Category Archives: Fusion Adventures

Munching Meals

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Lately I’ve had a habit of eating little bits of all sorts of things for dinner rather than just sitting down to a huge portion of something.  Especially when I spread it out over a few hours, I’ve found it to be more satisfying.  I also eat less, I think, which is both surprising and unsurprising.

Tonight, though, I decided to go for a combo-plate type dinner.  My combo plate made most things be about equal rather than having any one thing dominate.

Tonight’s menu:

  • Korean mixed grain rice (Microwaveable in 1.5 mins — this stuff is magic.  Find it at your local Japanese, Korean, or possibly Chinese market.)
  • Ohitashi with bell pepper (Cooked spinach with soy sauce.  Try microwaving washed spinach for 30 seconds, then adding a bit of soy sauce, a little lemon juice, and some sesame seeds for my favorite and super easy version).  Both Japanese spinach and bell peppers from the garden!
  • Tomato slices
  • Tamagoyaki (Mix beaten eggs with mirin and soy– mostly eggs, a little more mirin than soy, cook in a pan attending frequently. Periodically lift up cooked egg and allow runny egg to flow under cooked. Fold the layers as you go occasionally, aiming to get a rectangular block you can slice.  Cook until solid and with slight caramelization on either side.)
  • South East Asian inspired salad, with most of ingredients from the garden: peas, radishes, baby mustard greens, cilantro, opal basil, and (not from the garden) grapefruit and green onions.  Dressing: seasoned rice vinegar microwaved for 30 seconds with two coins of ginger to lightly infuse it and let cool before tossing the salad in it.
  • Garnish: lemon slice and home grown shiso.

Pretty satisfying, and the whole thing took maybe 30 minutes to prepare and was vegetarian.  And you can’t get much fresher than vegetables from the garden!

Nutrition tips I’ve learned lately:  in order to absorb all the nutrients from dark leafy vegetables, make sure to pair them with something with vitamin C.  Also, microwaving spinach is not only quicker and easier, but also retains the most nutrients!

Kuri Squash Soup with Chestnuts

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One of my recent CSA deliveries included a red Kuri Squash.  The name inspired me to create a velvety squash soup with red curry and meaty chestnuts.  I started with my own broth, made from a mirepoix with oyster mushrooms and simmered with kaffir lime leaves and ginger.  (Note that the mirepoix & mushrooms method is a great way to make vegetarian soup broth in general.) The soup itself has the consistency of a vichyssoise or other creamy soup, with chestnuts adding some substance and is sort of Thai-French-American fusion…  I recommend serving each bowl with a bit of fresh cilantro.

Roasted chestnuts that are pre-shelled are often available at Japanese or Chinese grocery stores (like Nijiya or 99 Ranch) in vacuum sealed packages.  They’re pretty convenient and tasty!  One forenote…I’m not a big fan of Trader Joe’s red curry sauce (I didn’t have a chance to try it before this recipe), so if you make this I’d recommend using Thai red curry paste that comes in a tub.

The only reason I used the Trader Joe’s brand is because normally Thai curry paste is not vegetarian because it includes shrimp paste.  I now regret that decision…it would’ve been better with the sacrificed shrimp.  If I made it again, I might also add some sprigs of lemongrass to the both while simmering.

Curry Kuri Squash Soup with Chestnuts

Ingredients

  • 1 Kuri Squash (or other winter squash)
  • 1/2 yellow onion
  • 2 small carrots
  •  2 stalks celery
  • 1 cup oyster mushrooms (or other mushrooms)
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 kaffir lime leaves
  • 1 large coin fresh ginger
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 can light coconut milk
  • 1/2 bottle of Trader Joe’s red curry sauce (or a few tbsp red curry paste instead)
  • 1+ tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tbsp fresh grated ginger
  • 2 cups chopped roasted, shelled chestnuts
  • fresh cilantro for garnish

Cut the squash in half and roast it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, or until easily poked with a fork and soft.

Dice celery, carrots, and onions into about 1/4″ cubes.

Chop the mushrooms roughly and add them to a pot with the 2 tbsp of butter.  Mix it all up well.  Sautee them until the mushrooms are nicely browned.

Add the mirepoix and 2 cloves of garlic to the pot and mix it up so it gets coated with the butter.  Continue sauteeing until the onions start becoming browned and caramelized.

Add the water and soy sauce and mix well.  Let it simmer for about 15 minutes.  If you just want a vegetarian stock, once the broth tastes flavorful enough to you, simply strain out the liquid and you have a very good vegetable broth.  For the squash soup, continue on…

Add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, and ginger coins.  Mix well and simmer for 15 minutes.  (I put a couple of tomatoes in with the broth just because…I don’t think it added anything special though.  Not sure why I added it.  But that explains that tomato you see floating there that isn’t included in the ingredients list…)

Strain off the liquid and dispose of the mirepoix/etc.

Time to get back to the squash…remove the seeds and scoop out the meat.

Add the squash to a blender along with the curry sauce and a bit of the broth you just strained.  Blend it up until smooth.

Return the broth to the pot and add the squash mixture.  Mix it all up well and let it simmer.  Add some cayenne powder.

Roughly chop up the chestnuts.  Add them to the soup.

Add the 2 tbsp of grated ginger.  Simmer the soup on a low heat for quite a while, stirring intermittently, until reduced as much as you’d like.

Serve with fresh cilantro, perhaps a wedge of lime.

 

Dashi on Demand

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Today’s bright idea from yours truly: homemade dashi cubes.

You can buy premade dried dashi that you add to water, but I’m not a huge fan of it.  I always found it somewhat cardboard-flavored.  I often make my own vegetarian dashi instead (most dashi is not vegetarian, because it involves dried fish).  The problem is though, that you can only keep fresh dashi in the fridge for so long…but what prolongs the life of things that need to be refrigerated?  The freezer!

Today’s bright idea was to put the freshly made dashi into an ice cube tray so I can pop out a few cubes whenever I want some dashi for something.  Given that soba dipping sauce is essentially just dashi diluted with some extra sugar water, these are great for melting and dipping  your cool soba noodles in for zaru soba in the summertime.  You can also use them for other Japanese recipes like agedashi tofu, soups such as nabemono, and more!

My vegetarian dashi usually begins with a water and soy sauce base. Mine’s not terribly traditional (I like it a little spicy) and I’m going to estimate what I’d put in there for you, but you can (and probably should) tailor it to your own tastes.  It’d be best to make your own and perfect it over time. :) Just Hungry suggests that you can make the vegetarian dashi with or without shiitakes, but I prefer it with because I was raised a meat eater and it needs some oomph to me.

Ingredients for my version of vegetarian dashi:

(Disclaimer– I haven’t tried this exact measurement, I’m just estimating from my head.  I’d test it as you go, though things should be pretty forgiving.  Just watch the soy sauce-water-mirin/sake balance.  Taste as you go.)

  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1/8+ cup cooking sake
  • 1/8 cup mirin (or substitute a bit more sake and a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar)
  • 1/2 carrot, cut into coins
  • several coins of ginger
  • a green onion or two, cut into big chunks
  • 2 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • a medium sized piece of kombu, probably cut into strips (I’ve used nori in a pinch, but you have to use a bit more and it doesn’t work quite the same)
  • a dried spicy chili or two (optional)

You just bring that to a boil and then let it simmer slowly for a while, at least an hour.  You’ll probably have to push the dried shiitake mushrooms down every now and then until they get waterlogged enough because they tend to float to the top.

Once it’s done, strain it all.  Allow it to cool for a bit, then pour it into a couple of ice cube trays.  Once you put those in the freezer and let them become solid, you can pop out as many cubes as you need whenever you want some fresh-tasting dashi.

Molé Cow

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It’s been a while since I posted.  Graduate school has this tendency to take over your life.  Luckily, though, you still have to feed yourself (gotta keep those brain cells fueled!) so cooking great food is an entirely legitimate use of precious time.

Graduate school also lends itself to attempts to save money so that you don’t find yourself broke come summertime.  As such, I invested in a cheap crockpot.  Crockpots are the holy grail of kitchen devices for extremely busy budget minded people.  Throw some cheap stuff in, let it cook on low overnight or while you’re at work, reap the benefits.  I was pretty stoked to start using mine and feeling adventurous, so I headed to the local market.

There’s one key piece of demographic information about my neighborhood that shapes the availability of just about everything– it’s mostly populated by Latino families.  This results in an abundance of cheap meat and delicious popsicles, among other things.  Grabbing myself a paleta, a pound of mixto de res (beef stew meat), and various spices, I headed back home with the intent to cook some molé inspired stewed beef.

As far as I know, molé typically involves chicken.  For some reason I was craving some spicy rich beef, so I decided to riff on the classic in my own crazy gringa way.

The ingredients were, I think, as follows:

  • 1 lb beef stew chunks
  • flour
  • salt & pepper
  • 1 onion
  • a few cloves of garlic
  • cumin
  • chili powder
  • unsweetened chocolate
  • sesame seeds
  • pumpkin seeds
  • dried chipotle peppers
  • vegetable oil
  • palm sugar
  • 1 carrot
  • water (should’ve used beef stock, but I didn’t have any)

First I mixed the beef chunks with the flour, salt, and pepper and let that sit.

(The next step should’ve been to brown the beef quickly on all sides in some oil in a hot pan, but I didn’t.  It still came out good, but this would’ve made it even better.)

Then I sauteed the onions and garlic with all the spices and chipotle peppers, and after they were nice and caramelized I turned off the heat and mixed in the cocoa powder.  The crock pot had already been heating up for a bit while I was sauteeing the onions.  I put some oil in there and let that warm up.

Once the crock pot was heated up on high, I added the beef, then the onion mixture, and finally some carrots for some added nutritional value and color.

Added some water and threw in the palm sugar and topped it off with some pumpkin seeds for good measure.  I let that come to a simmer on high, then turned it down to low and let it cook all night while I was sleeping.

Let me tell you, though…cooking in a crockpot in a studio is a sure fire way to make everything in your entire abode smell like whatever you’re cooking.  I woke up and was socked in the face by molé. After a bit of a “wtf?” moment, I realized that the reason my nostrils were burning was because I’d put too many chipotle peppers in there.  Hoo boy.  That’s one way to wake up.  It smelled good, but there was no denying that it was spicy.  Probably too spicy to eat alone.

So after letting that sit in the fridge for about a day while pondering how exactly I’d eat my face-searing beef, I decided going taco-style might help mellow out some of the spiciness.  It was perfect.  The beef was so tender that I was able to shred it, topped with some fresh cilantro and some perfectly ripe tomatoes and a squeeze of lime, it was a perfect meal.  The beef was also quite good in a big ol’ burrito.  Confusingly inauthentic and potentially baffling to native eaters, but deliciously so.

So in the end, I’d say beef molé is actually pretty tasty as a concept, but to improve upon my recipe I’d sear the beef, use less chipotles, and then use beef broth instead of water.  It should be pretty satisfying.

Japanese food doesn’t have to be expensive…

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…or healthy, for that matter. (There are plenty of other examples, but I’ll spare you a diatribe.)  So let’s get rid of those preconceptions and get on with the cooking!

Sometimes, I really fear for the day that I ever possibly decide to have children.  I already get the strangest cravings.  I would feel so sorry for my spouse– they’d probably be trekking all over tarnation to get the most obscure ingredients.  And then, to even think what that child would grow up loving as a result…eep!

This Saturday morning things went as such:

  • 7:30 am Cat jumps on bed and says it’s time to get up
  • 7:45 am Neighbors decide it’s a good time to have an extremely loud conversation
  • 7:55 am I give up on sleep, start thinking about breakfast
  • 7:56 am Eggs? No…too savory.  Hm. Something sweet and savory at the same time. What do I have? Sausages…eggs…potatoes…none of this sounds good.
  • 7:57 am OMURICE?!?! But that’s a lunch thing…screw it, I’m not Japanese.  Doesn’t matter to me. Tonkatsu sauce should work ok, right? Yeah.  Woooh let’s do this!
  • 7:59 am Get out of bed, check rice.  It’s old.  Inedible.  Crap. :(
  • 8:00 am Omu….omuuuuuu….omusoba?? But I have no appropriate soba.  What do I have?  Instant ramen!
  • 8:02 am prep veggies– peel & cut carrot into thin strips, onion into thin strips, and some thin strips of green cabbage, then chop some green onions thinly & set those aside.
  • 8:04 am crack 2 1/2 eggs into a bowl, beat them thoroughly taking out any anger from my dreams.
  • 8:05 am boil instant ramen noodles, sans seasoning packet, in water for 2 minutes until soft but not fully cooked.  Drain & leave in strainer.
  • 8:08 am put oil in a pan (in my case, a wok), turn up the heat to high and add veggies.  Move em around.  Add ramen noodles.  Add tonkatsu sauce (I didn’t have yakisoba sauce, but honestly I find it hard to taste the difference…).  Keep it all moving around.  Woooh we’re cooking.  Man, I need some coffee.
  • 8:10 am put oil in a smaller frying pan.  Warm it up.  Dump in eggs.  Wait until bottom is solid, flip.  Ooh that looks goldeny, but not as Japanese golden since I used 2 whole eggs + 1 egg white…but whatever.  Turn off heat and let it rest a minute.
  • 8:14 am Flop omelet on a plate.  Dump yakisoba in the middle.  Fold omelet around noodles. Squirt some more sauce on top, sprinkle with green onions.
  • 8:16 am Take a picture for viewers like you.  Maybe a few so at least one will come out ok.  Get mad at camera for overenthusiastic flash.  Wish lighting was better.
  • 8:18 am Give up caring about picture.  Resume caring about food.  Stuff face. Research omusoba while stuffing face.  Be satisfied with self. Wonder where my coffee is.

Japan has two “omu-” dishes that I know of: omurice and omusoba.  The “omu” stands for omelet, in case you hadn’t guessed by now.  Yakisoba is generally a little more fancy than what I threw together here (and distinctly less vegetarian), but this was good enough for me.  Either way, though, I’d say omusoba is not exactly a health food.

There are a fair amount of instant yakisoba along the lines of instant ramen, but honestly I wouldn’t use that for this.  Instead, take those instant ramen noodles and fry them up with carrots, onions, cabbage, and whatever else along with some yakisoba sauce (or in my case, tonkatsu sauce…).  If you didn’t have yakisoba/tonkatsu sauce, you could probably make an ok substitute by putting worchestershire sauce, a little ketchup or some kind of tangy but not too intense jelly, and maybe a little sugar in a pot and thickening that up together.

There are actually some ‘kits’ you can buy at Japanese markets that are pretty good, though, which have soft fresh noodles and a packet of tonkatsu sauce.  Those would work even better than my cheapo method.

What I like about my cheapo method though is that it’s A) instant gratification and B) cheap.  A bottle of tonkatsu sauce probably cost me $4 and lasts forever in the fridge.  Eggs are $3 a dozen.  Instant ramen is like $0.15 a  pack.  Cabbage is cheap.A bag of 12 carrots costs like $2, and an onion about $0.50.

With 1 packet of instant ramen noodles, 1/4c of tonkatsu sauce, 1/16 of a green cabbage, 1/4 of a yellow onion, 1 green onion, 1 carrot, 2 eggs, and a tablespoon or two of oil…I’d estimate the cost of this meal to be about $2, maybe $3 max.  And if you buy the ingredients, you’ll have enough to make so much omusoba that you’ll never want to eat it again!

Related links for you:

Sorry for the underwhelming lack of photos in this post…but it’s 9 am on a Saturday, so I hope you’ll forgive me!

Chicken Soup for the Asian Soul

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Today I’d like to introduce you to what I, strangely, think is one of the most beautiful Chinese characters: 粥 .  If you’re walking around sniffling and coughing and see this character outside a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean restaurant, you’re in luck.

Zhōu, jook, congee, okayu, it’s a food with many different names that I would imagine evolved independently in all of these countries, and well, anywhere that serves rice.  When all you have is rice and some stuff to put in it and you want something warm, porridge is the way you go.  It makes rice go a long way: 1 cup of rice will easily make 4 hearty servings of porridge.  Unlike oatmeal or cream of wheat in the U.S., though, rice porridge is generally savory and can be eaten any time of day, though is commonly eaten for breakfast in China.

It’s cold winter day food.  Sick people food. Baby food.  Poor people food.  Zhou is widespread and will fill your stomach like a simple hug.  You can add whatever you want to it to make it however you’d like, and as thick or thin as you like it.  The southern Chinese will add  ground meat, a few finely chopped mushrooms and very thinly julienned ginger, maybe even some raw peanuts, and top it with green onions.  Northern Chinese might add spinach and keep it simple.  Japanese might add fish eggs and pickles along with green onions.  Koreans might throw abalone or some of their beloved kimchi in there .

The type of zhou that I like to make when I’m sick is generally somewhat thick (8:1 water to rice ratio), cooked slowly, and often vegetarian.  I bring the rice  in the water to a boil, then turn it down to very low simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot.  While it’s cooking (about halfway through), I add finely chopped shiitake mushrooms, and then when it’s almost done, some spinach, then top it with green onions.  I’ve been known to put peanuts in mine too, at the same time as the mushrooms.  It can cook for as little or as long as you want, but I’d advise that you give it at least 40 minutes of cooking and stirring and let it cool for a minute before you eat it.

Today’s zhou is a sort of hearty sino-japanese hybrid. I’ve added the mushrooms and spinach and topped it with green onions, Yuzukoshō, one of my mom’s homemade salted duck eggs, and bonito flakes.  (Now, mom, you know one thing you can do with those salted duck eggs you made!)  Let’s hope it scares off the germs that have been bothering me this weekend!

For more rice porridge goodness and ideas, check out the wikipedia article. Only if it was a beloved food to many would such a simple dish have such a long wikipedia article.

Naan grilled cheese

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I bought some garlic naan at Trader Joe’s last week.  It’s certainly not authentic naan, but it’s nice and fluffy and has a very garlicky flavor.  Marco, who apparently wants to see my thighs turn into the Hindenburg, gave me some brie as a thank you for helping him in his job search.

What does this all mean?  Grilled cheeeese!

Ah, this sandwich was sexy. Fluffy garlicky bread, melty brie, fresh basil.  Adding anything besides a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper would make it harder to appreciate, I think.  For an extra crispy sandwich, grill it with a little melted butter or bacon fat spread on each side.  You can get all of the ingredients for this in Trader Joe’s, but I’m sure you could pick up stuff elsewhere over multiple locations and make the same sandwich.

Président now makes a brie log, bless their hearts.  So if you just want to gnaw on a stick of brie, you damn well can. Or, it’d probably be perfect size for slicing onto a baguette or crackers.  While Président may not have the most character of the bries out there, it’s still got that brie-y goodness and intense meltability.

I recommend you try this garlicky wonder someday.  Your socks may be knocked off.

Japanese Taco Salad

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Today I wanted to do a price point challenge.  I had $11 in my wallet and was craving fish tacos.  With what I bought from Trader Joe’s to make this dish (spices, oil, and flour excluded), it only cost about $11 total to get enough ingredients for at *least* 4 servings (admittedly I did get my soba from 99 Ranch, the Asian supermarket, so it might cost more at TJ’s).  ($9 for fish & veg, $2 for a bottle of 2 buck chuck (excluded from costing here >.> , and $2 for soba noodles)

For the soba noodle “taco salad”:

  • soba noodles cooked & rinsed & drained as per directions on package
  • white sweet onion diced finely
  • shredded cabbage
  • jalapeño peppers, finely diced (how many probably depends on how spicy they are)
  • cherry tomatoes, cut into four pieces each
  • fresh cilantro, chopped  (mine was from my garden!  whee Spring!)
  • 1 freshly squeezed lime
  • dash sesame oil (not used a lot in Japanese cooking, but whatever, it’s identity crisis fusion)
  • toasted sesame seeds
  • salt

For the fish:

  • Trader Joe’s frozen Mahi Mahi chunks (defrosted)
  • lime juice
  • sea salt
  • dash of Ponzu
  • brown sugar (or substitute Mirin for more Japanese flavor)

Marinaded briefly, then dried and then coated with:

  • rice flour
  • hot chili flakes

Fried in

  • vegetable oil

until golden, dried on paper towels and served on top of the salad.

To make this more Japanese, top with Kewpie brand or slightly sweetened U.S. mayo (ala Oaxaca fish tacos) and sub green onions for white onions.  Some furikake or shredded nori would be a fancypants garnish.

You could substitute regular white flour or cornstarch for the rice flour in a pinch, or go super fancy and make the fish tempura style.
Eaten together, this recipe was awesome for a hot day.  I’m not normally a fan of mahi mahi, but it does in a pinch if it’s the cheapest fish you can get.

Maple Miso-Glazed Sea Bass

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My dad is here to visit! I wanted to cook him a nice dinner last night, so here’s what we had:

  • Browned butter garlic spinach fettucini
  • Bitter green salad (wilted dandelion greens) with homemade meyer lemon blue cheese dressing
  • Maple Miso Glazed Seabass

You’ll see miso glazed fish or chicken at a lot of fancy restaurants.  The fact of the matter is that this is very, very easy to make at home.  I threw in some maple syrup for a more unique flavor.

To make the glaze:

  • 4 tbsp white miso
  • 1/3 to 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup mirin
  • 2 tsp fresh finely grated ginger
  • 1 1/2 cups of water

Blend miso paste with water.  Add to pot along with all the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil then reduce the heat.  Stir frequently.  Let reduce until it becomes a somewhat thick gravy-like consistency.  It should probably take about 15 minutes.

Take your (fresh or well defrosted) fish, add a little butter or vegetable oil to a frying pan, sear it on both sides (lightly browned). Turn down the heat to medium. Baste one side with the miso maple glaze, flip that glazed side face down on the pan, then glaze the other side.  Let the fish cook 2-5 minutes on each side.  The miso glaze should not burn, just turn a darker brown.  When you push on the fish with a fork, it should push back and be firm.

No Thyme for Jerks

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Tomorrow's bento: jerk tempeh with wehani rice with fennel seeds, collard greens, and carrots.

I managed to get some allspice from the grocery store so I can start cooking from the Delicious Jamaica cookbook, but I forgot the thyme.  I loosely followed Sobers’ recipe for a wet jerk marinade, substituting a little oregano for the missing thyme and adding some garlic (not sure why on that one).  Overall it came out decently, but I think I need to follow the recipe more closely next time.

I cooked up some tempeh in the jerk marinade and it came out okay…while tempeh has a great texture and absorbs flavor readily, it also has a bit of a bitter flavor that’s best masked by sweeter or saltier sauces.  As a result, the jerk seasoning on tempeh didn’t quite work as well as I’d hoped; I’d recommend using tofu instead.  The most amusing part of this I suppose is the fact that tempeh is Indonesian,  jerk seasoning is Jamaican and the wehani rice with fennel seeds is vaguely Indian inspired.