Molly makes a delicious buffet spread for her sister-in-law's baby shower and includes "Walking" Fish Tacos, Pigs in a Blanket, meatless Meatball Sliders and Baked Donuts with three kinds of fruit glazes. Below are the recipes used in today’s episode: Meatball Sliders with a Twist: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/meatball-sliders-with-a-twist-5340307 Walking Fish Tacos with Crunchy Cabbage Slaw and Cilantro Dressing: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/walking-fish-tacos-with-crunchy-cabbage-slaw-and-cilantro-dressing-5340176 Pigs in Blankets with Harissa Ketchup and Honey Mustard: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pigs-in-blankets-with-harissa-ketchup-and-honey-mustard-5340248 Baked Donuts with Blood Orange, Rhubarb and Blueberry Glaze: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/baked-donuts-with-blood-orange-rhubarb-and-blueberry-glaze-5340313 Listen to cookbook author, food blogger and Midwest transplant Molly Yeh prepare dishes inspired by her Jewish and Chinese heritage – with a taste of the Midwest – explaining her recipes and tips along the way. Want even more of Molly’s recipes? Stream full episodes of Girl Meets Farm on discovery+. Head to discoveryplus.com/girlmeetsfarm to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Molly makes a delicious buffet spread for her sister-in-law's baby shower and includes "Walking" Fish Tacos, Pigs in a Blanket, meatless Meatball Sliders and Baked Donuts with three kinds of fruit glazes.
Below are the recipes used in today’s episode:
Meatball Sliders with a Twist: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/meatball-sliders-with-a-twist-5340307
Walking Fish Tacos with Crunchy Cabbage Slaw and Cilantro Dressing: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/walking-fish-tacos-with-crunchy-cabbage-slaw-and-cilantro-dressing-5340176
Pigs in Blankets with Harissa Ketchup and Honey Mustard: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pigs-in-blankets-with-harissa-ketchup-and-honey-mustard-5340248
Baked Donuts with Blood Orange, Rhubarb and Blueberry Glaze: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/baked-donuts-with-blood-orange-rhubarb-and-blueberry-glaze-5340313
Listen to cookbook author, food blogger and Midwest transplant Molly Yeh prepare dishes inspired by her Jewish and Chinese heritage – with a taste of the Midwest – explaining her recipes and tips along the way.
Want even more of Molly’s recipes? Stream full episodes of Girl Meets Farm on discovery+. Head to discoveryplus.com/girlmeetsfarm to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://girl-meets-farm.simplecast.com/episodes/baby-shower
[MUSIC PLAYING] MOLLY YEH: Today, I'm hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law.
SPEAKER 2: I was five months today.
MOLLY YEH: And I'm making a dream menu, my take on the Midwestern walking taco with a colorful slaw and creamy cilantro crema, my grown-up pigs in a blanket with two delicious dipping sauces, hearty meatball sliders with a twist. And for a sweet treat, baked donuts with a great trick for flavorful glazes. My guests are going to love it.
Hey, this is me, Molly A. I'm a cookbook author and food blogger. This is my husband, Nick. And this is our home, our farm, on the North Dakota, Minnesota border, the place where I eat, sleep, and breathe food. My food is a delicious mix of my Chinese and Jewish heritage and the taste of the Midwest.
I'm getting ahead with my dessert for the party. Anna loves her donuts, so I'm going to make her baked donuts with three different glazes, blueberry, rhubarb, and blood orange. I used to not like bake donuts. I thought they were fake because donuts are fried. But then I got a donut pan, and I was like, you know what, these are actually really fun to make. And the consistency is somewhere in the middle of a cupcake and a muffin, so they're dense but not too dense. I love them.
I'll first mix up my dry ingredients. I'll grab my flour. I'm using 1 and 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour, but sometimes I like to sub out some of that for whole wheat flour to add a little bit of nuttiness. 1 cup of sugar, 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda. I'll give this a whisk just to combine, and now I will mix up my wet ingredients.
I've got one large egg here. This is a really big egg. My chickens must be really happy, or a goose has gotten into their coop. 1/4 cup of oil, a 1/4 cup of water, 1/2 a cup of buttermilk. I love buttermilk in baked goods. Adds a slight bit of tang that's so delicious. And a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Sometimes, I like adding a splash of almond extract to these two. But I'm going to keep these fairly neutral since the glazes will be the star of the show.
I'll whisk to combine. And then I'll add my wet ingredients to my dry ingredients. This is a really easy batter to make. I love that I don't have to wait for butter to soften. I don't have to get my stand mixer out. This batter comes together so quickly. I never used to make donuts from scratch because when I lived in Chicago and I lived in New York, there were so many donuts around that if I wanted a donut, I could just throw a stone, and I'd hit a donut place.
When I moved to the farm, suddenly I was in the middle of nowhere, very far from the closest donut place. So these days, I make my own. My batter is mixed. I'm going to grab my pans now. And if you don't have donut pans, you could make this batter in a muffin pan. I'm going to grease these, and then I'll transfer my better to a piping bag. And then I'm going to fill up these donut cavities until they're about halfway full with the batter.
When this batter bakes, it'll puff up a lot, so I don't want it to cover up the hole. Anna is my husband Nick's little sister. She's one of those people who become your best friend from the moment you meet them. She's hilarious, she's silly, and I'm so lucky to have her as a sister. These are ready to bake. I'll stick them in the oven at 375 for about 12 minutes until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. And that will give me just enough time to go check up on Nick, who's doing his own bit to help prep for the shower?
I gave Nick his first job as an uncle earlier. He's going to build a display board with pegs to hang all the different donuts that'll show off the beautiful glazes. I'm going to go see how he's doing. Hello.
NICK HAGEN: Hey.
MOLLY YEH: How's it going?
NICK HAGEN: Good.
MOLLY YEH: I brought the bagel to gauge spacing.
NICK HAGEN: OK, yes, exactly.
MOLLY YEH: What color is this going to be?
NICK HAGEN: What color do you want it to be?
MOLLY YEH: Green.
NICK HAGEN: Green. What about the pegs?
MOLLY YEH: Keep them natural wood.
NICK HAGEN: OK, yeah.
MOLLY YEH: You're going to be the best uncle.
NICK HAGEN: Oh my gosh, Anna is going to love this.
MOLLY YEH: All right, thanks. Here, [INAUDIBLE]?
NICK HAGEN: Yes. Thanks.
MOLLY YEH: And I'll leave them to cool for a bit, and I'll get on with my glaze. So the first one I'm going to do uses blood oranges. I'll slice these in half. I'm going to squeeze the juice into my bowl. And this is the type of glaze that you can make with other types of citrus. Grapefruit is really nice. Orange is nice. Lemon might be a bit too sour. And then I'll mix in my powdered sugar.
I want it to be just the right consistency. Not to thin that it drips down the sides of my donuts, but not so thick that it doesn't stick to them. About a cup of powdered sugar for every 2 to 3 tablespoons of liquid usually does the trick. Beautiful. This one's done. For my next glaze, I'm using rhubarb, which is Anna's favorite.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'll get this into my pot. And I'll bring this to a simmer and let it cook until the rhubarb is soft. I'll pour it into my blender and blend until smooth. I'll add my powdered sugar. And for glaze number three, frozen blueberries. And I'll heat these up until they're soft and juicy. And now I'll strain this through a mesh sieve so that I just have my juice. It's so dark right now, but it'll lighten up when I add the powdered sugar.
OK, this one is ready for a donut. I'm wiping off some of the excess here so that it doesn't drip down to the bottom once I turn it over. Oh, yeah, and then the sprinkles just make it a party. So much fun, color, and crunch. These little sprinkle balls are so cute and festive. One thing I love about tacos is that most of the toppings can be prepped in advance, and then all I'll need to do before the party is fry at my fish.
I'm doing a local variation today called a walking taco, which subs out the tortilla for a bag of chips so you can eat them with a fork while you're on the move. So right now, I am making a cilantro sour cream, which will be a really refreshing match to the hot crispy fish. I've got some garlic in my bowl, and now I'll chop up a jalapeno. I'm only going to use half here, and I'll remove the seeds because we are in the Midwest, and we don't do a lot of spicy foods here.
I'll grab my sour cream, which will help balance the heat from the jalapenos. And I'm going to get some cilantro in here. I love cilantro on a taco. It'll add really nice color. This is the type of sauce that you could make in a blender if you want to blend it up and get it really smooth. But I like having some texture. I just choose to finely chop up my herbs and all of my other mixings.
And next, I'll add the zest and juice of half a lime. And I like to add the zest because that punches up the lime flavor. And I'm just zesting to get off that very top layer. I don't want to go too deep down. Otherwise, it could taste bitter. And next, I'll add my lime juice to give it some nice acidity. I'll season with salt and pepper, and then I'll just mix to combine. And that's it.
These flavors are only going to get better if they sit for a little bit. So I'll refrigerate it until it's party time. And into the refrigerator, it goes. Next, I'll make my cabbage slaw. I'm only using half of my cabbage, so cut it in half. And then I'll thinly slice it. The golden rule, whenever I'm making tacos, is that they've got to have a topping that's creamy. They've got to have something crunchy. They've got to have a good bit of acidity and lots of color.
I'll add this to my big bowl, and then I'll slice up half an onion. One thing I love about taco toppings is that they're so beautiful by themselves. They practically decorate the table. For my dressing, I will combine-- sorry, that onion is just now getting to me. It's a slow burn. 2 teaspoons of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, the juice of a whole lime. And the acidity will help break down the cabbage and the onion to get softer, and just a little bit of olive oil. I'll drizzle this over and toss real well to combine.
Great. Easy. I'll cover this up and stick it in the refrigerator. The best parties have pigs in a blanket. So for this one, I'm making a fancy version with chicken sausages. So I think technically, they're chicks in a blanket. And then using puff pastry, which I think is a superior blanket because it's flaky, and it's buttery. I keep it in the freezer just for tarts, pastries all sorts of things.
And now I'm going to crack some eggs into my bowl for an egg wash which I'll use to brush the puff pastry. I'm rolling my puff pastry out just slightly so that I have enough to cover all of my sausages. And also, that way, the blanket won't be too thick. And I'll cut this into four. These are pre-cooked sausages. You can buy raw sausages. I would recommend cooking them before rolling them up.
Make sure you let them cool first after they've cooked because the heat from the sausage could make the puff pastry difficult to work with. I'll roll these up. Wrapping the puff pastry tightly around the sausage, I am going to brush this with the little egg wash. I'll roll it to make sure that the puff pastry is sealed. And roll up the rest of them. I'm going to slice these into four pieces to get bite-sized pigs in blankets.
I'll transfer these to my pan, and I'll space them out evenly to make sure that they get cooked on all sides. I always make more pigs in blankets than I think I'm going to need because they're always the most popular item at a party. I'm going to brush the tops with a thin layer of egg wash which will make them shiny and golden on top. And then I'm going to sprinkle them with some poppy seeds. I like poppy seeds here because it kind of reminds me of a Chicago-style hot dog bun.
I'll stick these in the oven at 400 for about 18 minutes until they're golden brown on top. While this bake, I'm going to whip up my harissa ketchup and honey mustard. Just a spoonful of smoky, spicy harissa really jazzes up basic ketchup. Good. And some of Anna's husband's honey stirred through some Dijon mustard will be the perfect partner to my pigs. Time to check on them.
Oh, that's such a good smell. They're golden. They're beautiful. OK, I think there's enough. I'm going to taste one. Mhm, I love these so much. They're crunchy on the outside, meaty on the inside, and perfect with that honey mustard. I hope these lasts until the party. Now I'm moving on to the meatball sliders, which are hearty, and flavorful, and so good. But guess what, they're meatless.
I know, right? OK, the main ingredients in these are toasted nuts, Parmesan, and breadcrumbs. And then I'll flavor them with some garlic and parsley. This recipe is super simple. I just dump a bunch of stuff in a food processor, and that's practically it. I'll have some toasted almonds. Walnuts will also work. Two cloves of garlic. I'm serving these on sliders today, but they're also great over spaghetti.
And sometimes, I'll put them out at parties just by themselves and some red sauce with some toothpicks, and it's fun because nobody ever knows that they're meatless and they're so good. I'm going to pulse this to a coarse crumb. I don't want them to get too fine. Otherwise, the texture will be too dense. A few bigger bits of nuts are OK. And now, I'll add a cup of grated Parmesan, a cup of panko breadcrumbs, and then I'll seasoned this with some salt, fresh black pepper, and some parsley.
And dried parsley has a more intense flavor than fresh parsley. I'll pulse to combine. And now I'm going to find this mixture together with some eggs. And it doesn't look like one cohesive dough at this point, but if I grab some with my hands, I can roll it into ping-pong-sized balls. Just pack it lightly. So that's what I'm going for.
And the great thing about this recipe is that it can be made in advance. So I could pop these balls in the refrigerator and then fry them up a few hours or even a day later. I'm getting a whiff of the smell, and I can smell that garlic and the Parmesan. It's making me hungry. But I have some vegetarian friends that I make these for a lot. But another thing is that if I have any gluten-free friends coming over, I can sub out the breadcrumbs for more nuts, and it'll still work.
OK, these are ready to fry. I have some canola oil heating in my pan enough to come up about a quarter of an inch on the balls. That way, when I turn them, I can make sure to get them evenly coated and that golden crust. And I'll transfer a few of these out of time to the oil, and I'm going to fry these until they're golden brown on all sides, flipping so that I can get all of the sides cooked. And this is going to give them a really nice crispy shell. On the inside, they'll be gooey and so good.
I'm going to leave at least an inch or 2 in between each of the balls. The hardest part about these is that they trap in so much heat that when they're done cooking. I have to wait an extra few minutes to put one in my mouth. When they're golden brown on all sides, I'm going to transfer them to some red sauce that I have heating up here. And I'm just using some of my favorite jarred sauce here. You can use any red sauce you want.
This one is golden and crispy, and perfect. Smells amazing. I'm going to pop this directly into my sauce. And I'll hold them there until they're all finished. These are the last ones, and now I'm ready to assemble my sliders. When it comes to serving the sliders, I lay slices of smooth mozzarella on top of some ciabatta buns. Then I place a couple of meatballs on top, some fresh basil, and then top with the bun, yum.
I've got one final thing to do now before the girls arrive, and that's fry up my fish. I've got walleye here, which is a local white fish. And I will season it with some paprika, cumin, and kinion. I'll just sprinkle this right on. So typically, in a walking taco, you would find ground beef. But because I like using this local fish and also kind of as a nod to fish and chips, I'm using this walleye and some salt and vinegar potato chips.
I hear that Anna has been craving vinegary things while she's been pregnant, so I think she's going to love these. Some salt and pepper, and I'll give them a zhush just to coat them evenly. Now I'll set up my breading station. They're basically shallow bowls, and they just help get an even coating. So in the middle bowl, I'll crack in two eggs to get them up, and then I'll grab a cup of flour and put that in the first bowl and some bread crumbs for the third bowl.
I'll season my flour and bread crumbs with salt and pepper. Now my fish sticks are going to go in the flour and then the egg and the bread crumbs. This is the same way that I make my schnitzel or any chicken nugget. You could also bread veggies like this, a great way to add extra crunch and flavor. And I'm going to fry these in my oil until they're crispy and golden brown.
And when I'm frying, I like to use a neutral oil that has a high smoke point, like canola or vegetable oil. These literally only take a few minutes to fry. These are looking raised and crispy and golden. I like to go by feel when I'm seeing if they're ready. See if they have a crisp shell. That's how I know that they're done frying. And now, I'm placing them onto a pan lined with paper towel to catch any excess oil.
OK, now that these are done frying, I can transfer them to a wire rack and keep them warm in the oven until the party starts.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 4: Haley, serve us some drinks.
SPEAKER 2: I'm five months today.
MOLLY YEH: OK, let's eat.
SPEAKER 2: Pressure's on. This looks so good. Oh, my gosh. What is on this slop?
MOLLY YEH: Lime juice, salt, and sugar.
SPEAKER 5: Do you know what it is?
SPEAKER 2: We're not finding out. Surprise. We have names picked out for both.
SPEAKER 5: Is it Molly and Nick?
SPEAKER 2: Yes.
SPEAKER 6: Giant donut?
MOLLY YEH: Yeah.
SPEAKER 2: I've been eyeing the rhubarb since we got here.
MOLLY YEH: To donuts and babies.
SPEAKER 2: And babies.
[MUSIC PLAYING]