The best dumpling is a tasty dumpling

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Fried Korean dumplings served with two sauces.

Who doesn't like Korean dumplings or mandoo?

They're filled with beef, shrimp or vegetables -- sometimes in combination -- and they're a tasty appetizer for a Korean restaurant meal. 

But if you live in North Jersey, you can buy these wonderful dumplings at Best Dumplings in downtown Englewood, the successor to Mandoo Inc., which opened about 16 years ago down a pothole-filled street in the city's industrial section. 

They are fully cooked, so we steam them from frozen for 10 to 15 minutes and serve them with soy sauce or a dumpling sauce you can get at any Korean or Japanese supermarket. Almost any sauce that contains soy sauce will do or you can choose a spicy Korean red-pepper sauce or paste. 

They also can be pan fried or deep fried or added to soup.

We use a large, metal steamer, but line it with a paper towel to prevent the dumplings from sticking. When they are done, you can lift the paper towel and dumplings out of the steamer and put them on a plate for serving.

I stopped at Best Dumplings on Tuesday, when I had to fill a prescription at the ShopRite in Englewood, and learned a few things. 

I wanted non-meat dumplings, but a young woman who works there said the freezer bags labeled "kimchi" and "leek" contain dumplings that are made with a little beef. 

She pointed to a piece of paper on the wall with the ingredients of each dumpling sold there. She said over the phone today none of the dumplings contain pork.

I bought three freezer bags of dumplings -- vegetable, shrimp with broccoli and shrimp with vegetable. Each bag contains at least four dozen 3-inch-long dumplings. My bill came to $41 or about 28 cents for each dumpling. 

Best Dumplings, 16 Humphrey St., Englewood; 201-568-9337.

Fish and greens for dinner tonight

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Fairway Market in Paramus has been advertising fresh whiting and porgy for only $2.99 a pound. But today, I found a special at H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry: a pile of king whiting on ice at $1.79 a pound.


I bought four -- each about eight or nine inches long -- and had them cleaned with the head and tail on. Whiting is a wonderful, wild-caught fish that is on the menu of many soul food restaurants, where fillets are fried. It is also appreciated by Koreans, who, in flush times, used to receive small whiting among the free side dishes that accompany every meal.


My wife likes to bread them and fry them whole. The pearly, white flesh breaks away from the bone easily. But we also eat the skin and tail.


Before I selected the fish, I stopped at H Mart's Green Room, where a wide variety of Korean, Chinese and other greens chill on ice. I took advantage of another special: baby mustard greens at 69 cents a pound. I'll blanch the leaves and thick stems quickly in boiling water, then steam them with oil, soy sauce and fish sauce.

Friday is the start of  free-sample weekend at H Mart. I tried a spicy soup with thick noodles and fresh watermelon, but passed on the pork-and-vegetable dumplings.

Going meatless: Hits and misses

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I've started to look for meat substitutes in nearly every food store I visit. Is this a sign we are wavering on our meatless pledge -- now more than six weeks old? Will we be going back to eating meat? Well, we've discussed it, but that's where it remains.


I was happy with some of the items I found at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, but not with Westoy vegetarian stir fry strips ($3.39), which turned out to be seitan. I thought seitan was made of soy, but these strips are made of wheat protein and provide "the same texture and mouth feel that a piece of chicken or beef would have with only half the calories and only 1.5 grams of fat," the box states.

I stir fried the strips with organic red Swiss chard. I didn't especially like the color, texture or taste, but when my wife ate the leftovers, she thought the strips tasted fine, and I won't be returning a second, 8-ounce box for a refund.

On Thursday, I visited New King Fung Supermarket on Kinderkamack Road in River Edge to return a Japanese bowl with an errant brush mark, and took a closer look at its prepared soy items, most of them shrink-wrapped and kept cold.

Another shopper showed me vegetarian chicken and vegetarian duck ($3.99 each), but the ingredients included MSG as well as soy and mushrooms so I passed. I bought sweet-and-spicy soy chunks, fried triangles of tofu, spicy soy discs and fried Japanese tofu ($2.49 or less), plus a vegetable with dark green leaves that resembles bok choy.

For dinner Friday night, we steamed white rice, and I heated up the sweet-and-spicy soy chunks. I blanched the vegetable and sauteed it with Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, mirin and sesame oil. The soy triangles were pan fried with a sauce of chilis and shrimp. A nice meal.

The jumbo Black Tiger Shrimp I bought at Costco were some of the best I have ever had. I marinated them in the juice of a big lemon, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic powder, black pepper, no-salt organic seasoning and salt for an hour or so, then pan fried them in more olive oil until they curled up and turned white. 

I plated them and the sauce was thick with spices -- perfect for sopping up with crusty bread. My 12-year-old son was raving. We ate the shrimp with bow tie pasta in pesto sauce (Costco).

Don't ever ask your wife what's she doing

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No. Don't. If your wife (girlfriend, partner, spouse, significant other) is in the kitchen, just don't ask her what she is doing. Go back to reading the paper. Resist the urge to approach the stove and make suggestions. Sure, she leaves most of the food shopping and cooking to you, and you often end up washing the morning pots and pans, but when she gets inspired, leave her alone -- or else.

This morning, my wife started to prepare breakfast for herself after she dropped our son at school. I got up and approached and started asking her questions. She was combining leftover chicken thigh with other leftovers, white rice and Chinese takeout vegetables, to make a quick fried rice. That's when I should have returned to the paper. I didn't.

I suggested some soy sauce and fetched it from the fridge. I poured on a couple of ounces. "It's too salty," she said, her voice rising. That's not all she said. Then, I added some sweet rice wine to dilute the soy sauce, and that really upset her. I said, "What about a scrambled egg in there?"  She grabbed the pot and headed for the garbage can before I stopped her by saying I'll eat it. Then, I went for my power walk.

When I got back, I filled a small bowl with the fried rice and heated it in the microwave. It tasted great. Not salty, as my wife said, but my "review" fell on deaf ears. I plan to offer the rest to our son when he gets back from school. My wife wouldn't even accept half of my breakfast wrap: smoked wild salmon, saluna salad (canned red salmon and tuna), hummus, tomato, salad greens and za'atar thyme mixture rolled up in thin pita.

That'll teach me.

Sushi with cracked pepper, olive oil and kimchi

I continue to work my way through that great block of smoked-mackerel sushi from Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater. See post, "Back in the food-shopping game."

Yesterday, I opened the two packets that came in the box and looked over the inserts from Komego, all in Japanese, which I don't read. I poured the cracked peppercorns and extra-virgin olive oil in separate dishes. This is different. I've always associated sushi and sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi.

This fatty, Omega-3 rich mackerel with rice is good enough on its own, but takes on extra dimensions when dipped first in the oil and then pungent cracked pepper.This morning, I had two more slices and paired one with

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crunchy cabbage kimchi before popping it into my mouth. Delish.