Spider-Man: Aunt May's recipe for wheatcakes!
Spider-Man: Huh! I could never make it work on my own.
Spider-Man: The infamous dumpling recipe.
Spider-Man: Should've come with, "Step ten: try not to burn everything in MJ's apartment".
Hey whats up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week
we are returning to the land of food from video games,
as the new Spider-Man game contains the Babish holy grail -- some actual written recipes
-- and even more exciting, the dumpling recipe calls for store-bought wrappers.
Hallelujah, all praise be to Marvel.
But why don't we start with Aunt May's wheat cakes
We're combining 1 cup each buckwheat and whole wheat flour,
sifting the latter for some reason, adding 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
And in a separate bowl combining 2 cups of buttermilk with 2 teaspoons of molasses.
Forgive yourself for being under the weather and not banging on all cylinders and forgetting to
add a teaspoon of salt to the dry mixture, and an entire cup of buttermilk to the wet mixture.
Luckily, we caught our mistakes just in time, and we can move on to whipping our egg whites.
Stiff but not dry, as the recipe specifies -- I'm not entirely sure what that means.
That looks pretty "stiff but not dry" to me.
Setting that aside, to the dry mixture we are adding 2 beaten egg yolks with tiny whisk's best friend, tiny spatula,
our correctly proportioned buttermilk mixture, and 1/4 cup of melted butter.
Just like any ol' pancake, we are endeavoring not to overmix.
I don't care if it's lumpy, don't overmix.
Once the mixture just barely comes together, we are gently folding in the egg whites, creating a surprisingly fluffy batter.
The recipe then calls for frying on a greased skillet -- I'm going to take that as bacon grease.
And once we've got that shimmering, it's time to add a generous dollop of our wheatcake mixture,
letting cook over medium-low heat until bubbles form on the surface,
and the bottom is browned and crisp.
Finish cooking on the second sides, stack 'em high, top them with a generous pat of butter,
and a very generous drizzling of maple syrup.
The only thing sweetening these pancakes is 2 teaspoons of molasses
so I have a feeling they're going to need some help -- and they do.
These are perfectly competent buckwheat pancakes. No complaints.
Not entirely sure why they're Peter's favorite either, but they're decidedly not going to enter the clean plate club.
Why don't we take a crack at a recipe that I think has a decent shot of ending up in those hallowed halls?
We're starting by making a dipping sauce
out of 1 half to one cup of soy sauce, one tablespoon of
seasoned rice wine vinegar, and then 2 table spoons of Chinese chives also known as garlic chives
they're a little hard to find so if you can't just supplement with regular chives and a little bit of fresh garlic,
lastly one tablespoon of sesame seeds and one heaping teaspoon of garlic chili sauce.
Whisk together briskly using tiny whisk
and set aside so we can do the thing that I've been dreading all week
stuffing the dumplings
This recipe is a very basic pork filling
of one pound of ground pork
to which we our going to add 3 large cloves of finely minced garlic and one beaten egg
this is going to give a little structure and body to our filling.
And then another 2 tablespoons of the aforementioned Chinese chives
finely minced
and in addition two table spoons of soy sauce
I forgot to film the addition of one and one half table spoons of the all important sesame oil
last up is one tablespoon or about a one inch knob of finely minced fresh ginger
were adding all these things to the bowl and mixing it thoroughly
until we get a nice fully Incorporated pork meat filling
now the recipe at this point simply states to fill, seal and crimp the dumplings
something that I'm really bad at
so
fingers crossed as we lightly dust our work surface with flour
and using our finger we're going to gently wet the outside edge of our dumpling wrapper
then once the whole outside edge has been w e t t e d
were placing I'd say about a rounded teaspoon of the filling
into the center of the wrapper
then folding the wrapper in half and pinching where the edges meet
wetting the outside of the wrapper
and making 3 pleats on each side of the dumpling to seal it shut
I'm sorry I know I'm not doing a very good job of showing what I'm doing here I
I have included a link in the video description that shows how to do this properly
once we got this guy all sealed up and the top edge all curled in half like a half moon kinda I dunno
we're rinsing and repeating with the remaining filling and dumpling wrappers
this is definitely an acquired skill
and this is definitely my first time doing it
so i will re visit dumpling wrapping technique is future episodes
you know when I've gotten like half way decent at it
anyway we're heating up some vegetable oil in the bottom of a non stick fry pan
until quite hot
adding the dumplings and making sure that each one is coated with a little bit of oil on the bottom side
and cooking until lovely and brown
and then were going to add into the hot pan about half a cup of water
lowering the heat to medium low covering and letting steam and cook fully for about 5 minutes
ok my dumpling game is definitely not 100% but these are pretty... pretty good looking
for a first attempt you know
sorry I'm getting a little rambly but I am sick and on medication
anyway at long last it is dipping time
and i can tell you right now this is a real solid dumpling recipe
if you have ever wanted to make classic Chinese pork dumplings
this is a great place to start
it tastes like every Chinese pork dumpling I've ever had
which is to say awesome
don't worry I know I'm double dipping but I'm the only one here
Sawyer's working from home today
and while I don"t have the appetite right now to put these in the clean plate club
I'm going to put them in the I ate six of them club which is still a pretty high honour
nah what the hell lets make it 7 welcome spider-man dumplings to the I ate 7 of them club.
:]