Mini Homemade Pretzel Dogs

My church held their second annual Highrocktoberfest last week and asked me if I could provide some snacks again.  Last year there was a competition for best cornbread, which I won with my Elote-Style Cornbread Waffles.  This year there was no such competition; I was just told to make something that would go well with beer.  Since I'm not a big beer drinker I wasn't really sure what that would be, but then I took inspiration from the fact that this was a riff on the German Oktoberfest. What could be more German than sausage and pretzel?

I pretty much followed Alton Brown's soft pretzel recipe but decided to skip the salt in the pretzel dough since the sausage would provide enough salt.  I also threw in some diastatic malt powder since I had a lot left over from making croissants.  You can use cocktail weiners for this, but I was able to find mini kielbasa sausages at my grocery store so I went with those.  And instead of buying pretzel salt, I just used a flaky sea salt.  I wouldn't suggest using regular table salt for the topping, and even regular kosher salt might be too fine.

Mini Homemade Pretzel Dogs
makes about 48 dogs

2 1/4 cups warm water (about 110-115°F)
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
33 oz. (about 6 3/4 cups) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon diastatic malt powder (optional)
3 oz. butter, melted
48 cocktail weiners or mini sausages
2/3 cups baking soda
1 large egg
Pretzel or flaky sea salt

Mix the water and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, then sprinkle on the yeast.  Let sit for about 5 minutes until foamy.

Add the flour, malt powder (if using), and melted butter and mix to combine on low using the dough hook.  Once the dough comes together, adjust the speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes.  Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm spot until doubled, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Divide the dough in half, then each half in half, each quarter in half, and each eighth in half.  You'll end up with 16 pieces of dough.  Divide each of these pieces into thirds so you end up with 48 pieces of dough.  One at a time, roll the dough into a long snake about 9" long.  Starting at one end, wrap the dough around a weiner until it is completely encapsulated, sealing the ends.  If you have leftover dough, just pinch it off and reserve*.

In a large pot, mix the baking soda with 10 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Working in batches, add the pretzel dogs to the boiling water and cook for 30 seconds.  Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a parchment or Silpat-lined baking sheet, 1" apart from each other.

Beat the egg with a tablespoon of water.  Brush each of the pretzel dogs with the egg wash and sprinkle with the salt.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until dark golden brown.  Cool on a wire rack.  Serve with honey mustard dip (recipe below).

*If you have enough extra dough, you can try making some traditional pretzels!

Honey Mustard Dip
makes 1 1/2 cups

1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup mustard (I used a mix of yellow mustard and whole grain mustard)
1/4 cup honey

Mix together and serve with the pretzel dogs.

I made this dip to go with the pretzel dogs, but after all those were gone, they put out hard pretzels to snack on and it went really well with those too!

Next:  Pad Thai
Previously:  Pasta con le Sarde
Last Year:  Mochi Donuts and Pon de Rings
Two Years Ago:  Bahian Style Moqueca (Brazilian Fish Stew)
Three Years Ago:  Magical Cold Brew Coffee

Zuppa Toscana

I live in one of those rare regions of the United States that isn't big on chain restaurants, other than Dunkin' Donuts.  To explain how drastic it is, I'm pretty sure there isn't a single McDonalds located in the city I live in (population > 50,000)!  I don't really mind that much, but it means that going to restaurants like Olive Garden are actually a special occurrence to me, especially when I find myself in a town like Morgantown, West Virginia on a business trip and have no clue where to eat (true story).

I am easily satisfied with their endless soup, salad, and breadsticks and always get the Zuppa Toscana.  I have no idea if it's an authentic soup to Tuscany, but I don't care.  It's frickin' amazing.  Now that I'm back home, I looked for copycat recipes on-line, and there are like hundreds of them, even vegetarian and vegan ones!  I ended up just following the first hit that came up except I used vegan Italian "sausage" and whole milk instead of the heavy cream.  It's a bit healthier, but definitely not as rich as what you'd get with the cream.  I also added more kale and potatoes since I had a bunch of kale to use up from my Boston Organics box, and I love me my potatoes.  Since the chicken or vegetable broth you use will be one of the main flavor components in the soup, make sure you use a really good one.  Better yet, make your own!

Zuppa Toscana (adapted from Food.com)
serves 4

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. Italian sausage or vegan sausage, sliced or crumbled into small pieces
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups good quality chicken or vegetable broth
4 cups water
3 large Russet potatoes
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
Red pepper flakes, to taste
2-4 cups kale, ribs removed and torn into pieces
1 cup whole milk, half & half, or heavy cream

Heat the olive oil over medium in a large pot and add the sausage and chopped onions.  Stir occasionally until the sausage is browned (but not the onions).  Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute.  Add the broth and water and bring the pot to a boil. 

Halve the potatoes lengthwise and then slice into 1/4" pieces.  Add to the soup.  Lower the heat so that the soup is simmering and cook until the potatoes are done.  Salt and pepper to taste, and add a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Adjust the seasonings as needed.  (Potatoes absorb a lot of salt, so you may need more than you think.)

Add the torn kale leaves and milk and stir.  Cook for another 5 minutes until the kale has wilted.  If you like, smoosh some of the potatoes into the soup to make it creamier and slightly thicker.  Serve hot.

Note:  Because of the addition of dairy and potatoes in this soup, it does not freeze well.  It does, however, taste better the next day after sitting in the fridge!

Next:  Peanut Butter Noodles
Previously:  Puppy Chow Pie
Last Year:  Salade Indochinoise
Two Years Ago:  Tartine's Lemon Cream Tart
Five Years Ago:  Gaufres de Leige (Belgian Waffles)
Six Years Ago:  Hua Juan (Steamed Scallion Buns)

New England Clambake at Home

After making a low country boil, I couldn't not also do a clambake!  A traditional New England clambake involves digging a pit in the sand, building a fire, adding rocks to the pit, covering them with seaweed, layering on the food, and then covering it all up with a tarp and waiting forever for it all to cook through.  It's something I'd love to do someday, but in the meantime, here's how to do it much more easily at home (and much quicker, too!).

I pretty much followed this recipe from Bon Appétit, except I tried using a couple of different types of clams:  littlenecks, cherrystones, and steamers.  I decided I like littlenecks the best; the steamers were too sandy, even after letting them spit out sand in cornmeal and salt water bath, and the cherrystones were just too big and chewy.  I really only got the cherrystones, which I learned are just older, bigger littlenecks, because they were on sale for 99¢/lb!

I like how this recipe cooks the lobster first instead of steaming them at the end on top of all the other food.  My 7-quart stockpot definitely wouldn't have fit two lobsters on top of the rest of the food, and the thought of having to hold the lid down on even just one live lobster in a pot of steaming water is too much for me to deal with.  I was actually hoping to have the store just steam them for me (most grocery stores will do so for free), but there was a long wait for them to be steamed, so I just ended up doing it myself.  Since you use the water that you cook the lobsters in to cook the rest of the food, it ends up being a nice, flavorful broth that you can serve with the rest of the clambake. I use the broth to dip the clam meat in to rinse off any last bits of sand before I pop it into my mouth.

New England Clambake at Home (adapted from Bon Appétit)
serves 4

4 dozen littleneck clams (or a mix of littlenecks and steamers), scrubbed
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
1 lemon, sliced into rounds
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
2 celery stalks, cut in half
6 large fresh parsley sprigs
6 fresh thyme sprigs
2 small dried bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
2 live lobsters, 1 to 1 1/2 lb. each
2 lbs. small red potatoes
4 ears of corn, husked and halved
14 oz. kielbasa links, halved
1 1/2 sticks butter
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
Lemon wedges, for serving

Place the clams and cornmeal in a very large bowl and fill with enough cold, salted water to cover.  Set aside for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour for the clams to spit up excess sand.

Fill a stock pot about a quarter of the way with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat.  Add one lobster headfirst and cover.  Cook for 10 minutes, until done, and transfer to a large platter or rimmed baking sheet.  Repeat with the other lobster.

Add the potatoes and quartered onion to the pot and bring to a boil.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Layer the sausages and corn on top of the vegetables and cover again, cooking for another 10 minutes.

Rinse the clams thoroughly and add on top of the corn and sausages (if there isn't enough room in the pot, you can remove the corn, which should be cooked through).  Cover the pot tightly and boil until the clams open, about 12 minutes.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the garlic, oregano and basil.  Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

With a slotted spoon, transfer the clams, corn, sausage, and potatoes to the baking sheet with the lobsters.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and garnish with lemon wedges.  Strain the broth and pour into 4 soup cups.  Serve seasoned butter and broth alongside the vegetables, sausages, and seafood.

The next time I make this, I'll probably try reducing the amount of water in the pot, and adding some white wine or beer to steam the food with and add more flavor to the broth.

Next:  Ginger Beer Sherbet
Previously:  Taiwanese Grilled Corn
Last Year:  Vanilla Sugar Lemonade and Mint Lemonade Slushies, Martha Stewart's Perfect Macaroni and Cheese

Low Country Boil

The first time I heard of low country boil was when someone posted on reddit asking for a recipe.  Intrigued, I looked it up to discover it was kind of like a clam bake, but with shrimp.  Basically, you boil a large pot of water, douse it with Old Bay or crab boil (which apparently is a spice sachet you can buy, but I couldn't find any at my local grocery store in Boston) and then add potatoes, corn, smoked sausage, and shrimp in succession.  Then you drain it, and--here's my favorite part--dump it onto a newspaper-lined table to eat outside without any plates and utensils.  How fun is that?  (Apologies for the vertical filming.)

 

After looking up a bunch of recipes, I decided to also add a lemon and onion to the water, although I only had half a lemon and half an onion left in my fridge.  Feel free to use a whole lemon (halved) and a whole onion (quartered) if you like.  You could probably also use less potatoes, but I really wanted to leftover potatoes to make some hash the next morning, so I threw in the whole 3 lb. bag of potatoes.

Low Country Boil
serves 4

4 quarts water

1/2 lemon

1/2 onion, quartered

1/4 cup Old Bay (plus more for serving)

3 lbs. red potatoes

4 ears of corn, shucked and cut in half

14 oz. kielbasa links, cut in half

2 lbs. shell-on raw shrimp

Add the lemon, onion, and Old Bay to the water in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Add the potatoes and let cook for 15 minutes.

Add the corn and kielbasa and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the shrimp, give it a good stir, cover the pot, and turn off the heat.  Let sit for about 4 minutes, until the shrimp are pink.

Drain the contents of the pot (I just poured everything into the pasta insert that I set in my sink).  Line an outdoor table with lots of newspapers, and dump the low country boil onto the newspaper.  Serve with additional Old Bay.  Enjoy!

Next:  Watermelon Agua Fresca and Popsicles
Previously:  Papaya Milk and Papaya Milk Popsicles
Last Year:  Potatoes Boulangère
Four Years Ago:  Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

My Mom's Taiwanese Sticky Rice

 

One of the reasons I started this blog 5 years ago was to document and share my mom's amazing Taiwanese cooking.  Since then, I've gone on to post a lot of different recipes, but hers are still my favorite ones because they remind me of home.

The other day I was craving some of her sticky rice and called her up to ask for the recipe.  This is how awesome my mom is:  she was able to tell me how to make it right then and there without looking anything up!  She was excited to share this new technique she developed where she first par-cooks the sweet rice and then bakes it off in a casserole dish instead of using a rice cooker.  Apparently when using a rice cooker sometimes the sticky rice can get too mushy but when using this technique it's always "QQ", or chewy.

Instead of cooking the aromatics in a different pan and then transferring everything into a casserole dish, I just used my Dutch oven (don't know how I lived without this baby!)  If you don't have one, just transfer the rice to a casserole dish with a lid, or do what my mom does and just cover it with aluminum foil.

My mom usually makes this with pork or chicken, but I decided to make it with Chinese sausage (which I guess makes it more Cantonese than Taiwanese).  You can find the Chinese sausage and fried shallots (sometimes labelled fried red onions) in a Chinese grocery store.  If you like cilantro, it makes a great topping, but if you don't, it still tastes great without it.  For a little kick, I highly recommend serving it with some sweet chili sauce.

My Mom's Taiwanese Sticky Rice
serves 6-8

3 1/2 cups sweet glutinous rice
6-7 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 tablespoon oil
3 links Chinese sausage, chopped
2 tablespoons fried shallots
2 tablespoons rice wine
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Soak the sweet rice and mushrooms in room temperature water for an hour.  The mushrooms will float so place a lid or dish on top to weigh them down.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Start boiling 4 cups of water in a large pot. 

Squeeze the water out of the mushrooms and cut off the stems.  Slice the mushroom caps and set aside.

Drain the rice and add to the boiling water.  Make sure that the water covers the rice, adding more water if needed.  Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until almost all the water is absorbed.  The rice will have plumped but won't be soft yet.

In the meantime, heat up the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add the sausage and cook for a few minutes until the fat is rendered out but before it browns.  Add the mushroom and fried shallots and stir fry for about a minute or two.  Add the rice wine, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil and mix well.

Add the rice to the Dutch oven.  Mix very well so that the rice is the same color throughout.  Cover and bake for 20 minutes.

Fluff and serve with cilantro and sweet chili sauce, if desired.

Next:  My Mom's Pi Jiu Ya (Beer-Braised Duck)
Previously:  Kaddo (Afghan Pumpkin with Yogurt and Tomato Sauces)
Last Year:  Duchikey (or Simplified Turducken)
Five Years Ago:  Homemade Crystallized Ginger