legumes

Strawberries, tsubuan, ice cream

maki — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:31:44 +0200

There are some food combinations that you think just shouldn’t belong together, but do so well. Strawberries with sweet beans? Surely not, you think, until you taste an ichigo daifuku - a strawberry wrapped in some azuki an and thin gyuuhi, a dough made of rice. I’ve had ichigo daifuku on my mind lately but have been too lazy to make the dumplings. This is a very easy alternative. Arguably it’s even better.

You need some tsubuan, sweet azuki beans that have been roughly mashed. I recommend my not-so-sweet tsubuan, which is easy to make in batches; extras can be frozen. Or use storebought—you can find it at Japanese groceries.

You also need some ripe strawberries, which are in season now around here, marinating them in balsamic vinegar.

Put about 2 tablespoons of tsubuan in a bowl, and top with about 4 (or more) spoonfuls of sliced strawberries, with plenty of the syrup that it’s in. Top with a little, or a lot, of vanilla ice cream, made with soy milk or cow’s milk, whichever you prefer. (In this case I prefer a soymilk ice cream, which seems to fit better.) Let the ice cream melt over everything while you eat.

It’s a cool yet quite filling snack for a warm day.

Cooking whole dried soybeans

maki — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:53:24 +0200

Until fairly recently I had a blind spot when it came to the humble soybean. I regularly consume soy products like soy milk, tofu and okara, not to mention fermented soybean products like natto and tempeh. And green soybeans or edamame are always a great snack.

But for some reason, I didn’t really get into eating the whole dried (and cooked) soybean. It’s not that they are that much harder to cook than other dried beans either.

In any case, I’ve rectified that situation and now I cook up a batch of soybeans quite regularly and store them in the freezer. Plain boiled soybeans are amazingly delicious, and just packed with nutrition. The cooking liquid is so rich that it can be used as a very nutritious stock or dashi for making soups and such.

There are a couple of points to watch out for when cooking whole soybeans, which are noted below in copious detail.

Step 1: Wash and pick over

Rinse the dried soybeans, rubbing them together gently to remove any surface powdery residue , and pick out any dark or discolored beans. These will not cook properly. If any of the hulls work themselves loose while you’re washing, pick those out too.

Step 2: Soak overnight

Soak the beans in water to cover for several hours or overnight. You may need to soak them a bit longer than other types of beans. Also, the bring to a boil then let sit for an hour method of speeding up bean cooking does’t really work well for some reason.

After soaking, you can optionally split the beans by squeezing them gently. (An alternative is to use a food mill to split the dried beans, but I don’t have such a device so if I want the beans split I do it after they are saturated with water.)

Step 3: Use a big pot

Just like soy milk foams up like crazy while it’s being cooked, soybean cooking liquid will bubble up quite enthusiastically, all over your stovetop if you don’t watch out. So the dried soybeans should not come up to more than 1/4th of the height of your cooking pot, and the cooking water should only come up to about 1/3rd of the height maximum. In other words, use a big pot, or cook less. This is particularly true if you’re using a pressure cooker - the viscous cooking liquid may even clog up the works, so be careful. (My pressure cooker can handle about 3 cups of dried beans.)

Step 4: Bring to a boil, then skim off the grey stuff

Whether you are using a pressure cooker or a regular pot, you should first bring the soybeans to a boil, then skim off the greyish stuff that will rise to the surface of the water.

Step 5a: Using a pressure cooker

After you’ve skimmed off the initial grey stuff, put a heat-safe plate that is a smaller than the circumference of the pot on top of the beans. This plate helps to keep the beans from dancing around, and also prevents any loose hulls from rising up and possibly clogging the pressure valves. Once it’s reached pressure, lower the heat and cook for 20-25 minutes. Turn off and let cool naturally until de-pressurized.

Step 5b: Using a regular pot

Heat up to a boil, then put a heat-safe plate or an otoshibuta on top of the beans. Cooking time is about 3 hours, but don’t worry, you don’t have to watch it continuously for that time. Top up with additional water from time to time if it seems to be cooking off, and skim off any grey stuff. A slow cooker would work too. The beans are done if you press one between your finger and thumb and it’s soft, not crunchy. (Or just eat one!)

Step 6: Draining and removing the hulls

Once the beans are cooked using either method, stir then let them sit a bit - the loose hulls will rise to the surface. Skim these off. Strain the beans, reserving the liquid to use as a vegan stock. (Don’t get too concerned about a few loose hulls left in. Removing those hulls is just a good idea because they tend to end up undigested and loose in your innards, which may cause you to rooty-toot-toot a bit more than you may want to and such.)

Step 7: Optional oven drying

The beans at this stage are pale and rather soft. You can use them as-is, but one thing I like to do to at least half the beans is to slow-dry them in the oven. This makes the beans firmer and meatier, and more suited to use as a meat substitute.

Just spread out the well drained and cooked beans on a baking sheet, and put into your oven at the lowest possible heated setting. On my oven that’s 50°C or 122°F. Leave the sheet of beans in there for about 2 hours, turning occasionally. They will shrink to about 20% and turn a light reddish brown. If you taste one it should be just a bit chewy but not hard.

You can use these dried soybeans coarsely ground in a food processor as a ground meat substitute in pasta sauces and such, or to make soy burgers and so on. (You can dry canned soybeans in this way too.)

Storing and freezing

I store un-dried soybeans in freezer bags with a little bit of the cooking liquid. These are used in stewed dishes, soups and such. The dried beans are stored on their own in freezer bags. The cooking liquid can be frozen too.

So there you have it. It may seem complicated, but it really isn’t once you’ve done it once. And the results are worth it especially if you are a vegan/vegetarian. And it’s wonderfully cheap too.

Now, of course you can turn these boiled soybeans into fun things like tempeh and natto. That’s for another day….

Some unresolved thoughts about white bean paste

maki — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:33:39 +0100

Usually when I put a recipe up here, it’s something that’s been fully resolved: that is, I’ve tried it out for myself (in most cases several times over), and I know that it works. This one is a bit different, but I thought I’d write about it in-progress, as it were, anyway.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been making batches of the same thing - white bean puree - at least once a week. This is just plain old white beans (sold around here as haricots blanc or Weissbohnen, known in the U.S. as navy beans I think) that are cooked until they are just about falling apart, drained and then whirled in a food processor until totally smooth. One reason I’ve been rather obsessed with this bean puree is because nutritionally it’s quite interesting - a balance of protein and carbohydrates, and vegan to boot. But I’m also very taken by its starchy creaminess. Oh, and it’s also really inexpensive.

I am still not sure what the best way to flavor the bean puree is. Here are some of the experiments I’ve done so far.

Sweet

White bean paste is the base of shiroan (白あん）, which is used as a pale colored alternative to azuki an, azuki (adzuki) bean paste, in traditional Japanese sweets. But the recipes I’ve seen for making shiroan call for an astonishing amount of sugar - a minimum of 2 parts sugar to 3 parts dry beans in weight. I’ve experimented with much less sugar, but the minimum amount that seems to make a difference taste-wise is about 150 grams of sugar to 500 grams of pre-cooked weight dry beans. That’s far less than the traditional recipes. Adding some salt with the sugar (about 1 1/2 tsp. for 500 grams dry weight in beans) makes it taste a lot sweeter, paradoxically.

If this is dried out enough to stiffen the puree into a paste, it can be formed into little balls. As a looser puree, it’s interesting to eat with cut up fruit like mango and banana.

Maple syrup can be used instead of white sugar, but this makes for a looser puree because of the higher water content in the syrup. (And I go up to 200 g of maple syrup to 500g of dry-weight beans). This makes the puree taste very maple-y, of course.

I’ve also tried whirring it in a food processor with tofu, to make a thicker version of this tofu pudding. This was moderately successful - the texture improved, but the tofu flavor seemed to totally take over the white beans. Adding some cocoa powder made it into a thick and fairly tasty chocolate pudding though. Adding pureed bananas made it even better.

Savory

White bean paste makes a very nice hummus, following the recipe on this page - though the traditional chickpea base is just as good, if not better.

It does make an interesting thickener for a soup - just add blobs of puree to a vegetable soup base. This could make it interesting for people with gluten problems, and certainly would is a very filling main-meal vegan soup. (Pasta e Fagioli, white beans cooked in a broth with pasta added later, is a classic Italian bean soup.)

I’m still not entirely happy that I have hit on the right combinations though. The experiments continue.

Black bean vegan mini-burgers

maki — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:43:36 +0100

Over the past couple of years as I’ve pursued largely vegetarian eating, I’ve gradually accumulated a small arsenal of small, round bean patties or balls, which are great as snacks, for bento boxes, and just for dinner, in my regular rotation. This one was inspired by one of the first beany-round thing I made, the samosa-like lentil snacks from The Hungry Tiger, and a Japanese vegan cooking book called Saisai Gohan (Vegetable Meals) by Yumiko Kano. (Yumiko Kano is currently my favorite cookbook author in any language, and I’ll talk more about her down the line.) I’ve adjusted a few things to make them gluten-free.

These have the earthy, deep flavor of the black beans that is enhanced by the spices and the sauce, and they are delicious hot or at room temperature. Even diehard carnivores like them. They’re really perfect for bento lunches, and I’ve used it in the all-vegan Bento no. 5 on Just Bento. I also used them as a pita-sandwich filling in Bento no. 6.

I have described two methods of cooking these: in the oven, which is good for making them in quantity, and in a frying pan, which is perfect for making a few at a time.

Black bean vegan mini burgers

This amount makes about 12 tiny or 8 small burgers; multiply to suit your needs proportionately. It keeps pretty well in the refrigerator for a few days, and freezes well too, so it makes sense to make in some quantity.

For the burgers:

2 cups (500ml) of cooked or canned black beans, drained
3 tsp. fermented black beans, or 2 tsp. miso
1 small piece ginger, finely chopped to produce about 2 tsp. chopped ginger
Green onions, to produce about 3 Tbs. chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
2 Tbs. chopped walnuts
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp falafel spice mix, or cumin powder
2 Tbs. or so of olive oil

For the sauce:

4 Tbs. tomato paste
a few drops of Tabasco
1 Tbs. maple syrup
A little hot water to thin out the sauce, if needed

Suggested equipment: a food processor

If you’re going to be baking them, preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F.

Chop up the ginger, green onions and mushrooms finely, and sauté in about half of the olive oil until the mushrooms are wilted and brownish.

In the meantime, chop up the nuts. Add to the sauté pan to toast a bit.

If using the fermented black beans, chop finely until they’re almost a paste.

Reserve a couple of spoonfuls of the beans. Mash up the rest of the beans with a masher or in the food processor. Put the fermented black beans in and process until it’s fairly smooth. Add the spice and rice flour and process again. Add the sautéed vegetables, the reserved beans and the nuts, and pulse-process until mixed (you want some of the texture to remain).

Divide the mixture into 8 to 12 portions. With moistened hands, make into flat little patties.

If baking in the oven, oil a baking sheet and then brush the tops with a bit more oil. Bake for about 10 minutes, flip then bake 5 minutes more.

If cooking in a frying pan, heat up the pan with the rest of the oil. Fry the burgers until crispy, carefully flip over and fry the other side.

In the meantime, mix the sauce. Brush the sauce onto the hot burgers, or serve separately for dipping.

Good hot or at room temperature.

Notes

Fermented black beans (dul see) are actually black soy beans. You can get them at any general Asian or Chinese grocery store. You can use miso instead if you have that on hand, though it will be a bit less salty and well, different. Black bean sauce can be used also, but be aware that that has some wheat flour in it if you’re gluten-conscious.

If you don’t want to bother with making the sauce, use your favorite ketchup with a few drops of Tabasco added.

These keep well for a few days in the fridge, though they are better if you re-heat them to take the chill off before eating. They also freeze well.

Rice flour is available at Indian grocery stores (red rice flour is a bit different and interesting to use here), or in Japanese grocery stores where it’s known as joushinko. It’s mainly used here as a binder, so you can use regular wheat flour instead if gluten-sensitivity is not an issue.

Variation: Add fresh chopped coriander.

Botamochi for spring, Ohagi for fall: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

maki — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:41:05 +0100

The seven days centered around the bi-annual days of the vernal equinox is a Buddhist festival period known as higan (or o-higan for the honorific term) in Japan. The fall (autumn) higan is aki no higan, and the spring higan is haru no higan. Since the day of the spring equinox is March 21, we’re about to enter the haru no ohigan period.

During haru no higan, a sweet confection called botamochi is eaten. The mochi part means sticky, pounded rice, and the bota part comes from botan, or the tree peony. Botamochi is supposed to ressemble a tree peony flower.

During the autumn equinox (aki no higan or simply (o)higan)) period, a very similar confection called ohagi is eaten. This is supposed to look like a hagi or bush clover flower (Latin: Lespedeza thunbergii). Botamochi and o-hagi look the same to me, even though a hagi flower looks nothing like a tree peony flower, but the good old ancestors were probably a lot more imaginative than I am.

Botamochi and o-hagi are made of sticky rice and sweet tsubuan, ‘chunky-style’ sweet azuki bean paste. They are a bit fiddly to make but not difficult, especially if you use one of my favorite cooking helpers, plastic cling film. Since these are best eaten freshly made, it’s well worth the effort to make them at home if you like bean-based Japanese sweets. You can adjust the amount of sugar in the tsubuan to your taste. Here I have made three variations: coated with black sesame seeds; coated with kinako (toasted soy bean powder); and the most traditional form with the rice cake wrapped in a layer of the tsubuan.

Botamochi or Ohagi: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

This makes quite a lot of botamochi/ohagi about 2 inches / 5 cm or so long. If this is too much, halve the ingredients. They also freeze very well - see Notes below.

By ‘cup’ here I mean the measuring cup that comes with a rice cooker, which has a capacity of 180ml. As long as you keep the same proportions you can use larger (e.g. American size, which is about 220ml) cups too.

For the mochi part:

1 cup regular white uruchimai or Japanese / japonica rice (the kind used for sushi and so on)
2 cups white mochimai or sweet rice (see Looking at Rice if you’re confused about which rice is which. You cannot substitute any other kinds of rice for this.)
About 2 cups of water (or the amount indicated for your rice cooker)

The tsuban:

1 batch of tsubuan

The kurogoma or black sesame coating:

3-4 Tbs. black sesame seeds
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt

The kinako coating:

2-3 Tbs. kinako (available at Japanese groceries and some healthfood stores)
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt
Extra water for forming the dumplings

Equipment needed:

rice cooker (you can cook the rice in a pot, but a rice cooker is much easier)
plastic wrap / cling film (however you call it in your neck of the woods)

The day before, wash the rice well, and wash and sort the azuki beans. Soak the azuki beans and the rice (separately) in enough water to cover, overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain well.

Make the tsubuan following these directions.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker in the normal way, with the indicated amount of water for 3 cups of regular rice.

In the meantime, toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until the seeds begin to pop. Remove from the pan into another bowl and mix well with the sugar and salt.

Mix together the kinako and the sugar and salt in another bowl.

While the rice is still warm not not burning hot anymore, put it in a large ziplock plastic bag. Close the zip, pushing out as much air as possible. Pound the rice and squeeze it and knead it until it’s sort of half-crushed (it’s mostly paste but you can still see some rice grains in there). This state is called hantsuki, or half-beaten, mochi. Let cool a bit in the bag.

Divide the mochi into 24 or so equal pieces.

To make the kinako-coated dumpling: flatten a piece of mochi on a sheet of plastic wrap, trying to make the edges a bit thinner than the middle, with moistened fingers. Put a teaspoonful or so of tsubuan in the middle. Carefully gather up the mochi around the filling (just like you’d do with onigiri) to form a sort of oval-shaped ball, completely enclosing the tsubuan filling. (This oval shape is called tawara-gata, or rice bale shape.) Roll the dumpling well in the kinako-mix. You may need to roll it 2 or 3 times since the kinako tends to sink in to the rice.

Make the sesame coated dumplings in the same way. To make the sesame stick better you may need to lightly moisten the surface of the dumpling.

To make the tsubuan-coated dumplings, make a small oval-shaped ball with the mochi. Spread some tsubuan on a piece of plastic wrap, and gather up the plastic to make a ball. If the dumpling looks funny you can adjust it a bit after unwrapping it from the plastic wrap.

Serve with green tea, preferably while gazing at some beautiful spring (or fall) scenery.

Notes

In the photo at the top, I’ve presented the botamochi in a lacqured black wooden box. In the second picture the dumplings are on a black ceramic plate. Black seems to suit these better than white.

The traditional way of making this half-beaten mochi is to grind it in a suribachi, but the pounding on the plastic bag method is much easier, requires no cleanup and lets out your aggressions. (Web developers: imagine it’s a difficult client’s face and punch away.)

These do not keep well in the refrigerator since the rice hardens up, so keep in a cool place until it’s time to eat them. They can be frozen successfully though: just wrap them individually in plastic wrap, and defrost at room temperature or nuke in the microwave for about a minute per dumpling (depending on the wattage of your microwave).

I find that adding a bit more salt to the tsubuan for this makes the dumplings tastier.

The Great Natto Diet Rush: The sticky road to weight loss (maybe) (OJFTMHYLW extra)

maki — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 16:19:30 +0100

I was not going to talk about natto as part of my Odd Japanese food that may help you lose weight(OJFTMHYLW) series this week. But coincidentally, natto as a diet aid has been in the news big time in Japan, with claims that a 'magical' substance in this sticky food helps people to effortlessly lose weight.

Natto is one of those legendary really odd traditional foods that you probably have had to grow up with to appreciate, in the same league as Scottish haggis or Norwegian lutefisk. Natto are cooked soy beans that are fermented with a natural bacillus that is found on rice straw. The fermentation process makes them very sticky (think of the insides of okra, but much stickier) and very smelly. They are an excellent source of protein, and easily digestible, so if you can stand the smell and texture they are probably great additions to your food plan. But...from experience I have to say that the number of people who didn't grow up with natto who like it is pretty low. As I reported back in my original post about natto, most people back away with a look of fear and disgust.

Earlier this month, a Japanese "health" TV program called Aru Aru Daijiten broadcast a show about the amazing natto diet. Aru Aru is very popular in Japan, but it has more in common with programs like Ito-ke on shokutaku, pseudo-science presented in an entertaining and comical way, than serious science. Citing some scientific studies (none, oddly enough, conducted in Japan, where you'd think scientists would be most likely to study the health benefits of natto in depth) they claimed that eating 2 packs of natto, one in the morning and one in the evening, would help people lose weight without any further effort or change in diet. This was, they said, due to the isoflavones in the natto (and some other substance) which caused the secretion of DHEA.

[Update: now the president of the network that shows the program has publicly apologized for "broadcasting a programme containing content that was not based on facts". So maybe it's not such a sensational discovery after all :) ]

They then conducted their own 'scientific' test, consisting of 2 groups of 4 people each, who ate the prescribed natto for 2 weeks. The results were quite impressive: up to weight 3.4 kg (7.5 pounds) was lost by the subjects in those two weeks. They also claimed that various health barometers like cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. went down dramatically too. They recommended that the natto be mixed at least 50 times to really develope those sticky strings, as well as leaving it for at least 15 minutes before eating, for maximum effect. I guess this means that the beneficial ingredients are in the sticky parts. Here's how natto looks after this treatment.

Yes this natto was eaten after the shot.

Interestingly, today (January 20th) there is a statement (Japanese) on their web site retracting many of those claims, such as the fact that that two of the subjects' announced results were erroneous; that the statements that were supposed to be made by an American scientist were wrong or nonexistent, and that they didn't even conduct some of the tests that were shown during the program. They even admitted to showing different people in the 'before' and 'after' shots! Whether connected to this or not, they've cancelled the showing of their regular program this Sunday the 21st. (The program has now been suspended indefinitely. Also see retraction by network president above. Incidentally, apologizing to the public is a popular thing to do by company officials and politicians in Japan when things go wrong.)

It may be too late though, because the original program caused a mass rush on natto in Japan, causing sellouts at supermarkets.

The one thing that I think is valid is that natto is soy beans, which are quite filling, so that may decrease food consumption anyway. About those other claims...well I just don't know. It just goes to show how fad-crazy Japan is, and how diet fads are prevalent all over the world.

Now I did grow up with natto, and I love it. But two packs a day, every day? I don't think even I could stand that. Besides the fact that natto in Switzerland is not cheap, and making my own natto is territory I have yet to explore. (My grandmother used to make it sometimes, and all I remember is that it takes on the odor of an uncleaned toilet at one stage, before it 'settles' at the end to edible levels.) There's also the issue of natto-hating co-habitants, friends and other acquaintances who may not appreciate Perpetual Natto Breath.

If you're brave enough though and want to test those claims... If you do, let me know how it went. :) Remember, that's 2 packs of natto a day, morning and evening, every day, with your regular meals. You may have to adjust your breakfast and dinner menus though...cornflakes with natto may not fit well.

Bonus recipe: natto with raw egg

1 pack natto
1 raw fresh egg
soy sauce to taste
1 cup hot rice

Mix the natto well until it's very sticky. Break in the egg and whip rapidly with chopsticks until all creamy. Add soy sauce to taste, and optionally mustard (the English kind, not the French kind), finely chopped green onions, bonito flakes, etc.

Mound the rice in a bowl and make a hole in the middle. Pour in the natto-egg mixture. Mix well. Slurp immediately.

All-day Boston baked beans

maki — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:18:16 +0200

I often think of a day like a pie. I wish the pie could be bigger, but it's always the same size, 24 hours. Cutting down on the portion for "Sleep" never really works, so the other portions get re-arranged according to priorities at a given time.

At the moment the "Work" portion of the pie is rather large, so kitchen time is unfortunately at a minimum. That doesn't mean that I can't eat food that has been cooked for some time for that comforting home-made taste though. It's the long, slow, cooking with minimal kitchen time approach.

The weapons needed for this approach are either an oven or electric range, or a slow cooker / crock pot. I wouldn't do this on a gas range unless you can be home for the time your pot of whatever is cooking, just in case something happens. A slow cooker is a great addition to any kitchen, if you have a busy life - and who doesn't? The cooler months are perfect for this type of food.

Some long slow-cook/short kitchen time dishes do need some preparation. Stews for instance - just throwing everything uncooked in the pot can result in an insipid mess. You need to brown the meat, sweat the onions, etc. Boston baked beans, on the other hand, need no preparation at all. If you have all the ingredients on hand, the kitchen time is maybe 10 minutes total, including the time needed to check the pot and stir. You don't even need to pre-soak the beans. The cooking time is not really fixed either - it can be 8 hours, or 12 hours, or even more. The longer it's cooked, the deeper the flavors become. The beans get softer and mushier of course, but mushy beans really taste great. (You may need to add some more water to avoid it turning into one lump, if you leave it cooking very long.) You could start this in your slow cooker or oven early in the morning, and come back to a house smelling like dinner.

The traditional Boston accompaniment for baked beans is Boston brown bread, but I just like to have it with some plain rice or other grains like spelt (which is what is used in the photo). Rice and beans - the universal complete protein combo. They can be served the British way, over toast, too.

I have given vegetarian (even vegan) and omnivore versions. Both are very good. If you have only ever had beans out of a can, you have got to give this a try at least once.

Boston baked beans

1 lb or 500g bag of small white beans (called navy beans or cannellini beans or haricot beans, depending on where you are)
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves
1 chunk of fresh ginger
4 Tbs. molasses, or 4-5 Tbs. dark brown sugar
1 chunk of smoked bacon or ham, about 100g / 3 oz and/or 4-5 dried chipotle (see notes)
2-3 bay leaves
2 tsp. salt
Several grinds of black pepper
1 tsp. dried mustard powder, or 1 Tbs. prepared mustard (brown or Dijon style..whatever you have around)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
water

Equipment needed: an oven and a large, heavy-bottomed pot, or a crock pot or slow cooker.

Slice the onion. Smash and roughly chop the garlic. Peel and grate the ginger.

Put all the ingredients into the pot. Pour in water to about 1 1/2 inch / 4 cm above the level of the beans. Mix well.

Set your oven temperature to 250°F / 120°C, or your crock pot / slow cooker to around 200°F / 93°C. (If you have a Rival crock pot, this would be the LOW setting.) Put your pot in or turn it on, depending on what approach you're taking. Set the timer to 6 hours. At that point, check on the pot - the beans may be a bit hard, or not, depending on how dry they were to start with. Usually I find it needs at least 8 hours for the beans to get really tender and sort of caramel-colored. Add water as needed if it looks dry. (If you can't be there to check at the 6 hour mark, just add more water to start with so it doesn't dry up.)

Serve with carb of your choice. The perfect accompaniment is a crisp, green salad of romaine or cos lettice, with a sharp vinegarette.

Leftovers get even better.

Notes

The bacon or chipotle give the beans a slightly smoky flavor, so you can use both, or just one. I would just fish out the bacon afterwards since it would have given all of its soul to the beans, though you can eat it if you want, of course. The chipotle will probably just disintegrate, but if you are left with any inedible skins just take them out before serving.

You may regard the addition of ketchup as blasphemy, but it does add a bit of sour-sweetness plus color. Omit it if it goes against your religion.

To make this appeal more to unrelenting carnivores, add some whole wiener-type sausages during the last 15 minutes or so of cooking.

Spicy crunchy chick pea snack

maki — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:40:34 +0200

When I'm really into something, whether it's trying to debug some code or work out a design that won't gel, I forget about everything else, including eating. Then, hours later I raise my head out of the mire and I'm starving and ready to eat everything in sight - usually stuff like potato chips and cookies.

That can't be too healthy, so I've really tried to keep around non-distracting yet reasonably healthy things to snack on while working (and a bottle of water too). Fresh, portable fruit like apples and bananas are great of course. So are nuts, but while nuts are quite healthy overall, they are also very high in calories. And a handful of dry-roasted peanuts, which could be about half a cup, is more than 335 calories. So some time ago, I switched to using beans in snacks. Chick peas are perfect for this since they cook relatively fast because of their rather thin skins, and a cupful is around 270 calories. Even with the added olive oil, 3 tablespoons for the whole batch, it's still quite lower in calories, and quite tasty too. (Source for calorie figures: Calorie Count.) A half-cupful is just as filling as the equal amount of nuts.

There are lots of recipes online for crunchy snacky chick peas, including one for Chickpeas with Thai Chiles in the most recent Food section of the New York Times. I tend to vary the flavor of mine depending on my mood, but this spicy version is my current favorite. It has added taste and texture interest because of the addition of whole spices - black cumin seeds, whole cumin seeds, mustard seeds, plus red pepper flakes and ground cardamon. It has a wonderful sort of Middle-Eastern/Indian flavor. You can use any kind of ground or whole spices you like, but I would avoid turmeric since that can stain your fingers, and whatever you wipe your fingers on (like your jeans...)

Incidentally, the German word for chick peas is kichererbsen, which literally means "giggling peas". Whenever I ask the Taste Tester to bring home some chick peas from the store he feels obliged to giggle like a girl. I try to remember to bop him one when he does it, but the tough love approach isn't curing this odd affliction so far.

Spicy crunchy chick peas

Note, I do cook dry chick peas since they are so much cheaper than the canned kind, and as I've noted above they cook relatively fast compared to other beans. If you are in a hurry or can't be bothered, use canned, drained chick peas.

1lb or 500g bag of dry chick peas
4 garlic cloves
3 Tbs. olive oil
1-2 tsp (or more or less, depending on how spicy you want it) dried red chili pepper flakes
1 tsp. black onion seeds (also called nigella seeds)
1 tsp. whole cumin seeds
1 tsp. black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. ground cardamon
Juice from 1 small lime or 1/2 lemon
Sea salt

Sort the chick peas (take out any discolored ones) and soak in water for several hours or overnight. Drain, and place in plenty of water for about 2 hours or until tender. Drain. You'll have about 6 cups of cooked chickpeas.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.

Peel and chop the garlic cloves rather coarsely.

Toss all the ingredients together thoroughly. Spread evenly over a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring around midway through. Take out and let cool. [Edit: this baking time turns out peas that are a mix of crunchy ones and ones that are still a bit soft - I like this variety. Since all ovens vary, you will need to test the doneness. If you like your peas to be a bit soft, bake them for a shorter time; if you like them very crunchy leave them in longer.]

Store this in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Makes a great beer snack.

You can make it sweet-spicy by sprinkling over some brown or raw sugar to while it's still hot from the oven.

Makes about 6 cups.

Notes

You can find onion (nigella) seeds and other spices at an Indian grocery store. Online you can find them on the Amazon Gourmet store.

The seeds can turn a little bitter after roasting. I like that bitterness but if you don't, just leave the seeds behind when serving the chick peas. The flavors will still be there. Or, add them later on in the cooking process, with about 10 minutes to go.

More about soy, manufactured food, and food trends

maki — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:49:20 +0200

Just in case you missed it, this article about soy that plume linked to in the comments to the previous entry about the anti-soy article in the Guardian is excellent. (Thanks plume!) Also, here is the link to the article cited: Soy Alert - Tragedy and Hype, and the Wikipedia article on the Weston A. Price Foundation. I have to say that I far prefer the "What About Soy" article because the Soy Alert article is full of hyperbole and drama, of the PETA kind. Regardless of what my views are on an issue, I personally have a deep dislike of over-hyped, over-dramatic posing or prose.

It's really hard to sort through the waves of information we get about this or that food. Is soy a miracle product? Is green tea a miracle product? Is low carb the miracle cure to obesity? We may think one way or another on each issue, but I think we always have to remember that when a certain way of eating or a particular food becomes trendy, the food manufacturing corporations are bound to jump on it and overdo it in a major way in the attempt to capture our attention and money. So we always have to be careful and go slowly. Remember when the low-fat craze was on, and people thought they could lose weight by eating all the Snack Wells they wanted? Eating and nutrition are not like fashion; our bodies don't want us to change our eating habits drastically just because whatever we were feeding ourselves isn't trendy any more.

If there is one thing I've been trying to do, albeit very slowly and inconsistently, over the last few years is to get rid of as much manufactured or processed food from my diet as possible. I rarely eat TV dinners or prepared frozen food - the only frozen food I buy is stuff with just the basic ingredients listed on the label (peas, carrots, berries). I try to stay away from manufactured snacks too, though that's mainly as part of my feeble attempts to keep my weight under control. This is really hard to do though, especially when work gets too busy or stress levels rise. (And I have to admit that staying with 'natural' food is rather easier when one lives in a small village in Switzerland, rather than a big city like New York. When I lived in New York I existed on junk food and takeout. There is a big correlation between stress and what we eat, I think.)

The one part I did like in the Guardian article is when one of the researchers says that he stays away from food that hasn't been eaten for at least 200 years. 200 might be a stretch since there has been so much food innovation in that time, but the idea behind it makes sense.

Anyway, I've strayed quite a lot into the territory of food as politics and nutrition lately...this is mainly because I've been having a hard time with real food. The heat has really zapped my appetite! The most I've been able to stomach is very simple food like green salad with maybe some (dolphin-free) tuna on top, bread spread with easy things (like tapenade) and things like that. Oh, and lots of (organic if I can find it) fresh fruit. Not much cooking! I think I'm going to make another batch of tofu though, because hiyayakko (cold tofu) is a perfect thing for a summer meal.

A problematic report on the 'dangers' of soy

maki — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:45:20 +0200

There was a report in yesterday's Guardian about the supposed dangers of soy products. I am rather dubious about the claims, simply because some of the 'facts' stated about the use of soy beans in Asian cuisine, or Japanese cuisine in particular, are just plain wrong. The implication made in the article is that all soy products are fermented for a long time in Japanese cuisines, but this is simply not true. Only miso and soy sauce and like products - which are only consumed in very small quantities, since they are quite salty - fit that description.

Here is the ways that, as far as I know that soy has commonly been consumed in Japan for hundreds of years, and how I grew up eating them in a household with two Japanese parents.

As tofu. The way that tofu is made is not described correctly at all in this report:

After the long, slow boiling of soya beans in water to eliminate toxins, a curdling agent was added to the liquid to separate it. The curds would then be pressed to make tofu and the whey, in which the antinutrients were concentrated, would be thrown away.

If soy beans were cooked for a long time, they turn into the consistency that any cooked dried beans turn into - mealy and starchy - thus making it impossible to express soy milk from. As far as I know soy milk for tofu is made the way I described it in my how to make tofu series, by soaking the beans then grinding them up before cooking the resulting pulp for a relatively short time (less than 30 minutes) to produce soy milk. The whey is usually thrown away, simply because nigari, the coagulant, has a bitter taste. However, some Japanese households used to save the whey for making the next batch of tofu.

As various tofu-based products: aburaage, atsuage, yuba, etc. Also various foods made from tofu such as ganmodoki.
As natto, which are boiled and fermented soy beans. They are not, however, fermented for "a very long time" as the article at one point states all soy bean products are, but only for a few days. (My grandmother used to make natto at home, fermenting the beans in the warm kotatsu, a heated covered table.)
As cooked whole dried beans, often together with hijiki (a type of seaweed), or mixed with steamed rice (daizu gohan, or soy bean rice). This goes against the quote from one of the interviewees, who produces soy sauce - "I never saw soy beans on the table in Japan - they're indigestible." Raw soy beans are indigestible for sure...so are all raw dried beans. I have to think he was misquoted somehow, if he really did live in Japan for 18 years and has a Japanese wife. Of course I guess it's likely she is from the Kansai region where they don't eat natto... This is the danger really of relying on anecdotal evidence.
As green immature soy beans, boiled - edamame.
Finally, as miso and soy sauce; both of these items are fermented for a long period.

Missing from the list is soy milk, which is called to-nyuu in Japan. Traditionally people didn't drink soy milk - it's just in the last two or three decades that it's been touted as a healthy alternative to milk. When I was going to school in Japan, our school lunches always had a bottle or carton of milk. Most people still drink milk rather than soy milk. I would even guess that proportionately more Americans now drink soy milk than Japanese people, though I don't have the facts to back this up.

It's quite possible that industrially produced soy products are not necessarily good for you - in my opinion, it's always a good idea to question just how good manufactured and engineered food products are for you. However, the items listed as facts in the report really aren't do make me skeptical about the veracity of the whole piece. And is soy milk, which is cooked, bad for you? I'm skeptical about that too.

Although Japanese use of soy was used as the primary examples, the article also made a blanket statement about all Asian cuisines. If you're Asian, what did you grow up eating? What about soy milk, which seems to be the primary focus of criticism?

Technorati Tags: tofu, soy bean, soy, guardian, nutrition, japanese food, asian food

legumes

Strawberries, tsubuan, ice cream

Cooking whole dried soybeans

Step 1: Wash and pick over

Step 2: Soak overnight

Step 3: Use a big pot

Step 4: Bring to a boil, then skim off the grey stuff

Step 5a: Using a pressure cooker

Step 5b: Using a regular pot

Step 6: Draining and removing the hulls

Step 7: Optional oven drying

Storing and freezing

Some unresolved thoughts about white bean paste

Sweet

Savory

Black bean vegan mini-burgers

Black bean vegan mini burgers

Notes

Botamochi for spring, Ohagi for fall: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

Botamochi or Ohagi: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

Notes

The Great Natto Diet Rush: The sticky road to weight loss (maybe) (OJFTMHYLW extra)

Bonus recipe: natto with raw egg

Related links

All-day Boston baked beans

Boston baked beans

Notes

Spicy crunchy chick pea snack

Spicy crunchy chick peas

Notes

More about soy, manufactured food, and food trends

A problematic report on the 'dangers' of soy