Sunday Dinner Menu (Pan-Asian)

Last week we spent an hour or two pouring over our Asian cookbooks in search of an eclectic dinner for four (with lots of leftovers). We came up with the following:

Chinese Spring Rolls
Jicama-Lime Salad
Lettuce Wraps
Vietnamese Three-Herb and Chicken Rolls
Asian Meatballs with Lime Dipping Sauce
Coconut Crème Caramel

All in all, it wasn't a spectacular meal. Nonetheless, I learned a few things. First, making your own spring rolls, which we haven't done in about five years, is incredibly simple. Here's how: take a bunch of food you like (we did veggie spring rolls with carrots, baby bok choy, bean sprouts and scallions in Chinese 5-spice), chop it into long, thin pieces (julienned), add flavourful spices and stir-fry it all together. Roll a few tablespoons of this into a egg-roll wrapper (seal with beaten egg), heat up some oil, plonk the rolls in one at a time, and voilà! Homemade spring rolls.

Other lessons:

1. Julienned jicama makes for a lovely crisp salad (just make sure the dressing has character, because jicama can be bland).

2. I love lettuce wraps (see recipe below).

3. Gourmet's recent Asian meatball recipe is not worth repeating (although I admit we used beef instead of pork to complement the veal and added some shiitake mushrooms, so maybe it's not their fault).

4. Don't change the proportions of coconut milk to milk in the crème caramel recipe given below unless you want it to become pudding-like, which ours was. But it was delicious too.

Here are the stars of the evening:

Lettuce Wraps

Mix together 8 oz. ground pork, 1tbsp. each finely chopped Chinese mushrooms and water chestnuts, a pinch of sugar, 1 tsp. light soy, 1 tsp. Chinese rice wine, 1 tsp. cornstarch and salt and pepper to taste.

Heat a few teaspoons of oil in a preheated wok or pan and add 1/2 ts. finely chopped ginger and 1 tsp. finely chopped scallions. Stir-fry for one minute; then add the meat mixture, followed by 1 tbsp. oyster sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.

Blend well and cook until pork is cooked through. Serve with crisp iceberg lettuce and hoisin. To eat: spread a bit of hoisin on a lettuce leaf, add a tablespoon or so of pork and wrap it all up. Yes, this will make a terrible mess (we ate outside).

Three-Herb Chicken Rolls

Marinate 2 large (half) chicken breasts is 1/4 c. dark soy, 2 inches ginger (finely chopped), 2 cloves of garlic (crushed) and 2 tbsp. rice wine for at least an hour.

Bake the chicken in its marinade in a covered dish at 350 for 40 minutes, allow to cool, then slice diagonally, pouring juices over the serving plate. This chicken, I should add, is really, really good.

Make up another plate of fresh herbs, including mint, cilantro and Thai basil (we ate these with beansprouts too).

A warm, sweet and spicy dipping sauce goes well with these: blend 1/2 c. sugar with the zest and juice of two limes, 2 finely chopped green chilies and 1/3 c. white rice vinegar in a saucepan; boil for five minutes.

To eat: using Vietnamese rice paper wrappers, dip one in a bowl of hot water until soft, add some chicken, sprouts and a sprig or two of each herb; pour over (or dip into) the lime sauce. Yum!

Coconut Crème Caramel

For the caramel: boil 3 1/2 oz. water with 4 oz. sugar until the mixture is caramelized to a golden brown (once the syrup starts to brown, watch it very carefully, or you'll have hard candy instead of liquid caramel - aim for a light-to-medium colour rather than a darker brown and it should be fine). Remove from heat and add two tablespoons water, stirring until all the caramel has dissolved. Divide among 4-6 ramekins.

For the custard: stir together 8 oz. milk and 8 oz. coconut milk and heat until bubbles appear around the edge of the pan. Remove from the heat and whisk in four beaten eggs, 2 oz. icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla. Stir in 1 oz. dried coconut and divide among the ramekins.

Bake over water in the over at 325 for 40 minutes, or until set. When cool, turn out of the ramekins and serve cool or cold.

My custard wasn't the best, texture- and appearance-wise this time, but, with extra coconut milk and candied caramel, these puddings tasted mighty fine!