Late Summer Udon — Cool, Easy, Perfect

We’re having a mini heatwave again. You’ve got to love a climate (northern CA) that gets its best weather in mid to late September! When it gets this hot, I immediately think of cool, slippery, chewy udon, the thick wheat noodle from Japan that can be enjoyed both hot (usually in a dashi-based broth) or cold (read on).

I’ve found that dried udon, cooked like pasta, is far superior to the frozen udon sold in bags at Japanese markets. Cooking udon until al dente, draining, and then rinsing under cold running water produces a clean, slightly chewy noodle that takes beautifully to light, vibrant sauces. Imagine fresh figs mixed with fruity green olive oil in the blender; that pesto-like sauce is then gently tossed with the cool udon and topped with good salt and pepper. You could do the same with plums, apricots, pluots, nectarines, or any other summer fruit. It’s the coolness of the fruit and olive oil against the cool noodles that makes it so refreshing.

Another favorite is a sauce made from plenty of herbs, lemon (Meyer lemons work especially well here) and young ginger to really wake it up. Combine about a cup of mint, a cup of fresh coriander, a teaspoon of diced fresh young ginger, the juice and zest of a lemon, some olive oil, and perhaps a little yogurt to ensure that the blender can do its job. The dish is so light and vibrant, it almost floats away! The entire dish, start to finish, should take no longer than 15 minutes.

Can you imagine any other combinations for udon? Try some, and report back here!

Posted by Eric | 8:36 pm 09/17/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 4 Comments »

Hot Summer Salad — Cauliflower "Rice"

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that flummox people. Everyone I know seems to have some negative associations with childhood memories of brutally overcooked (i.e. overboiled) florets, yet, when presented with an actual tasty cauliflower dish, everyone likes it! The simplest way to cook cauliflower well is, I think, to spray it liberally with olive oil/sea salt/black pepper and roast in a hot (425) oven till it turns golden brown.

But that can get old, too. So here’s another way I really enjoy eating cauliflower. The idea is to chop it up finely, so finely that it resembles rice, and then to imagine it as rice! This simple little summer dish hits all the right buttons for me: healthy, spicy, fruity, creamy, crunchy, all in one! Here’s what went in it:

one large head cauliflower, trimmed, stemmed, and diced
1 small torpedo (or other) onion, chopped
1 manzano (or other) chile, deseeded and chopped
handful of “shishito” (or other) peppers
2 fresh plums, chopped
handful of semi-dried tomatoes
slices of avocado

Anyone else have any favorite ways to prepare cauliflower?

And PS — I think I’ve got gremlins in my email subscription server, to quote Karena. Sigh. I apologize to all who’ve received repeat posts, and will do my best to fix this annoying problem.

Posted by Eric | 3:14 pm 09/16/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 15 Comments »

Breakaway Huevos Rancheros

Another classic foraging lunch. I had some leftover spicy carrots, cooked spinach, salsa verde, and GREAT flame-toasted thick tortillas from my local Mexican grocer. A habanero got sliced up and tossed in. A poached egg in the middle, topped with lots of black pepper and kaffir lime salt, was the coup de grace.

Posted by Eric | 11:24 am 09/15/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 4 Comments »

Umami Beef Jerky, Redux

I was recently daydreaming about the green papaya salad they serve at Bodega Bistro, on Larkin in SF, and especially about that Vietnamese-style beef jerky they use in it, and wanted to try making it. I cruised around the net looking for ideas on how to make it (the always-informative Andrea Nguyen has a wonderful-sounding one), and was relieved to find that most are done in the oven. Why relief?? Well, I’m getting slightly jaded about my dehydrator, with which I usually make my jerky, and which was purchased several years ago with the idea of jumping full-bore down a vegan path, just for fun and enlightenment. But the dehydrator has left me all “eh.” And it takes up WAY too much space! So oven-dried jerky, here we come.

A little over a year ago I wrote about some beef jerky I was regularly making. I still like that jerky, a lot, but the one I made today was truly outstanding. I started emptying my pantry, looking for the most umami I could pack into the meat. The jerky I made was an umami play on the classic Vietnamese beef jerky, which is made with lemongrass, brown sugar, fish sauce, and soy sauce. This dish is slightly more complicated than most breakaway dishes, in that it requires a multiple steps every half hour or so, though most of that is pretty passive, so it doesn’t feel very hard/big dealish.

It has insane levels of umami, and a dark, bronzed appearance. This is total crack. Makes one pound of jerky. It’s especially nice julienned, and sprinkled into salads.

Umami Beef Jerky, Redux

2 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese thin soy sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons Bragg’s amino acids (forgive this hippie transgression, but it really does pack an umami wallop)
2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
about a quarter cup of minced lemongrass
large pinch ancho chile pepper, ground
large pinch aleppo pepper (just cause it was lying around)
1/2 cup coconut syrup, AKA palm juice
2 or 2.5 pounds beef rump/eye of round

1) Freeze the beef for an hour to really firm it up, which makes it very easy to slice. I used my scary-sharp new Shun bread knife for this, but you could also use a sashimi knife or just your trusted very sharp chef’s knife.

2) Slice it as thinly as you can; try not to exceed 1/8 of an inch if you can. Thinner slices allow the marinade to penetrate better, which results in tastier jerky.

3) Make the marinade in a large bowl, one big enough to hold all the sliced beef. In it, whisk together all the remaining ingredients.

4) Add the beef to the marinade and mix thoroughly (I use my hands). Let it marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of an hour, though you could probably marinate it for much longer, including overnight).

5) Move two racks in your oven to the uppermost and bottommost positions, and preheat to 300F.

6) Prepare your pans. Use two standard baking sheets (officially called “quarter sheets” and measuring 9 x 13 inches). Lay a piece of foil over each one, then set up a rack to rest on the foil/pan. I use wire cookie cooling racks.

7) Gently squeeze the beef to dry it out a bit. Get as much liquid out as you can, but don’t go too crazy.

8 Carefully place the beef on the racks. Don’t overlap the beef; you should have enough space to spread them out comfortably but snugly.

9) Bake for 30 minutes. Using tongs, flip each piece, and reverse the order of the pans (so that the one previously on top is now on the bottom, and vice versa).

10) Bake for another 30 minutes. Taste a few. They should be pretty close to done, but if you deem it requires more time, give it some more. Don’t go overboard though – excess carmelization can impart bitter flavors. It should be thoroughly browned and extremely tasty!

Posted by Eric | 8:15 pm 08/26/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 11 Comments »

The Pressure Is On! Star Anise Turkey

Well, after WAY too long an absence, the pressure cooker reentered my life today! For years I did have a reasonably modern one but it was aluminum, got pretty scruffy looking, and didn’t make it with the last move, and I vowed to upgrade to a stainless, larger one (I got the eight-quart capacity one). I never had one of the old-style scary ones, those rattling, dangerous-looking contraptions that would sometimes literally blow up, but I do remember being terrified of the one in my grandmother’s kitchen, with stories of extremely hot pressurized food on the walls and ceiling after scaring the crap out of everyone! So many of us have a not-so-irrational fear of these things.

Happily, today’s manufacturers of pressure cookers have figured all this out. They are now totally safe, and easy to use; you can’t even open them until the pressure goes back to zero (why did it take them so long to figure this out?).

So what are they good for? Lots of stuff, but I especially like them for cooking tough cuts of meat. Many cooks are intimidated by the tougher cuts like shoulder, shank, and round, but pressure cooking quickly breaks down muscle fibers into collagen, which makes the meat so fork-tender and soft, infused with whatever flavoring you care to impart to it, that you almost need a spoon, not a fork, to eat it. And, of course, it imbues the house with its incredible aromas. They’re also wonderful for beans.

The virgin outing with the new machine featured turkey thighs. I do like the taste of dark turkey meat, but I’ve had problems cooking it to perfection. Problems, be gone! I gave them a very heavy coating of freshly ground star anise, which has a magical affinity with turkey, salt, and pepper, and sauteed them, with a little olive oil over high heat. After deeply browning both sides, I removed the two gigantic thighs and added a large onion (roughly chopped), a few peeled carrots, about half a cup of fresh ginger, a manzano chile, and a half a moqua (an entry on this remarkable Asian vegetable will follow soon), and cooked the veggies for about five minutes. Back in went the turkey, along with about two cups of homemade chicken stock. Cooked under pressure for about 40 minutes.

It makes me happy when meat just falls, with the slightest microprodding, off the bones. And that’s exactly what happened to this turkey. Most of the veggies just melted, so I pureed them with a stick blender, and added a handful of blue lake green beans. Served with a big pot of brown rice cooked in chicken stock and perfumed with a few kaffir lime leaves, along with a chilled glass of Australian riesling. It was heavenly.

Any pressure cooks out there? What’s your favorite thing to do with a pressure cooker?

Posted by Eric | 10:49 am 08/01/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 5 Comments »

Give Poor Little Suffering Dukkah Some Champagne

I love the fact that dukkah (sometimes spelled dukkha), the classic Egyptian spice mixture made of toasted spices and nuts and taken with olive-oil moistened bread, refers to the concept of suffering in Buddhist terminology. It’s simply hard to imagine even the IDEA of suffering when one first encounters this manna; pleasure neurojuices begin to slosh, sometimes quite jarringly, especially with a bite of ultrafresh crusty bread (Tartine’s country loaf gets my vote for best bread in the the SF Bay area, if not earth) lightly dipped in a small bowl of fruity green fresh olive oil. It also makes a fantastic crust for snapper, or some other sturdy, neutral-tasting fish.You just want to inhale its aromas, and then its essence. One would be forgiven for experiencing the temptation to simply roll around in it.

There is no better party dip — make up a batch of dukkah and set it out next time you have guests over, and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s famously flexible — you can of course use any combination of nuts and spices that you like, but typically the dish will include toasted (in a cast iron pan, naturally) coriander seeds, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, salt and pepper, and a medley of nuts, usually almonds and hazlenuts, but I’ve made drooly dukkah with a heavy hand on the macadamias, walnuts, pecans, and pistachios. Quantities really don’t matter very much, but because it’s hard to get a feel for it the first time making it, use the following guidelines, graciously provided by Ana Sortun and her quite wonderful book, Spices: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean.

I’ve tweaked her assembly instructions a tad by eliminating a few steps in the spirit of getting it on the table at breakaway speed, with no discernible hint of subsequent suffering, but the quantities she lists are thus:

1/2 cup blanched almonds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1/4 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a dry cast iron pan over medium heat toast the almonds and the coconut until golden, then transfer to a food processor. While the nuts and coconut toast, in another smallish cast iron pan, toast the coriander, cumin, and sesame until fragrant. Watch the spices closely; a moment’s inattention can cause them to burn, forcing you to suffer, feel badly about the horrible waste, and start over. Transfer to a spice grinder/coffee grinder and grind to a fine powder.

Process the almond/coconut mixture until it’s finely blended. Add the toasted spices, plus the s&p. That’s it.

Serve it in a beautiful smallish bowl, alongside a beautiful small saucer of olive oil and a basket of bread torn into small pieces. Instruct your guests to take a small piece of bread, dip it into the olive oil, then dip into the dukkah. Prepare to leave suffering behind! Goes great with champagne.

Posted by Eric | 7:16 pm 07/17/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 9 Comments »

Transcendent Pork, Fruity Nutty Cauliflower

Last night we had chops from our recent pork purchase. We bought half a gorgeous Berkshire that was lovingly nurtured by Mark Pasternak at Devil’s Gulch in Nicasio, who feeds his animals ridiculously high-quality fare and gives them lavish digs on some of the most beautiful farmland in California. The difference in taste between pork like this and what’s available at supermarkets can’t be overemphasized; it’s just marvelous. I encourage everyone in the SF Bay area to try it. It’s easy — just call him up and tell him you want some pork. You may or may not need a few friends to split it with you; he’ll either sell you a whole animal or part of one, depending on what he’s got. It’s then sent off for butchering, wrapping, and freezing. You pick up your bags of frozen/labeled cuts when it’s ready. You can order the same way with Doug Stonebreaker of Prather Ranch, whose pork has been known to make poets of mere mortals! I am a huge fan of both of these guys and their ranching philosophies. But I’m sure there are many others like them throughout the country. Check out the Eat Well Guide: just type in your zip code and watch what happens.

I also had a head of cauliflower that beckoned, so it dawned on me to make a kind of cauliflower chutney to go with the pork. Here’s how I did it:

1 cup of mix dried fruit; I used persimmon, crystallized ginger, fig, date, apricot, and cranberries + about a cup of plum wine
Chop up the fruit, transfer to a shallow saucepan, and pour in the plum wine.
Roast the olive-oil-drizzled cauliflower florets in a 400 degree oven till browned, roughly 30 minutes
While the cauliflower cooks, heat up the fruit mixture. Add a dab of butter if you’re feeling generous.
While the fruits heats up, roughly chop up a half cup of mixed nuts. I used pistachios, almonds, and pine nuts, but you could use anything, including macadamia, walnut, or pecan.
Toast them in a dry cast iron skillet and set aside.
Add the roasted cauliflower to the fruit mixture, mix well, andcontinue to cook on the stovetop for a few minutes. Top with the nuts, and maybe a tablespoon of chopped herb. I used oregano.

It’s a remarkable dish with pork; the sweetness of the fruit melds perfectly with the meat, yet the cauliflower provides savory goodness and some bite.

A keeper!

Posted by Eric | 2:16 pm 07/10/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 1 Comment »

Great Bread in Five Minutes? Not Quite, But Close

I often find that, after coming home from a long trip, I want to start making a few really basic things: stock and a subsequent big batch of soup, a fresh batch of salts and toasted spices, and . . . bread. Somehow it’s important to fill the house with aromas to really let me know that I’m back.

I’ve been rather smitten with a somewhat recent cookbook purchase called Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day, by Hertzberg and Francois. The title refers not to the total time required to make a loaf of bread, of course; it refers to the really wonderful “nudge” of making a big batch homemade dough, refrigerating it, and slicing off a pound here and there to shape and bake whenever the fancy strikes. Once the initial labor of making the dough, letting it rise, punching it down, etc. is accomplished, great fresh bread is a short step away. It works. And the main reason it works is that pre-mixed, pre-risen, high-moisture dough keeps in the fridge for a long time. As a bonus, it’s no-knead, the yeast doesn’t need to be proofed, and you don’t need a starter or sponge. It’s about as low-fuss as it’s possible to be, yet it yields fantastic results. My kind of project!

I don’t always have bread dough in the fridge, of course; I still buy plenty of La Brea whole grain, Tartine country loaf, Brickmaiden wheat, and anything from Della Fatoria. But if I’m in the kitchen with a few extra moments and a small surplus of energy, I make an effort to whip up a quick five-pound batch of dough. It’s really not hard at all.

My favorite bread so far in the book is the broa, or Portuguese corn bread. It has a supercrunchy exterior, yet the interior is chewy and really corny. It makes brilliant toast.

It’s rare that I bother to write out exact instructions for a dish, but since bread is notoriously hard to wing, here it is, with a few minor adjustments that have improved it for me. I don’t think Hertzberg and Francois will mind. Give it a try.

~~~

Broa (Portuguese Corn Bread)

Makes two two-pound loaves, or four one-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled.

3 cups lukewarm water

1.5 tablespoons granulated yeast (1.5 packets; I buy mine in bulk from the local hippie store, and just keep it in a jar in the fridge)

1.5 tablespoons kosher salt

1.5 cups stoneground cornmeal (I use fancy-ish polenta, medium grind, but regular old cornmeal probably works fine)

5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur, purchased at Trader Joe’s)

Cornmeal for pizza peel and dusting the top

~~~

1. Mixing and storing the dough: Mix the yeast and salt with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or a lidded (not airtight) food container

2. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients without kneading, using a spoon, a 14-cup capacity food processor with dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer with dough hook. If you’re not using a machine, yo may need to use wet hands to incorporate the last bit of flour (I just use a sturdy wooden spoon).

3. Cover (not airtight), and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses, approximately 2 hours.

4. The dough can be used immediately after the initial rise, though it is easier to handle when cold. Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 10 days.

5. On baking day, dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and divide the dough into two pieces, one of which goes back in the fridge for later. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of a the dough around to the bottom on al four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Allow to rest and rise on a cornmeal-covered pizza peel for 40 minutes.

6. Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat a baking stone to 450F, with the stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.

7. Just before baking, sprinkle the loaf liberally with cornmeal and slash a cross, “scallop,” or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top, using a serrated bread knife. Leave the cornmeal in place for baking; tap some of it off before eating.

8. Slide the loaf directly onto the hot stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water ito the broiler tray, and quickly close the oven door. Bake for about 30 minutes, until deeply browned and firm. Smaller or larger loaves will require adjustments in baking time. Allow to cool a bit before slicing.

Posted by Eric | 3:37 pm 06/22/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 17 Comments »

A Quick Bowl of Umami

Umami is my siren.

It’s pretty much constantly singing out to me, beckoning me with come-hither beams from god knows where. I manage to slip in elements of umami into almost every meal, but occasionally I have to just max it with an umami blast.

Today’s lunch break from painting — don’t even ask! — required such a blast. I had on hand, as I almost always have on hand:

dried and pulverized shiitake
dried and pulverized dried tomato
parm
onion

So far so good. I also had:

ultrafresh smoked ham (from my recent pig)
a good hunk of butternut squash
a few sweet peppers
jalapeno
citron marmalade bubbling away on the stove

Cube up the squash and dice the onion and off to the races.

It’s times like these that knife skills come in really handy. Is there any skill more useful in a kitchen? Hundreds of hours of relentless practice, like hundreds of hours of anything, can make you really good at it. It’s really, really important to have one good knife that you love/cherish/take great care of. If you’re ever going to splurge on any one piece of kitchen equipment, let it be a good knife. Perhaps a short essay on how I deal with my knives might be of interest, so I will queue up a post on that anon.

Winter squash (i.e. my butternut) cooks quickly once it’s chopped up small, so I was able to finish the dish in about five minutes of high heat in a hot wok. For yet more umami goodness I sprinkled the dish with umami salt, and finished it off with fresh oregano and ham tossed with a spoon full of citron marmalade. With crackers and a glass of the house sauvignon blanc.

Fortified to paint some more!

Posted by Eric | 9:56 pm 05/04/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 4 Comments »

Hot Salad of Long Bean, Carrot, Habanero, and Tofu

I was editing some of the photos I took during our recent swap in Mendocino, including one of a portly looking breakaway cook in a hot tub, so I decided to have a big bowl of vegetables for lunch. I don’t think I’ve spent a single minute of my life thinking about how to lose weight, but that question is now residing quite squarely in the center of my frontal cortex. I’m inclined not to worry too much though, and figure I’ll just up my veg consumption to even more prodigious quantities and drag my ass out the door and up the lovely Mt. Baldy trail quasidaily. (This is the second time I’ve lived at the foot of a Mt. Baldy — the first was in Claremont, about an hour east of Los Angeles).

And thus was born today’s hot salad, made by peeling then slicing a large carrot lengthwise and then into long thin half moon, and sauteing it with

a handful of long beans
some spring onions and green garlic
a few batons of ginger
a whole habanero, seeds and veins removed, cut into large chunks
a few tablespoons of very soft tofu
some green fruity olive oil

There’s something about the fire of a hab on a hot day, counterintuitive though that may sound; it seems to open up the pores and, oddly, let heat escape. Try it sometime! The soft tofu dampens the heat quite a bit, and acts as a loose binder for everything else. With a big glass of bubbly water with plenty of Sicilian lemon in it. Which reminds me: an update on my adventures in bubbly water should be forthcoming soon; I’ve changed my thinking on it.

A satisfying lunch on lots of levels.

Would love to hear your all-time favorite quickie lunches. And, just possibly, can’t-fail methods of losing weight. Besides, you know, eating less.

Posted by Eric | 1:28 am 04/30/2009 | Posted in Dishes | 6 Comments »

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