I was a weird kid who loved to flip through my mom's old cookbooks. She didn't have too many, perhaps three or four in all, that she had picked up in the early days of her married life in the mid-'70s in Tokyo. Looking at them now, most of the dishes featured in these old cookbooks have almost no appeal to my (spoiled) eyes. The presentation is painfully outdated (thick stoneware plates with brown lines around the edge--an unmistakable mark of the '70s), and what must have been exotic dishes, made with what little imported ingredient available at the time, now appear lacking in authenticity. The strangely genteel instructions, combined with the kind explanations of exotic ingredients and novel preparations (that have since become mundane) are almost quaint.
It was evidently not so for the ten-year-old me, for quite a few of the entries have marks--ranging from simple circles to stars and flowers--that I penciled in as I leafed through these cookbooks. My hope was that my mom would look at the marks, realize that I wanted to try those particular dishes, and cook them for me. That rarely happened, for my mom was not an eager cook (though she was and is a good one), but a few of the recipes she did try stuck around, in one form or the other.
One such is the Toban Djan Pumpkin, a dish that blurs the boundary between the Japanese home cooking and the Chinese cooking. It takes one of the staple veggies in Japanese cooking--pumpkin--and combine it with a Chinese chili bean paste. Back when the recipe was included in the cookbook, toban djan (Lee Kum Kee makes one) was probably not an everyday condiment in a normal Japanese housewife's kitchen. (Accordingly, the editor of the cookbook accompanied the recipe with a little expose of what it is.) Toban djan was beyond my ten-year-old culinary imagination, so I didn't mark it as "I want." Then, years later, when I was flipping through the cookbook (again), I found the recipe. Being a lazy ass, I asked my mom to try it (even though I was more than old enough to cook it myself), and this time she did.
It was so good that it's been in our repertoire ever since. We've both tinkered with the recipe over time, and our version features celery, which was not in the original recipe but gives an indispensable flavor twist to the dish in my opinion.
Toban Djan Pumpkin (for two)
Remove the pulp from the pumpkin and cut it into thin, bite-sized chunks (see the photo). Slice the celery diagonally.
In a pan, heat some oil and fry minced ginger and toban djan. (Be careful not to inhale the über-spicy toban djan fume--I accidentally did once, and it was pretty agonizing.) When the ginger and toban djan start to emit that appetizing aroma, add celery, then pumpkin and stir-fry, till the vegetables have turned a little translucent and have a nice coat of aromatic oil.
Add water, bouillon powder, sugar and green onions and simmer till most of the water is gone. I usually keep the lid on during this process, but when I want the water to evaporate faster (say, before the pumpkin lose all its shape), I take it off.
The heat of the toban djan compliments the earthy sweetness of the pumpkin, while (I thin) the celery and ginger somehow bridge the two very different flavors. It's good right off the stove, but it's also wonderful chilled on hot summer evenings--a good reason to make more than one serving and refrigerate! My mom used to be a bit taken aback by how her gluttonous daughter (thats me, yeah) kept looking through the same four or five cookbooks all the time, but thanks to my gluttonous obsession, we now have a pretty good pumpkin recipe to spice up our autumn table.
Below is the "before" photo of the beautiful Japanese kuri pumpkin.
Continue reading "When a Child's Obsession Pays"To follow the transformation of ratatouille, today's entry is a transformation of failed brandade. As I wrote yesterday, my first (possibly the last?) attempt to recreate the rich and creamy brandade we had at Avec was a miserable failure. It tasted good, but the texture was nowhere near creamy. It was more pulpy than creamy--what a formidable cod flesh! I didn't feel like throwing away the fruit of my tear and sweat (yuck), though, so I used some Swedish alchemy to make the iffy brandade enjoyable.
Swedish Alchemy (a.k.a. Fake Jansson's Temptation) for two
First, boil the potatoes until tender. Drain, put them back into the pot and heat over medium flame till the excess moisture has evaporated (about a minute or so). In a heat-resistant baking pan, layer potato slices and brandade alternately three times. Sprinkle the rosemary, garlic powder and parmesan cheese on the top. Bake in an oven at 350 F till the top gets golden.
I don't know if it was a magic of letting the brandade rest in the fridge for a day, or the magic of baking, or what, but what seemed like a pulpy, bland mush just 24 hours before had turned into something comfortingly delicious. The salt cod in brandade imparted a subtle oceanic flavor, and the richness of the milk and parmesan cheese worked very well. The pulpyness that threw me off when I tried the brandade by itself was not an issue any more, when combined with potatoes. I don't know if I want to make this Janssons' Temptation impostor again (because making brandade is pretty time-consuming), but I was pleasantly surprised how good it turned out. Despite my Japanese origin, I felt like I was eating something my (imaginary) European peasant grandma cooked up for her homesick granddaughter in a foreign country.
We dragged out dining chairs and a folding table to the back porch (which is really just a staircase) and had dinner there. With a bottle of Chablis, a bowl of ratatouille (from yesterday), and a Japanese-style light pickle salad, fake Jansson's Temptation made a great summer dinner. As we enjoyed the food and talked, a pair of house finches (the beautiful one with red throat and head) groomed themselves on a nearby electric wire. The light was crisp and transparent, almost like early autumn. Huge trees in our neighbors' backyards rustled their green leaves in the evening breeze. It was a luxurious evening, even though the cost of the meal wasn't that luxurious. We'll miss the back porch view when we move from this apartment in August...
This is the second half of my two-part review/applause of Le Lan, a French-Asian restaurant in River North. The first half is here.
For entrée, Patrick's blue nosed grouper wrapped in banana leaf was the winner. To begin with, it was an eye candy: the deep green of the fresh banana leaf, vermilion of the Thai red curry sauce and creamy yellow of the fingerling potatoes danced in a large, simple, white bowl. Yet the flavors were sweeter (figuratively, that is) than the look. The grouper was firm and supple, the fingerling potatoes earthy and sweet. The Thai red curry might have been the best I've ever had. And I spent about one fifth of my life in Bangkok. (Well, that was when I was a skinny little kid, but still.)
My choice from the day's specials was an interesting one: grilled scallops in smoked tomato sauce, served with coarsely minced pork belly. The scallops, though fresh and naturally sweet, were far too salty for my taste. The absolute redemption was the pork belly and the smoked tomato sauce. Combined together, the paté like pork belly and the smoky tomato sauce tasted like a very good barbecue; only that the pork had never been on a Weber grill. "It's a deconstructed BBQ," we laughed, while admiring the almost magical non-BBQ BBQ on our tongue. Despite the excess salt in the scallops, the dish was delicious, and made me want some freshly steamed white rice (which is a compliment in a Japanese context).
The dessert was a feast in itself. Our Tuesday prix-fixe included dessert, so we ordered one each; pineapple napoleon for Patrick, Vietnamese coffee cake for me. And on top of these, the restaurant gave us an off-the-menu crème brûlée with a nice message scribbled across the plate with chocolate. The three previous courses weren't humongous, so we had enough room for our own desserts, but the complimentary dessert was a bit much (although the gift made me very grateful). Of course we finished it all--it was one of the best crème brûlées in my life; rich but light, sweet but refreshing.
Patrick's pineapple napoleon was actually made with layers of wanton with very fine custard cream. The caramelized pineapple bits were very good, and the sweet-tartness went wonderfully with the suggested port (I forgot the name), but what totally made this playful dessert was the aromatic sage sorbet. My Vietnamese coffee cake was more substantial than Patrick's dessert. Three small squares of coffee cake (baked with Chinese five spice mix) were accompanied by thick zig-zag of chocolate mousse, which was fantastic. As a chocolate mousse addict, I had to restrain myself hard so that I won't start doing my happy dance, right there in front of everyone (though our server witnessed a bit of that earlier). Here and there in the chocolate mousse track was bits of caramelized hazelnuts and pecans--I could eat those crunchy, nutty, bitter little things all day long!
When we stepped out into the evening, the gray sky harbored some threats of impending storm. We strolled up Clark Street for a couple of blocks, waited for a bus for a while, and decided that the occasion was special enough to justify a taxi splurge. From the Lake Shore Drive, we could see a huge number of white boats--some tiny, others sizable--heading toward the Navy Pier area, where pre-July-4th fireworks were in preparation. The beaches were similarly jam-packed with people waiting for the fireworks. The taxi driver and Patrick discussed the congregation of the boats for a while. I went through our fantastic dinner in my head, and hoped that Le Lan would be around years to come, so we'd be able to make the yearly visit our gluttonous romantic ritual.
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Le Lan
749 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL
312.280.9100
Le Lan's Tuesday prix-fixe is such a deal. At $38, you get a soup or salad (which are as inspired as any entrée--no standard-issue "house salad" here), an entrée and a dessert. A simple addition of these three courses could cost more than $45 off the normal menu. We added an appetizer (Wagyu carpaccio), two glasses of wine, a glass of port to the prix-fixe, and came out with a tab of around $125 before tip. Tuesday is the day at this superb French-Asian restaurant.
With something to celebrate, Patrick and I made a hasty reservation (about three hours before the actual dinner time) at Le Lan, a French-Asian fusion restaurant in River North, a day before the Independence Day. The restlessness for the beer-and-grilling celebration ahead was already in the air when I rode the Red Line to downtown. I waited for Patrick for a while in front of a hot dog shop next door, feeling somewhat like a prosxxtute in my Chinese dress--just because I'm not used to wearing a dress, I think. When he showed up, we walked into the narrow yet airy dining room.
Our dinner in the green-themed stylish restaurant was beyond great; many of the dishes were epitomes of sophisticated mingling of different cuisines, executed with incredible expertise. Especially before the dinner rush hit, the service was extremely friendly and nearly impeccable. I didn't bring my camera so I can purely enjoy the meal, so there won't be any photographs, but I'll try to describe the dishes as best I could.
For our occasion, the restaurant gave us free glasses of champaign (I forgot what brand) to start us up. The champaign was dry yet flavorful, more to my taste than my wine of choice, Kung Fu Girl Riesling, which was a bit on the sweet side. (Yes, I admit I fell for the funny name.) Champaign was followed by a small, rectangular dish with two tiny steamed buns. The buns were shaped like cinnamon rolls, with what I believe to be Sichuan peppercorns sprinkled on top. A sweet, flavorful dipping sauce accompanied the buns. I tasted ten men djan (Chinese sweet miso), a bit of vinegar, soy sauce and maybe sugar. The steamed buns were absolutely adorable: white, smooth skin, fluffy inside and such a tiny size.
Though we went for the $38 Tuesday prix-fixe menu, which includes a soup or salad, an entrée and a dessert, we were too curious to skip the renowned Wagyu Beef Carpaccio. The award-winning carpaccio was a neatly arranged, paper-thin cuts of wagyu, with microscopic pieces of jicama, courtons, chives (a hair-thin kind we call "asatsuki" in Japan, I think), trout roe and red peppercorn sprinkled on top. Next to the beef slices were three triangles of scallion pancakes and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Although the sweet-and-nutty scallion-and-dried-shrimp pancakes might have overwhelmed the wagyu at times, balsamic vinegar worked wonderfully with the beef. We mainly ate the scallion pancakes alone, occasionally wiping the sweet-and-tart balsamic vinegar with them. With the sesame-oil flavored pancakes, the balsamic vinegar behaved like aromatic vinegar (香醋, aged and fermented vinegar with dark amber color, often used as dipping sauce for steamed buns). I loved the addition of asatsuki as well, for it reminded me of flavors I used to in Japan. Also the occasional trout roes changed the melt-in-your-mouth beef flavor into something more oceanic--a fun twist.
Patrick ordered seared tuna salad with pickled daikon vinaigrette. The tuna on a glass plate was very fresh, firm and flavorful--nothing like the nightmarish tuna from a few weeks ago elsewhere. The marinated Japanese cucumbers and wakame (seaweed) was a nice touch, but what impressed me the most was the vinaigrette. Though the use of pickled daikon in vinaigrette was a novel idea, the stock base they used in the vinaigrette tasted just like the bonito and kombu stock the respected Japanese restaurants make every day. Called dashi, this stock can be extremely satisfying even with a smallest amount of added condiments, if done right. And Le Lan did it right. Clean, subtle yet flavorful, his might have been the best dashi I've tasted outside of Japan.
I picked an heirloom tomato salad, which may have been my favorite of all the courses, though the competition was tough. Three slices of different tomatoes were topped with sautéed pea pod (which I think was 十六ササゲ, a type of cowpea in edible pod), poached shrimps, eggplants, and sprigs of mint and other herbs. What blew me away was the eggplant. Infused with nam pla (Thai fish sauce) and sugar (maybe palm sugar?), the creamy eggplant pieces melted in my mouth, accentuating the delightful acidity of the tomatoes. I could eat a bowl of rice with just three pieces of this eggplant--which is a great compliment if you're a Japanese cook. With colorful tomatoes (each with distinct flavor), eggplant and peas, this was a wonderful salad at the height of the summer harvest season. (And again, I was pleasantly surprised to see how Le Lan's cooks could combine so many different Asian ingredients cooked so many different ways in a single dish and still hold everything together!)
Obviously I'm still halfway through the meal--but I think this is long enough, so I'll return tomorrow with the second half of the wonderful dinner.
We Japanese love to massacre modify different Western cuisines to make them suit our taste. (You might remember the soy sauce-based mushroom spaghetti I wrote about a while back.) One of the frequent victims is the Italian food--there are quite a few spaghetti dishes that you don't see anywhere outside of Japan, or outside of Japanese cooks' kitchens. We might add miso to a simple tomato sauce to give it an extra depth of flavor. "Natto," fermented soybeans, also makes its appearance in spaghetti dishes. We might even use "shiokara," various seafood, often squid, marinated and fermented in its own innards (I know it sounds gross, but a good one can be fantastic) as a base for the sauce.
Though I'm not a huge fan of "natto spa," as this type of spaghetti is often called, I am deeply in love with another perennial Spaghetti Giapponese: spaghetti with spicy pollack roe. Spicy pollack roe, originally from Korea, is raw pollack roe preserved in salt and red chili, and is usually eaten with a bowl of rice or as an accompaniment for sake. Mentaiko, as it's called, can be a little bit daunting for someone with an aversion to oceanic flavor (I had to overcome my initial revulsion, too, since mentaiko smells pretty fishy), but once you get over it, it can be quite addictive. Mentaiko loses some of its wild fishiness when it's cooked, so spaghetti with mentaiko (or "mentai spa" in short) is one of my favorite dishes that involve this ingredient.
I don't know who invented the "mentai spa," but it's a pretty simple dish. In fact, I might venture to say that its simplicity faithfully reflects the simplicity of Italian pasta dishes. The main ingredients are the spaghetti, mentaiko, butter, soy sauce and nori (seaweed you find wrapped around your "maki" sushi). It's simple, but the fishy, salty mentaiko, the fatty, rich butter and the aromatic nori blend extremely well with each other. And it's ridiculously easy to make; it's one of the easiest meals to cook, even if you don't know how to cook at all. Indeed, there's no knife involved, either, other than the butter knife you might use to transfer the butter from the butter case to the pan.
Spaghetti with Spicy Pollack Roe (for one)
First, boil the pasta in plenty of water with a pinch of salt. While the pasta is cooking, squeeze the pollack roe out of its thin skin. To get the tiny roe out of the fragile skin, I like to cut one end of the roe sack and pull the sack between two chopsticks tightly held together, but if you aren't used to using chopsticks, you can also do this by breaking the sack open and scrape the roe out with a spoon. When the pasta is al dente, drain the water from the pot, remove it from heat, and add butter, pollack roe and soy sauce. Mix well. The pollack roe cooks by the heat of the pasta. Place the pasta on a plate and top it with shredded nori and shiso leaves, cut into thin strips.
The other day I made this spaghetti for lunch, for the first time in many, many years, and totally fell in love with it again. The punchy heat and fishiness of the mentaiko had morphed into incredibly delicate hint of spice and oceanic flavor, and the butter's dairy richness held it all together. (Just writing this makes my mouth water... Ah!) For folks out there with higher seafood tolerance, I highly recommend this Japanified Italian recipe. Oh, yeah, you should eat it with a pair of chopsticks, too!
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Mentaiko can be found in freezer cases in Japanese or Korean markets. They may come in fancy packages, since they're a bit more expensive. (I think I bought mine, a fake-wood box of 7 oz for $12 or $16.) They're expensive, but you really don't need a ton of them to give flavor to your dishes, so a relatively small package should last you for a while. I got mine at the H Mart (801 Civic Center Drive, Niles, IL).
It's hot. I know it's not that hot, relatively speaking, but I feel pretty hot. I suppose I've become sufficiently Chicagonized...
It's so hot that our dinner table frequently features chilled noodles. I used to buy pre-made package of chilled noodles (called "hiyashi chuuka," meaning "chilled Chinese noodles") from Mitsuwa, but recently I've been experimenting from scratch. My staple sauce for Chinese fusion chilled noodles has been varying mixtures of aromatic herbs and spices in soy sauce, vinegar and a bit of sugar and sesame oil, but recently I tried a different, less saucy version.
I used the shrimp noodles from the Viet Hoa Plaza (link via Chicagoist). These thin wheat noodles contain powdered shrimp, and release a subtle, oceany flavor when cooked. Because I wanted to make the sauce a lot simpler than my usual fair, I figured that extra shrimpy flavor in the noodles would be a nice addition.
Chilled Shrimp Noodles in Oyster Sauce with Sichuan Peppercorn (for two; approximate amount, as usual)
It seems too simple to proudly present as a recipe... All you need to do is to boil the shrimp noodles, rinse them under cold running water (to give them a nice, resilient texture) and toss them in the sauce. The only twist I gave was a mixture of ground Sichuan (Szechuan or Szechwan) peppercorn and red chili peppers; I used a pinch each and pounded them in a mortar with a pestle. (For a Szechuan cole slow I made with this aromatic spice, see this post.)You can add whatever veggies you'd like to serve with it, but for this meal, I used a tomato and a few scallions.
The combination of two ocean-derived flavors--oyster sauce and shrimp noodles--turned out to be pretty good. Since most oyster sauces have sweetness added, this deceivingly simple list of ingredients can create a fairly complex mix of flavors. I really liked the dish; it was a nice departure from my usual fair of soy sauce, vinegar and lots of garlic and ginger. I'm definitely making this again this summer.
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Our Sichuan Peppercorn came from the always reliable Spice House.
1512 N. Wells St., Chicago, IL
312-274-0378
Where did the shiitake mushrooms go? The last time I saw them, they were happily waiting for their time in a brown bag on the counter top. They were now nowhere to be seen. Did I throw them away by mistake? I didn't remember doing that, but since I know my formidable power of forgetfulness, I figured I tossed out the brown bag without thinking much about it.
"I think I threw out the shiitake mushrooms by mistake," I told Patrick, who was reading something about the Mac's developer conference on Monday. "It's so stupid; I don't even remember doing that, but the bag isn't here, so I think I did it."
"Was that in a paper bag, on the counter?" asked Patrick. He sounded a little anxious. Yeah, I said. "I think I tossed it in the trash," he confessed. "I thought that was the bag of the muffins we ate for breakfast."
He shook the brown bag before tossing it, but the slightly dry, rustling noises of the shiitake mushrooms convinced him that they were the paper muffin cups. Ouch.
So, there went the main ingredient for our Spaghetti Giapponese con Fungi--the easy dinner I planned for the evening. This flavor loss was significant, but I still had some oyster mushrooms and normal white mushrooms, so I decided to stick with the plan, with a bit of alteration.
Originally, I was going to sautée the mushrooms in butter and shallots, add salt and some turning sake, and mix with the pasta. Now that the most significant flavor agent is gone, I had to find something to patch the gap with. What I decided upon is "kobucha," a sort of instant drink made from kelp*. Kobucha usually comes in an airtight can with a tiny plastic spoon, and you dissolve a spoonful of the powdered stuff in hot water and drink it. The drink has a slight green tint, just like green tea. Since its basic ingredients are powdered kelp (kobu, or kombu), salt, sugar and flavoring amino acids, kobucha is widely used to enhance the umami (one of the five basic tastes; the sensation of the full richness of flavors) in Japanese home cooking. I don't like kobucha as a drink, but I'm quite fond of the oceany flavor that it adds to the otherwise straightforward dishes.
So, here is what I did with the pasta with one missing mushroom:
Ingredients (approximation, as usual):
Method for Spaghetti Giapponese con Fungi:
I used just enough olive oil and butter to sautée the mushrooms without getting them burnt, and there's no cream or cheese involved (although you could add them and make it a richer dish). Most of the flavor comes from the mushrooms and shallot, enhanced by the powdered kelp in kobucha. It's a rather simple pasta, but it's chock full of flavor. Although its ingredients are rather oriental (especially if you manage to protect shiitake mushrooms from the evil hands of your significant other :P), but the simplicity is (I think) similar to that of real Italian pasta dishes we enjoyed while in Italy. This went quite well with the light rose, a leftover wine from a few days before.
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* In the U.S. and in Europe, the word "kombucha" is used to refer to a Chinese-origin fermented tea that is drunk for health purposes. I don't know how this confusion started, but the these are two different drinks.
On Memorial Day, the aroma of char-grilled burgers wafting from our neighbors' backyard (all the way up to our third-floor apartment!) was a torture. It made us crave for a few little things, all of which were denied for one reason or the other: a cute little Weber grill (no place to store), a place to grill (back porch too small, smoke detector too sensitive), etc., etc....
We thought about going to the Moody's and have a beer or two with their burgers in the outdoor patio, but this was a bad idea, too. I had a bunch of super-fresh veggies we got from the Evanston Farmers Market on Saturday, and considering I wouldn't be cooking on Tuesday, I wanted to use them now. Oyster mushrooms, in particular, were screaming to be cooked while still perky. Plus I had a chunk of fatty pork ribs (deboned) from Mitsuwa, and there was a dish I wanted to try with it. (What I did with the oyster mushrooms, I'll post tomorrow.)
The recipe (link in Japanese) I followed was Vietnamese, but a very similar dish, called "kakuni," exists in the traditional cooking of Kagoshima, a southern prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. An excellent producer of the renowned Kurobuta (Berkshire black) pork, it is no surprise that Kagoshima has developed this simple but delectable dish of fatty pork simmered in soy sauce and raw cane sugar. Kakuni was never a part of my Tokyo-born mom's repertoire, but ever since I had a collapse-under-my-chopsticks tender kakuni in an izakaya (Japanese style tapas bar), I've been a faithful lover of this simple dish. (Kakuni goes superb with shochu, barley- or sweet potato- based liquor, another Kagoshima specialty. And thus, kakuni is often found on izakaya menus.)
The only reason I forwent Japanese recipe over the Vietnamese one is that I wanted to experiment more with the Vietnamese coconut caramel that I picked up a few weeks ago (and made an awesome fried rice). I was stunned to find the god-awful amount of sugar the recipe required, but since it was the first time I cook this dish myself, I faithfully followed the sucroseful recipe for two:
1. Marinate chunks of deboned pork ribs in 1 tablespoon of Nam Pla (or Nuoc Mam), 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of caramel sauce, a clove of minced garlic and black pepper. Let it sit in the fridge for an hour.
2. Sautée the pork in a frying pan so that all the exterior is nicely browned.
3. Pour the remaining marinade into a pot. Add 3 tablespoons of Nam Pla, 2 tablespoons of sugar, one dried hot pepper, and place the pork in the pot. Add some water so that the pork chunks are half immersed in the sauce. Simmer for an hour or so.
I boiled two eggs and grilled (without oil) some sliced sweet potatoes and added them into the simmering pot at the end of the cooking time, but this is a tasty but dispensable flourish if in a pinch. (The original recipe only calls for pork and eggs. The idea of sweet potatoes came from the fact that Kagoshima, the birthplace of kakuni, also produces a lot of sweet potatoes, only some of which are brewed into shochu.) As the kakuni simmered down, the wonderfully rich aroma of fish sauce and caramel filled the kitchen and then the dining room, and mostly dispelled the annoyingly enticing smell of the backyard barbecue. I quickly made a few other dishes with the fresh veggies from the farmers market, and by 5:30, we were enjoying the fatty pork and sweet potatoes. By 6, we were happily intoxicated. Intoxicated enough, indeed, to watch an episode of A-Team, which both of us adored as kids. But alas, a bottle of Stella Artois was not nearly enough to stop me from remarking: "I have no idea why I loved this show! This is awful!"
We promptly switched to a few episodes of The Black Adder. No barbecue, but it was a good Memorial Day feast. At least there weren't any severed enemy heads on our table...
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Takkatsu is the best place to sample how good Kurobuta can be in a breaded-and-fried form. (Full review coming soon, since we love this place.)
161 W. Wing St., Arlington Heights, IL
847.818.1860
Monday was our first summer day, with the temperature in the mid-80s. The sky was blue with a few thunderstorms in the horizon. It was too nice of a day to waste indoors, working at computers. So we decided to pack a picnic lunch and spend our lunch hour at the lake.
I had a small red cabbage, half a carrot, and a bunch of snow peas (among other things) in the fridge, and I'd also wanted to experiment with cole slow with an Asian twist. Back in April, when Tom and I had an Iron Chef Battle (the not-so-secret ingredient was garlic), Tom made a fabulous Asian slow, and I had that in mind.
Recently Tom had also given me a portion of Szechuan Peppercorn from Spice House, so I decided to use it as the flavor backbone. Often used in Ma Po Tofu, Szechuan peppercorns have moderate heat and wonderfully refreshing, slightly minty aroma. This was actually my first time to see them in their original shape (I'd only seen them in ground form), and I really liked the reddish shell with subtle bumpy texture and the creamy green seed that showed between the cracked halves of the shell. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remove the shells. Out of sheer laziness, I decided to just ground the whole thing, removing only a few conspicuous twigs from the ground peppers.
I shredded all the veggies, and made the vinaigrette:
1 table spoon of olive oil
1 table spoon of vinegar
1 chunk of ginger, minced
1 pinch of Szechuan peppercorns, ground
2 tea spoon of soy sauce
2 tea spoon of sugar
When I tasted the vinaigrette right after mixing, olive oil dominated everything else--even the Szechuan peppercorns. Since I thought the flavors might settle better as the veggies soak up the vinaigrette and the flavors from the veggies in turn seep into the dressing, I tossed the veggies in the vinaigrette and let the slow sit in the fridge for a while. Meanwhile, I baked the (frozen, out-of-the-box) battered cod in the oven and also warmed two pieces of French peasant bread. When, after about 20 minutes, I took out the bowl of cole slow from the fridge, the olive oil had been tamed by other flavors. Hooray!
We packed our lunch, stuffed a backpack with a beach towel, two cans of soda and eating utensils, and headed for the Evanston beach. It was a quiet day at the beach, and we managed to secure a park table. It might have been a bit too windy--while we ate, the tree above us kept adding its leaves and bark pieces to our salad--but it was nice to be out. A little boy raced on the lake shore path back and forth, back and forth, on his colorful training bike, while his mom read by the small mobile crib of his little sister. An older couple were having their brown-bag lunch at the table next to ours, and a young couple sweettalked, leaning on a rock. (It was so relaxing that I forgot to take a picture of the finished lunch box!)
We had to head back soon, but if we hadn't had to, we would have spent the whole afternoon there on the green grass, reading and talking. The Japanese say "I feel like my hair is being pulled back" when she doesn't want to leave, and it was one of those "hair being pulled back" moments.
Saturday night, after a Chinese feast for lunch, we knew we shouldn't be hungry. But being gluttonous foodies, we found ourselves slightly snacky around 7:30. I didn't want anything too heavy, but I didn't want to snack on things like chips or cookies (both of which we have plenty at hand, despite our rational side telling us not to). And we had an open bottle of white wine in the fridge. That needed to be consumed before it turns sour. So I quickly made a few veggie-based munchies to go with the Chardonnay.
Curried Tomato and Egg Salad
I used six of the mini Roma tomatoes from Whole Foods for this, but any one large tomato of preferably a sweeter kind should work just fine. Boil two eggs and let them cool. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes into bite-sized chunks. Dressing is a mixture of mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, pepper and Ras El Hanout that I used for this fish dish. When the eggs are not too hot, peel the shell and cut them into wedges. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, chill and serve.
I also added some Caribbean Calypso spice mix from the Spice House, but it had lost most of its orangy zestiness (been sitting in the cupboard for too long). I still think that the orange flavor might be good with the Arabic curry, so the next time I make this, I'll add some flesh orange zest (or get fresh Calypso mix).
Quick Japanese Cucumber Pickle
This is a quickie. All you need for this recipe is some sesame oil and what's called "ponzu." Ponzu is a traditional Japanese condiment that combines soy sauce, fish stock and citrus juice. It has a wonderfully refreshing flavor of a Japanese citrus called "yuzu" (although the ones available in the U.S. seem to substitute this distinctive citrus with lemon), and the fish stock adds nice depth to any dish. Bottled ponzu tends to be on the sharp side, but hey, I can't make it from scratch every day (that would involve finding the elusive yuzu, making stock from bonito flakes and konbu, and other time-consuming steps), so I rely on the less-than-perfect ready-made ones. Ponzu can be used as salad dressing or dipping sauce for broiled fish, but today, I used it for this quick pickle.
To make this light pickle ("asa-zuke" in Japanese), cut the cucumbers into bite-sized bits and sprinkle some salt on them. After a few minutes, gently squeeze the excess water out of the cucumber, and pour some ponzu over them. Drizzle a touch of sesame oil, and let it sit in the fridge for ten to fifteen minutes. When the cucumber bits are slightly brown from ponzu, it's ready to serve. Today, I used some cilantro for garnish.
The ivory-colored dish in the front is the oven-roasted russet potatoes with garlic and rosemary, which came out wonderful. I should have made more of those, but then again, the idea was to eat light after an indulgent lunch, so a potato and a half for the two of us was just fine.
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A Seattle Times article describes a Seattle-based chef's experiment with ponzu, and is much better at explaining what the condiment tastes like than I am.
Having found a nice fillet of red snapper at the H Mart (a gigantic Korean supermarket in Niles), I decided to plan the day's dinner around the snapper.
For seasoning, I tried the Ras El Hanout mix from Spice House. Directly translated to "the best of the shop," Ras El Hanout (رأس الحانوت) is a slightly floral blend of mainly Indian spices like cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon and chili pepper. It's widely used in Middle East and North Africa--Ras El Hanout is an indispensable spice mix for lots of Moroccan meat dishes, and sometimes is used in almond pies and couscous. I wouldn't have known its existence, if Tom hadn't given me a small pouch of it a few months back. Ever since I huffed the mix, I've been in love with its subtle complexity and versatile use. (Plus it's close enough to the Japanese curry mix that I'm used to, so it's easier for me to figure out what the Ras El Hanout might be good with.) So, I rubbed the Ras El Hanout, salt and pepper onto the fillets, and lightly dusted them on both sides to give them crispy edges, then sautéd them in olive oil and rosemary.
For the side, I did a crossover dish: Japanese ingredients cooked Western way. I cut up about two inches of Daikon radish, a medium-sized golden Yukon potato and a handful of snow peas. Daikon and potatoes were then thrown into garlic butter in a pot. When the two veggies were slightly browned here and there, I added just enough water to cover the pieces, stirred in a pinch of chicken bouillon, and simmered them for a while. When it's just about done, I added the snow peas and a few sage leaves (from the baby sage plant growing in our container garden by the living room window) and cooked them on low heat.
As it turned out, the nameless veggie dish was better than the red snapper (though I might be biased--I love veggies). The slight hint of sage and the earthy bitterness of the fat, squat Korean daikon was a perfect combination. Butter added just enough richness to the mix--I could eat that all day long!
Although the Ras El Hanout is usually used for meat dishes, it worked fine on the red snapper. Tradition has it that Ras El Hanout is an aphrodisiac, but I didn't feel any hornier after eating the snapper than before. Maybe I should have been more generous about the amount of the spice (haha). Or maybe the spice mix made the snapper horny: its flesh had wonderful firmness to it, something that's pretty difficult to find around Chicago (supermarkets don't seem to know how to handle their fish here!). With a glass of Chardonnay (using it to make sauce for the fish provided us a good excuse to open it) and slices of Tuscan bread, it was a satisfying meal.
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H Mart
801 Civic Center Drive, Niles, IL
847.581.1212
© Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved. Don't even think about trying it!
