Asian-Inspired Dinner Party: Dumplings, Miso-Marinated Cod, and Soba

Shiitake Mushroom and Bomboo Shoot Dumplings

“Should we have some people over?” my mother asked.

Well, yes, certainly.

Two hours before the dinner party…

Me: “You have no idea what I’m making, do you?”
Mom: “No. If you got hit by a car I would have no idea what to do for dinner.”
Me: “I’m glad that’s your first concern when I get hit by a car.”

Hilarious, my mother.

I subsequently told her the dinner plans several times, just in case. They were as follows:

1st course
Steamed Ground Turkey and Scallion Dumplings
Steamed Shiitake Mushroom and Bamboo Shoot Dumplings
with hoisin, sweet soy mirin, dark soy dipping sauces and Guizhou Chile Paste

2nd course
Steamed Miso-Marinated cod with sake mirin sauce

3rd course
Soba Spelt (so not really soba, I know) Noodles
Desserts
Mango Jelly
Citrus Jelly
Lychee Frozen Yogurt
Banana Sherbet
Rum Caramel Oranges
The whole concept was to make the dinner a one dish meal (minus dessert). So a pot of home-made shrimp broth was used to steam the 80 dumplings (home-made wrappers this time), then the same dish was used to steam the fish and then the noodles were cooked in the broth that by that time had received all the juices that popped out of the dumplings and some of the marinade of the fish. It became thick and sweet and savoury all at once. The broth is the best part. You serve the noodles in a bowl and ladle over the broth…mmm…

Rum Caramel Oranges

Dessert became ridiculous. I made the rum caramel oranges out of curiosity, but then I wanted something less alcoholic, and the banana sherbet recipe jumped out at me…except it also had rum. For awhile I’d been thinking banana flambé but that seemed a bit over the top. That had rum, too, but flambéing is the most impressive easy thing for a dinner party. So I figured another frozen dessert – the lychee frozen yogurt. The frozen yogurt had dairy, though, and I needed something dairy-free for my mom. So I added a really elegant citrus jelly recipe in Josée di Stasio’s A la di Stasio that was pictured served in little port glasses with sprigs of mint.

Citrus Jelly

I couldn’t stop there. The next page of the book was a version of kid-friendly jelly where a child could use cookie cutters to cut out jello shapes. Oh, I didn’t mention that there was a youngster coming to dinner. She actually ate the dumplings! Loved the hoisin sauce, and loved the jelly. Oh yeah, the other reason for the desserts was to not waste things. I wanted to make the lychee frozen yogurt but you drain the cans of lychees, so I used the liquid as a substitute for mirin (because grocery stored here don’t carry the stuff) as well as adding the little bit that remained to the kid-friendly jelly.Anyway, the meal, and especially the amount of fruit-based desserts, was over the top. The funny part was that the meal was really not gourmet. It was home-style cooking. Dumplings, fish, noodles would be standards, simply made. I didn’t even do a whole fish. Nothing really exotic. All steamed. No complicated operations. Nothing wasteful.