Dim Sum Sunday

So we were inspired by this week's Top Chef episode, with hopes of fairing better than many of the chefs this week. We had one of G's famous recipes,from Tom Douglas's cookbook that we love; Lobster & Shitake potstickers with Ponzu Sauce over break. The recipe makes a ton of potstickers so we always end up freezing over half of them before cooking them as suggested in the recipe. G had first made these for a staff potluck like 8 years ago and now they've become a Larsen staple.

We both love hot & sour soup. G found a Tyler Florence recipe to make tonight, (seriously until starting this blog we had no idea how much we are using Food Network recipes...just an interesting observation for us personally.)

We had also picked up some pork buns at Trader Joe's this week and decided to steam them to complete our dim sum menu this evening.

So we brought out the Reininger white Helix that had opened up last night to start us on our cooking adventure. Tonight we noticed it was bit sweeter but also still crisp. G commented he liked it more tonight than last night.

We took out many of our Asian pantry staples to get our soup started. G ran up to the store to pick up some firm tofu and BBQ pork while I reconstituted the dried mushrooms and grated fresh ginger. We followed the recipe (linked above) pretty closely with exception of adding a squeezed lime at the end because we both like a HOT & SOUR soup and when G tasted it he thought it could be more sour.

We first steamed & then pan fried our potstickers while I steamed the pork buns in the bamboo steamer.

 

Lobster & Shitake Potstickers

Our dim sum dinner was a hit with us both. The soup was both sour & spicy and yummy. We always love the lobster potstickers (the original batch was much prettier. Our stovetop seems somewhat unlevel after the Sears man's work.. which left the potstickers on the topside of the pant stick & tear.) We were pleasantly happy with the Trader Joe's pork buns, soft & slightly sweet. Very tasty but also a bit fiiling.

Tyler Florence Hot & Sour Soup

We ended up opening a bottle of Milbrandt Chardonnay to finish dinner up. It was quite good. Milbrandt was one of our unexpected winery finds on our Fall Prosser trip but we didn't purchase any of their whites in our case so we hadn't had any since the tasting room. We continue to be happy with their wines.

G wants me to add that we ended our meal with a taste 72% dark chocolate along with a glass of '08 Mercer Syrah from Horse Heaven Hills. It's a 15.1% alcohol wine so it's heavy on the nose at first sniff. Not much pepper or spice more blueberry notes. But mostly alcohol at this point. May need some time but 15.1% is going to be a big wine regardless. G is on the fence but T still loves Mercer wines.