For the Seahawks game we quickly decided to go with an Asian theme. No offense to Seattle, it's a fantastic town, but you can only get so much distance from over-priced coffee and craft beers.
We are huge fans of The Local Pig (www.thelocalpig.com), one of the best purveyors of locally-sourced meats and artisanal sausages in the country. If you live in KC, and don't shop here, you can't fathom what you are missing. The pork cheek was calling our name from the case and we instantly knew it would serve as the base for our wonton idea.
Wings and tailgating go hand in hand, and a little hoisin will provide the Asian spin we sought. After doing a bahn mi sandwich last season, we wanted to make another pass at it. To round out the menu we planned a Seattle wild, smoked salmon spring roll.
Here's the menu:
We always like to start out a tailgate with a dip. Its as ready to go as we are and takes the edge off (along with those first few drinks) while we get everything else set up. What's more Asian than edamame dip?!? We took shelled edamame, a bit of onion, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, soy sauce and chili sauce and mixed together in a food processor. It was a little bland so we threw in a jalapeno for good measure. It had a hummus consistency, and was something a little different. You wouldn't want to waste something a little different on any old chip, so we cut wonton wrappers in half, seasoned with 5-spice, cayenne and salt and baked until crisp.
Pork Cheek and Mushroom Wontons
We had been playing around with wonton variants at home and wanted to do one for the tailgate. As mentioned, we stumbled upon some pork cheek at The Local Pig and couldn't resist. We put two sets of cheek in a braising pan, covered halfway with water, and then added soy sauce, chili paste, fish sauce and some gin (as a substitute for rice wine). After bringing the pan to a boil, we covered and transferred to the oven, set at 300 degrees, for two hours. After letting the cheeks cool, we skimmed the fat and chopped the cheek. We reduced the remaining braising liquid with minced mushroom and mixed the cheek back in. After cooling once again, we spooned the mixture into a wonton wrapper, and fried.
Crab Rangoon
Okay, so you are more likely to find a meatloaf sandwich on Texas toast anywhere in Asia than something made with cream cheese. Nevertheless, crab rangoon are delicious and at least as Asian as edamame dip. We took a package of cream cheese, a package of fake crab, and mixed with green onion, ginger, soy sauce and sugar. Again, we spooned the mixture into a wonton wrapper and fried.
One practical note is that if preparing the wontons the night before, make sure to separate each layer with a sheet of wax paper. We did not, and getting them apart the next day was, lets say, not the sticky fun we were seeking.
Corned Beef Bahn Mi Bruchetta
Few things exemplify 'the sum is greater than its parts' than a Bahn Mi. Great bread, a mayo blend, pickled vegetables and a combo of meats is the traditional way to enjoy this great sandwich. We wanted to make this great sandwich a great bite, and decided to make a Bahn Mi Bruchetta.
First, we pickled the vegetables. After julienning diakon and carrot (in the food processor), we put them in a jar along with a brine of salt, sugar, white vinegar and red pepper flakes and set in the refrigerator for about three days.
Pork is a very traditional meat to serve in a Bahn Mi, but we decided to go outside the box and use a corned beef brisket. After rinsing the brisket, we placed it in a crockpot, along with beef broth, a pho bullion cube, and a mix of Worcestershire and soy sauce (substitute for Maggi). After cooking for about eight hours, we cooled and shredded.
For the mayo element, we took regular mayo and mixed with our Maggi substitute, chopped cilantro, jalapeno, cucumber flesh and cucumber skin, sugar and salt.
To make the the bruchetta, we toasted a sliced ciabatta loaf of the grill, and then layered the mayo, pickled veggies and meat.
The pickled vegetables definitely had a very authentic smell (which we may need to work on if attempted again), but the taste was great and the bruchetta vehicle worked great for the tailgate.
Wild Smoked Salmon Spring Rolls with Hoisin Mango Dipping Sauce
After reconstituting the wrappers, we added our bahn mi vegetables, sliced cucumber, shredded wild, smoked salmon, bean sprouts, previously cooked Chinese vermicelli, cilantro and mint. The mixture wrapped up very easily (having never done it before and the directions on the package not being in English). We made a Hoisin Mango sauce, which was a great sweet element, but using a soy/sriracha combo also worked very well.
Hoisin Wings
We have found that the trick to doing wings at a tailgate is to pre-bake. So, after marinating several pounds of wings in a mixture of peppercorn oil, hoisin, soy sauce, garlic and agave nectar, we baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. We finished them on the grill at the tailgate, and then we finished them.
Cocktail
Our first thought was a beer cocktail...see The Foundry's (www.foundrykc.com) menu for some awesome inspiration, but ultimately decided on a fish bowl (liquor is quicker). We made a pretty simple Blue Hawaiian (vodka, rum, Malibu Rum, blue curacao, pineapple juice and Sprite Zero) in a gallon fish bowl, complete with gravel (Nerds) and "live" fish (Swedish Fish). Our heart was in it, but Swedish Fish don't float, the Nerds broke down to a lovely candy sludge quicker than we would have liked, and the "water" needed some chlorine (apparently our mix was off because it was a gorgeous algae color). Still, it tasted good (albeit sweet). Luckily for us, our friends Judd and Johnna brought sake bombs, which were wonderfully themed and helped us forget the embarrassing performance on the field (preseason doesn't count, right?).
