Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang joined us this morning with a few dishes from their new cookbook, Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America.
You can meet Sami and Sheng at the following events:
Book Signing: Saturday, May 23, 10:30 am at Mill City Farmers Market, 704 2nd Street S., Minneapolis
Talk & Book Signing: Saturday, May 23, 2:00 pm at Barnes & Noble-HarMar Mall, 2100 North Snelling Ave, Roseville
Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America is available in bookstores everywhere.
Stir-Fried Water Spinach
This vegetable is available only in the spring and early summer. Because of its hollow stems, its Chinese nickname means "empty heart vegetable." It tastes delicate and sweet, and the hollow stems soak up the flavor of accompanying ingredients. This recipe is fresh and flavorful, with just a touch of heat. The trick is to cook the spinach so that the leaves are wilted but the stems remain crunchy. For a Western twist, mash 2 anchovies with the garlic, and omit the oyster sauce.
1 large bunch fresh water spinach
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeño peppers, sliced thin on the diagonal (discard the seeds for less heat)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon MSG (optional)
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
Wash the water spinach in lots of cold water. Pick off any tough stems and discolored leaves and discard. Drain thoroughly in a large colander. Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and peppers. Stir-fry until the garlic just begins to turn brown. Add the water spinach, salt, MSG (if desired), and oyster sauce, and stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Cover and cook for 1 or 2 more minutes, until the leaves are wilted, the stems are still crunchy, and the flavors are combined. Serve hot
Stuffed Chicken Wings
Stuffed chicken wings are a recent innovation of Hmong cooks. In Laos, the luxury of preparing just one part of many chickens was not possible. The finished wings are incredibly plump and golden brown. They are crispy on the outside and chock-full of vegetables, meat, and vermicelli noodles on the inside. Although removing the bones from the chicken wings can be tricky and time-consuming, it is worth the effort, because the finished product is so beautiful and tasty.
Buy 20 large, whole chicken wings-the larger, the better. Remove the bone and most of the meat from the first two joints of each wing, but not the wing tip. This process is like pulling your leg out of a pair of pants: after you remove your leg (the bones and meat), all you have left is the pant leg (skin). Beginning at the large, "drumstick" end of 1 chicken wing, use a small, sharp knife to cut away the bone and as much of the meat as you can from the skin. Push the skin down as you empty the wing, and continue cutting away the meat and bone on the middle section. Separate the bones at the joint between the middle part of the wing and the wing tip and remove the bones and meat. Do not remove the bone in the tip of the wing. If you are careful, this paring will leave the skin from the first two-thirds of the chicken wing in one piece, without any tears. Most, but not all, of the chicken meat will be removed along with the bones. Repeat this procedure on each chicken wing. Set the wings aside. Cut as much meat as you can from the bones. With a cleaver, mince the meat. Discard the leftover bones, or save them to use another time in a soup broth. Wash the empty chicken wings under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of salt over the wings.
3 2-ounce packages vermicelli noodles
1 pound ground pork
Minced chicken from the wings
4 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
¼ head cabbage, finely shredded (about 4 cups loosely packed)
1 medium-sized carrot, finely shredded
1½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon MSG (optional)
½ teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 eggs, stirred
Soak the vermicelli noodles in a bowl of warm water for 30 minutes. Bring 2 quarts of water to boil in a medium-sized pot. With a fine-mesh sieve, lift the noodles out of the bowl of warm water and submerge them in the boiling water for a second or two. Quickly lift the noodles from the boiling water and drain them completely. Using kitchen shears, snip the noodles into short lengths. In a large bowl, use your hands to mix the ground pork and minced chicken together with the noodles, green onions, cabbage, carrot, salt, MSG (if desired), black pepper, and oyster sauce. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly.
Using your fingers, stuff about ½ cup of the meat-noodle mixture into each chicken wing. If the skin has no tears, the chicken wing will look very fat. If the skin has a tear, sew it up with a sterilized needle and clean thread before stuffing. Pull the skin around the stuffing at the open end.
Broil about 6 inches beneath the upper element of an oven set at 400 degrees. Cook for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown on one side. Turn the wings over and broil on the other side until done, 15 to 20 more minutes. Or use a large toaster oven to cook the wings. Either way, make sure there is a place for the fat to drain while the wings cook. The thread used to sew up tears usually burns away during broiling. If any thread does remain, remove and discard it before serving. Serve hot.
