’s colder, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to get me to ‘fridge the stuff.)

I do agree though, with a little experience you can throw the meat and Napa together and be folding dumplings right away.

for other readers: another handy tip is to boil with plenty of water (similar to pasta, you want the water to reboil almost immediately after adding the food; if it sits around too long it gets mushy). Also, freezing your own dumplings is sacreligious because 1. it cools the boiling water way too much, and 2. the peels blister and crack.