As far as Brad is concerned, they are the only potstickers worth eating – why even bother, he asks I, on the other hand, have yet to find a filling for these fried little dumplings that I don’t like, so I occasionally play with alternatives. This is, currently, my favorite alternative.

If the Pork & Ginger Apple potstickers taste like autumn, these ones taste like spring. The ingredients are fairly simple: crisp green onions and peas accompanied by sautéed spinach and mushrooms. The bright flavors of the onions and peas are balanced out by the dark, earthy spinach and, my favorite, mushrooms sautéed in butter and soy sauce.

Though the filling is mixed, the tedious (and somewhat off-putting) aspect of potstickers lies ahead: assembly. Though it’s not difficult to create these little pouches with a frilly, folded edge, it does take some time and is usually the reason I only make potstickers as a treat rather than a weeknight meal. However, because they freeze so nicely, putting the effort in for a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon can result in multiple super-quick weeknight meals from the freezer.

Plus, folding your potstickers be a simple or as complex as you like. When I first started, I just folded them over and squashed the edges together. I’ve seen fancy ones at restaurants with TONS of folds that must have been created by people with less chubby fingers than me. These days, I like my six-fold method, which provides makes them nice and pretty but also helps the bottom stay nice and flat for a larger crisping area.

Suddenly, after working six at a time, you’ll have a whole army of perfect little pouches.

At this point, you can freeze the potstickers for future quick dinners. Or, you can cook them by crisping the bottom, steaming the dumplings, and then re-crisping the bottom again before serving.

The resulting potstickers are delightfully springy. You could certainly put all the ingredients in a food processor if you want a smoother texture, but I like the contrast between the bright, crisp peas and the soft, salty mushrooms. You can also mix up the ingredients, if you like. Prefer edamame instead of peas Tofu instead of mushrooms They’re quite flexible.

Happy spring dining!

Sweet Pea & Mushroom Potstickers

Makes about 48 potstickers

2 c frozen or fresh peas
1 bunch scallions
1 pound white mushrooms
2 T unsalted butter
2 T soy sauce
1 tsp freshly-grated ginger
4 oz fresh spinach
40-50 dumpling wrappers
canola or vegetable oil
chicken stock
soy sauce for dipping

Pour peas into a large mixing bowl (if using fresh peas, blanch peas and drain thoroughly before adding to the bowl). Chop scallions and add them to the bowl. Slice mushrooms, then wash and pat dry spinach.

Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add butter, mushrooms, soy sauce, and ginger. Sauté until mushrooms have cooked down and are nicely browned. Pour the mushrooms into the mixing bowl and return the pan to the stove, reducing the heat to medium. Add spinach and toss until it cooks down to be quite wilted, about 3 minutes. Add the spinach tot he mixing bowl and mix all ingredients well.

To form the potstickers, work in batches of no more than 6-8 at a time to prevent the wrappers from drying out. Place about two tablespoons of filling on each wrapper. You’ll want enough filling that the pouch will seem like it almost won’t close, but not so much that it doesn’t close. Dip your finger in a small bowl of water and wet the edge of the wrapper all the way around.

Fold the edges together to form a half moon shape by making a small fold in the front flap and pressing that fold against the back flap between your thumb and finger. Create another fold to the right of that and press against the back flap, and then another. Repeat with three more folds down the other side so that the entire pouch is sealed. You can daub additional water onto the wrapper if needed. Place completed potstickers on a cookie sheet and cover with a cloth to prevent the edges from drying out. Continue until all filling is used.

To cook the potstickers, heat a sauté that has a lid over medium heat. Add just enough oil to the pan to cover the bottom and heat until the oil glistens. Add the potstickers to the pan (as many as can comfortably fit with a bit of space in between) with the frilly seam facing up. Allow potstickers to cook without moving them for 3-4 minutes or until the bottom is golden-brown and crisp to the touch. Add 1/4 chicken stock to the pan and quickly add the lid. Steam the potstickers for 2 minutes.

Remove the lid and cook for one additional minute so the bottoms of the potstickers crisp back up. Remove to a serving tray and repeat with remaining potstickers. You may need to add more oil between each batch.

Serve immediately with soy sauce. You can jazz up the soy sauce a bit by adding a pinch of garlic, ginger, or red pepper if you like.

To Freeze: If you want to freeze your potstickers, freeze them before you cook them by laying them on a cookie sheet so they are not touching and freeze until solid. Then place them all in a freezer-safe plastic bag and store. To cook, use the same sear/steam/sear instructions as above, though you may need an extra minute of steaming.

The food-focused internet is positively abuzz with recipes for Chinese dumplings, stir fries, and noodles to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’ve packed to eat for the day: just a few minutes skimming my Google Reader has me craving Chinese food well before lunchtime.

Aside from vegetable-packed stir fries (and an occasional, unbelievably tasty batch of potstickers), I don’t cook a lot of Chinese food at home. Most recipes tend to call for ingredients that I don’t usually have on hand, and it’s soooooo easy to order takeout. But I was recently invited by a fellow blogger, Diana of Appetite for China, to participate in a “Virtual Potluck” to celebrate the New Year and the release of her new cookbook, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. She posted six sneak-peek recipes from the book on her site. And my only task Make one, adapted it to my own needs, and post! How could I resist?

There have always been two things that I’ve found daunting about making a dish like General Tso’s. The first is the large number of ingredients that I don’t cook with frequently and don’t keep on hand as staples. It turns out, though, that was a ridiculous thing to find daunting. Each and every ingredients was readily available at the grocery store, and I used such tiny amounts that I will be able to make many, many more batches of this meal before I need to buy more.

The other daunting factor was that of deep-frying chicken. If I want to make this meal frequently, I can’t use three cups of oil every time. But I still want the crisp, crunchy shell that makes this dish so appealing.

After a quick soak in marinade, I still battered the chicken in cornstarch, but I found that pan-frying it in a few tablespoons of oil gave me plenty of crisp and plenty of crunch, but without the excess of frying oil. Totally feasible on a week night, on lots of week nights.

As I tasted my first bite of this spicy, tangy meal, I wondered why it took me so long to try it out. I’m guessing it won’t be very long at all before I make it again.

To those of you celebrating the Year of the Snake this week, Happy New Year! To those of you who are not, Happy Homemade Takeout!

General Tso’s Chicken
Adapted from Appetite for China

Serves 2

For the Marinade
1/2 T soy sauce
1/2 T cooking sherry
1 egg white
8 oz skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into one-inch cubes

In a medium bowl, whisk together soy sauce, cooking sherry, and egg white. Cut chicken into one-inch cubes and add to the marinade, mixing well with a fork, and set aside for at least 10 minutes while you prepare the sauce.

For the Sauce
3 T chicken stock
1 T tomato paste
3/4 T soy sauce
3/4 T rice vinegar
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp chili paste
1 tsp vegetable oil
3/4 T sugar
1 tsp cornstarch

Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

Coating and Cooking
about 3/4 c cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4-5 T vegetable oil
1/4 tsp chili flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
sesame seeds for garnish
scallion greens, sliced thinly, for garnish

In a pie plate or other deep plate, mix together corn starch, salt, and black pepper. Scoop chicken out of the marinade and place in the cornstarch, turning and mixing until all pieces are coated. The mixture will be somewhat sticky.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the chicken pieces to the pan. Toss the chicken as it cooks, making sure that all sides of the pieces are crispy. Cook the chicken for 10-15 minutes until golden-brown and crispy. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels. Pour excess oil out of the pan but do not wipe clean.

Return pan to the heat. Add minced garlic and chili flakes to the pan and toss gently for about 20 seconds. Add sauce to the pan and allow to thicken for about 30 seconds. Turn off the heat and return chicken to the pan. Toss chicken until thoroughly coated.

Serve over a bed of rice, garnished with sesame seeds and scallion greens.

This dish came out of one such rooting. An excess of white rice, leftover almonds from my holiday toffee-making, a can of water chestnuts, and chicken and peas from the freezer, seemingly disparate parts, became something great together as this Almond Chicken. With the addition of a green onion and a bit of sherry and soy sauce, it’s a quick meal that requires only a few minutes of stir-frying and a fluffy bed of rice.

I know that January, for many people, is synonymous with cleansing diets and post-holiday de-cluttering. For me I’ve added in the goal to focus on using up foods from my pantry. My tendency, especially since starting this blog, is never to make the same thing twice so I always have something new to share with you, which sometimes causes me to abandon my dry goods for excesses of fresh produce or obscure ingredients.

This dish, if anything, has reminded me that there’s a lot of good stuff hiding out in my narrow kitchen cabinet. With a little planning and creative thinking those random ends-of-this and half-packs-of-that can come together for a dish that is filling, flavorful, and new.

Almond Chicken
Adapted from Appetite for China

Serves 3-4

3 T canola or vegetable oil
12 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1″ pieces
1 egg white
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
8 oz container sliced water chestnuts, drained
1/2 c frozen or fresh peas
1 scallion, chopped
1 c whole almonds
3 T soy sauce
2 T cooking sherry

Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan or wok over medium heat. Chop chicken into one-inch pieces and combine in a bowl with the egg white, salt, and cornstarch. Mix well with a fork and set aside. Chop the scallion, drain the water chestnuts, and measure out the almonds, peas, soy sauce, and sherry: the meal cooks quickly once you begin.

Dump chicken pieces into the hot oil and sauté until it begins turning golden brown on the outside and the chicken is barely white all the way through. Add water chestnuts and sauté for another 2-3 minutes. Add peas, scallion, almonds, soy sauce, and sherry and cook, mixing often, for another 2-3 minutes.

Serve over steamed rice.

I told you on Thursday, when I posted this Ginger Apple Chutney, that I would have a recipe utilizing it that would blow your dang socks off. This, my friends, is it.

I must be honest: until about one year ago, I never so much as ordered potstickers or Chinese dumplings as take-out. I thought they looked, frankly, kind of gross. So sad and pekid compared to the seemingly superior fried wontons farther down the menu.

Oh, how times have changed.

Suddenly, I’ve become obsessed with these tiny pouches of savory filling. I order them whenever I find them on a menu and often abandon any pretense of planning to order an entree, simply doubling up on potstickers. As someone who loves ravioli, finger food, and anything dippable, I really can’t say why it took me 25 years to see the salty, potsticker-y light.

And what better way to truly embrace the potsticker than to make them from scratch Having found this fantastic recipe for filling, I also wanted to try my hand at making homemade wonton/potsticker wrappers. That’s just sort of what I do here.

While it is a bit time-consuming and I totally understand if you want to buy yours from the store, I urge you to try it at least once from scratch, especially if you have a pasta crank. These homemade wrappers are soft, not at all rubbery, and can be made in any size that you want (though I found a 3-inch diameter to be absolutely perfect).

Like most doughs, homemade wonton wrappers start with a sifter full of flour, some warm water, and a fork.

Once the dough is mixed, barely pliable due to its low moisture content, it needs to sit for a while. Just cover the bowl with a damp cloth so the little moisture that IS in this dough doesn’t escape.

After an hour or so, the dough is kneaded for a few minutes until it’s fairly smooth. From here, you have a few options to turn this mound of wheat flour into paper thin wonton wrappers. The source recipe I used for these recommends rolling the dough into a log, slicing the log into discs, and rolling each disc to the desired thickness that will hopefully yield a 3-inch circle.

I decided to scrap those suggestions and take advantage of two of my favorite kitchen gadgets: my pasta crank and a 3-inch Tartmaster (whose full talents weren’t utilized today but that I’ve used on other projects).

Let me once again bestow praise upon my pasta crank. No, it’s not something you absolutely need in your kitchen. But if you have any of the DIY pasta impluses that I do, I highly recommend the investment. I bought a pretty cheap one for about $35 a couple years ago, and for my purposes, it serves me incredibly well. I daydream about those beautiful, fandangled KitchenAid pasta attachments, but I’m gonna need to wait for a wealthier day than this to add those to my arsenal.

But in the meantime, I still used this cheap little crank to form about 50 perfectly round, uniform wonton wraps.

With my tidy little stack of wonton wraps ready to go, it was time to start the filling. I’d already made a batch of ginger apple chutney, so the rest of the filling came together rather quickly. Don’t worry: if you don’t can and don’t want to make the full-size batch, I’ve included a proportional recipe below that will give you just the right amount to make this filling. So you have no excuse.

The chutney is added to a pound of ground pork, which is seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and studded with some fresh, green scallions. It took all of my willpower not to shovel spoons full of it before a single potsticker was made.

But I resisted. And soon, my little potsticker factory was a-churnin’.

To cook them, the key is to have a flat-bottomed pan with a lid. A sauté pan is perfect, but a lidded frying pan or even a wide, lidded pot will work in a pinch. The potstickers are first pan-fried on one side in a bit of oil and then blasted with a little chicken stock to steam. They cook very quickly, so make sure you don’t start cooking them until right before you are ready to eat.

Because trust me: once you do have them cooked, you will absolutely not be able to resist eating every single potsticker in sight.

Homemade Wonton Wrappers
Adapted from La Fuji Mama

Makes 40-55 wrappers

2 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
about 3/4 c very hot water
additional flour for rolling

Sift flour and salt together into a large, wide bowl. Add water a little at a time until you have about 1/4 c of water remaining. Mix flour and water with a fork or chopsticks to form a dough, switching to your fingers when it becomes too difficult to mix with a fork. Add as much of the remaining water as you need to gather all dry ingredients into the dough. Dough should be very stiff and not sticky. Form dough into a ball and leave it in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow dough to rest for one hour.

Once dough has rested, remove it from the bowl and knead for 5-10 minutes until dough is fairly smooth. Break off a small chunk of the dough and return the rest to the cloth-covered bowl. If you have a pasta crank, run the small piece of dough through the machine several times, starting on the largest setting and running the dough through at least one time on each setting all the way to “1”. The result should be a long, very thin piece of dough about 4-5 inches wide. If you do not have a pasta crank, roll the dough as thin as you can with a rolling pin on a floured surface.

Use a round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter about 3″ in diameter to cut out your wrappers. Dust each side generously with flour until the whole wrapper feels dusty and slightly gritty. This will allow you to stack the wrappers without them sticking together. Continue this process until all dough has been utilized, recombining the scraps to prevent wasting any.

Wrap stack of wrappers tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to add the filling.

Pork & Ginger Apple Potstickers
Adapted from Katie at the Kitchen Door and Alton Brown

Makes 40-45 potstickers

NOTE: I thought it would be a brilliant idea to cook half of these & save the rest for the next day in the fridge. It was not. They all stuck together and tore as I tried to separate them. If you don’t want to cook them all at once, I recommend either keeping the filling separate and making the potstickers right before you cook them, or, you can freeze the constructed potstickers on a cookie sheet and then bag them up for storage. Then, thaw them out for a couple of hours before cooking.

For the Filling
40-50 wonton wrappers (see recipe above or use store-bought, round if you can find them)
1 pound ground pork
1/4 tsp black pepper
2/3 c scallions, chopped into 1/4″ pieces (whites & greens)
3 T soy sauce
1 c ginger apple chutney
OR
Combine the following ingredients according to the instructions listed here to make a batch of chutney proportioned for the potstickers.
1/3 c onion, diced
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
2 medium crisp apples, peeled & diced into 1/4″ pieces
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp canola oil
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 c apple cider
1/4 c apple cider vinegar

If you are making the small-portion batch of chutney, prepare that recipe first and set chutney aside.

Cook pork until lightly browned using a spatula to break chunks into small pieces. Drain off the excess grease and place pork in a large bowl. Add the black pepper, scallions, soy sauce, and chutney and mix well. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Place 12 wonton wrappers out on a cutting board. Scoop 1-2 tablespoons of filling onto the center of each wonton wrapper. It may take you a few attempts to determine the right amount: the potsticker, when sealed, should be full but not so full that it cannot be sealed closed. Dip the tip of your finger into water and lightly moisten the edge of the wonton wrapper all the way around. Fold the edges together to form a half-moon shape and squeeze the edges to form a seal. For added seal and decoration, you can fold the corners in slightly and make small folds in the edging. Place filled potstickers on another board and cover with a cloth to prevent them from drying out. Continue until all filling has been used.

Cooking the Potstickers
canola or vegetable oil
chicken stock, about 1 cup
chopped fresh chives (for garnishing)

Heat a sauté pan that has a lid (though the lid should not be on it right now) over medium heat. Measure out 1/4 cup of chicken stock and set aside. Brush a bit of oil onto the surface of the pin to form a very thin layer. Place potstickers on their sides into the pan, adding as many to the pan as will fit with a bit of space separating them (I was able to fit 12 in at a time). Allow potstickers to cook WITHOUT MOVING THEM for 2-3 minutes. Holding the 1/4 cup of chicken stock in one hand and the lid of the pan in the other, quickly pour the stock into the pan and immediately place the lid onto the pan. Allow potstickers to steam, undisturbed, for an additional 3 minutes.

Remove lid and remove potstickers to a serving plate. Deglaze the pan with water and repeat the cooking process for the remaining potstickers.

Serve potstickers immediately, garnished with chopped chives and served with dipping sauce if desired.

For the Dipping Sauce
3 T soy sauce
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Combine ingredients in a small dish. Stir well. Dip potstickers very lightly into the sauce, a little goes a long way!

For the last couple of weeks, my Google Reader has been buzzing with “game day” recipes. Game day party decorations. And game day craft projects (which seems a bit bizarre, don’t you think?), all in preparation that un-official American holiday: the Super Bowl!

I must confess, (braces for judgement) I’ve never really watched the Super Bowl. Neither of my parents were ever particularly big sports fan, and more often than not, we would go skiing or see a movie on Super Bowl Sunday to take advantage of empty slopes and matinee tickets. In fact, I was in college before I sat down to watch my first Super Bowl work on a paper in the corner at my dorm’s game day party.

But the food, the food! Such a celebratory spread of mind-bendingly delicious snack food I’ve never seen! Wings and ranch and chips and dips and cookies and sodas and crackers and cheeses and and and and… it’s an ode to snacking as much as it is to football. And I’m not a hater. If I could live on chips and salsa, I would totally do it.

But it’s pretty rare to see something green and fresh at a Super Bowl spread. Perhaps a veggie tray, accompanied by an obligatory bucket of dip, obviously. So I have a proposition for you: if you haven’t decided what to bring to your Super Bowl party of choice, make these.

These are warm and savory. These are crunchy and zippy. These are interactive and fun to eat. These are full of nuts and veggies and chicken and wrapped in a crisp leaf of lettuce.

Now wait! Don’t stop reading just because this is iceberg lettuce. I know, I know, iceberg lettuce isn’t winning any foodies’ choice awards these days. But it’s perfect for peeling apart, leaf by leaf, to form crisp shells that stay, cool, crunchy, and fresh despite the addition of the warm and saucy filling. Save the field greens (ha, football joke) for another day. (My god that was bad.)

Double this. Triple this. It will disappear even faster than the wings.

Chicken & Cashew Lettuce Cups
Adapted from Sierra, who adapted it from Real Simple

Serves 8 as an appetizer, 4 as a side, and 2-3 as an entrée

1/2 T canola oil
12 oz boneless skinless chicken, raw (or about 8 oz if using chicken that is already cooked)
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T grated ginger (or 1 tsp ground ginger)
16 oz water chestnuts, drained and diced
3 T soy sauce
3 T honey
1/2 c roasted cashews, unsalted
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 head iceberg lettuce

Remove outer layer of lettuce and discard. Working carefully, separate each leaf of lettuce from the head to form several “cups”. Store in the refrigerator until just before serving.

Cube chicken into bite size pieces. Mince garlic, grate ginger, and chop water chestnuts & green onions before you begin cooking. In a small dish, combine soy sauce and honey and mix well.

Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat until oil shimmers. Add chicken to pan and season with pepper. Cook just until browning begins. Stir in garlic & ginger and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in chestnuts and soy mixture. Stir fry until chicken is cooked through. Remove from heat. Add scallions and cashews and toss to mix well. Remove from pan to a serving bowl.

To serve, spoon chicken mixture into lettuce leaves and wrap leaves around mixture, forming a wrap of sorts.

So, I actually feel a little silly about the recipe I’m about to give, mostly because I rarely measure ANY of the ingredients when I make it myself. I also change the ingredients based on what’s in season and what I have. A lot.

But I’m sharing anyway because, quite simply, I love stir fry. I make it all the time. I mean, what an awesome go-to meal! It’s warm. It’s savory. It’s quick. It makes great leftovers. And it’s chock full of whatever vegetables are in season.

This is my first spring living in North Carolina, and I must say, I am impressed by the bounty of produce that is already available at the farmers market. Maybe this is all old hat for life-long North Carolinians, but to see this many vegetables fresh from the fields in early May is astonishing to me.

Now, I definitely could have gone with just these and had almost completely local stir fry. But I must confess, a few of my favorite stir fry add-ins are definitely not from around here. These three in particular lend a crunchiness that I find delectable against softened vegetables and chewy rice.

You should use whatever vegetables you want. My dream stir fry is probably not the same as your dream stir fry, and in fact, you may think I’m a bit odd for having a “dream stir fry” at all. Really, who says that?

If there is one place that stir fry can go terrible wrong, it’s the salt content. Take it from me… a couple of you may remember an extremely salty stir fry I made during college. Not realizing how much faster liquid boils off at the lower altitude where I resided at the time, I just kept adding more sauce as the liquid ran dry. Oh boy. It was awful. I’ve learned that lesson and now add WATER when I’m low on liquid.

While stir frying is most properly done in a wok, you definitely don’t need one to make this dish. I use an electric skillet because it’s the only flat pan I have that is large enough to accommodate this many vegetables. I’m sure you could use a large saute pan, as well.

Try it! Mix and match your favorite stir fry sauces, or create your own. Add chicken, tofu, shrimp, beef, or not. Make rice, or don’t. If you’re anything like me, you’ll end up with something new and surprising every time.

PS – Don’t forget to enter the contest to win a jar of strawberry jam. Enter before midnight on Friday for a chance to win!

Late Spring Stir Fry

I prefer to use fresh vegetables for my stir fries, but frozen vegetable will also work. Be aware that this may increase the water content in your stir fry, diluting the sauce. It may also increase the cooking time slightly.

2 T oil
4-8 oz chicken breast, chopped into small pieces (optional)
8-10 c mixed vegetables (this one has broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, onion, carrots, snap peas, celery, baby corn, water chestnuts, and cashews)
2 T teriyaki sauce
1/3 c stir fry sauce (I use a combination of teriyaki and General Tso sauce)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground marjoram
1/2 c water, separated into two cups
1 T corn starch

Chop all meat and vegetables you plan to use. The stir fry itself cooks quickly, so once you begin you’ll want everything ready. Set vegetables aside. Place chicken in a bowl that has a tight lid and add the 2 T of teriyaki sauce. Lid the bowl and shake it to coat the meat.  Heat 1 T of oil in a wok, large skillet, or large saute pan until oil is hot. Add chicken and cook just until done. Remove chicken from pan into a fresh bowl.

Add remaining oil to the pan and allow it to get hot. Add vegetables, stir fry sauce, garlic, and marjoram and stir to coat vegetables. If needed, add 1/4 of water at this time. Cook until vegetables are tender but not soggy, usually about 5-10 minutes. The cooking time may differ depending on what vegetables you are using, so I recommend testing your firmest vegetable and your softest to determine if it is done. You can also add more sauce if it needs more flavor. Return chicken to the pan and stir in.

By this time, you should see liquid in the base of the pan. Add corn starch to remaining water and stir. Then, pour corn starch mixture over the stir fry and stir thoroughly. Sauce should begin to thicken. Continue stirring to coat the vegetables evenly. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes.

Serve over rice, noodles, or on its own.