Pierogi Redux

Ah, there's nothing like waking up in a house that smells like onions sauteed in the richness of butter!

Last night I cooked a large serving of pierogis for a group of friends, using the frozen pierogis I manufactured some weeks ago out of that seemingly endless five pounds of potatoes.

As part of my prep, I had spent the afternoon thinking,

just how many pierogis are needed to feed a ninja ladder?

Months ago, during one of our basement parties, a trio of men decided to build a ninja ladder to the basement window notwithstanding a basement ceiling probably no more than eight feet high. Suffice it to say, it was a very compressed ladder that ultimately resulted in some regrettable injury.

Since The Great Collapse of the Ninja Ladder, I had not seen much of the Rungs lately.

The invite to yesterday's dinner started with the Middle Rung. I had encouraged him to invite a friend, so before long, the Bottom Rung was also added. With only hours left before dinner, I resisted the urge to "complete the set" by trying to find the Top Rung.

And then I started the business of calculating just how many pierogis are needed to feed Two Thirds of a Ninja Ladder.

I had a lot of pierogis but the Bottom Rung is a contractor who works very hard on the job and is reputed to eat only one meal a day - a very LARGE meal. A moderate dinner portion for me (after all, I'm only five two and three quarters) would be about 10 pierogis.

For the average boy, maybe double?
And for a hungry contractor - ???

Even assuming the hungry contractor is just an average boy (which he is not):

10 (me, self-described "small person")

+ 20 (average boy)

+ 20 (average boy)

+ 20 (average boy used as proxy for contractor)

= 70.

70 pierogis sounded like a lot! My calculations reminded me of a college interview I had with a reputable consulting firm in which I carefully and painstakingly estimated that the number of AA batteries used in the US per year was roughly...

...a jillion.

(I ended up going to law school instead.)

Half an hour to dinner, it turned out the Top Rung was watching football with the Bottom and Middle Rungs, and it was as if God had spoken to assemble the entire Ninja Ladder. At that moment, the urge to complete the Set won me over, despite concerns about the pierogi population. The boys said 10-12 pierogis per person would be enough, but as a former dumpling-eating champion, I knew this would be a drastic miscalculation. I decided I would simply make LOTS OF PIEROGIS and let it be a free-for-all.

The problem with putting LOTS OF PIEROGIS in one pot to boil is that pierogis, like wet laundry in a dryer, must tumble freely.



A standard pot can handle a pierogi count in the high teens but probably no more. The pierogis also must be added carefully one by one, "swishing" each as it enters so as to not allow it to stick to the bottom of the pot. During boiling, a gentle stirring is needed to keep them in movement, or else they may find it irresistible to stick to each other. (Here I use my Magic Wand utensil, a Chinese favorite, to stir gently and also to ladle them out while draining at the same time.)

I would also advise anyone making pierogis from scratch to leave the dough thick enough to withstand the occasional jab of a cooking utensil or rough contact with a fellow pierogi. In my haste to use up as much potato filling as possible, I may have pushed the pierogi envelope a little too far at times. Unfortunately, I was seriously paying for it in pierogi shrapnel.

I had to make another pot of pierogis to replace the fallen, and then another, and perhaps another... by the end of dinner, I had stopped counting.

But to answer the question, how many pierogis does it take to feed a ninja ladder?

Roughly a jillion.

Plastic Is Not Eternal.

Even a longstanding eater like myself can make a mistake once in a while. It's embarrassing to state the obvious, but I'm going to do it anyway:

DON'T EAT FOOD THAT IS TOO OLD.

We all have our individual ideas of where we're comfortable along The Spectrum of Food Safety. Some people, like roommate, are wary of eating pizza that has been left out overnight. Others see this pizza the next morning and are overjoyed to find their absolutely favorite thing to eat waiting for them the morning after. If forced to classify myself, I probably fall into the latter category.

Mind you, I have two standards of Food Safety: one applicable to the entire world, including my dining guests (fear not eating at my table!) and another standard applicable wholly to myself. It is this second rugged standard that sometimes gets me into trouble.

Take for instance, this morning, when I spotted two sticks of string cheese in the refrigerator and thought, wouldn't these be good and healthy office snacks during those slow hours in the afternoon? I threw them into my bag, gave them a home in the office fridge, and looked forward to my emergency snack later in the day.

Minutes ago, I chewed probably 20% of one of these sticks before realizing that, well, it just didn't taste so good.

I chewed a little more, mostly absent-mindedly. And then I thought, I wonder of this thing has an expiration date on the plastic wrapper.

Indeed it did:

26AUG2006. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I am now in the year 2007, but my cheese is from yesteryear. And apparently, plastic is not eternal.

I suppose plastic almost is eternal in the landfill but not particularly so when it comes to protecting perishable dairy products. Why my own palate, which critically dissects the unrotten food prepared by others, got so dumbfounded by this piece of old cheese, I'm not sure. Perhaps it is because the Chinese have limited experience with dairy. We drink milk, but cheese and butter, the Two Pillars of French Civilization, are largely less thoroughly explored by us.

In fact, cultural backgrounds and family traditions have much to do with Where One Lies On The Spectrum of Food Safety. People in some countries still don't have regular refrigeration and must rely on other methods to avoid Death By Rotten Food:
- storing food in naturally cool places (holes in the ground, cellars, etc.)
- procuring only the amount of food you will eat for the day (fresh veggies at the market)
- repetitive heating to kill bacteria.

If you're raised by parents subscribing to alternative food preservation methods, you're bound to be one of those who are Pushing The Envelope of Food Safety. In truth, we all make these micro-judgments on a daily basis. Do we not all recognize that unmistakeable irridescent "sheen" that develops on ham when it's starting to go? What about giving the milk carton a good sniff?

Who's above doing that?

The Sheen and the Sniff are all widely accepted methods but sometimes neither protects you from absentmindedly eating old cheese. After all, isn't cheese really just some kind of fancy mold? Some cheeses are revered for their stink!

I figure I was doomed from the get-go.

The good news is after a few absent-minded extra bites, the String Cheese of Yesteryear went straight into the trash.

(After I took a picture of it, that is.)

And sometimes the Tummy has to say it one more time, just to be safe:

REMEMBER, DON'T EAT FOOD THAT IS TOO OLD!

Edibles in the Californian Garden

Although winter has arrived in Anchorage, nobody sent the memo to southern California. The clime's good enough for outdoor grilling and trees are even bearing fruit. My parents had a sizeable persimmon crop this year, which I would be packing in my suitcase if it weren't for the TSA and the Californian fruit fly problem.

The pomegranate tree isn't doing bad this year either. My dad and I spent the morning picking those that were ready to join us inside.

'Tis the Season

On the day after Thanksgiving, what better way to bridge the gap between the holidays than with a snowflakey pumpkin cake?



Like many things, tastes best when served with whipped cream.

Calling All Bellies....

Food is good in theory but can be even better in practice. The contents of this blog are about to jump off this page and into your bellies with two classes this winter term, to take place at the Spenard Recreation Center:

THE WOOING DISH 101
They say the way to the heart is through the stomach. This class is designed for men and women alike who are a bit afraid of the kitchen but who would like to learn how to create a simple, attractive dish. Learn about basic tools, techniques, and principles to help you look good. Remember, sometimes butter makes the heart grow fonder!

$20
January 7
6:45-8:30pm

CHINESE COOKING 101
Tired of always going out? Learn to create the food of the ancient civilization that invented gunpowder! Kung Pao! One authentic Chinese dish per session. Choices include Classic Fried Rice, Fried Potstickers, Shrimp with Snow Peas, and any other dish based on class interest.

$100 for a 5-class cycle
6:30-8:00pm
every other Monday starting January 14th
(1/14, 1/28, 2/11, 2/25 and 3/10)

As these classes progress, I'll include recipes, links to other useful information like my thoughts about Life-Changing Devices, photos of what we made and ate, etc., etc., until we've got a really big Melting Pot of Food.

Bring your appetite, but remember:

Watch out for your fingers!

Pierogi Purgatory

With cold weather comes the desire to eat warm, comforting foods. This weekend, Anchorage finally got its first snowfall, and what better way to mark the occasion than by wrapping a carb around a carb! To celebrate, I selected the Eastern European answer to comfort - the pierogi.

I should note first that I had never really eaten a very good pierogi. The few pierogis that have crossed my path were sad limp things, reconstituted from grocery-brand frozen foods. The memory is vague, but the word "mushy" comes to mind.

Lacking a happy food memory, what would motivate me to make a pierogi? First, the knowledge that a friend of mine really likes pierogis, and second, curiosity over what the fuss is about.

I did some Internet searching for pierogi recipes and finally unearthed a basic, no frills recipe that looked like a reliable start.

FOR PIEROGI DOUGH:
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 egg
- 1 T oil
- 1/2 cup hot water
- butter and onions for sauteeing
- filling of choice

The dough was simple enough to make, especially when left to the able hands of my Kitchenaid mixer, Thor. Mix dry ingredients first and then beat the egg and oil - add all at once. Finally, drizzle in the hot water. Thor did his business for 5-7 minutes, and voila! Pierogi dough, ready to rest for 30 minutes.

"Filling of choice" however was another matter. Not having much experience with pierogis, I decided to use what was described as "standard fare" - the potato and cheese filling. Suggested embellishments included bacon bits and parsley, the former I could not resist, and the latter I had in abundance as one of the last herbs saved from the summer garden.

I think the history of the potato is intertwined with the Western Hemisphere because the Chinese do not use a lot of potato. I love potatoes, but myself, do not work with them frequently. So I blithely read "five pounds of potatoes" and didn't blink once.

I should have.

"FILLING OF CHOICE"
- 5 pounds of red potatoes
- 1 large onion
- 8 oz grated cheddar cheese
- salt, pepper to taste
- suggested "enhancements": bacon bits, parsley

Five pounds of potatoes is A Whole Lot of Potatoes. It wasn't until I finished peeling them, boiling them, and mashing them that I realized I had created a Vat of Potatoes. Nothing to do but move on.

The Magic Bullet made short shrift of the bacon, turning it into bacon dust in seconds. I threw in some chives along with the parsley and admired the lovely green sprinkles. I grated some smoked cheddar and then promptly ran out, supplementing with pre-grated Costco Mexican Blend cheese. (Next time, if there is a next time, I may try an Irish cheddar.)

Mixing the conglomeration was no easy task. My frail Chinese forearms tensed against the resistance of five pounds of Western Hemisphere. As a break, I turned to rolling out the dough.

I recommend the use of a pasta machine to make nice flat even sheets that can be cut using a cookie-cutter, largely because I lack such a pasta machine. In its place, I rolled the dough out by hand with my cursed tapered European rolling pin (a purchase made in the early days when some cooking show urged this to be a good idea). The result - a slow process with some unevenness that sometimes approached the 1/8 of an inch commanded by the recipe.

I prepared the pierogis factory-style, the same method I use to mass-produce potstickers. Scooping out a little bit of filling onto each wrapper, smearing the edge of one semicircle with water, and then press. After the pierogis are sealed, I pressed the edges of one side with a fork, being too lazy to add this ornamentation onto the other side. (To be expected from someone whose family only decorated one side of the Christmas tree.)

Once sealed, boil the pierogis until they float up. Drain and allow to dry while sauteeing one minced onion in butter. Fry the pierogis in this mixture until browned and crisped to your liking. Although not told to do so by anyone, I used the More-Cheese-Can't-Hurt Principle and sprinkled some grated Mexican Blend over it all.



Pierogis can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a few months. One dough recipe yields roughly 40 pierogis. One "Filling of Choice" recipe yields who knows how may pierogis. I'll tell you this - it's more than 120 pierogis which is where I stopped last night at midnight using my third batch of dough.

And here is where the trickiness becomes apparent. Handmade pierogis are handmade. I started on Sunday night and after three nights of diligent pierogi-making, I am still not done. After all, I am only human - I have only have two hands, ten fingers!

And five pounds of potatoes.

And that is how I found myself in Pierogi Purgatory.

Tonight will be Pierogi Night Four. One more batch of dough is in the works and if it fails to absorb the rest of the filling, well, it will be time to get out the spoon and just do the deed myself.

After all, a tummy's got to do what a tummy's got to do.

Eleven Pounds of Honeysuckle Goodness

Eating isn't always about the act of consuming food or even the process of cooking it. Sometimes it is just about Getting The Food.

Last night was about Getting The Food. My roommate G was tasked with making The Turkey, as in The Turkey To Feed the Entire Faculty At Her Elementary School. Her librarian gave her a Fred Meyers' coupon touting a very familiar holiday promotion: Spend $100 and get a free 10-20 pound turkey!

With coupon in hand, we ran around the store buying enough of our hearts' desires to meet the $100 mark and then proceeded to the frozen turkey aisle to claim our prize. Because it is no easy task feeding a horde of under-appreciated elementary school teachers, we were, logically, looking for the biggest bird.

I ceremoniously zipped up my winter parka and announced, "I'm going in." I opened the door to the Narnia of Frozen Turkeys, determined to not return until I had found Mr. Right Bird.

Unfortunately, we kept encountering only 14-15 pound birds - large by standard measure but sure to cause a brawl between hungry teachers. And to make matters worse, a number of large frozen fellas kept rolling out of the doors as I dug through the pile.

In minutes, after I had inserted almost all of myself into the freezer section, I began to get quite cold man-handling inadequate birds. I finally spotted a large lump at the very bottom of the pile, in the way back of the freezer. Its hard-to-reach location seemed to suggest that this one might be an undiscovered gem. I pushed a few hard birds aside and finally got in far enough to reach for the tag.



19.19 lbs!

A winner! A good four pounds over his trim brothers, this bird was going home with us. Now there was the business of clearing a birthing canal for the bird. I burrowed into the precarious pyramid of poultry, shoving the giant turkey boulders to the side, and when I got a good grip on The Turkey, G did her best to yank me out.

I gave a little yelp, but The Turkey remained silent.

A sense of pride filled us as we took our free turkey to the cashier. "NINETEEN POINT NINETEEN POUNDS!" we exclaimed, hardly believing our good fortune. She was skeptical and tried to downplay our miracle.

"That's too big. You can't get a free turkey that big." Waving the coupon in the air and pointing to the "10-20 pound" provision, we proved her wrong!

We took the turkey home and put it into the refrigerator for its long thaw-out. There was a debate as to how long it would take to defrost a nineteen-pound turkey which reminded me of the last time I personally defrosted a turkey.

I was in my last year of law school at Michigan and had been gifted a turkey from a classmate going to an out-of-town Thanksgiving and who no longer needed his bird. We had a conversation about the turkey drop-off and finally decided he should bring it to class on his last day in town.

M showed up that morning with Eleven Pounds of "Honeysuckle Goodness," as the turkey's outer packaging boasted. The turkey sat through the lecture, like all of us, and was handed over at the end of class. Because I had additional classes that day, that turkey became a very well-educated Eleven Pounds of Honeysuckle Goodness. (After all, very few poultry have the opportunity to receive an education at a top ten law school.)

Legal knowledge aside, Eleven Pounds of Honeysuckle Goodness was also the very best tasting Thanksgiving turkey I have ever prepared. Perhaps it had to do with the fact he was pre-injected with broth (hence his "honeysuckle goodness") or maybe it was because we roasted him upside down, allowing the juiciness of his fatty dark meats to permeate his dry breasts. Or maybe it was because one of the cooks was a vegan. Regardless, I have been unable to recreate the recipe perfectly, so the perfect Thanksgiving turkey still remains somewhat of a Holy Grail for me.

Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey
- Make sure it has "Honeysuckle Goodness" written on the packaging.
- Defrost using one day of law school classes.
- Have a vegan rub it with butter and spices.
- Roast it upside down.

The truth is that the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey is somewhat of a Holy Grail for all Chinese people. For whatever reason, even though the Chinese are an omnivorous lot and finely gifted in the art of eating and cooking, the turkey is an ungainly, unfamiliar bird to us. I often urge friends to turn down Thanksgiving invitations if they come from a Chinese home. We do NOT understand the turkey. In case I have not made myself clear:

DO NOT GO TO A CHINESE HOME FOR THANKSGIVING.

This doesn't just stem from my personal memories of our family Thanksgiving, which admittedly are nightmarish recollections of what was a misunderstood holiday around our house. My parents always got the free grocery store bird but always went for size rather than tenderness. So I am sure we roasted our share of 19.19 pounds of bird. In an era before the flavor injector had been invented, my father would inject the turkey with soy sauce using the kind of needle he probably would have used at the hospital. My mom would inevitably start roasting at around 8pm, thus ensuring that we had to eat turkey no sooner than midnight, in our pajamas.

The bad Chinese Thanksgiving was not confined to my immediate family, however. In college, I once went to my uncle's house for the holiday and was served a half-frozen turkey loaf and giblet stuffing. The turkey loaf was horribly processed but alarmingly not fully cooked. (Nothing is scarier than raw processed turkey loaf!) The giblet stuffing caused every bite to have a rather disconcerting crunch and was included in the dinner only because "It's President Clinton's favorite stuffing," and my aunt was priming my little cousin to become President some day. On the side was a serving of lifeless canned green beans. Presidential stuffing or not, it was the worst Thanksgiving meal of my life and that includes yet another Chinese Thanksgiving where the turkey had been prepared by local Kroger grocery store and a Thanksgiving meal eaten at the Hyatt Hotel in Princeton, New Jersey.

But this year, the Nineteen Point Nineteen Pounds of Goodness in our refrigerator will not fall into Chinese hands. G will roast it for school, and I'll be going home and bracing myself for my own Thanksgiving with the Chinese.

Saying Goodbye To Summer

It's that time of year when snow is imminent and soon to cover all vestiges of our summer. Before we say our goodbyes, here's what happened in the garden this year.

FAVA BEAN CROP
This year's fava beans were made possible by a well-muscled friend who, while waiting for goods to come off the grill, took it upon himself to tear up enough sod to make a nice fava bean patch. It was planted during a game of charades and in between beers. An auspicious beginning.

The crop took off, reaching alien heights. One plant almost lost its life during a break encounter with the weedwacker, but the little nick was repaired with duct tape and the plant was almost as good as new.


Unfortunately, for all its foliage and vertical growth, this is not a high yielding crop. I think there was fertilizer in the dirt. Maybe I could have watered more. Behold the entire season's worth of fava beans:

THE LONE APPLE:



You are looking at the sole survivor of a rampage by the only gardener left in the yard at this time of the year.



Although it happens every year, for some reason I am always shocked to find my veggies sheared and my apples trees robbed of their already modest fruits. I had left this one apple, the only one of a size that could be generously called "normal," to get as fat as it could on the tree. Somehow it had fallen and escaped from moose consumption.

CARROTS
I think I planted a baby variety this year and by the end of the summer, had a nice bowl of little carrots. The flavor was good but unremarkable. It breaks my heart to thin out the carrots, and the seedlings take a significant amount of time to produce a carrot big enough to be worth picking. Next year: likely skip the carrots.

SNOW PEAS


Excellent climbers and adorned with beautiful pink and magenta flowers, these buggers, like many pea plants growing in Alaska, are prolific. They produce a pod thinner than the snap pea but are not as sweet. Next year: plant them for looks but look to snap peas for eating.