Event #25: Dim Sum-one Say "Birthday"

Menu
May 8, 2021

Course One
Spicy Chili Oil Pork Dumplings

Course Two
Yuzu Shio Ramen with Pork Belly and Soft Boiled Egg

Course Three
Char Siu Bao

Course Four
Shiitake Mushrooms and Shishito Pepper Stir-Fry

Course Five
Okonomiyaki with Kai Lan in Oyster Sauce

Dessert
Boba Cake

Beverages
The Mrs. Olson

Some people may know it was my birthday on May 4th. My mom always says I was her Mother's Day present, because I made her a mom just in time to celebrate. So this year, we decided to squish the two celebrations together to do a Birthday/Mother's Day lunch.

My best gift this year was definitely John getting his second vaccine shot, which happened on May 6th. This allowed us to all gather safely, as not only had everyone who came over had two shots, the only one who wasn't yet fully immune was John. So we finally felt comfortable moving from our "micro" AJRBS to a mini-one (I know I have been calling all the other one mini ones, but John corrected me yesterday to say that this was a mini, and all the others were actually micro...)

As you can imagine, this year, John and I have watched A LOT of TV. One of the shows that we've stumbled upon is Britian's Best Home Cook. Spoiler alert, the winner of the first season is Pippa Middlehurst, who made lots of delicious looking Asian-inspired dishes. As a gift, John got me her cookbook and, wow. This has got to be one of the best cookbooks we've purchased - the instructions are so easy to follow and pretty much everything we have made from there has been delicious. We built our menu around that, as we have been enjoying her recipes so much (and we knew my grandma and mom would like the dim-sum-esque approach).

Now, typically almost every dish that we make for AJRBs has been untested - but not this time! We had actually practiced a few, like the char siu bao buns for Course Three. But let's start chronologically! Course One were spicy chili oil pork dumplings, and we thought they would be similar to a dish we really enjoy when we all used to be able to go out for meals as a family. John actually made the chili oil from scratch the week before, and it showed - they were different than what we expected because they had a lot more heat - but they were delicious. Which is ideal, because John and I spent forty-five minutes that morning folding those little guys!

Our Course Two was...well, there were a lot of elements to break down. The pork belly, as you can imagine, was everyone's favorite part but I was extremely proud of my handmade ramen noodles. They were surprisingly easy and something we definitely hope to do again. Our biggest letdown was the broth - we accidentally read the recipe wrong and added too much of the special brine (tare) that goes at the bottom before you ladle the chicken broth (also homemade by John) and it ended up being way too salty. But lesson learned and we look forward to recreating this properly in the future.

Course Three was, as I mentioned, a repeat. However, this time, it was even more delicious than when John made it the first time. When I have had char siu bao buns from restaurants, usually the bun is kind of crumbly - but these were like the ones you would get with Peking Duck so the bao is extra delicious. Plus, I love that John crams a lot of extra filling in there.

Our stir-fry was up next as a Course Four, which was more to make sure we got some vegetables involved. The shiitake mushrooms are always a hit with me, and once John mentioned that about one in ten shishitos are spicy, everyone at the table bit into each other their peppers to see if they had a "lucky" one haha.

Our last savory dish, Course Five, was something I'd never heard of but thought was rather interesting, Okonomiyaki. John described it as a pancake, and I would relatively agree with him but maybe more poufy? It was really light and kinda squishy - almost like the inside of an omelette. The side of greens was an excellent counterpoint, as it provided some vibrant crunch.

The last last course, was my Boba Cake, which I'm bummed to say, was just very okay. For future, I would definitely use straight tea leaves to get the taste to be stronger, as the milk tea concentrates were very faint. Additionally, would have topped the cake with the boba right before serving, so they could stay moist as long as possible. It is definitely something I'd like to revisit and make tweaks to though!

All in all, it was just so nice to have people back in our home that we could host, eat with, and laugh with. We can't wait until we are back to doing full AJRBs, no more of the "micro" or "mini" business soon enough, hopefully!