When I was asked to create a recipe using a Monterey Gourmet Foods product I was pretty excited. They are totally up my alley. Not only do they use natural, quality ingredients with a world flair, they also wanted me to cook with my kids to create the recipe. I’ve got two little sous-chefs (ages 5 and 2) and you’d be surprised how much they can do in the kitchen! We experimented with several different products and my kids did the vast majority of the cooking. I pretty much limited myself to cutting and doing anything that could get them burned. In fact, my 5 year old son realized that we had swapped places and I was HIS sous chef! The best part about having your kids heavily involved in cooking is that they are almost always willing to taste the final product to see what they created. We were given 4 products to work with: ravioli, rigatoni, dumplings, and pierogis. It’s a piece of cake to get kids to eat ravioli and rigatoni so I decided to throw down the challenge with my kids and introduce them to something new. Since my 5 year old is into soups lately I gave him the challenge of making soup using Korean inspired Mandu Dumplings. We talked about how his grandpa lived in Korea for two years and how his great grandpa served in Korea during a war. This helped him see the connection he had with the food. Food is magical that way. You can bring the world to your table! We talked about flavors they use in Korea and came up with this awesome dish. It was easy enough to make for a 5 year old and it was actually super fast too! The whole thing came together in under 10 minutes. The real test came when it was time to eat. Would a 5 year old and a 2 year old really eat a Korean soup? Yes, indeed! The broth was bold and flavorful, and complimented the distinct flavor of the dumpling perfectly and even though it was something new to try, my little picky eaters ate it up, because after all, they were the chefs! Ingredients 1 tsp sesame oil3 tablespoons sliced green onions1 clove garlic, crushed1/2 tsp ground ginger1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)3 cups beef broth1 tsp soy sauce1 (16 oz) package Monterey Gourmet Foods Chicken Mandu Dumpings4 baby bok choy Instructions
- Heat the sesame oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Add in 2 tablespoons of the green onions (reserving 1 tablespoon for garnish), crushed garlic, ground ginger, and red pepper flakes and saute for 1 minute.
- Pour in the beef broth and soy sauce and bring to a boil.
- Add in the dumplings and boil for 1 minute.
- Reduce heat to low and add in the baby bok choy. Cover with a lid and steam for 2 minutes.
- Serve the dumplings in a shallow bowl with a bok choy and a ladle full of the broth. Top with reserved green onion slices to garnish. Monterey Gourmet Foods also makes pierogis, stuffed rigatoni, and several different ravioli flavors that are pretty great quality. Δ Δ
