Wow, has it really been since February?! Had I abandoned this food blog for that long?!
Even now that I write in three different "blog"-type forums (mostly in Japanese), I still consider this my A-side blog - my home, my roots - which is why I haven't been able to delete it even as it has become grossly outdated.
I have been doing very well lately, and I have been getting back into writing in the evening again. Yes, yes, I know spending time before going to bed in front of the computer is supposed to disrupt my sleep cycle, etc. Unfortunately, it is the only time I have to read and write outside of the occasional 10 min reading I do in between working in the lab or while some mega-process is eating up my CPU cycles. Ha, don't I sound so computer-savvy these days?!
The big news that I wanted to share today is that I recently went semi-vegetarian. This was not necessarily by choice - I became allergic to something in most animal-based meats, including all land/farm animals, fish, and even jelly fish. Eggs and broth still seem to be OK, but I am affected by some types of cheese. It may sound bad, but besides not being able to partake in Korean BBQ, it's really not too bad. I never was a fan of super meaty dishes anyway, and I was a pseudo-vegetarian before in NC, where I decided I'd rather eat vegetarian than eat hormone- and antibiotic-pumped meats after reading My Year of Meats. I dropped this pledge upon coming to CA, since the Korean BBQ was just too good here to forgo. I guess my body decided to act on its behalf since my desires were overpowering my will.
As a result of my dietary requirements, I am now a big fan of the Macrobiotic cuisine. I mean, really, these recipes I see in the JP Macrobiotic cookbooks are exactly what I like to eat, even if I weren't restricted! I am learning to incorporate into my daily meals different ingredients that I went out to eat because I wasn't exactly sure how to cook them at home. I rest assured knowing that my meals are balanced with all the nutrients required and that someone has taken the time to make sure there are no missing components, as long as I work off of the ingredient list in these books.
Last night, I had my first Macrobiotic Dinner Party, and I have to say, it was a big success! Not one of the four non-vegetarians at the table missed the meat! Here's what I made:
Main:
Cabbage-egg-crustless quiche (egg is OK in the looser Macrobiotic rules in some JP books).
Hijiki-tofu scramble with crunchy mountain "jelly fish" plant pickles
Mabo eggplant-eringi-shiitake-enoki with nappa
Side:
Two-layered mekabu-yamaimo-natto salad with crunchy mountain "jelly fish" plant pickles
Sweet potato kinpira sticks
Brown rice (the heart and soul of Macrobiotic meals!)
Dessert:
Warabi mochi with green- and gold- kinako
Orange-apple agar cake
I really enjoyed the cooking process, since everything was so easy to prepare. Each dish didn't take very long to cook at all, and without meat in the kitchen, I didn't have to think about the meat juices, etc. I'll try to post recipes and pictures as I go along in my Macrobiotic adventure, but I just don't have the time to deal with photos these days. And besides, these aren't the most pretty looking without some plating effort, which is not one of my fortes...
I have also been exploring the local restaurants as a vegetarian, and I have new things to say, even about the old haunts. Gochi has been surprisingly easy to eat vegetarian, as well as Hoshi. Actually, I don't think I ever did a Hoshi post. I'll have to do both a omnivorious and vegetarian version for that!
One last thing is also that I am fasting for Ramadan this month. It is a social and spiritual experiment of some sort. I am enjoying the process very much, and I am planning on doing a summary post soon here. Fasting, being the antonym of eating, has a place in this blog, I say!
Showing posts with label Dinner Parties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dinner Parties. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Dinner Parties: Mexican Night
Because I have had little motivation to go out to eat lately for caloric and economical reasons, I've been hosting a number of dinner get-togethers. Luckily, my friends have not complained having to eat at Izakaya Alice (yet), but I try to limit repeating menu items as often as possible. Besides our now standard Sushi Party, I've thrown traditional roast-poultry American, Americanized-Italian and Slightly Japanese-Mexican-themed dinner parties. Well... if we get really technical, all my cooking uses the Japanese elixir, dashi, for broth, so they all are slightly Japanified. Izakaya Alice is fusion at its core... What I learned from throwing dinner parties is that the protocol for success is very much like what I do in the laboratory at work. If the party starts at 7 PM, I go to my whiteboard in the kitchen and start with this:
t=0 7 PM
time=0 indicates when the party starts; in other words, that's when all the prep work need to be completed. Then, I fill the rest of the menu items, so now my whiteboard looks like this:
Mango salsa
Salsa
Guacamole
Ground meat
Drum sticks
Taco veggies
Mexican Rice
Beans
Set up quesadilla bar & taco shells
t=0 7 PM
Finally, I add when I will need to start to have the dish/prep work done by t=0. I also order things so that things that can be made ahead are done first, so as to serve hot foods hot when at t=0.
5:00 PM Mango salsa
5:00 PM Salsa
5:00 PM Guacamole
6:20 PM Ground meat
6:00 PM Chicken drumsticks (oven, 6:30 PM)
5:45 PM Taco veggies
5:00 PM Mexican Rice (stove, 6:30 PM)
6:00 PM Beans
6:30 PM Set up quesadilla bar & taco shells
t=0 7 PM
I then get started with each task, referring back frequently to my whiteboard to plan a few steps ahead as I prepare dishes. I even actually check off items as they are completed. This organizational tedium has helped me throw parties with minimal time commitment and pressure. In fact, with my super dishwasher with its godzillion plate-load capacity, throwing a dinner party, start-to-finish, is leaps and bounds easier than going out to dinner in San Francisco!
Here are a few winners from the Mexican Dinner Party:
Izakaya-Alice Non-refried Beans:
Sautee 1 onion and 5 cloves of garlic. Puree sauteed stuff. Add 2 can canned beans to food processor, making separate batches if needed to fit into food processor. Puree beans with the onion-garlic mixture. Add dashi to thin if pureeing is difficult. When liquefied, put bean mixture into a pot and mix dashi to achieve desirable consistency. Add salt to taste.
Izakaya-Alice Guacamole:
Sautee 1 onion and 5 cloves of garlic. (I actually made a big batch of this onion-garlic mixture and used it in several recipes during the evening. This heating step is necessary for me, because I am allergic to raw onions and garlic. It's likely not necessary for anyone else, but heating it definitely brings the sweetness out of the onions.) Puree 2 avocados, 1/2 cup fat-free cottage cheese, and onion-garlic mixture together. Chop tomatoes and add to avocado mixture. Add salt and lime juice to taste.
Photo: compliments from Jumprdude.com. I have a contributing photographer now, so you will likely start seeing more pictures on MED again!
Monday, March 06, 2006
How to host your own sushi party
Today's post is the most recipe-oriented post I have ever done. This recipe sheet was part of the Menu for Hope sushi kit. I've hosted a number of sushi parties over the years, and it's a lot of fun. It can get messy, but who doesn't love audience-participation these days? Supplement the party with beauty competitions for the best looking work, best tasting or most original combination of ingredients, fastest rolling times, and you've got an active bunch of dinner guests for sure!
INGREDIENTS:
Sushi vinegar for 3 cups of rice
1/3 cups vinegar (preferably rice vinegar, but anything not sweet will do)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 cups of rice per 3 ~ 4 people
2 lbs total various fish per 3 ~ 4 people
Anything else that you might want to roll - cheese, vegetables, etc, etc
Seaweed sheets
Wasabi
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds (optional & not-traditional)
RICE PREP:
1. Cook rice according to package (I'm no help here, since I just use my rice cooker!).
2. Per 3 cups of rice, make sushi by heating 1/3 cup vinegar, 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt until all crystals dissolve.
3. When rice is done, dump rice out onto a deep and large casserole dish/brownie pan (or anything that you can spread the rice out on - bowls will not do).
4. With a wet shamoji or spatula, spread the rice with a cutting motion so that it's not one big mound, using care not to mash the rice. The key here is to use a cutting motion with the shamoji.
5. Pour sushi vinegar all over the rice and mix with a cutting motion. While mixing, FAN vigorously. Fanning makes the rice shiny and less wet as the vinegar coats the grains. Continue motion, approximately 5 min.
6. Clump rice into one side and cover with a wet paper towel.
MAKI SUSHI ROLLING:
Maki sushi refers to the rolled sushi pieces. The standard Japanese sushi roll has the seaweed on the outside. These are the easiest ones to make! Keep a bowl of water hand to dip your hands or your shamoji.
1. Use a piece of seaweed about 8 inches by 3.5 inches.
2. Dip your shamoji or hands in water and place approximately a 1/4 cup of cooked rice.
3. Spread rice over the seaweed using your hands or the shamoji. Sprinkle sesame seeds if desired all over the rice.
4. Put goodies to be rolled inside, 1/3 of the way on the seaweed closer to you.
5. Fold the seaweed away from you slightly, cover the seaweed piece not touching the rice, and press the mat by closing your hands into a light fist around the mat to adjust the shape.
6. Open the mat and repeat process after rolling the seaweed a little bit further. The edge of the mat will always be at the rolling edge of the seaweed sheet, right next to where the rice makes contact with the rolling edge.
7. Remove the mat when you have rolled all the way.
8. Slice if needed and enjoy!
*To make an inside-out roll, wrap the sushi mat with saran wrap first and follow steps 1 - 3. Flip the seaweed sheet over on the sushi mat so that the rice is touching the saran wrap. Follow steps 4-8.
NIGIRI SUSHI:
Nigiri sushi is the poster child of sushi. With pieces of fish (or other goodies) on top and elliptical balls on rice on the bottom, these are easy to make if you remember to keep your hands moist without being wet. If your hands are too dry, the rice will stick all over your hands and if you hands are too wet, the rice will crumble as you try to shape it.
1. With moist hands, take approximately 3 tbs of rice.
2. Shape into an elliptical ball.
3. Slather on some wasabi to the bottom side of whatever you were going to place on top.
4. Place the top piece.
5. Cup your left hand to hold the bottom of the rice and use your index and middle fingers on the right hand to make the top and bottom pieces firmly fit together. Use caution here, since if you press to firmly, you'll have a mushy ball of rice.
6. If desired, give the sushi a thin seaweed belt going vertically to unite the top piece with the bottom piece.
GUNKAN SUSHI:
Gunkan, which literally translates to 'battle ship', is the method used to make sushi out of loose, crumbly, or soft pieces of ingredients that are not fit to be nigiri sushi. Traditional examples are fish roe and sea urchin, but I found goat cheese to be a very enjoyable gunkan sushi in the past. Boiled crab is also excellent as a gunkan topping.
1. Follow steps 1 and 2 of nigiri sushi.
2. Cut a piece of seaweed sheet to be 1/4 taller than your rice ball and just long enough to overlap ever so slightly when wrapped around the sushi.
3. Wrap rice with seaweed.
4. Load the empty top compartment with whatever ingredients and enjoy!
SOME FUN INGREDIENTS:
Zuke ('marinated') tuna:
Mix 1/8 cup soy sauce and 1/8 cup sake. Marinate 0.5 lbs fresh sashimi-grade tuna for 10 min. Use in rolls.
Spicy tuna:
Marinate fresh sashimi-grade tuna in any hot sauce for ~2 hrs. Use in rolls.
Spicy cream cheese:
Mash up a few hot peppers into cream cheese. Serve rolled with cucumbers or asparagus.
SOME MORE REFERENCES
Japanesefood.about.com
My fusion sushi
PS:
I was planning on having one for a long time now to supplement this entry with pictures, but alas, I have been too busy... Maybe I will update this page as I find time...
INGREDIENTS:
Sushi vinegar for 3 cups of rice
1/3 cups vinegar (preferably rice vinegar, but anything not sweet will do)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 cups of rice per 3 ~ 4 people
2 lbs total various fish per 3 ~ 4 people
Anything else that you might want to roll - cheese, vegetables, etc, etc
Seaweed sheets
Wasabi
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds (optional & not-traditional)
RICE PREP:
1. Cook rice according to package (I'm no help here, since I just use my rice cooker!).
2. Per 3 cups of rice, make sushi by heating 1/3 cup vinegar, 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt until all crystals dissolve.
3. When rice is done, dump rice out onto a deep and large casserole dish/brownie pan (or anything that you can spread the rice out on - bowls will not do).
4. With a wet shamoji or spatula, spread the rice with a cutting motion so that it's not one big mound, using care not to mash the rice. The key here is to use a cutting motion with the shamoji.
5. Pour sushi vinegar all over the rice and mix with a cutting motion. While mixing, FAN vigorously. Fanning makes the rice shiny and less wet as the vinegar coats the grains. Continue motion, approximately 5 min.
6. Clump rice into one side and cover with a wet paper towel.
MAKI SUSHI ROLLING:
Maki sushi refers to the rolled sushi pieces. The standard Japanese sushi roll has the seaweed on the outside. These are the easiest ones to make! Keep a bowl of water hand to dip your hands or your shamoji.
1. Use a piece of seaweed about 8 inches by 3.5 inches.
2. Dip your shamoji or hands in water and place approximately a 1/4 cup of cooked rice.
3. Spread rice over the seaweed using your hands or the shamoji. Sprinkle sesame seeds if desired all over the rice.
4. Put goodies to be rolled inside, 1/3 of the way on the seaweed closer to you.
5. Fold the seaweed away from you slightly, cover the seaweed piece not touching the rice, and press the mat by closing your hands into a light fist around the mat to adjust the shape.
6. Open the mat and repeat process after rolling the seaweed a little bit further. The edge of the mat will always be at the rolling edge of the seaweed sheet, right next to where the rice makes contact with the rolling edge.
7. Remove the mat when you have rolled all the way.
8. Slice if needed and enjoy!
*To make an inside-out roll, wrap the sushi mat with saran wrap first and follow steps 1 - 3. Flip the seaweed sheet over on the sushi mat so that the rice is touching the saran wrap. Follow steps 4-8.
NIGIRI SUSHI:
Nigiri sushi is the poster child of sushi. With pieces of fish (or other goodies) on top and elliptical balls on rice on the bottom, these are easy to make if you remember to keep your hands moist without being wet. If your hands are too dry, the rice will stick all over your hands and if you hands are too wet, the rice will crumble as you try to shape it.
1. With moist hands, take approximately 3 tbs of rice.
2. Shape into an elliptical ball.
3. Slather on some wasabi to the bottom side of whatever you were going to place on top.
4. Place the top piece.
5. Cup your left hand to hold the bottom of the rice and use your index and middle fingers on the right hand to make the top and bottom pieces firmly fit together. Use caution here, since if you press to firmly, you'll have a mushy ball of rice.
6. If desired, give the sushi a thin seaweed belt going vertically to unite the top piece with the bottom piece.
GUNKAN SUSHI:
Gunkan, which literally translates to 'battle ship', is the method used to make sushi out of loose, crumbly, or soft pieces of ingredients that are not fit to be nigiri sushi. Traditional examples are fish roe and sea urchin, but I found goat cheese to be a very enjoyable gunkan sushi in the past. Boiled crab is also excellent as a gunkan topping.
1. Follow steps 1 and 2 of nigiri sushi.
2. Cut a piece of seaweed sheet to be 1/4 taller than your rice ball and just long enough to overlap ever so slightly when wrapped around the sushi.
3. Wrap rice with seaweed.
4. Load the empty top compartment with whatever ingredients and enjoy!
SOME FUN INGREDIENTS:
Zuke ('marinated') tuna:
Mix 1/8 cup soy sauce and 1/8 cup sake. Marinate 0.5 lbs fresh sashimi-grade tuna for 10 min. Use in rolls.
Spicy tuna:
Marinate fresh sashimi-grade tuna in any hot sauce for ~2 hrs. Use in rolls.
Spicy cream cheese:
Mash up a few hot peppers into cream cheese. Serve rolled with cucumbers or asparagus.
SOME MORE REFERENCES
Japanesefood.about.com
My fusion sushi
PS:
I was planning on having one for a long time now to supplement this entry with pictures, but alas, I have been too busy... Maybe I will update this page as I find time...
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Paper Chef: Vietnamese Autumn Rolls
I'm finally getting my life back in order after an insane month that left me longing to be a housewife somewhere other than Japan (or at least trying to), and to kick off my rebirth, I had a few friends over for dinner tonight to try a creative twist of an old favorite - Vietnamese Summer Rolls.
As I've written before, these fresh, salad-based wraps are sometimes known as Spring rolls, Summer rolls, or Fresh rolls. One thing they are never known as are Autumn rolls. So, when Stephen of Stephen Cooks suggested that we all make an Autumn-themed dish with duck, pears, nut butter, and ginger for the most recent Paper Chef event, it was only natural for me to try to make Vietnamese Autumn rolls. I used the Paper Chef excuse to cook up something I wouldn't do normally - like roasting a whole duck.
My Paper Chef entry is my take of the Vietnamese rolls as a Autumn version with duck as the meat with pears, endives and watercress as the 'herbs'. My dipping sauce was a soy nut butter-ginger-pear-duck broth dipping sauce instead of the simple peanut sauce.
One thing I'm not that good at doing is knowing what vegetables and what fruits are best at which season. Of course I know strawberries are good in the Spring, tomatoes in the Summer, and hard and/or root vegetables in the Fall, but this seasonality thing is something I am still learning. In my defense, I know all about the seasonality of Japanese fruits, but many of those aren't available here!
Anyway, a quick Google search told me that endives and watercress were in peak season in Autumn, so I went with endives and watercress as my 'Autumn herbs'. But living in the Bay Area, where tomatoes are still ruling the Farmer's Market stalls, I didn't see any of either. I found them in Whole Foods, but that means nothing in terms of seasonality. I hope they qualify as Autumn herbs!
After running around for the whole morning, I started in the kitchen by getting my duck marinade together:
2 cups sake
2 cups soy sauce
1 cup orange juice (squeezed from real oranges - I have them frozen from orange season)
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup plum sauce (found in Asian grocery stores - kind of like a lemonish/plum jelly)
1/8 cup pomegranate molasses
3 lobes grated ginger
Although measurements are approximate, I whisked all of these things together and made sure it was savory-sweet. I then washed and wiped my whole duck and let it soak in the marinade bath for maybe an hour.
In the mean time, I made the sauce:
I washed and boiled the neck and gizzards from the duck, taking away all that yucky stuff that float up - this duck broth was going to be the basis of my dipping sauce today. The combination of the dipping sauce and the salad roll is really what defines these Vietnamese rolls, and I thought that the sauce being made with the same duck 'essence' was the best way to make sure the rolls have the best accompaniment.
While the duck broth was in progress, I grated a humongous multi-lobed ginger (maybe five lobes?) and a peeled pear for the dipping sauce. I didn't know a pear could be so easily grated, but grating the pear released all of the juices very nicely while giving the sauce that necessary consistency. When the duck broth stopped producing all the yucky stuff, I let it simmer for a while (maybe 30 min? I lost track of time crocheting my turtle, inspired by Super Eggplant's Florence. Yes, you will see my turtle when he is fully born...).
I added the ginger and the pear into the duck broth when I could peel myself away from my crocheting project and let it simmer some more. I added some hoisin sauce and soy butter (my nut butter choice) into the duck broth and whisked it together. I probably added about 1/4 cup each, but this is totally a personal choice - please put in as much or as little of either ingredient to make a duck-powered soy nut sauce. This is very, very similar to the peanut sauces that frequently come with Summer rolls in restaurants, except a little thicker (because of the pear and ginger both) and spicier (because of the ginger).
With the sauce finished, I went to roast the duck:
I stuffed the inside of the duck with a pear and an apple (the apple was a generous freebie from the pear vendor at the Farmer's Market today!). I roasted the duck in my oven (which has really no accurate temperature control) with various settings, but I wouldn't trust anything I say about the temperature control. I've come to understand my oven by using my hand as a temperature gauge, so I roasted it until the outside was crispy and the inside moist. It took about another hour or so when it was all said and done.
Assembly of the final product was easy:
I washed the endives and the watercress, and just in time, Anne and the Papa Bear walked in to help me slice and dice the duck after its post-roasting 'resting period'. I peeled and chopped up another pear into thin slivers to wrap inside along with the endives and the watercress.
Final step was wrapping! I wrapped one just to take pictures of it by rolling the endives, watercress, pear slivers, and duck into the rice paper. I sliced the roll in half just for the photo shot and dabbed some soy nut butter-ginger-pear-duck broth dipping sauce on the side.
For the actual dinner, Shan joined the three of us for a wrap-it-yourself feast of Autumn rolls:
And I've got to say - this was a good combination! A success! The spiciness of the watercress inside the roll and the ginger in the dipping sauce complimented the duck very well. The sweetness from the pears, the duck itself, and the dipping sauce gave the spiciness a nicely balanced contrast. The crunchiness of the pears and the endives made the overall effect of the rolls quite refreshing despite the richness from the duck.
I also made a pumpkin-shiitake mushroom couscous (material for another post) to go with the Harvest theme and served the whole meal with a Pumpkin Ale for those of us who imbibe (two out of four).
It was a nice evening with a breeze of Autumn on a Sunday night. Thanks for a wonderful opportunity to get creative, Stephen!
PS: The Papa Bear says, "What the heck is Vietnamese about this dish?!". Ha.
As I've written before, these fresh, salad-based wraps are sometimes known as Spring rolls, Summer rolls, or Fresh rolls. One thing they are never known as are Autumn rolls. So, when Stephen of Stephen Cooks suggested that we all make an Autumn-themed dish with duck, pears, nut butter, and ginger for the most recent Paper Chef event, it was only natural for me to try to make Vietnamese Autumn rolls. I used the Paper Chef excuse to cook up something I wouldn't do normally - like roasting a whole duck.
My Paper Chef entry is my take of the Vietnamese rolls as a Autumn version with duck as the meat with pears, endives and watercress as the 'herbs'. My dipping sauce was a soy nut butter-ginger-pear-duck broth dipping sauce instead of the simple peanut sauce.
One thing I'm not that good at doing is knowing what vegetables and what fruits are best at which season. Of course I know strawberries are good in the Spring, tomatoes in the Summer, and hard and/or root vegetables in the Fall, but this seasonality thing is something I am still learning. In my defense, I know all about the seasonality of Japanese fruits, but many of those aren't available here!
Anyway, a quick Google search told me that endives and watercress were in peak season in Autumn, so I went with endives and watercress as my 'Autumn herbs'. But living in the Bay Area, where tomatoes are still ruling the Farmer's Market stalls, I didn't see any of either. I found them in Whole Foods, but that means nothing in terms of seasonality. I hope they qualify as Autumn herbs!
After running around for the whole morning, I started in the kitchen by getting my duck marinade together:
2 cups sake
2 cups soy sauce
1 cup orange juice (squeezed from real oranges - I have them frozen from orange season)
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup plum sauce (found in Asian grocery stores - kind of like a lemonish/plum jelly)
1/8 cup pomegranate molasses
3 lobes grated ginger
Although measurements are approximate, I whisked all of these things together and made sure it was savory-sweet. I then washed and wiped my whole duck and let it soak in the marinade bath for maybe an hour.
In the mean time, I made the sauce:
I washed and boiled the neck and gizzards from the duck, taking away all that yucky stuff that float up - this duck broth was going to be the basis of my dipping sauce today. The combination of the dipping sauce and the salad roll is really what defines these Vietnamese rolls, and I thought that the sauce being made with the same duck 'essence' was the best way to make sure the rolls have the best accompaniment.
While the duck broth was in progress, I grated a humongous multi-lobed ginger (maybe five lobes?) and a peeled pear for the dipping sauce. I didn't know a pear could be so easily grated, but grating the pear released all of the juices very nicely while giving the sauce that necessary consistency. When the duck broth stopped producing all the yucky stuff, I let it simmer for a while (maybe 30 min? I lost track of time crocheting my turtle, inspired by Super Eggplant's Florence. Yes, you will see my turtle when he is fully born...).
I added the ginger and the pear into the duck broth when I could peel myself away from my crocheting project and let it simmer some more. I added some hoisin sauce and soy butter (my nut butter choice) into the duck broth and whisked it together. I probably added about 1/4 cup each, but this is totally a personal choice - please put in as much or as little of either ingredient to make a duck-powered soy nut sauce. This is very, very similar to the peanut sauces that frequently come with Summer rolls in restaurants, except a little thicker (because of the pear and ginger both) and spicier (because of the ginger).
With the sauce finished, I went to roast the duck:
I stuffed the inside of the duck with a pear and an apple (the apple was a generous freebie from the pear vendor at the Farmer's Market today!). I roasted the duck in my oven (which has really no accurate temperature control) with various settings, but I wouldn't trust anything I say about the temperature control. I've come to understand my oven by using my hand as a temperature gauge, so I roasted it until the outside was crispy and the inside moist. It took about another hour or so when it was all said and done.
Assembly of the final product was easy:
I washed the endives and the watercress, and just in time, Anne and the Papa Bear walked in to help me slice and dice the duck after its post-roasting 'resting period'. I peeled and chopped up another pear into thin slivers to wrap inside along with the endives and the watercress.
Final step was wrapping! I wrapped one just to take pictures of it by rolling the endives, watercress, pear slivers, and duck into the rice paper. I sliced the roll in half just for the photo shot and dabbed some soy nut butter-ginger-pear-duck broth dipping sauce on the side.
For the actual dinner, Shan joined the three of us for a wrap-it-yourself feast of Autumn rolls:
And I've got to say - this was a good combination! A success! The spiciness of the watercress inside the roll and the ginger in the dipping sauce complimented the duck very well. The sweetness from the pears, the duck itself, and the dipping sauce gave the spiciness a nicely balanced contrast. The crunchiness of the pears and the endives made the overall effect of the rolls quite refreshing despite the richness from the duck.
I also made a pumpkin-shiitake mushroom couscous (material for another post) to go with the Harvest theme and served the whole meal with a Pumpkin Ale for those of us who imbibe (two out of four).
It was a nice evening with a breeze of Autumn on a Sunday night. Thanks for a wonderful opportunity to get creative, Stephen!
PS: The Papa Bear says, "What the heck is Vietnamese about this dish?!". Ha.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
My Kyoto-inspired dinner - Part II
So, yes, more on my Kyoto-inspired dinner. All of today's photos were taken by Molly, who was braving my camera for the first time! Thanks to her, I have pictures today!!
The sakura onigiri (cherry blossom rice balls) I made was so very Kyoto, it could have been served in a little eatery in Kyoto. This dish didn't quite get the recognition I hoped it would, eclipsed by the epicurean giants (meat dishes) it was surrounded by... This was actually a product of my creativity, and I secretly patted myself in the back for it. The cherry blossoms were salt-preserved when I bought them in Kyoto, and most people make a savory tea with it by soaking the rinsed blossoms in hot water. I put them directly into my rice cooker with rice after a quick rinse. It gave the rice a subtle saltiness and that cherry leaf fragrance of sakura mochi - mmmmm, I love that smell! I made them into rice balls (onigiris) since I needed it to be easily eaten with chop sticks on paper plates.
And the vegetables! Since this was a dinner get together, I had plenty of time for my weekly visit to the Farmer's Market in the morning with Anne, and we came home with a humongous - I mean HUMONGOUS! - bag of vegetables. Mysteriously, they cooked down to nothing. The first dish I made was blanched asparagus with my ponzu dressing. I have a wonderful ponzu recipe:
1 part dashi
1 part freshly squeezed orange juice
1 part soy sauce
1/4 part vinegar
1/2 part mirin
with adjustments made to taste.
I had some left over edamame I had boiled for the miso-trout, so I topped the asparagus with edamame. And since ponzu is best matched with daikon, I added grated daikon. This is a fairly typical dish I make at home fairly routinely, but since asparagus is so very good right now, I figured it was a nice dish to add some color on the table.
This vinegar white-miso (su-miso) dressing on blanched Asian greens from the Pleasanton Farmer's Market was another dish made with that magical white miso from Kyoto. The natural sweetness of the white miso and the gentle tartness of the aged Kyoto vinegar produced a very motherly, warm dressing for the natural bitterness of the greens. Cooking with good ingredients is such a pleasure!
I also made shiitake skewers with a mirin basting sauce, modeled after the shira-yaki sauce at Horai with fresh shiitake I picked up, also at the Pleasanton Farmer's Market. I'm telling you - the Pleasanton Farmer's Market is a nice place to shop! I obviously didn't buy enough of these shiitakes, since they went very quickly and I only got one shiitake - not even one skewer... I hope my friends had enough to eat...
For dessert, we had a fabulous cherry tart that Molly picked up at the San Mateo Farmer's Market, and my dessert with the last twist - green tea agar jello. Agar is a seaweed that produces results similar to gelatin, except that it makes jello that is a lot less 'jiggly'. On a side note, we also use agar in the Lab, and some biologists get a little bit freaked out about eating agar... but it is very good, and Anne didn't seem to be bothered by it - another brave scientist gastronomist! The twist with the green tea jello was that I made two batches of the jello identically, except I used two different kinds of tea - a very high-end green tea and an average-joe green tea. (The difference in tea grades is based on how much 'new leaf' tea and which varieties of teas were used in the blending process.) This question also proved to be not-so-difficult for this discerning bunch - and many people got this right. They noted that one batch was significantly more unnaturally bitter than the other and that this bitterness was a sure fire sign that the tea was cheaper/lower quality. Well done!
When the answers were revealed, although we didn't have anyone with all three questions correct, we had five winners all tied at 2.5 questions correct! They all got one of the "guess the soy sauce in the teriyaki" skewers but got thrown off by the third bowl of soy sauce. Impressive!
I had a lot of fun making and enjoying dinner! I love these themed dinner parties, since they are such a wonderful way to share the joy of epicurean debauchery! One of these days, I'm thinking of hosting a bread-bake off, "Yakitate Japain" style. I'll supply the bread flour and basic bread ingredients, and everyone else will bring along a recipe and any special ingredient(s) - we'll have a 120 min time limit and we'll compete for who makes the best bread! Any takers?
PS:
By the way, Yuzu in San Mateo is celebrating their 1st Anniversary, starting today (or tomorrow, depending on when you read this), Thursday, May 12th, all the way through the weekend. If you're in the area, stop by and give Arima-san a pat on his back for making it through a somewhat tumultuous year!
The sakura onigiri (cherry blossom rice balls) I made was so very Kyoto, it could have been served in a little eatery in Kyoto. This dish didn't quite get the recognition I hoped it would, eclipsed by the epicurean giants (meat dishes) it was surrounded by... This was actually a product of my creativity, and I secretly patted myself in the back for it. The cherry blossoms were salt-preserved when I bought them in Kyoto, and most people make a savory tea with it by soaking the rinsed blossoms in hot water. I put them directly into my rice cooker with rice after a quick rinse. It gave the rice a subtle saltiness and that cherry leaf fragrance of sakura mochi - mmmmm, I love that smell! I made them into rice balls (onigiris) since I needed it to be easily eaten with chop sticks on paper plates.
And the vegetables! Since this was a dinner get together, I had plenty of time for my weekly visit to the Farmer's Market in the morning with Anne, and we came home with a humongous - I mean HUMONGOUS! - bag of vegetables. Mysteriously, they cooked down to nothing. The first dish I made was blanched asparagus with my ponzu dressing. I have a wonderful ponzu recipe:
1 part dashi
1 part freshly squeezed orange juice
1 part soy sauce
1/4 part vinegar
1/2 part mirin
with adjustments made to taste.
I had some left over edamame I had boiled for the miso-trout, so I topped the asparagus with edamame. And since ponzu is best matched with daikon, I added grated daikon. This is a fairly typical dish I make at home fairly routinely, but since asparagus is so very good right now, I figured it was a nice dish to add some color on the table.
This vinegar white-miso (su-miso) dressing on blanched Asian greens from the Pleasanton Farmer's Market was another dish made with that magical white miso from Kyoto. The natural sweetness of the white miso and the gentle tartness of the aged Kyoto vinegar produced a very motherly, warm dressing for the natural bitterness of the greens. Cooking with good ingredients is such a pleasure!
I also made shiitake skewers with a mirin basting sauce, modeled after the shira-yaki sauce at Horai with fresh shiitake I picked up, also at the Pleasanton Farmer's Market. I'm telling you - the Pleasanton Farmer's Market is a nice place to shop! I obviously didn't buy enough of these shiitakes, since they went very quickly and I only got one shiitake - not even one skewer... I hope my friends had enough to eat...
For dessert, we had a fabulous cherry tart that Molly picked up at the San Mateo Farmer's Market, and my dessert with the last twist - green tea agar jello. Agar is a seaweed that produces results similar to gelatin, except that it makes jello that is a lot less 'jiggly'. On a side note, we also use agar in the Lab, and some biologists get a little bit freaked out about eating agar... but it is very good, and Anne didn't seem to be bothered by it - another brave scientist gastronomist! The twist with the green tea jello was that I made two batches of the jello identically, except I used two different kinds of tea - a very high-end green tea and an average-joe green tea. (The difference in tea grades is based on how much 'new leaf' tea and which varieties of teas were used in the blending process.) This question also proved to be not-so-difficult for this discerning bunch - and many people got this right. They noted that one batch was significantly more unnaturally bitter than the other and that this bitterness was a sure fire sign that the tea was cheaper/lower quality. Well done!
When the answers were revealed, although we didn't have anyone with all three questions correct, we had five winners all tied at 2.5 questions correct! They all got one of the "guess the soy sauce in the teriyaki" skewers but got thrown off by the third bowl of soy sauce. Impressive!
I had a lot of fun making and enjoying dinner! I love these themed dinner parties, since they are such a wonderful way to share the joy of epicurean debauchery! One of these days, I'm thinking of hosting a bread-bake off, "Yakitate Japain" style. I'll supply the bread flour and basic bread ingredients, and everyone else will bring along a recipe and any special ingredient(s) - we'll have a 120 min time limit and we'll compete for who makes the best bread! Any takers?
PS:
By the way, Yuzu in San Mateo is celebrating their 1st Anniversary, starting today (or tomorrow, depending on when you read this), Thursday, May 12th, all the way through the weekend. If you're in the area, stop by and give Arima-san a pat on his back for making it through a somewhat tumultuous year!
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
My Kyoto-inspired dinner - Part I
This past Saturday, I had a lot of fun playing with some of the finest ingredients available in Japan. Lucky me, I came home with several bottles of mirin so thick it was viscous like syrup, vinegar so smooth I could drink it, and several bottles of aged artisan soy sauce, each with its distinct scents and flavors. I also brought back green tea powder (matcha) of varying quality, sea salt from the Sea of Japan, and best of all, a magically delicious Kyoto-style white miso that simply took my breath away at Hyotei. Since many of these ingredients have very limited shelf life after opening, I figured the best way to enjoy them was to cook a big dinner and share these ingredients with friends who would come with hearty appetites. In the end, there were 14 adults and 2 children to polish off every last bite!
The first one was by far the most difficult question - the yakitori sauce game. I made a big batch of yakitori sauce base with sake, mirin, and dashi. Then, I split the batch into two and made two yakitori sauces by adding eqaul portions of a different soy sauce to the two divided bases. I marinated the chicken in the two yakitori sauces for the same duration, and the Papa Bear and I skewered one batch with long skewers and the other batch with short skewers. I handed all of the skewers over to the Papa Bear, who grilled them to perfection at the same time. On the table, I placed THREE small bowls of soy sauces - two bowls containing one of the soy sauces I used and a third bowl with my cheap Kikkoman soy sauce. Diners had to munch on the two kinds of yakitori, taste the three soy sauces, and guess which soy sauce had been used for which skewer. Amazingly, we had a winner!! My taiyaki partner, Melissa, was the only one to guess both skewers correctly!
The second question was apparently too easy, since many people got this one right. This game was based on turkey tsukune. Tsukune is the Japanese version of a meatball, and the best tsukune are so smooth, they almost dissolves in your mouth. Unlike meatballs in the US, tsukune is usually made with chicken, but for this dinner, I used the cheaper poultry (turkey).
I made a humongous batch of turkey tsukune and split the batch in two. I seasoned one batch with soy sauce and the other with sea salt. My friends, Arik and Jan, arrived unfortunately early and were put in charge of making the tsukune patties. I quickly sprinkled the soy sauce batch with sesame seeds before they began working on the second batch, and although they had graciously offered their help, they were not given any hints as to which or how the patties were different... Melissa courageously took on the tsukune grilling station and turned up perfectly grilled tsukune throughout the evening which went like hot cakes! These tsukune patties were a lot more popular than I expected and it was one of the first dishes to get finished! Must've been Melissa's excellent grilling skillz... Everyone must have enjoyed them quite a bit, since when the answers were revealed, this turned out to be one of the easier questions for everyone with most people guessing correctly that sesame batch was the soy sauce batch!
My main dish for the evening was my edamame-miso trout. I designed this dish to highlight the white miso that was one of the best miso I have ever tasted. Miso, the savory Japanese aged soy bean paste, is so full of flavor that it is difficult to find bad miso. But it is also difficult to find good miso for the same reason - it's so full of those umami chemicals that it's hard for anything to be much better than others. Or so I thought, until I had the white miso at Hyotei. This miso was simply amazing with the perfect balance of subtle sweetness and savory richness and cooking with it was pure pleasure. I simply combined my miso with ground edamame (which is the feat by the Papa Bear - I don't have a blender or a food processor, so everything I puree is hand-ground in a mortar and pestle...) and stuffed three whole trout with the miso-edamame mixture. I then sprinkled some sea salt on the trout, wrapped them loosely in bamboo sheets, and threw them in the oven for a while. It was a very simple preparation with one intent - to bring out the power of that spectacular white miso. The whole dish rested on the quality of the miso, and boy, it did not disappoint. The sea salt, the white miso, and the edamame worked together perfectly for a harmony of flavors that felt very 'Kyoto' to me. I wouldn't dare make this dish again with anything else. Several of my friends have asked me for the recipe, but I have to say this - unfortunately, the dish was based so firmly on that white-miso from Kyoto, I don't know if any other white miso could fill in for that miso...
Wow, I've already run out of space and time! Apparently, I wrote a lot of text today!! I still have my cherry blossom rice balls (sakura onigiri), two vegetable plates, and the last of my 'guess the ingredient' questions to share with you, so come back tomorrow for Part II! And best of all, tomorrow's posts will feature Molly's great photography skills! Yes, in case you are wondering... I didn't take pictures of the yakitori or the trout... but it was because my camera ran out of battery... and by the time the battery was charged, I was too busy socializing and eating... Ops.
The first one was by far the most difficult question - the yakitori sauce game. I made a big batch of yakitori sauce base with sake, mirin, and dashi. Then, I split the batch into two and made two yakitori sauces by adding eqaul portions of a different soy sauce to the two divided bases. I marinated the chicken in the two yakitori sauces for the same duration, and the Papa Bear and I skewered one batch with long skewers and the other batch with short skewers. I handed all of the skewers over to the Papa Bear, who grilled them to perfection at the same time. On the table, I placed THREE small bowls of soy sauces - two bowls containing one of the soy sauces I used and a third bowl with my cheap Kikkoman soy sauce. Diners had to munch on the two kinds of yakitori, taste the three soy sauces, and guess which soy sauce had been used for which skewer. Amazingly, we had a winner!! My taiyaki partner, Melissa, was the only one to guess both skewers correctly!
The second question was apparently too easy, since many people got this one right. This game was based on turkey tsukune. Tsukune is the Japanese version of a meatball, and the best tsukune are so smooth, they almost dissolves in your mouth. Unlike meatballs in the US, tsukune is usually made with chicken, but for this dinner, I used the cheaper poultry (turkey).
I made a humongous batch of turkey tsukune and split the batch in two. I seasoned one batch with soy sauce and the other with sea salt. My friends, Arik and Jan, arrived unfortunately early and were put in charge of making the tsukune patties. I quickly sprinkled the soy sauce batch with sesame seeds before they began working on the second batch, and although they had graciously offered their help, they were not given any hints as to which or how the patties were different... Melissa courageously took on the tsukune grilling station and turned up perfectly grilled tsukune throughout the evening which went like hot cakes! These tsukune patties were a lot more popular than I expected and it was one of the first dishes to get finished! Must've been Melissa's excellent grilling skillz... Everyone must have enjoyed them quite a bit, since when the answers were revealed, this turned out to be one of the easier questions for everyone with most people guessing correctly that sesame batch was the soy sauce batch!
My main dish for the evening was my edamame-miso trout. I designed this dish to highlight the white miso that was one of the best miso I have ever tasted. Miso, the savory Japanese aged soy bean paste, is so full of flavor that it is difficult to find bad miso. But it is also difficult to find good miso for the same reason - it's so full of those umami chemicals that it's hard for anything to be much better than others. Or so I thought, until I had the white miso at Hyotei. This miso was simply amazing with the perfect balance of subtle sweetness and savory richness and cooking with it was pure pleasure. I simply combined my miso with ground edamame (which is the feat by the Papa Bear - I don't have a blender or a food processor, so everything I puree is hand-ground in a mortar and pestle...) and stuffed three whole trout with the miso-edamame mixture. I then sprinkled some sea salt on the trout, wrapped them loosely in bamboo sheets, and threw them in the oven for a while. It was a very simple preparation with one intent - to bring out the power of that spectacular white miso. The whole dish rested on the quality of the miso, and boy, it did not disappoint. The sea salt, the white miso, and the edamame worked together perfectly for a harmony of flavors that felt very 'Kyoto' to me. I wouldn't dare make this dish again with anything else. Several of my friends have asked me for the recipe, but I have to say this - unfortunately, the dish was based so firmly on that white-miso from Kyoto, I don't know if any other white miso could fill in for that miso...
Wow, I've already run out of space and time! Apparently, I wrote a lot of text today!! I still have my cherry blossom rice balls (sakura onigiri), two vegetable plates, and the last of my 'guess the ingredient' questions to share with you, so come back tomorrow for Part II! And best of all, tomorrow's posts will feature Molly's great photography skills! Yes, in case you are wondering... I didn't take pictures of the yakitori or the trout... but it was because my camera ran out of battery... and by the time the battery was charged, I was too busy socializing and eating... Ops.
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