Tag Archives: Chinese

Char Siu-tan

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I tried making my own seitan today.  Man is it time consuming.  Yes, it’s cheaper to make it from your own flour…much cheaper…but I think the time saved might just make it worth buying it premade.  Plus the texture of the stuff I made was somewhat gelatinous…like the fat on meat, but not fatty tasting.  But in case you’re curious and want to give it a shot, the recipe I used is in The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (the quickest recipe I found), but there are also other recipes online, like this one.

For all the bad rap gluten gets nowadays (yes, there are people who are celiac and extremely sensitive, but I think at least in the bay area fear of gluten has gotten out of hand), seitan a pretty decent meat substitute.  If you fry it with a bit of oil on it, it’ll get crispy on the outside.  If you microwave it, it will puff up and then shrink down into little chicken like chewy bits.  It’s sort of bland on its own, but does well with sauces or seasonings mixed in.

Today I used my homemade seitan to make vegan Char Siu.  The process I used was ridiculous and not efficient.  First I boiled the seitan for a bit in some broth, then I marinated it in a homemade char siu marinade, then I steamed it for a bit, then I put the marinade and the seitan in a pan and cooked it while reducing the sauce, glazing it…then I removed the glazed seitan and washed the pan, added oil, and crisped the seitan up in that.  Way. Too. Complicated.  But here was the result:

I think the process would be easier and quicker if a) you used premade seitan b) just marinated and fried it, then glazed it a la this nice-looking recipe by The Wayward Oven.

Well, it was a fun experiment…and I know what recipe to look at next time I want char siuness.

Folded Hands

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The road to 酸辣抄手 (suanla chaoshou) this week was an odd one.  I’m finally starting to feel better after two weeks of being sick, and it was apparently time for some cooking therapy.  After a week of craving anything 麻辣 (mala, numbing spiciness), I finally got around to making my own 麻辣油 (mala you).  Mala you is a flavored oil that is herbal, spicy, and numbing all at the same time.  There were no visions of any kind of dumpling in my mind at the time, but you know how things go.

Characteristically bright red and spicy, it’s made by infusing oil with a variety of spices.  I pretty much went by the Wikipedia list: “The sauce is made primarily of dried chili peppers, chili powder, douban paste, Sichuan peppercorns, clove, garlic, star anise, black cardamom, fennel, ginger, cinnamon, salt and sugar. These ingredients are simmered with beef tallow and vegetable oil and for many hours, and packed into a jar.”   I packed all the herbs and spices into a crockpot with canola oil.  It took a lot of most of the spices to make and at first I definitely added too much garlic, making it kind of funky tasting. It took a while to get the balance right; I had to taste the oil every hour or so and add whatever seemed to be missing.  I think it would be hard if you hadn’t tasted mala you before to know what I mean.  The crockpot definitely worked nicely, though, for infusing the oil without a big mess.

Actually the funny thing is that after I put everything in the crockpot, I realized I didn’t have douban paste or black cardamom, so I had to trek through the rain on a fall morning to the Vietnamese market downtown.  After slowly bumping through throngs of people down the crowded aisles of the market (at 10 am nonetheless!) and awkwardly ramming into the counter with my shopping basket like a good klutzy geek, not only did I return with doubon paste and cardamom, but also dumpling skins.   Gosh, I’m such a sucker for anything that is a dumpling or a pickle.   Well, I thought they were dumpling skins…until I realized they were actually wonton skins (square instead of circular).

After letting my mala you stew for about 6 hours in the crockpot, tasting it frequently until the balance was right, I strained it through cheesecloth.  Later that night, I somehow got inspired to try to make dumplings with the wonton skins.  At 9:30 pm.  Gosh I’m weird.  They definitely didn’t work for dumplings, so I gave up and made wontons until 11 pm or so.  But then it all ended up coalescing nicely, because I could use the mala you on the wontons…thus making them 酸辣抄手 (suanla chaoshou, a type of dumpling with sauce from Sichuan Provence said to resemble folded hands).  Voila!

My wontons, however, were vegetarian and uncharacteristically extremely flavorful.  Here’s the recipe-ish, off the top of my head, with approximations.  You can use them for the hot and sour dumpling recipe from Sichuan or put them in wonton soup.

Vegetarian Chaoshou

素食抄手

  • 1 package of wonton skins, medium thickness
  • 1 1/2 cups of lotus root coins
  • 5 green onions, washed with bottoms removed
  • 4 reconstituted shiitake mushrooms
  • 1/2 cup reconstituted cloud ear/wood ear mushrooms
  • 2 peeled cloves of garlic
  • 2 coins of fresh ginger
  • 1 small carrot
  • 1 tbsp douban paste (hot bean sauce)
  • 1/2 block of tofu
  • 2/3 cup dry textured vegetable protein (helps bind it together and gives it a more appealing texture)
  • 1 tbsp five spice powder
  • soy sauce to taste

Combine the garlic, green onion, lotus root, ginger, carrot, and mushrooms in the food processor and chop until very fine (or chop finely by hand).  Then add the tofu and textured vegetable protein, douban paste, a bit of soy sauce, and five spice powder and chop it all up until the tofu is no longer in big chunks.  Mix with a spoon as necessary to make sure everything is evenly distributed.

Take a wonton skin out of the package and lay it flat on your hand.  Place a teaspoon of filling in the middle. Put water around the edges and fold wonton style (here’s a video that helped me).  Repeat until all filling is used up.  Should make anywhere from 40-60 wontons.  You can freeze them, but they do tend to stick together.

To serve them suanla (hot and sour) style, mix vegetable broth and black Chinese vinegar (50/50 ratio), a few spoonfulls of mala you (spicy oil), a spoonful of douban paste, and a bit of soy sauce and set that aside.  Steam as many wontons as you intend to eat in one sitting. (I just put a bit of water in a frying pan, add the wontons, then cover it with a lid and let it cook for 5 minutes or so until the skins are slightly transparent.)  Place the steamed wontons in a bowl, dump the sauce over it, garnish with whatever you want (cilantro, green onion, more hot peppers or sichuan peppercorn powder if you’re masochistic).

These are so tasty on a cold rainy day.  And now I have copious amounts of mala you to make everything from dandan mian to hot pot.  Hooray!

 

Veggie Mushu – My best version yet!

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Now that the holidays are over it’s back to eating less meat, which means more vegetarian meals.  I’ve always loved mushu anything, and was very impressed with the addictive veggie mushu made at a great vegan Chinese restaurant in Mountain View.  I hoped that I could vaguely recreate it at home, and I think was fairly successful.

I can’t say this recipe is super quick.  It’s easy to eat, but it takes quite a bit of prep to cook. The main reason is that the way to integrate the tofu in this recipe the best, texture-wise, is to marinate and fry it in oil.  You could, however, save yourself some time by using precut carrots and cabbage.  Also, I find it’s best to put each of the ingredients into a bowl after you’ve prepped them, because wok cooking requires you to add things quickly and keep everything moving.

Luckily Chinese food is great leftover and this recipe makes a lot!

Vegetarian Mushu

Serves at least 3 hungry individuals!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 block Trader Joe’s Extra Firm High Protein Tofu (or probably 1/3 of a larger container of another brand of extra firm tofu)
  • 5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 1/2-1 cup dried wood ear mushroom/black fungus (optional, but present in most mushu recipes in restaurants)
  • soy sauce
  • five spice powder (optional, not pictured)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2″ chunk of fresh ginger
  • 5 cloves garlic
  • 1 small green cabbage
  • 2 small carrots
  • 3 green onions
  • peanut oil (or another high smoke point oil) for frying (not pictured)
  • rice wine
  • (optional: serve with rice or mushu pancakes and hoisin sauce.)

1.  Prepare the tofu. Cut the tofu into thin strips, about 3″ long and 1/4″ wide (as shown in the picture).  Place in a bowl and marinate in a mixture of soy sauce and five spice powder.  Set aside, but stir occasionally to make sure the tofu marinates evenly.

2. Prepare the mushrooms. Remove the stems from the dried shiitake mushrooms (I forgot to do that, but it’s easier to do when they’re dried). Rehydrate the shiitake mushrooms and the black fungus by placing them in two separate bowls of water and microwaving them for 1-2 minutes then letting them sit for a minute or two.  Drain off the water.  Slice the shiitake mushrooms into strips like the tofu, then stir them into the tofu mixture.

3.  Mince the garlic and ginger.

4.  Prepare the vegetables.  Shred the cabbage into shreds about 1/2″ wide.  Cut the carrots into thin strips, about 3″ in length.  Chop the green onions crosswise (after removing the ends), about 1/2″ thick.

5.  Crack the two eggs into a bowl and beat them well.

6.  Drain the liquid off of the tofu/mushroom mixture.

7.  Set a plate near your stove with some paper towels on it.  You’ll drain the tofu on this.  You want it ready beforehand so you can quickly take things out of the oil!

8.  Add about 1-2″ of peanut oil to the wok and turn up the heat to high.  When a drop of water pops when dropped into the oil, your oil is ready.  Add the tofu/mushroom mixture and stir frequently.  The oil should be sizzling and bubbling around the tofu.

9.  When the tofu/mushroom strips look nicely browned and kind of crispy, carefully remove it from the oil and allow it to drain on the paper towel, spreading the mixture out. You want the tofu to be pretty browned and crispy looking, but not black!

10.  Turn off the heat.  Remove some of the oil from the wok (carefully and safely!)  Leave just a little splash in the bottom.  Turn the heat back on high.  Add the beaten eggs.  Let them sit for a few seconds so they start cooking on the bottom, then keep the moving around.  They should be scrambled, but try to make the scrambles small chunks.  Ideally, they’ll be strip-like, like the tofu and mushrooms.  When cooked, remove to a bowl. (A little underdone is better than overdone.)

11.  Add another splash of oil to the wok.  Add your ginger and green onions.  Keep them moving around, and only sautee them for a few seconds.  Then quickly add in all the vegetables and the wood ear/black fungus mushrooms EXCEPT the green onions.  Stir it all up and make sure the garlic and ginger is mixed in well.

12.  Add a splash of rice wine.  Mix it in. This liquid helps cook the veggies, but evaporates quickly because it’s alcohol leaving no extra liquid.  Stir frequently, making sure everything keeps moving and nothing sticks to the bottom, and keep cooking the veggies until the cabbage just starts to turn translucent, just a few minutes at most if your wok is hot enough.

13.  Add in the tofu/mushroom strips mixture.  Mix in well.  Keep everything moving so nothing gets too burnt!  Let cook until the carrots start to get soft, probably just a minute or so.

14.  Add the eggs and green onions.  Stir in.  Add a dash of soy sauce if you’re a salt lover and a sprinkle of MSG if you’re an MSG lover.  Keep it moving.  Once the carrots are no longer crunchy, it’s done!  Turn off the heat!

15.  Serve with a squeeze of hoisin sauce and brown rice or mushu pancakes, whatever your heart desires.  Or just eat it as is!

Dueling Kung Pao Chickens

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Those with some knowledge of Chinese culture or world travel experience know that the Chinese food you get in American Chinese restaurants and the Chinese food Chinese people eat at home or in restaurants are two different beasts entirely.  Chinese people seem to be big fans of meat having some resistance to it, a la tripe, chicken feet, tendon, stewed pork belly with the skin on, and a whole lot of other offal.  They’re also not as removed from the fact that their meat was an animal before, tending to prefer bone-in meats like oxtail.

Chinese people, though, being the amazingly resourceful people that they often are, figured out a long time ago out that Americans probably don’t like this whole chewy texture thing as much.  We like fried things.  Crispy things.  A lot.  And stuff with sauces and familiar flavors and vegetables.  This is my best guess as to how Americanized Chinese food was born: Chinese people figured out what Americans like, and tailored their cuisine to be addictive to Americans.  I think they did a darn good job.

However, I like both Americanized Chinese food and more authentic Chinese food, each on their own separate incomparable planes of existence.  One such dish that crosses the boundaries in name and concept is Kung Pao Chicken, or 宫保鸡丁(gōng bǎo jī dīng).  The Americanized version has battered boneless chicken bits fried until crispy and covered with a spicy somewhat sour sauce, with whole peanuts added and maybe some other vegetables. The Chinese version kind of omits the whole crispy factor and keeps in the bones and skin, doesn’t add any unnecessary vegetables, uses more local varieties of vinegar, and adds some spices more unfamiliar to the American palette (namely, Sichuan Peppercorns or 花椒).

Oddly, I like the Chinese version a lot better.  Normally I’m not a huge fan of peanuts in food, but it works somehow.  Tonight, inspired by my friend Jiaxu’s peanutless recipe that was very similar to this, I attempted cooking my own gōng bǎo jī dīng.  The results were tasty, but need some perfection.  You can see my recipe below with suggestions as to how to make it better.  I suspect my recipe is somewhere in between the lands of Americanized and Chinese Chinese cuisine.

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Gong Bao Chicken

(serves 2 with rice)

  • ~1 pound of bone in, skin on chicken thighs (3 thighs)
  • 1/2 c rice wine (I just used sake, because it’s what I had.)
  • 1 c black vinegar
  • pinch salt
  • 10 dried red “chiles de arbol”, basically dried red thai chilis, or something similar
  • 2 tsp powdered Sichuan peppercorn (“flower pepper”, or sometimes, “red pepper”, 花椒)
  • 1 tbsp peanut oil
  • 1/3 cup raw peanuts, smashed with a cleaver or other wide knife (plain roasted peanuts will suffice, just don’t fry them as long.)
  • 2 green onions, roughly chopped, ends removed
  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced into thin coins
  • additional black vinegar

(If you can’t use black vinegar, my best suggestion would be to use cider vinegar plus a tiny bit of Worcestershire sauce mixed in with it to mimic the flavor.)

Cut chicken thighs into 2-3″ pieces using a cleaver.  Marinate in a bowl with rice wine, vinegar, salt, powdered sichuan peppercorn, chili peppers, for about 1-2 hours (or overnight if you want).  Drain off extra marinade before using.

Add the oil to a wok (or large skillet of the cast iron or stainless steel variety) and bring it up to smoking hot.  Add additional whole sichuan peppercorns if you have them and like them and the smashed raw peanuts.  Fry it up until the peanuts are slightly crispy and browned.  Add chicken, keep moving around the pan, browning the meat a bit.  Should take no more than 2 minutes.

Add the green onions and garlic, stir.  Add additional vinegar, probably about 2/3 cup or so.  Keep the chicken moving around, coating it with the vinegar.  It should get considerably darker in color. Keep cooking until vinegar is absorbed into chicken and/or evaporated– no liquid should remain on the bottom of the pan.

Serve hot.  Avoid the chilis and the bones in the chicken.

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A lot of Americans are not fans of having to avoid things in their food.  When they go to authentic Chinese restaurants, they complain about not knowing that they’re not supposed to eat whole seed pods in the hot pot broth and the like.  You just have to learn or ask. If it’s not chewable or burns your face off, don’t eat it.  If this bothers you, stick to Americanized Chinese food.

Having things you aren’t necessarily supposed to eat (that are just there for flavor or seasoning) makes you more aware of what you’re eating. It makes for a more mindful and appreciative slwo experience, which honestly is one of the reasons I think we have to blame for obesity in America.  If things weren’t designed to be consumed quickly without having to avoid things, we’d have to take a little more time and our “fullness” instinct would kick in sooner.   It’s worth a shot if you cook at home to stop designing your food for efficiency and increase the attentiveness requirement of your meals.  It might also save you some money, too.

Miso Lentils

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Well, I’m giving lentils a shot again.  This time it’s red lentils rather than the green/brown ones.  The others are tasty, but a little spicy and overpower delicate seasoning.  The red lentils have their outer layer moved, so they work better for delicate seasoning and can create a creamy texture.  It’s been a while since I’ve made or posted a bento, too!

Tomorrow’s bento: rice, homemade furikake , umeboshi, a couple other types of tsukemono, fresh shiso leaves, marinated tofu, and miso lentils.

To make the lentils: use equal parts red lentils and water.  Rinse lentils well, let soak for an hour or so, rinse again.  Add to pot with the water, add 1 heaping tablespoon of fresh (the kind you need to refrigerate, not powdered!) miso for each cup of lentils, 1 coin fresh ginger, and a tiny piece of star anise.

Boil 45 minutes, or until lentils are soft.  Drain off any extra liquid if necessary. I like to press mine down.  Savory, complex flavor with none of the usual bitterness of lentils.

Loquat Butter

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(c) Kestrel Dunn, 2011At long last, the rain has stopped and the loquats have begun ripening in the landscaping around the area.  The loquat, or 枇杷, is an evergreen fruit tree native to China, but was introduced to landscaping in the U.S., most likely due to its textured foliage and brightly colored fruit.  It’s vaguely related to the apple/pear and stone fruits.

Photo of a loquat tree, (c) Lori_NY, from Flickr

Why is the loquat awesome?  The fruit is soft and quite juicy, with thin skins, and a tangy flavor that I can best describe as a cross between a pear and an apricot.   They’re quite fragrant, in a good way.   This is what keeps me going back into different apartment complexes’ landscaping and collecting bagfuls.

Given that it’s somewhat close to an apple, I figured I’d try my hand at making some loquat butter.  Loquats being more fragrant, however, I personally don’t think you need to add any cinnamon or anything.  It just detracts from their natural flavor.  My recipe below will yield a tangy, smooth butter.  If you like apple butter and you like apricot jam, you’ll probably like this.

The Loquat Butter Ratio

4 parts loquats, seeded and destemmed, skins retained
1 part water
2 parts sugar

(4 cups of  loquat meats will yield about a pint of loquat butter)

Loquats are ripe when their skins are as orange as they can get (not as orange as a pumpkin, but definitely not yellow) and they come easily off the tree.  You can easily seed them by digging your thumb into the fruit from the bottom and popping out the shiny brown seeds.

Always remove the seeds!!  Like apples, their seeds contain cyanogenic compounds.  Yes, cyanide.  But as long as you remove them, you’re good.  Leave the skins on, though, because they give it a pretty color, and I suspect they have the most vitamins.

Once you’ve got all your seeded loquat meets, add them to a pot with the water and sugar, mix well.  Bring to a boil.

Reduce them to a simmer.  Let them simmer away for a good hour or so, stirring occasionally, until they somewhat disintegrate.

Then, throw all of this in a blender or food processor and give it a whirl.  (If you’re more patient and have a crock pot, you might be able to skip this step and just let it cook forever. Not sure if the skins would break down enough though.)

Put all of this back into your pot, or into a frying pan like I did.  Let it simmer for another 30 minutes to an hour, stirring more frequently than before.  It should reduce down by about 1/4-1/3.

Use whatever canning method you like.  If you’ve made one pint and you plan to use it within a few weeks, just throw it in a jar and keep it refrigerated.  If you want to keep it longer or give it away as presents, use some sort of legitimate serious canning method.

I, however, am not going to wait.  I am going to eat my seasonal prize, the result of my being looked at funny for standing knee deep in English ivy to reach a tree with particularly voluptuous fruit.

Loquats are also awesome in cocktails, fruit salad, or on ice cream.

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.

Oh shoot, pea shoots!

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I’ve eaten pea sprouts (bean sprouts).  I’ve eaten peas.  Only in the past few years have I learned to appreciate pea shoots.

There seem to be several stages of pea-ness (tehe):

  • bean sprouts/just sprouts (not much color on them)
  • pea sprouts (a little color, some tiny leafiness developing)
  • pea shoots (more color, definitely have some pea leaves going on, but don’t look like fully developed plants quite yet)
  • pea greens (they look like pea plants.  surprise.)
  • peas (yep, just the fruit)
  • beans (dried peas)

I was apprehensive about eating the plants at first to be honest.  Were they edible? Generally I don’t go about eating plants of things that I eat the fruits of (tomatoes, eggplant, blahblah.  Those are mostly nightshades, so not really a good idea to eat them anyway, but I’d perhaps over-extrapolated it a bit).

My first experience with pea shoots was on the pea shoot/pea greens end of the spectrum: they were kind of tough.  However, if you get them earlier– between the sprout and shoot stage– they’re actually really awesome.  A bit like bean sprouts with a slight pea-y flavor.  The older/more developed ones will probably keep in the fridge for a bit longer, but  you have to choose what you value most; there are always trade-offs in food.

Fry them up with some garlic, veggie oil, and a little bit of sesame oil for flavor (salt to taste).  I threw in a couple of chunks of ginger (to be removed before eating) and some cayenne pepper.  They’re fun to cook because they cook down a lot, like Spinach.  I like transformer foods.

This is a limited time offer. You can really only get pea shoots/sprouts in spring.  You can get bean sprouts year round in most places, but you’ll likely only find the shoots/sprouts at your local farmer’s market or Asian market (or your garden, if you’re hardcore like that!).  I recommend the ones with the smaller leaves, but the ones with more pea plant sized leaves can hold up for longer cooking.  Give them a try!

Nasubi Miso – Japanese Miso Eggplant

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I cooked this up in a hurry tonight so the form isn’t the best, but the flavor is always awesome.  I like mine a little spicy, which is pretty non-traditional, but hey…this is Diet with an Identity Crisis, right?  Also, this recipe shows you just how much patience I lack when cooking late on a weeknight.  There are two ways to do this: the pretty way, or the lazy quick way.

Nasubi Miso (Japanese Miso Eggplant)

Ingredients

  • 2 Asian eggplant (often marketed as “Chinese eggplant”– the long, skinny lighter purple ones), largely diced
  • 1/3 yellow onion, sliced into thin slices
  • 1 thai chili, cut up into thin coins and then minced up (optional)
  • 1-3 tsp vegetable or canola oil
  • 1/4 cup white miso (the light brown color paste, not the instant dried kind)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/3 cup mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine seasoning– you could substitute light corn syrup with a little bit of sherry if needed. Most mass produced Mirin doesn’t have much wine flavor anyway.)
  • 1/8 to 1/4 cup of soy sauce (depending on taste)
  • Sesame seeds to taste
  • Other potential additions if you’d like (though omitted in this recipe): 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger and/or 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Put water and miso in a bowl.

Mix until miso becomes like…miso soup.  No big lumps.

Heat up wok or other cooking pan and add oil.  Coat pan well.

Add onions and chilis and keep moving around the hot pan, getting the flavor infused in the oil.  They should get a little goldenly browned on the edges, but not too much.

Add the eggplant cubes.  Mix well, until lightly coated with oil.  Brown a little bit if you’d like.

Add in the miso.  Mix it all up.

(You can see I added more liquid than I’ve put in this recipe.  I lowered it for the recipe because I had to drain about 1/4 of a cup of liquid off.)  Probably best to turn down the heat and let it simmer for a bit, stirring every 30-60 seconds.    Simmer until the eggplant starts being soft and less like styrofoam.

I kept mine on high heat, but you’ll get a prettier looking & better textured result if you cook it slower with more patience.  You can cook it hot and fast like me though, if you’re impatient and really only care about flavor.

Add mirin (or the corn syrup or sugar syrup & possibly sherry mixture).

Add soy sauce.  At this point, I’d pull off a piece and blow on it until cool and see if it needs more soy sauce or mirin.  The taste should be neither sharply sweet nor salty,  more like a salty caramel.  Nom.

If you turned down the heat, bring it back up again.  Mix it all up and keep mixing it over the heat.  You’re going to get a nice caramelized eggplant thing going on here.  The eggplant should be soft (and if you cooked it the lazy fast way like me, kinda mushy and having lost a considerable amount of its shape).  Throw in as many sesame seeds as you want.

Wait for it to cook before you eat it.  Don’t be a fool like me and be all “WHOO THIS IS AWESOME” and take a hefty taste of  it and burn the roof of your mouth.  ’Cause I can guarantee it’s really not worth the pain.

If you used your wok– please, dear god, do not wash it with soap.  Let that black caramelized patina stay on there and wash it with hot water and a gentle scrubber.  Then heat it up smoking hot and reseason it with some more oil (or lard, if you’re hardcore).

Goodnight to any people who read this blog but rarely (if ever) comment on it!  Sweet dreams of caramelized nasubi.

Sunday Bento #4

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Salad with lettuce, green onions, farmer’s market carrots, splendido cherry tomatoes (the bomb diggity, TJ’s has them, check them out if you can), fresh boiled beets, and a homemade tea egg (here’s what to do with broken hard boiled eggs not fit for easter egg coloring) with a couple of wedges of lemon.


My coworker, Jen, of Blue Wave Studios (an awesome photographer, jet setter, foodie, and girl geek), brought me back an omiyage of a perfect little desk sized set of olive oil & vinegar from her recent trip to Spain.  She said “I thought you’d like this because you eat so much salad!”  Hm, I haven’t been lately, but it is true that I love salad and I do love Spanish olive oil (sorry, Italian heritage).  Thus, this appetizing salad bento for lunch tomorrow.  Thanks for inspiring me, Jen! :)