Tag: Recipes

Recipes

Turkey Dumplings with Scallion and Fresh Ginger

by Audrey3 Comments on Turkey Dumplings with Scallion and Fresh Ginger

turkey dumpling

So it has been a long while since I have posted. Life caught up with me in the form of a move, work, and a few freelance assignments. However I am back again with some cool posts that I have built up in this break!

Let me tell you why I decided to make this recipe. For me, cooking has always been a stress reliever. This is especially the case when the recipe involves repetitive motion. Focusing all my energy on only one repeating task is a great way to get out of my head and mentally decompress.  Dumplings are a great example of this.

Aside from the initial mixing of the meat filling, most of the work only involves three steps. Fill, dampen the dough, and pinch everything together. You just repeat these steps until you run out of filling.  At the end, you have this beautiful plate full of dumplings that are ready to boil. Call me Type A, but having this nicely arranged plate (usually in a spiral shape) is a very relaxing site to see at the end of a hectic day.

Also, this is such a comforting food to eat. Think about it. Warm, soothing chicken broth. A slightly chewy filling with a hint of ginger. Tender dumpling dough. All of these are quite comforting things. This is also a very light recipe, so you won’t feel weighed down after eating it.

If what I just said still hasn’t hooked you in, let me say this is a great food for office lunches as they are the best the day after making them. Much like a good marinara sauce, these dumplings get better as they sit since all the flavors have had a chance to meld together. Now let’s get started:

turkey dumpling

Ingredients

  • 1 package lean, ground turkey (you can also use ground pork or chicken)
  • 1 Tbs finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 1 green onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 egg
  • 1 package fresh wonton wrappers (you can find these at an Asian market or in the health/ethnic food section of your local grocery store)
  • 1 Tbs water, to glue the dumplings together
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 5 Tbs. sesame oil
  • Chicken broth to serve with (you can also serve dry with a soy dipping sauce)

Step 1: Let’s make the meat filling. Combine the ground turkey, ginger, green onion, egg and salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix until homogenous.

Step 2: Open dumpling wrappers. (Tip, keep a damp towel over your extra wrappers to keep them from drying out while you work. I usually isolate groups of 20 wrappers at a time.) Take one wrapper and dampen half of the edge.

Step 3: Take a teaspoon of meat filling and drop it in the middle of the wrapper. Lift the dry half of the wrapper and press it into the damp side. Before you completely seal the edges together, lightly press any excess air out of the dumpling. (This prevents them from floating to the top of the pan prematurely.

Step 4: Fill and fold all of your dumplings together until you run out of meat. As you fill plates with your raw dumplings, cover the dumplings with plastic wrap to prevent the dumpling skin from drying out.

Step 5: Boil water in a large saucepan. When it’s a rolling boil, place 10-15 dumplings into the pot. Be sure to not overcrowd the pot. Stir the water while dropping the dumplings to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Boil for 5-7 minutes. Break one dumpling in half after cooking and check to see if the meat is white. If it is still pink, continue cooking another 1-2 minutes.

Step 6: When fully cooked, drain and transfer dumplings to an oiled dish. Swirl the dumplings in the sesame oil to keep them from sticking together. Repeat step 5 as necessary. Serve warm with chicken broth.

turkey dumpling

turkey dumpling

Food For Thought

I’m back: site redesign and career aspirations

by AudreyLeave a Comment on I’m back: site redesign and career aspirations

chocolate-meringues

Hello everyone!

It’s been a few months since I last posted, but with a better class/work schedule, my new goal is to clean up this website, cook more and dedicate more to time to this blog.

For those of you that are new to The Glutton Diaries, I first started the website as a college junior fresh from returning from abroad. I came back from Paris with a goal to launch a food journalism career, however I was not sure how to go about it. Since then, my will has only solidified and with it, so has my culinary taste and design style.

With that being said, I plan to return to The Glutton Diaries with an eagerness to continue defining what it is I like to cook and photograph. I am excited for you, my handful of readers sprinkled around the world, to join me for the ride.

This page first started out as a “dabbling” into food writing and photography, and in the last few months I have definitely refined my work. In turn, I plan to clean up some of my older posts to only feature shots of my final products because I do not find the “in-the-process” photos useful. In their replacement, I will dedicate more time to my food styling so that I can play with my technique. After all, this is a makeshift portfolio/diary for me.

So I will end this secondary introduction with a quick recap of the months I neglected to post to The Glutton Diaries. Perhaps it would be best if you knew who I really was? My name is Audrey Perkins, I am almost done with my final year at Indiana University, I practically live at my job as an editor at the Indiana Daily Student and I am likely the biggest food-geek you will ever meet.

It’s nice to meet you guys. Now, for the fun part. What have I been up to the last few months in terms of food?

Since photos are worth a thousand words, here is a sampling of photos of work I have done privately and work I have done at my other jobs. Bon Appétit! (Recipes to come.)

chocolate-meringues-2

rose-tea-jelly

pattern-roulade

blueberry-braised-beef

This recipe originally came from a post I made at thelala.com, a lifestyle blog I edit for. Check this recipe out here.

chocolate-cheesecake

This photo and styling is mine, however the recipe is from my friend and coworker Allison Wagner from the Indiana Daily Student. Check it out here.

Food For Thought

Brown butter pineapple upside-down cake

by AudreyLeave a Comment on Brown butter pineapple upside-down cake

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So this will be a shorter post this time, one without the actual feature of a recipe. In fact, this isn’t one of my recipes. For those that want the original, you can find it here.

However I wanted to use a classic recipe to help bring focus to a specific ingredient: brown butter.

That was the only change I made to the recipe, with the exception of fresh cherries instead of Maraschino. Rather than go the traditional route, I wanted to play with the tangy flavor of fresh fruit contrasted with a really earthy element. Which was why I went for brown butter- it makes everything taste warm and homey.

Instead of using normal butter, I went for brown butter. So if you want to completely recreate the picture above, anytime the recipe calls for butter, use brown butter instead. Especially in the brown sugar sauce on the bottom.

Brown butter, or beurre noisette in French, is a common ingredient in French pastries. it is made by melting butter and slowly toasting its milk solids until the liquid turns brown. The end product will result in a nutty, luscious butter that you can use as a liquid or solid.

I am not exaggerating when I say that your kitchen will smell the best it ever will. It’s hard to even explain how this stuff smells. I know that at the beginning of the post, I listed “warm” and “homey,” but what scents make up those adjectives? If you were to combine the smells of toasted bread, roasted nuts and pure unadulterated butter, that’s what it would be. It’s almost umami. There’s a subtle savory note that makes desserts so complex that you will want to eat the cake batter raw. I was only mixing the butter into the flour, and it already smelled like I could eat it straight.

Either way, like how this BuzzFeed post says, it will take any simple recipe and make you feel like a gourmet chef. And you didn’t have to do anything fancy. Making this stuff is almost like boiling water. Only with fat.

And just because I’ve fallen in love with this ingredient, I’ve thought of a couple different uses for it. Click a choice below if you want to see these desserts come back to The Glutton Diaries in the form of a recipe post!

Recipes

Clean and simple breakfasts

by Audrey3 Comments on Clean and simple breakfasts

final

There is nothing I love more than a simple egg. Tender, supple egg whites paired with a creamy yolk. Now that is my version of heaven.

When I stumbled across this post from Cannelle et Vanille, one of my favorite food blogs and my foodie role model, I knew I had to make it. Only this time I gave it a spiced twist.

Soft baked eggs, with a sprinkling of cream to give it a luscious texture, paired with refreshing herbs and vegetables. At the last minute, a pinch of cumin speckles the top with a hint of smokiness.

These are perfect for a last-minute brunch. All you have to do is drizzle, crack and bake.

 

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 4 teaspoons heavy whipping cream
  • 4-6 cherry tomatoes, add more or less depending on what ratio of egg to vegetable you want
  • A sprig of cilantro
  • A pinch cumin per egg

 

cream

Roughly chop the cilantro and quarter the tomatoes. Divide the cilantro and tomatoes equally into 4 oven-safe cups. Pour on top a teaspoon of cream into each cup, one for each egg.

 

egg

Crack the egg on top. Sprinkle the cumin on top.

 

yolk

Bake the eggs on a baking sheet at 350 ˚F for 15-20 minutes until the egg sets, but the yolk is still runny. The egg should barely be opaque. If you want your eggs to be full cooked, bake until the eggs don’t jiggle.

I toasted some bread in butter and accompanied my eggs with a light kale salad. The narrow slices of bread really help dig into that egg yolk.

Sometimes simplicity is the best of flavors. I always took it for granted, thinking that I had to depend on many ingredients to make something good. Additionally, the egg its self is often ignored in terms of flavor. People associate them with how they transform flour into cakes, brownies and cookies, but never as a simple item with a delicate taste. However this recipe does what little else can- focus on the flavor of an egg. All while accompanying it with light, if not subtle seasonings. You don’t even need to add salt or pepper.