Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Broiled Vietnamese Meatballs

By Leave a Comment

These are really delicious and easy to make. Cooking them is a little different from what you may expect in that you cook them halfway, and then finish them up after skewering them. That way you don’t have to be so concerned about burnt skewers.

Note that there’s an eight-hour, hands-off step in preparing these.

This recipe is based on one from Vietnamese Cuisine by Muoi Thai Loangkote.

What you’ll need

  • 1 lb. ground pork (leaner is better)
  • 1T sugar
  • 1t baking powder
  • 2t corn or potato starch
  • 2t water (I used fish sauce)
  • 2t minced garlic or 2T garlic powder
  • 2T minced onions, green onions, or shallots
  • About 9 skewers

What to do

Mix all the ingredients (not the skewers) in a large bowl. Ensure that the ingredients are thoroughly distributed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours.

Begin heating your oven to 450 or 500 degrees and soak your skewers if they’re bamboo. While the oven is heating and the skewers soaking, roll about 36 meatballs from the meat mixture, setting them on a rack placed on a baking sheet. Bake the meatballs for about 12 – 15 minutes, until about half done.

Using tongs, thread a few meatballs onto each skewer and return them to the racks and the racks back into the oven. Bake or broil until the meatballs are slightly singed—about 5 – 7  minutes more, depending on how hot your oven is. If you’re concerned about their doneness, check the interior of one with an instant-read thermometer. They need to have reached 165 degrees F.

Serve hot as an appetizer or light entrée with rice noodles or rice and your favorite dipping sauce.

Date-Filled Rollups

By Leave a Comment

These are good, if not slightly frustrating, cookies. What’s particularly good about them is they’re not overly sweet, though you’d think they would be because of the dates.

The key to avoiding frustration is to freeze the rolled dough before slicing it. Problem solved!

This recipe is from The Perfect Cookie, published by America’s Test Kitchen. It’s actually a good cookbook with many outstanding cookie and bar recipes. Note that vegan butter and fake eggs make these vegan.

What you’ll need for the filling

  • 1.75 cups walnuts or pecans, finely chopped
  • 9 oz pitted dates, finely chopped (medjool dates work really well for this recipe)
  • 1 cup water
  • 100g (3.5 oz) granulated sugar

What you’ll need for the cookie dough

  • 500g (17.5 oz) all-purpose flour
  • 1t baking soda
  • 0.5t salt
  • 12T unsalted butter, softened (vegan butter and fake eggs make these vegan.
  • 200g (7 oz.) brown sugar
  • 200g (7 oz) granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1t vanilla extract

What to do for the filling

Add the walnuts, dates, water and sugar to a small saucepan. Stir the ingredients while bringing them to a boil over medium heat and cook until the mixture has thickened—3 – 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool for at least an hour, until completely cool.

What to do for the dough

Whisk together in a bowl the flour, baking soda and salt. With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar at medium-high speed until it’s fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Reduce the mixer speed to very low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until it is just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, as needed.

Transfer the dough to clean surface and divide it in half. Form each half into a 6-inch square. Wrap each square tightly with plastic or parchment paper and refrigerate for an hour—or up to 2 days.

What to do for the initial assembly

Let the squares of dough come up to about 50 degrees and roll them out into 9’ x 13” rectangles on a large piece of floured parchment paper. Spread half of the date and walnut mixture over the surface of the dough. With the long edge of the dough facing you, carefully roll up the dough, but not with the parchment paper—just the dough. Wrap the log tightly with plastic wrap or parchment paper and put it in the freezer. Repeat the process for the other portion of dough.

What to do to bake the cookies

Set the racks in your oven to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and begin heating the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. Remove a log of dough from the freezer and let it warm for a few minutes before slicing it with a very sharp knife into 0.5-inch rounds. Space the rounds 2 inches apart on the sheet pans and bake until the tops are golden-brown—18 – 22 minutes.

When they’re done baking, slide the cookies onto a wire rack. Repeat with the other log of dough or keep it in the freezer for later.

Let the cookies completely cool before serving.

Vietnamese Braised Scallops

By Leave a Comment

These scallops were absolutely delicious! Easy to make, too. The recipe is based on a braising cookbook by Molly Stevens. There’s not a lot in the book for me, but it is worth it for this recipe, alone.

If you’ve made scallops before, you probably already know this, but buy “dry” scallops for this recipe (and all recipes). “Wet” scallops have been soaked in a sodium phosphate solution to plump them up and extend their shelf-life. If you get them, you’d be buying about 25% of their weight as water. Rip off! Worse, the water will leach out when cooking, making them nearly impossible to sear, if you’re searing them.

This recipe includes making a flavorful caramel sauce for the scallops, which is key to the dish’s essence. Think of it as two recipes: the caramel sauce, then the scallops.

What you’ll need

  • 0.5 cups water
  • 0.25 cups fish sauce
  • 70 grams (0.33 cups) granulated sugar
  • 2 shallots or equivalent amount of onions, minced
  • 1.5 lbs. sea scallops, prepared for cooking (the little muscle on the side removed)
  • 0.5t crushed red pepper flakes
  • 2 scallions, thinly sliced—white and green parts separated

What to do for the caramel sauce

Combine 0.25 cups water with the fish sauce in a glass measuring cup. Set aside.

In a large, heavy frypan large enough to hold all the scallops in a single layer, add the sugar and 0.25 cups of water, swirling it around so the sugar distributes across the bottom of the pan. Heat the mixture over medium heat until the sugar has liquified. Swirl it around, if needed, for even melting, but don’t constantly stir it.

The sugar mixture will become slightly amber, and then turn a reddish brown. Do NOT stir it at this point or the sugar will crystalize. Keep a careful eye on it until the sugar is very dark brown and begins to smoke a bit around the edges. This is a very dark caramel—it’s not burnt. It’s hard to measure the temp with an instant-read thermometer, but if you have an infrared thermometer, you’re shooting for 370 – 375 degrees F.

Stand back from the frypan and slowly pour in the water/fish sauce. Make sure you pour slowly enough so it doesn’t boil over. If the caramel hardens, it will re-melt. Stir the mixture and let it boil until it becomes a smooth, thick sauce—about 4 minutes. Add the shallots and let everything simmer for two more minutes.

You can make the sauce ahead, refrigerating it in a jar for up to a few weeks.

What to do for braising the scallops

Ensure the sauce is at a very low simmer over very low heat, stir in the red pepper flakes and the white part of the scallions. With a pair of tongs, add the scallops to the simmering sauce in a single layer. Cover and let them continue to gently simmer for about 4 – 5 minutes, until just cooked through. If you’re unsure if they’re cooked, just cut off the edge off one to see if it’s cooked through.

To serve, transfer to warmed plates and spoon the remaining sauce over them. Garnish with the green parts of the green onions, if using, and serve immediately.