What's Cooking?

I am rapidly becoming a devotee of Saveur magazine. Their latest issue celebrates the home cook and the delectable meals from the hearth that sustain each of us day after day. A lot of gourmet and cooking magazines seem to take for granted that the majority of food aficionados aren't necessarily professionally trained or within arm's reach of expensive or exotic resources. So it's gratifying to see this icon of epicurean taste give recognition to the people who transform the mundane into the memorable on a budget in addition to (and in spite of) their busy lives.

"Cooking from the Heart" is at the top of their list of 100 things that make home cooks great, and I couldn't agree more. Even something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich is soulful when made with feeling. It's a tenet that I believe in and one that is at the core of my cookbook.

Reconciling with Swine

Apologies for the dearth of posts this month. I haven't stopped cooking. If anything, I've been immersed in it -- nothing like a downturn in the economy to motivate someone to cook instead of getting take-out. I just haven't had the time (and frankly, the discipline) to sit down and write about any of it. It's time to start making amends.

One of the best and worst things about dining out in Spain when I was there was the abundance of pork. The variety of pork preparations was staggering: roasted, smoked, salt cured, dry cured, fried, grilled, or braised chops, loins, sausages, hams, back fat, pork belly, and on and on. It was all awesome but it didn't take long for me to start yearning for chicken fingers and a Big Mac. A full-on pork ban took effect in my kitchen when I got back. You can have too much of a good thing.

Two months later, a link of dry cured chorizo reunited me with Spanish pork. That day, I was frozen and sore from shoveling the infernal Canadian snow and ached for some belly-warming stew. I had read in a Japanese cooking magazine that Asturians cook a smoky stew with Iberian bacon (tocino), white beans and generous amounts of sweet smoked Spanish paprika (pimentón). The photo of it has always made me salivate. I didn't have any tocino on hand but I knew that Spanish chorizo is often seasoned with pimentón which imparts a deep red color to the sausage. Between my chorizo, my little ceramic jar of pimentón and can of white beans, I had what I needed to concoct my own stew.

I caramelized a generous amount of sliced shallots and minced garlic in a pot with a bit of oil. When soft, I added a heaping spoonful of pimentón to impart some color. Slices of chorizo were thrown in, and after a couple of minutes, a can of white beans was emptied into the pot.

I could have stopped there but I was seized by the impulse to make this stew even redder than it already was. I had oven-roasted and peeled some red bell peppers the day before; those got chopped and mixed in. Then I did a sudden about-face and wanted a contrasting color, so I tossed in some chopped okra.

One thing about okra: it imparts a silky texture to stews. I'd like to take credit for finding that adjective for cooked okra, but I stole it from Toronto chef Roger Mooking. He featured okra in an episode (EP 1015) of his Food Network program, Everyday Exotic. Mooking kept referring to the ingredient as his "obedient ingredient" and saucily described its texture as "silky" as he demonstrated his recipe for Okra Chili. I've long been a fan of okra because its texture resembles that of natto, my most favorite food of all. Sadly, I had always described them as being "gooey" or "slimy" -- a depiction that often elicited "eww" in response. "Silky" is distinctly better.

Smoky, silky, warm and filling... I present to you my chorizo okra stew.

Carrying On Traditions

Japanese New Year is not like Chinese New Year -- since 1873, it's been celebrated at the same time as followers of the Gregorian or Christian calendar. The cultural custom is to serve osechi-ryōri (お節料理) which is essentially an assortment of seasonal and symbolic dishes that are appropriate for the occasion. The food is presented in stacked boxes called jūbako (重箱). Those who can afford to splurge will have it professionally catered. However, most households will spend the week leading up to New Year's preparing dozens of small dishes that comprise the whole meal.

Normally I benefit from my Mom's labors, reveling in the food she lays out in the morning as I stumble out of bed, still recovering from the previous night's celebrations. Jan 1, 2009 was the first New Year's Day that I spent without family. I took it upon myself to emulate that tradition, even if I was cooking only for one.

Guiding my effort was a 1986 hardcover edition of Kuwako Takahashi's "The Joy of Japanese Cooking", an English cookbook loaned to me by my mother. While I am capable of following recipes written in Japanese, this book was written for a North American audience limited by a North American pantry: Takahashi helpfully suggests ingredient substitutions for some of the more "exotic" foods that the uninitiated may have trouble sourcing. She also offers sage explanations for why things are done a certain way, like removing kombu kelp from stock at a particular point to avoid the build-up of slime and funky odor. Good to know.

The six photos below show the dishes that I attempted. Some came straight from the book, while others were improvised by yours truly.

(1) On the left is a persimmon and daikon salad (柿膾) served in a hollowed out persimmon. It is seasoned with a sweet vinegar dressing (三杯酢) and lemon rind.
(2) Beside it is a marinated spinach dish (ほうれん草おひたし) garnished with bonito flakes. I love eating this with rice.

(3) On the left is a mochi-stuffed deep-fried soybean puff (餅入り巾着) served in a bowl of homemade dashi (出汁) fish stock with baby daikon, enoki mushrooms, Chinese broccoli leaves and green onions. Mochi (餅) is a pounded rice cake that is almost exclusively eaten around New Year's.
(4) The right image below is warmed soft tofu served in a pool of a standard cooking liquid (八方出汁) reduction made with dashi, soy sauce, mirin and saké. It is garnished with salmon roe and green onions. As I see it, this is quintessential Japanese cuisine: the dish looks so light and simple yet the flavors are complex and deeply satisfying.

(5) On the left is one layer of my mini-jūbako which I filled with (going clockwise from the top left) rolled omelette (出汁巻き卵) wrapped in seaweed, some garnishes made with cucumber skin, pickled daikon leaves (緑漬け), persimmon and daikon salad (柿膾), and some pickled plums (梅干) garnished with perilla leaves (紫蘇).
(6) The right image is another layer of my mini-jūbako which I filled with (going clockwise from the left) salmon roe (イクラ) served in a hollowed cucumber, miso-marinated mackerel (it was super-moist and infused with flavor), pea sprouts bundled together by a slice of cucumber, herring roe (数の子), marinated and broiled shrimp, and in the middle, I put some candied pecans caramelized with maple syrup then seasoned with sea salt and yuzu-infused chili flakes.

On a side note, it took me forever to figure out the arrangement of food within the jūbako because it follows none of the rules of modern plating. Food presentation today typically requires the chef to allow each individual dish to "breathe" on a plate. Massive bowls and serving platters that function as a vast canvas for food are de rigueur in trendy, cosmopolitan restaurants. So the idea of cramming multiple dishes in a small space with both efficiency and aesthetics was challenging for me and I'm not exactly pleased with the final result. Pointers are much needed and would be highly appreciated.

New Year, New Resolution, New Approach

Happy new year everyone! "Everyone" will soon refer to a larger group of people, or so I hope: with great trepidation, I've decided to make this blog public. Which also makes this the appropriate opportunity for presenting a more thorough explanation of what this blog is about and what I'm trying to achieve with it.

A few summers ago, I attended the wedding of a childhood friend. We weren't related but he and his family were so integral to our family functions that he was like a cousin. Although adulthood sent us on separate paths, the wedding was a milestone that I could not miss, and it was an honor to be invited. It was a glorious, joyful day full of youthful promise and dreams of a bright future for the newlyweds.

Two weeks later he was dead, taken from us by a negligent driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel on the wrong side of the road.

My own sorrow was eclipsed by the heart-breaking grief that shattered his young bride -- widowed all too soon -- and his parents. I wanted to help, even as I knew perfectly well that nothing I could do or say would assuage their pain. Paralyzed with helplessness, I waffled for a while between one stupid idea and another.

So I just started cooking. I was cooking for people who wouldn't want to eat (never mind cook), but who should. I was cooking as a gesture of concern, empathy and affection. I wanted to bring them something comforting and accessible that would sustain them through this ordeal.

This is how the idea of self-publishing a cookbook was born. The intent is to build a volume of recipes that nourishes the heart as well as the stomach. I'm trying to emphasize good nutrition that elevates mood (instead of crashing it through junk, seductive as it is) while promoting overall health. I'm also taking cues from various cultural traditions that revolve around food during mourning: food may be offered for the grief-stricken at a wake, or prepared in a ritualistic and symbolic manner to memorialize the loss.

The notion of self-publishing came from one of my favorite foodie blogs, 101 Cookbooks. The author, Heidi Swanson, wrote a couple of posts about making one's own cookbook and that got me inspired.

I have no culinary cred, and don't plan on having a career in food. I don't pretend for a second that I'm a chef that anybody would want to emulate. But I do believe in this project for two reasons: (1) I want to keep the memory of my friend alive with this book, which will be dedicated to his family (they don't know about any of this yet), and (2) I plan to donate as much of the proceeds as I can afford to hunger relief organizations which serve up a far more important concept of "comfort food" every day.

This blog is a day-to-day journal of my culinary experiences and experiments. It's also a testing ground for my articles and recipes for the book. The photographs posted here are my own, but eventually I will recruit my co-contributor, Lynn -- an accomplished photographer and talented chef -- for her expertise. My current target for publication is end of 2009. Perhaps with an audience, I'll be rescued from my tendency to procrastinate.

Last but not least, I want to hear from you, about your comforting memories of food. Tell me about the dishes that mended your wounds or have healed others. It's a gift that's worth sharing.