Chinese Dumplings Expanded

The year of the Horse was ushered in on the 31st of January, so clearly, I'm behind on my posts. I made the Sweet Potato Dumplings last year, and this year, I've expanded my dumpling experimentation.

Yes. I decided to try out the recipe with Okinawan sweet potatoes and Japanese white flesh sweet potatoes.

JJajangmyeon

Finally, a post not about cream sauce.

Sauce on noodles? Yes. But at least it's not cream sauce on pasta. I'm going to run through my trials and tribulations with jjajangmyeon.

Oy vey, Cream Sauce

I honestly and truly want to focus on things other than cream sauce, but I made one that my sister liked a lot. It combined well with the spinach tagliatelle that I used so I'm putting up a recipe - measurements and everything - because she wants me to teach it to her.

Ingredients:
4 white button mushrooms (sliced)
1 shallot chopped (makes about 2 tablespoons)
80 mL sherry
tablespoon oil
240 mL chicken stock
80 mL evaporated milk
2 tsp parmesan bellafoglia (I know, they're in shavings)

Alright, while my pasta is boiling, I heat the oil and add the mushroom, toss for about 1 minute, than add the chopped shallot and saute both together until they're aromatic (2-3 minutes) - make sure they don't burn. Add sherry. Once that reduces, add chicken stock. Allow it to reduce (5-10 mins, it should look a little thicker) then add the evaporated milk. Let the mixture simmer then add the cheese and mix to combine.
Remove from heat and add cooked pasta to mix.

Ok, I added too much broth - so I'd recommend halving the broth amount, then adding as needed. The reason why the cheese was added to the sauce instead of the pasta separately was because I realized too late that the sauce was not thickening and I hope the cheese could do something for the sauce. Well, it tasted good.

I need a sabbatical from posting about cream sauce.