Holiday bread wreath

I love baking bread. I usually use a bread machine to make dough, shape it and let rise and bake it.
For Nebraskan runza and Piroshki, I kneaded dough by hands. It is very useful to know how to make bread from scratch to teach Hum Bao. Although my recipe of Hum Bao is for my cooking class, I share my holiday bread recipe here. If you don't have bread flour in your kitchen, try with 3 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour instead of partial bread flour. I think the result will still be great.

I got Kitchen aid mixer for Christmas. I will use it to make my bread soon.

Holiday bread made with bread machine

        from Prune Kitchen Seattle

If you have bread machine, try this recipe to make sweet dough. The dough is good for breakfast bread as well as for a holiday bread.

Ingredients

3 cups Bread flour

½ cup Unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup and 2 Tablespoons Water

2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter

1 Egg

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 ½ teaspoons active yeast

½ cup sugar

1 Egg plus 1 Tablespoon of water to make egg wash

Duration: 3 ½ hour

Direction

1. Place all ingredients except egg wash in pan of bread machine.
2. Select dough cycle and make dough. It generally takes about one and a half hour.
3. Meanwhile, cut parchment paper to the size of pizza baking dish.
4. After the dough cycle is completed, dust the flour on a cutting board and put the dough on the board.
5. Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll dough and make 3 ropes.
6. Mold the ends of the 3 ropes together and braid the rest of dough while stretching the rope.^*
7. Pinch the end of the ropes together to make a wreath.
8. Rise the dough for one hour in warm place until it doubles size. Possibly longer.
9. Preheat oven to 350 degree
10.  Brush the egg wash on wreath dough. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
11. Cool and decorate with frosting made of 1 cup of powdered sugar and 2-3 Table spoon milk. Sprinkle red and green sugar (Optional)

IF YOU KNEAD BY HANDS, use all ingredients above except 3 Table spoons of yeast.  

  ^*Notes: To have nice results, braid the rope loose and gently.

Fumiko's Holiday bread made by Bread machine(PDF printer friendly version)

Bok Choy flower is delicious

I planted Bok Choy in my backyard.  There were too many of them and started blooming. I found that the flower of Bok Choy is edible. I boiled it and mixed with soy sauce and sesame oil. I served it when I invited my Japanese friend to lunch. The boiled Bok Choy was delicious. She and I liked it. They tasted bit like Chinese broccoli. 

Here is the recipe:

Boiled Bok Choy with soy sauce and sesame oil

Ingredients

A bunch Bok Choy flower with stem(4-5 inches long)

1 quart of water (Less water is OK)

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 Table spoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1.       Wash and clean Bok Choy flower with stem. If stem is too large, it may be too hard to eat. Leave the small tender stem and cut of the rest.
2.       Boil water and add the salt
3.       Add Bok Choy flower
4.       Boil 3-5 minutes or stem is tender. Take out the larger stem and pinch it to test it.
5.       Take Bok Choy out and drain the water. Cool it for 5 minutes.
6.       In a medium size bowl, mix soy sauce and sesame oil.
7.       Cut the boiled Bok Choy into 1 ½ inches long.
8.       Put Bok Choy in the source bowl and mix.
9.       Dish it up and serve warm.
(NOTES) Adjust amount of soy sauce and sesame oil. Possible addition is black pepper and chili powder.

Chinese Dragon year celebration

In Chinese calendar, last year was a rabbit year and January 23rd, 2012 is a year of Dragon.
My first celebration of Dragon new year was to cook and eat Chinese dinner with ‘ Seattle let us cook together’ meetup members on last Saturday.
Menu :
Two types of dumplings, Chicken and shrimp
Baked Barbecued pork bus
Beef chow mein
Steamed Chinese broccoli
Sesame ball
And Tofu pudding dessert
Ten of us cooked together and had delicious dinner together. I used recipes from various website. Among dishes, I liked Barbecued pork made for barbecued buns the best and also beef chow mein was very tasty although it is chop suey.
Here is the link for recipes:
Barbecued pork buns:
http://cottagegardenrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/02/cha-siu-bow-baked-bbq-pork-buns.html
Beef Chow mein
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Beef-Chow-Mein-232606

By the way, due to snow in Seattle, I had to wait to buy ingredients until Saturday morning. I went to china town and it was too crowded and was not able to park my car. I drove far south to another Asian market. The parking was full. I parked my car 5 blocks away from the market and purchased all ingredients for the dinner. I learned not to go to Asian market on weekend close to Chinese new year day by car especially it snowed the day before.

Seattle Let Us Cook Together Meetup

I have been an organizer of “Seattle let us cook together” meetup for 7 months. I started this meetup to cook something good with others at Prune Kitchen. The meetup is self-taught interactive cooking class. Our dinner cooking is like Thanksgiving dinner. The members cook appetizers, main course, and dessert and share the meals at Prune kitchen.
The fee is between $15 and 30 include all ingredients and cover the expenses. I met many new members who loved to cook or wanted to cook with others. We have cooked variety of meals include Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, and American, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We cook simple common meals to complex recipes. Starting in this fall we will cook on one Friday dinner and one weekend brunch per month plus some weekend’s dinner.

Photos above are some of dishes which we cooked at the Seattle Let us cook together meetup.

Japanese Breakfast Cooking Together

I hosted Japanese breakfast cooking and eating for Pacific Northwest Cooking Recipe meetups at my new kitchen.
4 members and my husband attended the cooking event. I set the menus, bought ingredients and directed them to cook. Here is the menu
=========================================
Menu:
Rice
Miso soup.
Baked Halibut
Panfried Tofu with grated daikon and ginger
Natto
Sautéed Burdoc and Carrot(Kinpira Gobo)
Boiled Spinach with Bonito flakes and soy sauce
Toasted and seasoned seaweed (Agitsuke Nori)
Pickled vegetables (Tsukemono)
Pickled plum(Umeboshi)
Sesami kelp(Goma Konbu)
===============================================
In addition to these, because my friend had given me Matsutake mushrooms yesterday, I made Matsutake rice.
All attendants learned bit of Japanese cooking and happy eating delicious Japanese breakfast.I am including recipes of 3 items from this breakfast.
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Miso soup(4 Servings)
1. In the bowl add ½ cup of water and 1 tsps of Dried seaweed (Wakame).
2. Cut 1/8th of Tofu into small pieces.Chop green onion.
3. In the pot, add 2 Dashi packs and 4 cups of water and heat to boil. Boil for 5 minutes to make soup stock. (I used all natural Dashi pack which looks like teabag. )
4. Remove the Dashi packs and add Tofu
5. Heat the soup and add Soy bean paste (Miso) 1/8cups and more as needed.
6. Before the soup boils, turn down heat to keep warm.
7. Seaweed will be hydrated by this time. Drain and squeeze the excess water of seaweed.
8. Add the seaweed and green onion into 6 portion to add it in the bowls.
9. When other food is ready, pour the Miso soup into each bowl.

Sautéed Burdock and Carrot (Kinpira Gobo)
1. Peel Burdock (Gobo) and cut into Julienne. Soak the Burdock in bowl of water with 1tsp of rice vinegar to avoid browning.
2. Peel carrots and cut it into Julienne.
3. Heat a frying pan, add 1 TBSp oil.
4. Add Burdock and carrot and fry
5. Add ½ tsp Chili flakes.
6. Add 2TBSP water 1TBSP Sake, 1 TBSP Mirin, and 2SBSP Soy sauce.
7. Cook until all liquid is evaporated.
8. Add 1tsp sesame oil and 2 tsp of Sesame seed.

Boiled spinach with Bonito flakes and soy sauce
1. Wash spinach well.
2. Boil water and add spinach.
3. Cook the spinach until the stem is tender
4. Take spinach out and put it into the iced water
5. Squeeze the excess water and cut it into one inch length wide
6. Dish the spinach and serve with dried bonito flakes and soy sauce(Add Dashi to make less salty).