Buddha Dragon Make-Over

The Ontario LCBO's free publication, "Food and Drink" magazine is a wealth of mouth-watering photos, reliable recipes and expert wine recommendations. It rivals "Food & Wine" magazine in breadth and it's free of the snobbery and inconsistencies of "Gourmet" magazine (I've had some bad experiences trying to execute their recipes, and I sincerely don't think the problem was with my level of culinary skill).

Its recent issue featured a recipe called "Miso Buddha Dragon Bowl with Lemon Grass & Rice Noodles". It's a mouthful to say and to eat! The photo appealed to me, but upon cooking, I discovered that the end result looks nothing like the photo -- the dish was delicious but it was essentially a brown, sludgy stew.

Ever the obstinate glutton, I insisted on making it again but my way.

Raw vegetables trump cooked ones any day. There's nothing like the fresh crunch of crudités. At parties, I'm the buzzard picking away at the veggie platter, eating the cauliflower and celery sticks that nobody will touch.

So I julienned a red bell pepper, some daikon radish, red onion, and celery. I also tore up some oyster mushrooms and cilantro. I couldn't find any rice noodles to my liking at the local grocery, so I settled for a bowl of rice as my base. The vegetables were arranged on top. A sauce was made separately and simply drizzled on top to preserve the brightness of the raw vegetables. Good quality sesame oil and sesame seeds finished the dish.

Here is my version of the sauce, inspired by the LCBO recipe:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup coconut milk (or water and coconut powder)
2 stalks of lemongrass
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
4 Tbsp miso paste
hot sauce, to taste

1. In a small sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Sweat the minced garlic until they become fragrant.
2. Pour in the coconut milk and give it a brief stir.
   
3. Bruise the lemongrass and cut them just small enough to fit your sauce pan.
   
4. Add the lemongrass and ginger to the sauce and bring to a gentle simmer for several minutes.
5. Remove the stalks of lemongrass.
6. Add the miso paste and gently whisk it into the sauce. Bring to a simmer again and continue to heat until the sauce thickens a bit.
7. If you like a little more kick, add your favorite hot sauce.
   

Hot Chocolate

To the horror and dismay of millions, there are a few of us who are not chocoholics: I actually never crave chocolate. (After my last post about never craving pasta, I'm putting myself at risk of becoming a pariah.) More specifically, I don't yearn for sweet chocolate. My appetites fall under the salty/sour/savory flavor profiles.

Mexican chocolate is therefore a natural fit for me and a revelation. It's strong like dark chocolate but more sour. If you've ever chewed on a cacao nib, you know what I mean. Its flavors are faithful to its ingredients, not masked by chemicals or an excess of sugar. Chocolate, to me, is something that should taste earthy and it belongs with other earthy tastes and aromas like cinnamon and hot chilies.

The LCBO recently printed a recipe for Ancho Chocolate Chili that I had to try out. Lynn had given me tablets of authentic Mexican chocolate from a local farmer's market -- I've talked her ear off in the past about wanting to make true mole sauce some day and she was kind enough to indulge me. I also had lots of beautiful, dried ancho chilies in my pantry, having visited a Mexican grocery near Lynn's. The only difference between what I made (pictured above) and what the LCBO photographed is that I garnished mine with toasted hazelnuts and mint sprigs instead of peanuts and cilantro (a combo that does sound good). Oh well, can't be perfect. But the chili dish itself had a wonderful, complex palette of fragrances and textures. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Potato Pillows

I have a turbulent, love-hate relationship with pasta. For this, I blame my brother.

When we were growing up, pasta was his tireless favorite -- one that my mother was more than happy to accommodate. Given that my father also shares this passion for the noodle family, I've had more than my fill of the yellow, wiggly stuff.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy a plate of well-made tagilatelle served with a thick, savory meat sauce or a bowl of bow-tie farfalle tossed with garlicky pesto. But given the choice between rice, bread, or pasta, I will never opt for the wiggly stuff. Sorry!

However, there is one pseudo-exception. Gnocchi -- meaning "lump", "knot" or "knuckle" -- are little pasta-like dumplings that I would gladly take the time to cook. They come in varieties like those made with bread crumbs, semolina, ricotta, and others, but my favorite is the potato gnocchi. They remind me of the German Spätzle (a scraggly, free-form egg noodle) or the Kartoffelkloess (literally, potato dumplings). There's also a vague resemblance to the Japanese mochi, which is a glutinous, chewy rice ball or dumpling that I get cravings for during cold weather.

I'm used to the idea of boiling pre-packaged gnocchi but I never tried making them. That is, until I realized how absurdly easy it is. Don't believe me? Here's the basic recipe.

Basic Gnocchi Recipe

2 big mashing potatoes -- baked, peeled, then grated
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg

1. Knead everything together, dusting lightly with additional flour as you go until the dough is not too sticky any more.
2. On a floured surface, roll the dough out into ropes as thick as a finger, then cut 1" pieces. (They will look like little pillows.)
3. In salted, boiling water, drop the gnocchi in batches and cook for about a minute until they come floating up.

I added some fresh herbs to my latest batch. I would imagine that lemon zest and other seasonings would make great additions too. To my dumplings, I added the following sauce of my own concoction.

Tomato Coconut Sauce

1 Tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup coconut milk
6 oz. tomato paste
2 Tbsp fresh, chopped basil

1. Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over Medium heat. Sweat the minced garlic until lightly browned.
2. Add the coconut milk and tomato paste. Whisk together until smooth. Simmer gently until it thickens a bit.
3. Remove from heat and add the basil. Pour over gnocchi.
   

Nothing Short of Shortbread

For as long as I've had teeth, I've loved shortbread. Like a lot of people, my earliest exposure to this traditional Scottish biscuit was through the Walkers brand of delectable cookies that come in that familiar red tartan tin. They're crumbly yet buttery; crunchy yet delicate enough for a drooly baby to gnaw on with teeny teeth or just gums.

Seized by a desire to bake, I decided to concoct my own shortbread recipe. Authentic Scottish shortbread essentially consists of one part sugar, two parts butter (or shortening) and three parts flour. Ridiculously simple, isn't it? It is an unleavened cookie, which is why it doesn't need leavening agents such as baking soda or cream of tartar.

There's room to play around with the composition by varying the type of sugar, fat or flour used. Granulated sugar, caster sugar, brown sugar, demerara sugar, muscovado sugar, turbinado sugar... I'd venture that any granular sugar that doesn't dissolve or melt into a batter but also doesn't have gigantic crystals should work. Butter and shortening are best for the fats; I would guess from the oil-based biscuits I made in the past that olive oil or vegetable oil might also serve adequately, although the resulting cookie might be crunchier. Oat flour and rice flour (as I discovered during my experiments last summer) have a wonderful nutty, sandy character that brilliantly highlights baked goods that call for a sablée texture.

You can also add other ingredients like egg or milk for a softer cookie, or lemon rind, dried fruit, lavender, rosemary, caraway seeds, cinnamon, nutmeg, mint, vanilla or whatever else your imagination can dream up as long as it doesn't make the resulting dough too soggy. I happened to have some subtly fragrant orange peel powder, ground coriander and poppy seeds. The recipe is below and the resulting cookie is shown above. (If anyone is willing to be my guinea pig, I'd also like to try floral variations like lavender or rose and slightly savory combinations like lemongrass and mint, ground walnut and rosemary, or ginger and lime.)

M's Orange Coriander Shortbread
Makes 12-16 squares

50g caster (aka superfine) sugar
100g unsalted butter (or roughly one stick of butter), at room temperature
75g all-purpose flour
75g rice or oat flour
2 tsp orange peel powder (or 1 tsp grated orange rind)
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp poppy seeds

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Lightly grease and line a 8" x 5-3/8" baking pan (or something approximating that size) with parchment paper; ensure that there is extra parchment hanging out of the pan so that the shortbread can later be lifted out with ease.
   
3. With a wooden spoon, cream together the sugar and butter until light and almost fluffy.
4. In another bowl, mix together the two flours, the orange peel powder, ground coriander and poppy seeds.
   
5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the sugar and butter mixture. Mix the ingredients well. The resulting dough should be very crumbly and rather dry.
6. Dump the dough into the lined pan and press it down until smooth and even.
   
7. Score the dough deeply with a sharp knife into 1¼" to 1½" squares. Those of you with an artistic bent can further decorate the shortbread with classic dimples or more intricate designs like the Scots do.
   
8. Bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 315°F and bake for another 20 minutes or just until the dough takes on a light golden color (not browned).
9. Remove the pan from the oven. Lift out the shortbread using the parchment paper and allow to cool on a rack for a few minutes. Separate the biscuits and allow to cool completely.
   

Dream of Tartar

I have a long, unfortunate history of being trapped next door to neighbors from hell. There were the party animals who left their dog abandoned at home all night long, whimpering and barking. The neurotic woman who didn't believe in curtains or blinds, complained about outside lights that prevented her from sleeping and paraded around her apartment in an ill-fitting bathing suit. The vain cougar who walked from morning to night in stiletto heels on the hardwood floors above my head then had screaming matches at 2am with her boy toys. The young, slacker couple who blasted their stereo for hours on end. The twitchy psycho who banged on his ceiling (my floor) when I dropped a sheet of paper (it was literally just a sheet of paper, folks).

So imagine my complete and utter surprise when I woke up early one snowbound morning to find my front steps and sidewalk already plowed away. The elderly gentleman who rents the basement apartment next door had done it voluntarily while also clearing our shared driveway with a shovel and snow-blower. When I thanked him, he said, "why shovel my side just for five minutes when I can do the whole thing? Anyway, I need the exercise." I hadn't told him that my previous neighbor, also blessed with a snow-blower, didn't once offer to help me even on those blizzardy days when I was out for over an hour-and-a-half with my lo-tech shovel.

Wanting to show him my gratitude, I put together a care package of organic teas, fair-trade coffee (since I wasn't sure if he was a tea or coffee drinker) and a batch of home-made scones [see photo #1]. I used a recipe from that saucy diva of scrumptious food, Nigella Lawson. Her ingredient list for "Lily's Scones" reads like a recipe for baking soda biscuits [see photo #2] except for the generous inclusion of cream of tartar.

I've long wondered what the blimey cream of tartar is or does and why we don't use more of it. For one thing, it's misleadingly in powdered form despite its name. And "tartar" refers neither to the ethnic Tartars spread across Russia, nor the ugly buildup of dental plaque on neglected teeth. In fact, cream of tartar comes from the acid salt that crystallizes and encrusts the insides of wine casks as the juice of grapes are left to ferment. The ancients called the crusty purple stuff tartar or tartre (a reference to "encrustation" or "deposit"). When it is purified, the result becomes a white, acidic powder called potassium bitartrate. The powder allegedly keeps forever -- even if it has hardened into chunks, it can be broken apart and used in recipes.

Baking powder as we know it is simply a mixture of cream of tartar (an acid) and baking soda (an alkali). As remembered from high school chemistry class, an acid combined with a base creates a neutralizing chemical reaction that yields a metal, salt and water. In baking, this causes dough to bubble and leaven. Which is why we use baking powder in a lot of cakes and breads.

The acidity of cream of tartar is also used to stabilize whipped egg whites and add volume; it's used in candy-making to prevent caramelizing sugar from crystallizing; and it helps boiled vegetables keep their color.

So now, behold again the difference between the scones made with a touch of baking soda and lots of cream of tartar vs. the baking soda biscuits using only baking soda. They're both equally easy to make and tasty. However, you can see chemistry clearly at work here: the scones are much puffier than the biscuits: lighter, creamy soft yet still spongy (not doughy). It encourages me to try more baking projects with cream of tartar.

Btw, a single batch yielded more than two dozen scones so I shipped some off to my parents and kept a few for myself. This is simple bakery at its best.

Cuppa Heaven

Japan has always been ahead of the bell curve when it comes to pre-packaged instant food. Instant noodles like cup ramen was invented in Japan by Nissin Foods in 1958. Food giant Ajinomoto was founded in 1909 after they patented MSG, which is used in all manner of processed foods ranging from bouillon cubes, canned goods to salad dressings. Glico (of Pocky fame) is now marketing single serving curry sauce travel packs among its many other instant creations. Other peers have figured out how to make packets of powdered, instant miso soup, vacuum packs of congee (or okayu, as the Japanese call it), instant sushi mixes, bricks of beef stew roux and so much more.

The latest marvel of invention to come out of Japan is the freeze dried packet of instant amazake (甘酒) from the clever folks at Morinaga. Wikipedia will tell you that amazake is "a traditional sweet, low-alcoholic Japanese drink made from fermented rice". The old school method of making this lovely beverage requires cooking rice, cooling it down, and adding some kōji, which is the same beneficial mold added to rice to make sake. The alcohol content in amazake is generally so low that it is a family-friendly drink. But there are definite similarities in appearance, aroma and taste between amazake and its step-sister, the stronger nigorizake (which is an unfiltered sake which acquires its cloudy appearance from rice sediments).

I gave the instant amazake a whirl and was pleasantly surprised. The freeze-dried mix looks like a brittle block of Styrofoam when you pull it out of its wrapper. Boiled or cold water may be added to it; I opted for heat. The block immediately dissolved into a milky white liquid with small, soft grains of rice floating at the top. The sake aroma was unmistakable -- sweet and inviting. It went down very smoothly, helped by occasional stirs of the spoon to keep the rice grains from settling at the bottom.

I used to ridicule the Japanese (especially since I am one) for coming up with such innovations to cater to their overall laziness. After sampling this beauty (and Morinaga's other amazing instant drinks like oshiruko, matcha adzuki, and lemon ginger brew) I really can't complain. There's no better drink to enjoy on a chilly winter evening.

Catch Up!

It's been a woefully long time since my last post. A lot of delightful cooking and eating has transpired in that period, sadly very little of which was recorded. Other projects now consume me, leaving this blog to gather dust by the wayside. As I set new resolutions for the new year, it seems appropriate to dust off these pages and try to instill some renewed vigor. Xmas 2010 is my new goal for publication, so I hope to continue earning your support.

The first meal of the first day of the new year, for as far back as I can remember, has always been zoni (雑煮). It is a dish that consists of three basics: broth, vegetables and mochi (餅). The broth is typically dashi (出汁) which is a clear, light soup made from boiling kelp and bonito flakes. Any assortment of vegetables can be used; sometimes even proteins such as fish balls are thrown in for extra measure. Mochi is a glutinous ball made from pounding rice or rice flour with water to a glue-like consistency. It can be eaten fresh or boiled, baked, toasted or fried. I like them lightly baked before dropping them into the zoni. As kids, my brother and I were told that we were supposed to eat as many mochi as the number of our years. However, after the age of 5 or 6, that becomes an impossible proposition. Mochi is extremely filling and has been known as a choking hazard, especially for folks who don't chew properly before they swallow!

Over a period of 2-3 days, I set about preparing various traditional Japanese dishes to celebrate the new year. Generally speaking, Japanese cuisine is quite simple: the number of ingredients are quite spare and the cooking processes are elemental (marinate, boil, fry, bake/roast). The refinement lies in the orderly sequence of steps required to achieve the desired result, as well as the emphasis on presentation.

Take, for instance, the chrysanthemum turnip. A medium-sized turnip must be selected for its shape. It is then peeled then sliced into 1" segments. The best slice is further carved up carefully into a checkered grid. The turnip is pickled overnight until it is as soft and malleable as fabric. It is then drained and flattened out evenly to resemble a chrysanthemum. I used ruby-like flying fish roe to garnish the center of my "flower", then placed some salad greens around it to mimic its leaves. Nothing about it is terribly complicated, but every step must be executed with elegance and care for the final dish to look (and taste) right.

Lacking a grill, I broiled some large, skewered shrimp with a simple glaze made of soy sauce and mirin. The skewers not only look great, but also make it easy to flip over the shrimp each time you brush them with the glaze. Keeping an eye on it is the only requirement for avoiding the kind of rubbery blobs that garnish too many shrimp cocktails. I like a little bit of charring on the edges for some flavor.

My favorite example of culinary simplicity was the broiled/grilled tofu with a salty-sweet white miso glaze. After skewering slabs of medium-firm tofu like popsicles, they were brushed with soy sauce and broiled on each side until they dried out a little and became slightly crispy on the outside. (Note: a grill would be ideal since they'd leave appetizing grill marks on the tofu.) The thick glaze was made separately, combining white miso (other types of miso would work too), a touch of water, lemon juice and a sweetening agent such as sugar or mirin. The glaze was slathered generously onto the tofu then broiled briefly until slightly browned. I emphasize "briefly" because I got a phone call while doing this and my fire alarm went off almost immediately when the glaze started to smoke. It would have also been prudent to soak the skewers in water longer before using them in the oven. (Coulda, woulda, shoulda... I'm not always sensible.) Grated lemon rind makes a nice garnish, particularly since it brings out the lemon notes in the glaze.

By assembling a large assortment of simple dishes and ingredients, I was able to pack the traditional tiered-box or jubako (重箱) with a variety of flavors and colors.

I filled the first tier with water chestnuts, flying fish roe, marinated wild mushrooms, snap peas, the broiled shrimp, herring roe or kazunkoko (数の子) on kelp, dried baby anchovies or chirimenjako (縮緬雑魚), salty-sweet roasted pecans glazed with soy sauce and mirin, battered and fried calamari balls or takoyaki (たこ焼き), and grated daikon or daikon-oroshi (大根おろし) seasoned with lemon juice and soy sauce.

The second tier was filled with larger servings. I made a smoked salmon and pickled cucumber salad seasoned with sesame oil and capers (to be truly Japanese, I would normally make this with sashimi slices instead of smoked salmon and include umeboshi (梅干) or pickled plums in the dressing). I also pickled some lemon and daikon (大根のレモン風味漬け) and seasoned it with some yuzu-flavored hot chili flakes. I lightly seared some lovely slices of salt-cured salmon (leaving the middle still soft and pink). And boiled turnips were served with the miso glaze from the tofu dish (it has many uses!) and garnished with grated lemon rind.

With a steaming bowl of rice, I had all of the above for dinner on New Year's Day. It looks like a lot but it's not like stuffing yourself with turkey and mashed potatoes. One can go through most of this feeling sated, not ready to blow. Admittedly, it takes time to assemble so many different pieces but the net result is like a Spanish tapas or a buffet -- your eyes and your palate are entertained by the wide variety in textures and flavors. It's a good time to contemplate the flavors to be explored in the new year.

Happy new year to all of you!