Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 (40 page)

BOOK: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2

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P. F. CHANG’S CHICKEN IN SOOTHING LETTUCE WRAPS

MENU DESCRIPTION:
“Quickly cooked spiced chicken served with cool lettuce cups.”

Throw in a few initials with a little twist on the last part, and you have the name of Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang’s Chinese bistro creation, P. F. Chang’s. Since the first location opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1993, over 124 new ones have sprouted up across the country—in more than 33 states. No matter the location, it’s this dish that gets first raves. Like the very-dead McDonald’s McD.L.T hamburger, which disappeared around the time the first P F. Chang’s opened, the contrasting textures of the cool crispy lettuce and the hot meat filling come together in your mouth for a tasty oral dance party. According to waiters, those little dark bits in the chicken filling mix are “black mushrooms,” and there’s a good chance your local supermarket doesn’t stock them. But a great alternative can be found in the Asian food section—canned straw mushrooms. Just remember to chop the chicken, water chestnuts and mushrooms up real good for the final saute. Slip this filling into a lettuce cup, fold it up like a taco, add a little “special sauce,” get down tonight.

SPECIAL SAUCE
¼
cup granulated sugar
½
cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
I tablespoon lemon juice
⅛ teaspoon sesame oil
I tablespoon Chinese hot mustard
powder (see Tidbits)
2 teaspoons water
I to 3 teaspoons chili garlic sauce

STIR FRY SAUCE
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon rice vinegar

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 skinless chicken breast fillets
1 cup diced canned water
chestnuts (1 8-ounce can)
cup diced
canned
straw
mushrooms
3 tablespoons chopped green onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic (I clove)

I cup fried maifun rice sticks (see
Tidbits)
4 to 5 iceberg lettuce cups

1. Make the special sauce (for spooning over your lettuce wraps) by dissolving the ¼cup sugar in ½ cup water in a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons ketchup, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and ⅛ teaspoon sesame oil. Mix well and refrigerate this sauce until you’re ready to serve the lettuce wraps. Combine the 2 teaspoons water with the Chinese hot mustard and set this aside as well. Eventually you will add your desired measurement of Chinese mustard and garlic chili sauce to the special sauce mixture to pour over your lettuce wraps. In the restaurant chain, waiters prepare the sauce at your table the same way, depending on your desired heat level. I’ll talk more about that later.

2. Prepare the stir fry sauce by mixing the soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar together in a small bowl.

3. To prepare the filling for your lettuce wraps, bring 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil to high heat in a wok or large frying pan. Saute the chicken breasts for 4 to 5 minutes per side or until done. Remove chicken from the pan to cool. Keep the oil in the pan.

4. As the chicken cools be sure your water chestnuts and mushrooms have been diced to about the size of small peas.

5. When you can handle the chicken, hack it up with a sharp knife so that no piece is bigger than a dime. With the wok or pan on high heat, add the remaining tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the chicken, water chestnuts, mushrooms, green onion, and garlic to the pan. Add the stir fry sauce to the pan and saute the mixture for a couple minutes then spoon it into a dish lined with a bed of fried rice noodles (maifun).

6. Serve chicken with a side of lettuce cups. Make these lettuce cups by slicing the top off of a head of iceberg lettuce right through the middle of the head. Pull your lettuce cups off of the outside of this slice.

7. Make the special sauce at the table by adding your desired measurement of mustard and chill sauce to the special sauce blend: I teaspoon each of mustard and chili sauce for mild, 2 teaspoons each for medium and 3 teaspoons of each for hot. Stir well.

8. Assemble lettuce wraps by spooning filling into a lettuce cup, adding special sauce over the top, folding the sucker up like a taco, then munching down upon it with reckless abandon.

• SERVES 2 TO 3 AS AN APPETIZER.

TIDBITS

Follow the directions on the package for frying the maifun (rice sticks)—usually by pouring 2 inches of vegetable oil into a pan and heating to around 400 degrees. Add maifun, a little at a time, and when it floats to the top remove it to a paper towel. The rapid noodle expansion is actually quite exciting.

Rather than powdered Chinese hot mustard, you can instead use the kind that comes already prepared in the bottle so that you don’t have to add water Your choice.

P. F. CHANG’S SHRIMP DUMPLINGS

MENU DESCRIPTION:
“Served with a ginger chili pepper soy sauce. (Pan-fried or steamed.)”

Shrimp Dumplings from P. F. Chang’s are scrumptious mounds of shrimp and other yummy ingredients wrapped in wonton wrappers and steamed. You can also order them pan-fried, which makes the bottom of each little package a nice crispy brown. The dumplings are served with a soy-based dipping sauce that can be cloned by combining six ingredients in a saucepan. Recreating that part was easy. But those dumplings—oh, man! I must have gone through a couple boatloads of shrimp trying to figure out the best way to get my filling to hold together like the real thing. I tried adding egg and cornstarch and potato starch and flour to pureed cooked shrimp, but all I got was a shrimp mush that made the dumplings starchy and less flavorful than the real deal. It was only when I remembered hearing about how years ago shrimp molds were created into which pureed raw shrimp was poured and then cooked, creating uniform shrimp shapes that still had the taste and texture of unprocessed shrimp. No binders necessary. So get out your food processor and prepare yourself for the not-so-pretty sight of pulverized raw shrimp. At least you don’t have to worry about the size of the shrimp you buy for this recipe, since you’re going to mash up the little dudes anyway.

SAUCE
½
cup water
¼
cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
I tablespoon chopped green
onion (green part only)
½
teaspoon chili oil

FILLING
½
pound raw shrimp (peeled and
deveined)
1
tablespoon finely minced carrot
I tablespoon finely minced green
onion
1
teaspoon minced fresh ginger
½ teaspoon minced fresh garlic
¼
teaspoon salt
¼
teaspoon granulated sugar

8 wonton wrappers
1. egg, beaten

1. Make dipping sauce by simmering ingredients over medium heat for 1 minute. Remove the sauce from the heat and set it aside to cool.

2. Make shrimp filling for the dumplings by pureeing the shrimp in a food processor until it makes a smooth paste. Add carrot, green onion, ginger, garlic, salt, and sugar and pulse the food processor a couple times to mix.

3. Measure a heaping tablespoon of this filling into the center of a wonton wrapper. Brush beaten egg on each of the top four edges. Bring two opposite corners up to meet in the middle and press together over the filling. Bring the other two opposite corners up and pinch all the edges together making a square package with sealed edges. Repeat with the remaining ingredients and let the dumplings sit for about ten minutes in the refrigerator so that the “egg glue” sets up.

4. Prepare a steamer with hot water When the water is simmering and steaming nicely drop in the dumplings (four at a time if your steamer is small) and steam them for 15 minutes. Serve these immediately if you want steamed dumplings. To clone the pan-fried version heat up some vegetable oil that’s about ¼-inch deep in a skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot place the steamed dumpling with the flat side down in the oil and saute for a couple of minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. Serve with the dipping sauce.

• SERVES 2 TO 4 (MAKES 8 DUMPLINGS).