Western Gourd

I went to visit my parents yesterday. My mom decided to make steamed buns for me. "Bao zi"as it is called in chinese, is a steamed empanada for lack of better words. The wrapper is similar to a pizza dough, made with yeast, water and while flour. The filling can be anything and everything. This time, mom filled the buns with zucchini, scrambled eggs, and chopped rice noodles. The size of the bun varies greatly from size of a ping pong ball to size of a fist. The spongy outer skin often catches the some of the juices squirting out of the bun when you bite into one. Like empanadas (topic of another post), the buns are easy to carry around. It is self containing. Of course, like (almost) everything, they are the best to be eaten as soon as they are out of the steamer. If you are reading this post and hoping for an recipe of buns, I have a sad news for you. I am not going to have a recipe of buns in this post. Why? Because I can't get the wrapper right. I am still working on all yeast based recipes. Be patient with me. Instead, I am going to post a little salad that I made the other day involving zucchini and squash.

Zucchini is called western gourd in chinese. I don't know why that is the case, but I do know if you don't pick zucchini everyday, you will end up with ones that are size of your upper arm.

Roasted Zucchini salad

1 lb zucchini, sliced into 1/2" thick half rounds
1 lb yellow squash, sliced into 1/2" think half rounds
1 medium onion, diced
2 Tsp of chopped fresh tarragon
2 Tsp of chopped fresh parsley
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 Tsp of extra virgin olive oil plus more for roasting
1 Tsp of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a roasting pan, place all vegetables in a single layer, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, roast the vegetables at 350 F until tender and some edges are browned.
2. Transfer roasted vegetables into a large air tight container, add the herbs, oil, and vinegar. Add more salt and pepper to taste, stir or shake to combine.
3. Let the salad stand for about 30 minutes, allowing the flavors to mix.
4. Serve

Green beans + Pork

Ever since I started gardening, I plan out what to grow next year before this year's crop is ready. This year's garden was no exception. The planing stage stared in the fall of last year. In addition to my usual suspects (tomato, cucumber, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant), I decided to grow beans. I realized that I am not particular fond of beans, but for some reason, I wanted beans. Not just any kind of beans, but the kind that my grandmother used in her sautéed green beans with pork. The dish was not a fancy one. Whenever green beans were in season, I would find a plate of green beans cooked with pork at the lunch table almost everyday. Those beans were bit flat with a thick layer of flesh. They weren't really sautéed either. They were braised in soy sauce just long enough to make them tender. After all the research, I have decided last winter that this season, I will be growing pole beans, the purple kind.

After months of watering, weeding, and waiting, I finally picked enough beans to make this sautéed "green" bean with pork dish. So I did and it tasted great! The purple beans actually turned green after cooking. As I was looking up a comparable Italian dish to blog about, I came across this recipe that uses Italian style green beans (pole beans). Talking about my Italian connection.

Grandma's Green Beans and Pork

1 lb Italian style green beans (pole beans), cut into 1 in pieces
1/2 lb of boneless pork sirloin, cut into 1/4 in thick slices
2 Tsp Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
1/2 Tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tsp canola oil
1/4 cup of soy sauce
2 Tsp chopped scallion
1 Tsp finely chopped ginger
2 cloves garlic

1. Mix pork, cooking wine, corn starch and salt together, marinate for 30 minutes; stir periodically.
2. Turn the heat to medium high, heat 2 Tsp of oil in a pan until hot
3. Add the pork, cook until all meat changes the color, stir constantly;
4. Move the pork from the pan to a separate bowl.
5. Add the remaining 2 Tsp of oil to the pan, heat the oil until hot, add scallion and ginger, stir until fragrant, 1 minute.
6. Add green beans, cook for 2 minutes.
7. Reduce heat to medium low, return the pork to the pan, add soy sauce with 1 cup of water, cook until the beans are tender and the sauce has reduced to 1/3 of a cup, stir periodically.
8. Serve with white rice.