Mongolian Heavy Metal Dumplings
Purim meets St Patrick's Day, NYC & Dallas dates, plus Filipino sisig
Pacific Islander Creativity & Filipino Sisig
What do you do when you are a creative person making your way through your corporate day job but longing to do something that feeds your art and showcases your culture? You create a magazine, of course. What happens when your family and other members of your culture don’t see creative endeavors as a viable way of making money? You do it anyway.
This is basically how Pacificus Magazine editor in chief Robin Uata started his publication highlighting artists and other creative people from the Pacific Islands. Robin was born and raised in the United States but his parents are from Tonga, and growing up in Utah surrounded by a strong Tongan and Polynesian community, Robin felt he wanted to showcase the amazing creative community of the islands and diaspora.
I spent a few hours with Robin and his wife, Venz, at their home in Utah while we chatted about the magazine and Robin’s upbringing. However, we weren’t cooking Tongan food. Venz is from the Philippines and whipped up a fantastic dish of minced pork called sisig. Robin admits he doesn’t really know how to cook Tongan food since his parents felt that he and his siblings would be better off putting American customs first. Now, both Robin and Venz are adamant about cooking Filipino food in their home to teach their daughter and solidify her cultural roots. We talked about the many layers and nuances of being Tongan in Utah, pursuing creative endeavors when family support isn’t initially there, and raising kids in a multi-cultural household. See the photo session and read the full interview, as well as get some tips for cooking a top-notch sisig on the blog.
1,000 Camels, Buuz & The Hu
The Bactrian camel is a two-humped floof of a camel that has been essential to the nomadic people of the Gobi Desert steppes for potentially thousands of years. But the camels populations had been in steady decline throughout the 20th century, putting in peril not only the existence of this glorious shaggy beast, but the culture it has been a part of for so long. That is until 1997 when the Thousand Camel Festival began, bringing together thousands of people and camels to promote breeding and raise awareness. Now, there are roughly 460,000 Bactrian camels throughout Mongolia, and the festival is a centerpiece of rural Mongolian life in March. There’s camel races, camel polo, camel & human beauty pageants, a camel parade, dairy products for sale, wool exhibitions and a whole lot more.
For my cooking video this week, I’m making a ubiquitous Mongolian food called buuz. It’s a meat-filled dumpling that’s steamed and found pretty much everywhere in the country. My dumpling skills need a lot of work, but I was particularly excite to try this recipe since it’s from one my my favorite bands The Hu. They are a heavy metal rock band (the pun in their name is definitely intended) utilizing traditional Mongolian throat singing in their songs. Bask in their glory here.
With practice I’m sure I’ll get these dumplings down but don’t judge my technique if you watch the video on Instagram this week. But after you’ve made your ears bleed listening to their music on full blast, try their buuz recipe for yourself.
Hamantaschen Hybrids
When two holidays overlap, it becomes necessary to combine those holidays’ signature dishes into a bastardized version that is probably insulting to both cultures. Thus, this year for Purim (which also falls over St. Patrick’s Day), I’m attempting corned beef & cabbage hamantaschen. Searching the Google comes up with zero results for such a delicacy, probably for good reason. So I haven no idea how these will come out, but I’ll be making up some sort of filling with diced corned beef, cabbage and minced carrots, which will be surrounded by this hot water crust recipe from Food52.
If corned beef & cabbage wasn’t enough, I’ve also decided to do a sweet hamantaschen version utilizing Lucky Charms. Again, I don’t know how this is going to go down, but you’ll be able to watch the results of both recipes on the 16th & 17th on Instagram.
To save you grief, I’ve included a classic hamantaschen recipe (pictured above) from the cookbook my great-grandma’s retirement community put together.
Classic Hamantaschen
INGREDIENTS
For the dough:
1/2 cup honey
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
Rind of an orange and lemon
Juice of 1/2 orange and 1/2 lemon
For the prune filling (alternatively, just use your favorite fruit preserves):
3 cups finely chopped dried prunes
1/2 cup nuts
2 tablespoons fine cake crumbs
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
Sugar to taste (optional)
Combine all filling ingredients and let stand while preparing dough.
DIRECTIONS
Mix all dough ingredients together. Divide dough in four portions and roll to about 1/8 inch thick. Using the rim of a water glass, cut dough into circles. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each circle. Fold the ends in to form triangles. Pinch the corners together to seal.
Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. Yields 4 dozen large or 6 dozen small.
Heading to NYC (family & cookbook sessions available)
Originally I was planning to head to the NYC tri-state area the last week of March, but have had to amend my plans a bit. I’ve nailed down dates for Dallas as well. Below are the all the current travel dates I have scheduled. Reply to this email to schedule a session, or get the info guide through the link below!
NYC: April 6-13
Southern California: June 20-25
Utah: Summer 2022
NYC: September 2022
Dallas: October 14-18