winter

Oden, a Japanese stew or hotpot

maki — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:21:51 +0100

Happy New Year! If you live in Japan, you are probably still in holiday mode. Elsewhere though, chances are you’re back to your normal routine. That’s where I am now - back to work!

I often get requests for various popular Japanese recipes. I keep on thinking I’ve written up so many of them already, until someone asks for one and I think “why didn’t I put that up already?”. One such recipe is for oden, a very popular Japanese stew dish that is especially suited to winter. Traditionaly it’s made in a donabe or pottery pot, but it’s not a requirement to use one. It’s simmered slowly, so is perfect for a crockpot or my favorite for stewing anything, a Le Creuset-type of cast iron enamelled pot.

While I always strive to list recipes here that people without easy access to Japanese groceries can make, oden is an exception. Most of the main ingredients for oden are so time consuming to make from scratch, that you just have to buy them. I have tried to make my own satsuma age and hanpen, with decidedly mixed results. It’s really hard to grind the fish down to a finely textured paste, even with a food processor. I do freqently make my own ganmodoki, tofu fritters (recipe here), but prefer to eat freshly made ones as-is, crispy and hot.

So, I just buy a selection of oden no mi (oden ingredients). Here’s a selection:

My local Japanese grocery store (Nishi’s Japan Shop in Zürich) is tiny, but I could still assemble a good variety there. You can even buy complete oden sets, but I prefer to buy the individual items, which I supplement with some other ingredients.

Oden no mi

Here are some commonly used oden no mi that you would buy in packets. They are usually in the refrigerated or frozen food sections. The fish paste items are called nerimono.

Various kinds of deep fried fish paste items. The most traditional is Satsuma age, which are burger shaped. There are also Ika balls - fish paste ‘meatballs’ with a piece of squid inside, sausage-shaped ones with a piece of burdock (gobo) inside, and so on. They all have a golden brown color.
Chikuwa is fish paste shaped like a piece of bamboo (the name means “bamboo ring”), and grilled. There are various grades of chikuwa, but for oden the cheapest kind is fine.
Hanpen is also fish paste, which has been combined with yamaimo, a kind of tuber and egg whites. It’s puffy and light, like a pillow shaped quenelle, and is one of my favorites.
Naruto is wheat flour paste that’s been formed into a tube. It’s often colored pink and white. Naruto is also used as a ramen topping. It’s not a favorite of mine, but my mother loves it.
Ganmodoki - deep fried tofu fritters (a recipe, if you want to make them from scratch). The one thing that is not that hard to make.
Konnyaku (a detailed description)

To these, people often add:

Deep fried thin tofu (abura age), the same that is used to make inarizushi, stuffed with chopped vegetables, shirataki, and so on, then tied up with a piece of kanpyo (dried gourd) to resemble a kinchaku, or money purse.
Hard boiled eggs
Pieces of daikon radish
Potatoes

I usually skip the tofu purses, but add one egg per person and lots of daikon, plus carrots.

In case you are wondering if all those fish paste items will make it taste ‘fishy’, it doesn’t at all. Kids in Japan love oden, and your adventurous kids may too!

Oden, the easy way

This makes a big pot, which can be eaten all at once or over a few days. Oden, like most stews, deepens in flavor the more it’s reheated. Keep it in the fridge in between reheatings though.

Note that while it takes its time to cook, your actual kitchen working time is quite short and easy.

1 large piece of dried kombu seaweed. The larger, the better. Use a whole leaf if you can.
Water
A selection of packaged oden ingredients - the amount depends, but try to have at least one piece per person of ganmodoki and satuma age, and a few each of things like the squid balls. Allow for one to two pieces of konnyaku per person (each block of konnyaku can be cut into 4 triangles).
1 medium sized daikon radish
1 hard boiled egg per person
Optional: carrots, potatoes
Dried mustard powder (English mustard powder like Colman’s is fine, or the equivalent from an Asian grocery. Prepared mustard like Dijon-style is not suited.)

Put the kombu in enough water to cover it completely. Let soak for at least 20 minutes.

Put the water and the kombu in a donabe or large stewing pot. Heat until it’s nearly boiling but not bubbling violently.

In the meantime, peel the daikon and cut into fairly large pieces (usually it’s just cut into rounds about 2 cm / about 1 inch thick). Cut up the carrots into fairly large pieces too. Potatoes should be added later.

Cut the konnyaku into triangles, and blanch for a few minutes in boiling water. Drain.

Add the daikon, carrots and konnyaku into the pot, adding more hot water if needed to cover. Let simmer until the vegetables are tender, for at least an hour, or more. The kombu should become quite soft.

Add the potatoes if you are using them, about 40 minutes before serving time.

Add the hardboiled eggs and the packaged ingredients, except for the hanpen. Simmer for at least 20 minutes.

Add the hanpen in the last 5 minutes or so.

Mix the mustard powder with a little water to reconstitute into a paste.

To serve, cut up the kombu - you should be able to do this in the pot with a spatula. Serve each person a good selection of the things in the pot, including pieces of kombu - or let them serve themselves, with a little bit of the broth. (We often used to fight about someone having more ganmodoki than they were alloted and things like that.)

Each person should take a small spoonful of the mustard and mix it into the broth if they like. If it’s not salty enough, just drizzle a bit of soy sauce. Eat with hot rice, or sake.

Hayashi raisu (rice): Japanese beef stew

maki — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:59:03 +0100

I have not added a yohshoku (Japanese-adapted Western food) recipe in quite some time. The main reason for this is I haven’t been making any…since most yohshoku dishes tend to be a bit heavy on the butter or cream or rich sauces.

I do sometimes crave this classic yohshoku dish. Hayashi raisu (or hayashi rice) is a Japanese version of a rich beef stew, and in terms of popularity it’s second only to the mighty curry rice, Japanese style curry. Just like curry, you can buy hayashi raisu roux blocks at Japanese grocery stores (look in the curry roux section).

Incidentally, the hayashi part sounds like the Japanese word for a wood (as in a smaller version of a forest), but it’s derived from “hashed”, as in hashed beef. I think the origins are a hashed beef stew. I can see influences from beef bourgignon, stroganoff and various British stews in there.

The beef used is not tough old chewy meat - it’s usually made from cuts that are tender enough to be cooked quickly. The kind sold for ‘minute steaks’ is fine. Sukiyaki beef is great if you can afford it. I’ve seen recipes around that suggest using pork instead of beef, but…that’s just not right to me. Hayashi rice = beef! Beef!

Making hayashi rice from scratch can be easy or tremendously complicated, depending on one thing: whether you make your own demi-glace or not. Demi-glace is reduced, concentrated beef stock that is thick and paste-like. In Japan you can buy demi-glace in cans. You can buy it elsewhere too, though the good kinds can be very expensive. The only other substitute is to make your own strong beef stock from beef bones, meat trimmings and so on and reduce it down and so on. Using stock cubes just won’t do it, I’m afraid, and forget about the usually insipid beef stock in a carton or can.

I’ve given instructions for making hayashi rice from handy roux blocks (which can vary in quality) and using demi-glace.

Hayashi raisu (Hayashi rice)

450g / 1 lb thinly sliced beef
4 medium onions, thinly sliced
About 10-12 mushrooms, sliced
1 medium carrot, thinly sliced
Butter or oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 cup (240ml) red wine
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce or Bulldog chuunou sauce
1 Tbs. soy sauce
Parsley or green peas for garnish

The sauce ingredients:

1/2 cup demi-glace or 4 cups strong beef stock
1 16-oz or 440g can of canned tomatoes
1 Tbs. tomato paste
2 Tbs. butter
3 Tbs. flour
Water

6 blocks (or more if you like it thick) from a hayashi rice roux packet
Water

Equipment: a large frying pan or sauté pan, a heavy bottomed pot for stewing or a crockpot

Cut the meat up into bite-sized pieces. Heat up a frying pan with butter, oil or combination of both, and sauté the beef until browned. Take out the meat and set aside.

In the same pan, add a bit more butter (no this is not diet food) and add the onions. Sauté over medium-low heat until limp and slightly brown. Add the garlic, mushrooms and carrot. Sauté until the mushrooms are turning limp.

Put all the vegetables in a heavy-bottomed stew pot (a crockpot will do nicely too).

Add the wine. If you’re using the hayashi rice roux blocks, add about 4 cups of water (don’t add the roux at this point yet). If you’re using the other sauce ingredients, add either the demi-glace plus 3 cups of water, the canned tomato and tomato paste, or 4 cups of strong beef stock and the canned tomato and tomato paste. Add the bay leaves and thyme.

Let it all simmer until the liquid has reduced to about half. Add the beef to the pot and contine simmering - the beef should be very tender.

If you’re making your own sauce, make a roux by melting 2 Tbs. of butter in the frying pan and adding the flour. Stir until the flour is grainy and a little bit browned. Add to the stew and stir. Add the Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.

If using the roux blocks, add them now and stir well to melt.

Add a little water or stock to thin out if it looks too thick. Simmer a few minutes.

Taste and add salt or pepper as needed. Take out the bay leaves.

Serve over rice that’s been mixed with a little salted butter. Garnish with chopped parsley or a few green peas.

This makes 6 to 8 servings.

Hayashi omuraisu

Leftover hayashi makes a very rich sauce for omuraisu (rice omelettte) instead of ketchup. Use plain buttered rice instead of ketchup-chicken rice as the filling.

Buta no kakuni: Japanese Braised Pork Belly

maki — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:42:34 +0100

Today is my mother’s birthday. In her honor, here is one of the few meat dishes that she still allows in her diet: braised pork belly, or buta no kakuni. It’s amazing that she will still eat this, because basically pork belly is bacon without the smoke or salt cure. And in buta no kakuni the bacon, I mean belly, comes in big chunks of layers of meat and unctuous pork fat.

Pork belly recipes exist in other cuisines, especially around northern Europe, but I can’t really stand most of them, even if people in Germany and Britain rave about roasted pork belly with crackling. (The crackling part is ok, but the meat part…I don’t know.) I like fat in moderation as much as anyone, but that amount of gelatinous pork fat is rather hard to bear. That is unless it’s been slowly braised in a salty-sweet liquid for hours and hours, until both the fat and the meat melt in your mouth.

Very similar recipes exist in Chinese (from Peking-style especially) cuisine, and a great Okinawa speciality is rafute. This is a bit like rafute but has a bit more spice and things in it, so it’s closer to the Peking style I think. Either way it’s a great treat once in a great while. It’s definitely a cold weather dish.

Buta no kakuni (Japanese braised pork belly)

About 450g / 1 lb pork belly
2 Tbs sugar
1 piece of leek (about 6 inches / 15 cm long or so. You can use the green part too.)
1 large piece of fresh ginger
1 star anise
3 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sake
2 cups water

Cut the pork into cubes about 1 inch / 2cm or so square. If the skin is still on, leave it on. Heat up a large pot with a heavy bottom. Sauté the pork belly cubes, without any added fat (you don’t need it…) until browned.

When the meat is browned, scrape it to one side and put the sugar in the fat that’s accumulated on the bottom, and stir around until it’s a bit caramelized. Stir and toss so the meat gets coated by the sugar.

Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a simmer and lower the heat. Put a lid on and let it simmer gently for about 3 hours, turning occasionally.

To serve, dredge the pieces carefully out of the very oily cooking liquid, and peel of the thick layer of fat that’s on the skin side of the meat. Drizzle a little bit of the cooking liquid over the cubes.

We have this with very plain vegetables, like broccoli with wasabi sauce. Pickles (oshinko) are good to have too. Hot, plain rice is essential. To eat, take a small piece and put it on top of your hot rice, and let the sauce and fat sort of melt in. A little goes a long way.

A bit about my mom, Michiko

She’s in her mid 60s now, but one of the youngest and spryest ladies in her 60s that I know. She loves food, but unfortunately since retiring a few years ago she developed a very severe case of IBD (we suspect it’s due to the stress she went through when she was running a busy restaurant in midtown Manhattan), and really has to watch what she eats. Nevertheless she really enjoys life…often I’m not sure who’s the mother, she or I! Here she is bouncing happily with some buskers at the Nurenberg (Germany) Christmas market last year.

One thing that is great about her is that she brings a fresh sense of enthusiasm to everything. Whenever she comes to visit me in Switzerland, I get to see things through her eyes, so that even in the throes of grey, dull winter in Zürich, life seems to be fun again. It’s great to have a mother like that.

Romancing the truffle in Richerenches, Provence

maki — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:31:40 +0100

Originally published on December 9, 2006: We won't be able to go to Provence this winter because of work, but I still dream about it, and plan for the next trip hopefully in the spring. Here is an article from our trip last year, about a wonderful truffle market in northern Provence. I hope you enjoy it!

The lady vendor with the intense blue gaze and the black beret on her head looks a little like a French Resistance worker from an old movie. She gestures with her hands as she talks, occasionally taking one of her wares gently in her slender fingers. Around her a curious group of people gathers, looking and sniffing intently, asking questions. I slowly inch my way to the front and look into the bowl, then up to her face, my meager French deserting me. She smile and tells me to pick one.

I choose a modestly small one, a tad bigger than a golf ball, too shy to touch one of the big, multi-lobed ones. I take it to my nose, and inhale. I wish that at this point I had more poetic words to describe the sensation, but the only thing I can say is "Wow". That pungent aroma is so unique that it's impossible to articulate. Earthy? Slightly gamey? It's just what it is - truffle.

We are at the Marché aux Truffes in Richerenches, a tiny village tucked away in a corner of the Drôme, the north western part of Provence. For most of the year it's off the beaten track, barely visited by outsiders. But every Saturday morning from November to March, it is one of the most important destinations for lovers of that expensive and pungent tuber. It's the largest truffle market in Provence, and is said to be the largest in terms of quantity of truffles traded in Europe.

Just walking around the market it's hard to tell that it's so important at first glance. The main market is just a few tables set up along the main street in the middle of the village, and of those only a couple are actually selling truffles or truffle-related items. The rest are selling the usual market things like fresh vegetables, juices, cheese and cured meats.

We've heard though that the main drag is not where the real action takes place. Sure enough, at the end of the road is a tree-covered parking lot filled with small white vans.

The parking lot under the old plane trees, where most of the serious truffle action takes place

There are little groups of people huddled together, heads down, whispering closely. There are some men leaning into the back of a van, deep in discussion. I feel that I shouldn't be trying to photograph them up close, so I put the camera away and stroll through the parking lot, trying to look as casual as possible. I catch glimpses of small cloth and plastic bags weighted down at the bottom, of hands coming out of pockets with black clumps in them. Wads of currency are being pulled out and passed from hand to hand.

It all feels very clandestine. I'm not really sure if it is actually that, since it's not like the people are totally hiding what they are doing. It's clearly a strictly cash-only trade, in any case.

I once read somewhere that the buying and selling of truffles appeals strongly to the French character - it's expensive, rare, something delicious to eat, and not quite legal since much of it is cash-only, under the table. (There were a few policemen hovering around the main market street, but they seemed to be there for general security. There must be quite a few euros being carried around there.) I am sure that the intrigue and secrecy simply adds to the appeal of the truffle.

Some Richerenches market goers enjoying some wine..maybe they're celebrating a good day of truffle selling...

I wish that I had the guts to go up to one of the sellers and ask to see their wares, but...well I don't. Instead, I get my truffles from one of the open and above-board market street stalls. The truffle stalls are all selling the black knobbly fungi for the same price: €500 per kilo. That may seem like a staggering price, but it is somewhat cheaper than one might pay elsewhere. Since a little truffle goes a long way, it doesn't feel too outrageous. (For what it's worth, matsutake, a fungus that is highly prized in Japan, can cost 5 to 10 times that.)

Cleaning, preparing and eating the truffle

The final objective is to actually consume these black lumps of mystery and aroma, which I proceed to do as soon as we're back at our rented house. (This is why I love to stay in rented houses or apartments nowadays when I travel, as I've explained here before in my Food Lover's Guide to Provence series - I love the chance to try out freshly acquired ingredients right away!) I'd never cooked with fresh, whole truffles before this, but it is less intimidating than I'd thought. The two modest sized truffles I've purchased (legitimately) came with a small pamphlet explaining how to handle them. Following the instructions, I carefully brush off as much of the fine dirt clinging to the outsides as I can with a damp paper towel. As I rub the surface, the aroma becomes even stronger - it's almost overwhelming.

I don't have a truffle slicer, but the elegant silver ones on sale at the market look very much like a vegetable peeler or cheese slicer to me, so I tackle a truffle with a humble stainless steel peeler. This works quite well. The texture is firm, quite unlike other fungi, and rather buttery. Each slice seems to release even more aroma, which fills the kitchen, drawing in appreciative sniffers.

For my first meal, I shave one truffle lavishly over freshly cooked tagiatelle that's been tossed in a little butter and a few drops of truffle oil. It feels wildly extravagant (though if you think about it, one truffle costs less than a mediocre meal at a restaurant.) This accompanies some magret du canard for dinner. It's rare that a duck breast plays a supporting role but in this case the truffled pasta is the star, drawing oohs and aahs of appreciation as each diner puts their heads into their plates and inhales.

The next day, I make a Pommes Anna with truffle slices scattered between layers. I had something like this some years ago at the Restaurant Buerehiesel in Strasbourg, the first time I'd had a dish with serious chunks of real truffle, and have never forgotten it. This was an even bigger hit than the truffled pasta. The bland butteriness of the potato is a perfect vehicle for the truffle aroma and texture.

Pommes Anna with truffles

To serve 4-6 people as a side dish, or 2 as a luxurious feast

about 8 medium-large firm boiling type potatoes (not fluffy baking potatoes; in the U.S. Yukon Golds would be perfect, in the U.K. Maris Pipers; in Europe Charlottes or Bintjes would be good. I used Charlottes.)
2 Tbs. light olive oil
2 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. truffle oil
1 medium or 2 small truffles
crunchy sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 300°F.

Heat the oils and butter in a small pan just until the butter is melted.

Slice the truffle thinly (but not too thinly) with a slicer or a vegetable peeler.

Peel the potatoes and put them in a bowl of water as you work. Slice the potatoes as thinly as you can. Layer the potatoes into a round casserole dish, and sprinkle each later with a little salt and pepper and a drizzle of the combined oils. Every few layers, sprinkle on some of the truffle slices. Continue until all the potatoes are used up, then drizzle on the rest of the oils. Finish up with any remaining truffle.

Bake for an hour in the oven, until a knife stuck in the middle goes through easily and the top is golden brown. Serve immediately.

If you can't get a hold of fresh truffles, try this just with some good quality truffle oil to get the aroma experience.

There and Back Again: My Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese

maki — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:00:24 +0200

I love pasta in many guises, but when it comes to ultimate Comfort Pasta, there is nothing that compares to a spaghetti bolognese. By spaghetti bolognese, I mean spaghetti topped with a rich, ground-meat and tomato based sauce. No fancy ragu or such. I don’t think it’s that authentically Italian, but I don’t really care. It’s one of my favorite cool-weather dinners.

Once upon a time, I had what I thought was a perfect recipe for spaghetti bolognese. Then, about a year ago I lost my way. After a year of bewilderingly off-target bolognese, I’ve found my way back.

I blame Heston Blumenthal for messing with my head. (Disclaimer: I am otherwise a big fan of Mr. Blumenthal.) Last year, he tackled spaghetti bolognese on his In Search of Perfection television series (and in the book of course), and came up with a “perfect” version. The perfect Blumenthal version of spaghetti bolognese is, naturally, extremely complicated, but compared to the other “perfect” versions of various popular dishes it seemed to be the most doable. So, we (note the plural: it required a team effort) tackled it, piece by piece. It does help in life to have an almost equally food-obsessive partner for such quests.

It took us 3 full days to accomplish, starting from the pre-ordering of the meaty oxtails at the butcher counter (it’s not a commonly used cut here), finding the perfect spaghetti, ripe tomatoes in December (yes, I know) and the final slow cooking of the sauce. And the result?

It was good, yes, but perfect? Neither of us was sure. But yet it had flashes of something great in there; the meatiness of the gelatinous oxtail, the unctuous richness. So, we embarked on a long journey of trying to tweak that recipe. We tried different meat combinations. (Turkey is a definite no.) We experimented with bacon, chorizo, various sausages, salami. We tried less or more of the vegetables, canned tomatoes alone or fresh alone.

All were interesting, but I still felt off kilter. Then, the other day I made bolognese more or the way I had made it for years until the Blumenthal experiments - and, it was just about perfect.

Mind you, it’s probably because my criteria for a perfect bolognese are different from the great chef’s, as I explain below. And some of the ideas gleaned from the Blumenthal version and the ensuing experiments did creep in, making the sauce even better. In any case, I’m now happy that this is my Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese. I can now move on to perfecting other things.

Defining my Perfect Bolognese

I prefer my bolognese to have a rich, deep taste of tomato, wine, and meat. I also like the meat to be ground quite finely so that you get an integrated ‘meat sauce’, rather than ‘bits of meat suspended in a sauce’.

The experiments with cured meats convinced me that I don’t like cured-meat flavor or smoke flavor in the sauce, but a little bacon is added for richness.

I like the sauce to be rich, but not swimming in fat (a pronounced feature of the Blumenthal version).

It’s key to let the sauce cook for a very long time - minimum 3 hours after the preparatory stage - in a thick-walled pan, ideally a Le Creuset or similar.

The only pasta to use is a robust, dried spaghetti. The kind we use all the time now is substantial and rough textured, as you can see from the picture. That rough surface absorbs sauce in a very satisfying way. It costs almost twice as much as Barilla spaghetti, but is worth it. (If you are using Barilla or other mass-produced line though, I’d go for the spaghettoni rather than spaghetti.)

(For readers in Switzerland, this is the Spaghetti alla chitarra from the Migros Selection line.)

Things I liked and didn’t like about the Blumenthal version

The Heston Blumenthal bolognese is described in great detail in his first book, but also appears on this page. There’s another one on The Times web site, which is quite different.

Mixing fresh and canned tomato is a great idea, as is adding some cream - though I used butter instead, for that dairy unctuousness.

Long cooking, of course, is a good thing, though his version takes 9 hours.

The oxtail meat idea was interesting, but obtaining and then cutting the meat off the fiddly bones is way, way too much work - and ultimately, I felt, not quite worth it. It’s also quite expensive here in Switzerland. For the gelatinous quality I use some veal in the meat mixture instead.

His version was too sweet for me for some reason. I also didn’t like the star anise addition at all - this may have added to that sweet flavor somehow. I do like adding star anise to many meat dishes, especially pork, just not this one.

There was also too much added fat overall, which cause a very substantial oil slick to appear on the surface of the sauce.

I’ve always used red wine in bolognese, and he used an ‘oaky Chardonnay’. I prefer the robust red wine.

Recipe: My Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese

For the sauce:

The meats:

450-500g / 1 lb top loin or chuck
225-250g / 8 oz veal breast
225-250g / 8 oz. pork shoulder
100g / 3 oz non-smoked bacon or pancetta or speck, chopped fine

(Note that the beef and pork should be rather marbled, not very lean, if you need to use other cuts.)

Have all of the meats (except the bacon, which you’ll chop yourself) twice ground by the butcher, or grind it yourself (use a grinder or a food processor) until fairly fine but not a paste. If using a food processor, it helps to cube the meat and then half-freeze the cubes first. You can buy already ground meat if you prefer, but it should be not too lean as well.

The vegetables:

2 cups finely chopped onion
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup finely chopped carrot

Other stuff:

About 1/4 cup light olive oil
1 cup (250ml) red wine such as a Barbera or a Côte du Rhone (but I usually use whatever is handy, as long as it’s robust it’s fine)
1 large can (800g) canned tomatoes, the tomatoes smashed up (do this with your hands or in the food processor)
2 Tbs. tomato paste
4 cups peeled and chopped fresh tomatoes, seeds and all (If in the dead of winter, use another can of canned tomatoes instead)
2 bay leaves
Crushed dried or (preferably) fresh chopped rosemary leaves
Dried thyme
Dried oregano
Grated nutmeg
About 2 Tbs. butter, more or less to taste
Stock (veal or beef preferred) or water
Salt and pepper

And…the pasta etc.:

Spaghetti or spaghettoni, cooked al dente
Butter to toss with the spaghetti
Freshly grated Parmesano Reggiano (freshly grated Grana Padano is acceptable)

Equipment needed:

a heavy pan - I use an enamelled cast iron pot
large frying pan or sauté pan
Recommended to have: a food processor.

Heat up the olive oil in the heavy pot over medium heat. Toss in all the chopped up vegetables, then lower the heat to about midway between low and medium. Sauté the vegetables over the low heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s limp and very lightly tan.

In a large frying pan, sauté the ground meats until browned, and add it all into the pot. Deglaze (add a bit of the stock or water to the hot pan, scrape off the bits ) the frying pan and add that to the pot too.

Add all the other ingredients except the butter, water and salt and pepper. (The amount of herbs you add really depends on your taste. I like to add quite a bit of chopped fresh rosemary, about 2 tablespoons, because I have childhood memories of happily chewing on bits of rosemary leaves in my mother’s spaghetti bolognese. Add about a teaspoonful of the herbs and several grindings of the nutmeg, then taste after a few hours to see if you want more.)

Bring up the temperature until it’s bubbling, then lower the heat to ‘low’ and simmer, stirring up from the bottom of the pot occasionally, for at least 3 hours, preferably 4 or longer. Add a little stock or water whenever it starts to dry out too much. (You may also do this in the oven, but I prefer to do it on the rangetop and have just a tiny hint of burnt flavor in there.)

At the end of the cooking process, take out the bay leaves, stir in the butter, and add salt and pepper to taste.

This makes a lot of very rich sauce. About 1/2 cup is enough I think for a plate of dinner-portion spaghetti (allowing about 100g or 3 1/2 ounces dry weight per person). Portion and freeze the rest - it freezes beautifully.

To enhance the flavor, toss the freshly cooked spaghetti with a knob of butter prior to ladling on the sauce. Optionally top with freshly grated Parmesano Reggiano, or Grana Padano.

The only thing to serve with this is a green salad with a sharp vinegarette.

Notes

While the oil slick on this sauce is not as pronounced as the one that appears on the Blumenthal version, it is impressively deep. You can scoop some of this off if it scares you. (I would scoop off the excess oil prior to adding the butter…which may seem illogical, but you’ll be taking out ‘other’ oils and adding in butter flavor.)

You can also ‘stretch’ the sauce by taking a cupful and adding 1 small can (400g - about 8 oz) of crushed canned tomatoes. Adjust the salt and pepper. Sometimes I prefer this less-rich version.

Or, you can add one cupful to 1 cup of cream…for a very rich creamy sauce indeed.

Adding some sauteed mushrooms enhances it too.

The sauce as-is is perfect for layering in lasagna, stuffing cannellini and such, paired with a perfect Bechamel.

Don’t ruin it by covering it with pre-powdered cardboard ‘parmesan’. If there’s one thing I’ve learned while living in Switerland it’s that mystery cheese products taste really, really bad compared to the real thing.

Finally, in case you are wondering, spaghetti bolognese (also known as ‘spaghetti meat sauce’) is very popular in Japan. It has to be one of the most universally loved dishes in the world, no?

(Somewhat different and lighter pasta.)

Memories of New Year's feasts in Japan

maki — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:31:14 +0100

I love Christmas celebrations, and Thanksgiving when I'm in the U.S., but the holiday that has the most memories for me is New Years. This is the biggest holiday celebrated in Japan.

When I was a kid (when we lived in Japan and not elsewhere) we went to my grandparents' house every year. All of the relatives on my mother's side gathered there. Since my mother has 5 siblings, all of them plus their spouses and children made for quite a large party. Usually at least half of them would stay over for a night or two, and the futons would be lined up from edge to edge over a huge expanse of tatami mats, over three rooms with the shoji screens opened up. Besides the family there were all the neighors, employees of my grandfather and uncle, and other visitors who dropped by.

For this crowd, my aunt, who was in charge of the kitchen, had to prepare huge amounts of food. She wasn't into prettiness, but somehow managed to keep everyone overfull with her abundance. She would spend hours preparing everything before New Years day - vats of kobumaki (konbu seaweed wrapped around dried anchovies and cooked in a broth), nimono (sort of a generic term for stewed/braised vegetables and some sort of meat, usually chicken, or tofu), and so on. Ostensibly all the New Year's traditional foods are prepared in advance to allow the cook or housewife to rest during the first few days of the New Year, but it means a lot of preparations beforehand.

One New Year's tradition that my aunt has even kept up to this day, is to make some mochi with my uncle, in a real wooden hisu. He would wield the tsuki (the heavy wooden pounder), while she should rapidly turn the pounded rice mass. I was always amazed at how perfect their rhythm was. If he'd slipped and brought down the pounder too fast, he would have crushed her hands, but it never happened.

Mochi is a very glutinous, sticky sort of dough made by pounding steamed short-grain rice (mochi mai). Nowadays barely anyone makes their own mochi, and if they do they use an electric mochi machine that turns and pounds and kneads the rice. (A bit of trivia: the inventor of the original bread machine got the idea from seeing how a mochi machine operated.) Most people however just buy dried cakes of mochi. Mochi is eaten year round, but is most popular for New Years where it's made into zoh-ni. Basically, a cake of fresh or grilled mochi is stewed briefly in a clear dashi stock based soup with other ingredients. The ingredients vary widely depending on what part of the country you come from. Since we lived in the Kanto region, we had the rather boring combination of chicken pieces and komatsuna (mustard greens), though I always thought it was delicious.

Mochi was traditionally consumed during the New Year period for various reasons: partly for luck, and partly so that the cook or housewife didn't have to make rice during that time. Besides the mochi that's eaten in soups and such, stacked rounds of mochi, called kagami mochi (mirror mochi), is displayed in front of the family kamidana (shrine). This is usually left for weeks after the New Year, until it's rock hard, then broken up with a hammer. Both my aunt and my mother used to break it up into small bits then deep fry the bits for a delicious kind of rice cracker.

Other New Year's foods are also full of significance. Various bean dishes are served, such as stewed kuromame (black beans). Beans are meant to be for fertility, as is tazukuri, small dried fish coated in sticky sweet caramel. Colors are important too: kinton, a dish of pureed sweet potatoes with sugar syrup and beans or chestnuts, is colored a bright yellow with the seeds of the nadeshiko flower, and supposed to invoke gold, signifying prosperity. Namasu, a sort of sweet-sour instant pickle made with daikon radish or turnips, has a bright red added to it in the form of carrots or hot red chili peppers. Red and white together is considered lucky and festive. And so on. These foods were served in beautiful stacked lacqured bento boxes called juubako.

The irony is, that these traditional New Year's foods are not that well suited to the modern palate in Japan, and so they are consumed less and less. Gone are the days when people ate kinton and kobumaki and zoh-ni until January 7th, the end of the New Year's period. Nowadays, popular New Year's foods are things like sliced cold roast beef and chirashi-zushi (sashimi and other things on a mound of sushi rice), hardly full of significance of any sort. Still, some people do at least have small amounts of the traditional foods, perhaps in a one-layer juubako.

I myself don't like the traditional foods enough to go to the extra effort of trying to make them here. Still, I will make perhaps some kinton and some zoh-ni on New Year's day, just to bring back some memories.

(Three years ago, I wrote about the New Year's Eve food tradition: Toshikoshi soba.)

Recipe: Brussel sprouts with shallots and zucchini

maki — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:19:34 +0100

Brussel sprouts are one of the few vegetables that are actually in season in winter, and that's probably how they ended up as part of a traditional Christmas feast menu. But it's a sadly maligned vegetable, since it's a bit tricky to cook. If it's overcooked it's pretty awful. Whatever you do, don't toss brussel sprouts into a soup or stew, cute as the may look. The best way to cook brussel sprouts is just to sauté them or roast quite quickly.

Most Christmassy brussel sprouts recipes seem to involve gussying them up with bacon or loads or butter or chestnuts and such. While bacon and/or butter can make anything tastier, I rather prefer my side dish vegetables to a rich meal to be lighter. So this is one of my favorite ways to serve up brussel sprouts. Some shallots are sliced thin and wilted in good olive oil, then the sprouts and sliced zucchini are tossed in and sautéed at high heat for a few minutes until they are crisp-tender. (Yes I know, zucchini are not exactly winter vegetables, but they are easily available year-round and don't change that much in taste out of season.) The blandness of the zucchini is a nice match for the assertive brussel sprouts, and the pickier members of the dinner party can just eat those, if they must. It's all-vegan too, which can be a good thing if you have a culinarically mixed group coming over.

This is my last post before Christmas. Just Hungry will be back the week of the 26th. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope you get the presents you want! (The recipe is after the fold.)

Brussel sprouts with shallots and zucchini

450g / 1 lb or so of fresh, very firm, as small as possible brussel sprouts
1 large or 2 small shallots (or substitute yellow onions)
2 medium zucchini
good quality olive oil
salt and pepper

Equipment needed: a heavy-bottom sauté pan or wok

Wash the brussel sprouts and remove any loose leaves. Trip the stem ends if needed and if leaving them whole, make a small cross-cut in the stem. If you have rather large sprouts, cut them in halves or quarters.

Slice the shallot very thin. Cut the zucchini into slices.

Heat the pan with the olive oil and shallots, and sauté over a medium-low heat until the shallots are wilted. Turn up the heat and toss in the sprouts. Cook for a couple of minutes then add the zucchini. Sauté until the sprouts are a very bright green and tender-crunchy, and the zucchini is just a bit limp. Maximum cooking time should be around 10 minutes - any more and you'll bring out that bitter cabbage-iness of the sprouts.

Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Recipe: Glühwein, mulled wine for Christmas and wintertime

maki — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 03:39:09 +0100

(Mulled wine (Glühwein) recipe from the archives. Merry Christmas!)

I have rather mixed feelings about Christmas markets (called Christkindlmarkt in German and Marché de Noel in French), which abound in this part of the world at this time of year. On one hand, they are colorful and seasonal and everything. But unlike flea markets, which I'm addicted to, and crafts/artisan's markets, I don't find the merchandise to be that impressive. There's an awful lot of touristy junk being sold. They can also be horribly crowded - try going to the Nürnberg (Nurenberg) market on a weekend after 7pm and coming out alive!

What makes Christmas markets tolerable is Glühwein, which is a mulled wine. Hot, a bit sweet, and spiced, it warms you up nicely as you brace yourself for another round of stall-gazing with more enthusiastic friends and family members pulling you along.

I like to make a potful of Glühwein sometimes at home too. It's a great drink to have after a bracing walk or yet another shopping trip. But the main reason I make it is that it makes the house smell so wonderfully festive.

The base for Glühwein varies - it can be white wine, cider (the alcoholic European kind of cider, not the apple juice of that name sold in North America), or even Jagermeister. I think that a robust red wine works the best though. If you want to up the alcoholic content and fun quotient, add a shot of liqueur like kirsch or pflaumen to each mug. (Don't add the shots to the hot pot or you will get a faceful of knock-out fumes.) No need to stop making it after Christmas either - it's such a warming, fragrant drink that it's served at many ski resorts.

Incidentally, my favorite big Christmas markets are the ones at Salzburg, Austria and Strasbourg, France. If you love Christmas ornaments and things Nurenberg is worth at least one visit, though you can buy the same stuff in the stores in town without the awful crowds at any time of the year anyway. The ones here in Zürich are a bit lacking if you are looking for Christmas kitsch, though there's a lot of merchandise to browse through. The Glühwein with raclette combo is mighty tasty though. (The best Swiss Christmas markets I think are the one-day or one-weekend ones in the smaller towns.)

Glühwein, mulled wine

A 750ml bottle of inexpensive dry red wine (no need to splash out on something expensive, but it should be drinkable. I usually just use whatever red wine is on sale at the supermarket.)
2/3 cup of raw cane sugar or white sugar, or non-artificial sweetener of your choice
Juice and peel of one small lemon
2 cardamon pods
4 cloves
2 bay leaves
2 cinnamon sticks

Put everything in a heavy bottomed pan. Stir to melt the sugar. Heat the mixture over low heat, and leave for about an hour - it should never boil, just sort of seethe.

Serve in small mugs (straining out the peel and spices), with optional shot of brandy, kirsch or other liqueur.

Notes: Increase the amount proportionately to serve more people. Vary the sweetener to change the taste - honey is interesting, as is dark brown sugar or molasses.

Recipe: Beef and vegetable stew with parsley dumplings

maki — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:28:57 +0100

In the holiday rush to get so many things done, it's easy to forget to feed ourselves properly, and to rely on takeout and readymade meals. But I think that when we are super busy, it's even more important to slow down a bit, and to eat properly.

Still, there's really not much time to spend in the kitchen. That's where things like quick-assembly, slow-cook meals like stews and soups come in handy. They are so warming and comforting too when the weather is cold. It's finally feeling like winter around here, so when I am running around town, freezing my nose (and other body parts off), it's great to know that there is a pot of simmering stew waiting for me when I get home.

This beef stew is packed with vegetables, assembles in about 10 minutes or so, and can be left cooking in the oven, an electric range, or in a slow cooker indefinitely. The vegetables are basically whacked up in big bits - no need at all to fuss with neatness since they will slowly cook and melt into a delicious, amalgamated elixir. The tender dumplings, and optionally the potatoes, are added in the last 30 minutes. It's very warming and filling yet doesn't sit heavily in your stomach since there sauce is not thickened with roux and such. It's still rich-tasting though, from the goodness of the vegetables and meat and wine. I wouldn't mind eating this every other day during the cold months.

Beef and Vegetable Stew with Parsley Dumplings

Assembly notes: Put everything together in the pot as early as possible since it needs to cook for several hours. You can then either leave it in the oven, or on the stovetop of you have a non-gas range (I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving an unattended gas flame, but if you're hanging around the house wrapping presents etc. it's not a problem obviously). It's an ideal dish for a slow cooker/crockpot. The dumpling dough can be prepared in advance but it's best to prepare it just before the dumplings are put into the stew. The potatoes will disintegrate some if you put them in at the start, so ideally you will put them in about 10 minutes before you put in the dumplings - or just leave them out, since you'll have plenty of carbs from the dumplings.

About 450g-500g / 1 pound beef for stew, cut into large cubes (a cut like chuck that has some fat in it, nothing too lean)
3 large onions
2 cloves garlic
1 large bulb fennel
1-2 celery stalks
4 large carrots
2 medium boiling type potatoes
2 bay leaves
dried or fresh thyme - a couple of sprigs, or about 1 Tbs.
small bunch parsley
2 beef stock cubes
2 cups red wine
1 400g / 8 oz can crushed tomatoes
water, salt, pepper
olive oil

For the dumplings:

3 cups regular all-purpose white flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
a bunch of parsley
2 Tbs. butter
1 cup (or so) low-fat milk, or soymilk

Suggested equipment: a heavy enamelled cast-iron pot such as a Le Creuset with an oven-safe lid, OR a slow cooker/crockpot; a food processor.

Peel and slice the onions. Chop up the garlic roughly. Take off the tough green part of the fennel and slice roughly. Peel and whack up the carrot and the celery.

Dry off the beef cubes thoroughly with a paper towel.

Heat up your heavy stew pot if you are using that, or a sauté pan/skillet if you are using a slow cooker. Heat up some olive oil, and brown the beef cubes. Take out the beef, add a bit more oil if needed, and put in the onions and fennel. Sauté until limp and a bit browned. You want to scrape off all the brown bits from the meat while you do this. Put in the garlic, and the carrots.

Put the beef back in, and add the wine. Scrape the bottom with a spatula so all the brown bits are melted into the wine. (This step is absolutely crucial to ensure that the stew has maximum flavor.)

If you are cooking this on the stovetop: Add the can of tomatoes and the herbs. Add enough water to come up to about 2 cm / 1 inch or so above all the veggies, and add the stock cubes and the herbs. (You can use canned stock if you like but since there is so much goodness in the veggies and beef and wine and so on anyway you can just use stock cubes.) bring the pot up to a near-boil (that means it's bubbling moderatly, not rolling), then lower the heat until it's just simmering, and continue to cook with the lid on.

If cooking in the oven: Preheat the oven to 150°C / 300°F. Follow the instructions above. Once the stew is hot, put the whole pot with lid on in the oven.

If using a slow cooker: add the liquids and herbs and stock cubes as above, and follow the manufacturer's instructions.

Cook for at least 2 hours, longer if you like up to about 6 hours. (The longer you cook it the more the veggies will melt.) Occasionally check the pot and add a bit of water or wine if it's drying out.

In the meantime, peel and cube the potatoes and put them in a bowl of water.

About an hour or so before the end of cooking (or dinner time), dump in the potatoes.

About 40 minutes before dinnertime, prepare the dumplings. Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder). If you're going to mix by hand, chop up the parsley; if using a food processor just cut it up very roughly.

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor, and add the butter. Process until the butter is completely integrated (it will look a bit grainy). Put in the parsley, and continue processing until it's all chopped up and green. Add the milk through the feed tube while pulsing. You'll get a lumpy looking dough that's more or less all mixed together - no need to continue until you have a ball of dough.

If mixing by hand, rub the butter into the dry mixture with your hands until it looks grainy, add the chopped parsley, then slowly add the milk while mixing with a fork.

At this point, fish out the thyme twigs and bay leaves from the stew, and season with salt and pepper.

Form small balls of dough with your hands (flouring them if needed) and drop into the stew. Cover the pot and cook for an additional 20 minutes minimum (up to about 40 minutes).

This feeds 4 hungry people as a one-dish meal or more if you add things like bread and a salad.

More notes: You can leave out the dumplings and put more potatoes in if you can't be bothered with the dough etc. Crusty bread dipped into the stew is fine too. I do love dumplings though...so I hope you give these ones a try.

This is also ideal for cooking in a Doufeu pot, my new love. I'll write more about this wondrous pot soon.

A further education in truffles

maki — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 23:53:04 +0100

A few days after visiting the truffle market in Richerenches, we were staying in the medieval town of Uzès in the Gard. While the Gard is technically part of the Languedoc region, it feels very much like Provence.

On one corner of the ancient arcaded Place aux Herbes in the center of town is a small, jewel-like store dedicated to regional delicacies in general, and the truffle in particular. There we got a further education in the black truffle.

The store itself is a bit overwhelming. Row upon row of truffle-related products line the shelves: truffle oils; truffles preserved in jars; risotto mixes with truffles; cured ham that had been soaked in truffle juice; vacuum packet filet mignon scented with white Italian Alba truffles. And holding a place of honor on the back counter is a footed glass jar, filled with truffles.

We waited our turn patiently as Monsieur Balmain, the proprietor, held forth on the finer points of truffles with a prior customer. The gentleman in question, elegantly dressed in black from head to toe, purchased a truffle about the size of a tennis ball. It cost around €250 (about US $325).

When our turn came, Monseiur Balmain started off by taking the cover off the glass jar and inviting us to sniff. The smell was so overwhelming we almost fell over backwards. It was much more intense than the ones at Richerenches which were out in the open air. The truffles were uniformly larger, more swollen. They seemed to seethe with a mysterious energy in the dimly lit store.

In rapid-fire French (which I got maybe half of) Monseiur Balmain gave us a quick education on how to spot a good truffle. He took one of the precious truffles, and sliced off a tiny sliver. Look at the cut surface, he urged us. Notice how it's almost all dark, with barely a trace of white. He then took a smaller truffle from a plastic container, wrapped in a paper towel, and sliced a sliver off of that too. The slice was noticeably different - it was marbled with fine pale lines. This, he said, is a Chinese truffle. It has little scent, and is spongy. He demostrated the sponginess by pressing on the side of the small truffle, then handed it to me. I pressed - it was indeed a bit soft. And now press this he said, handing me the bigger, blacker truffle. It was much firmer. He told us, If you are offered a truffle in a parking lot, be sure to have a small slice cut off like so so you can see. We nodded meekly, our eyes glued to the black lumps of fungus more expensive than gold.

Now came the time to decide - buy a truffle, or not? There really was no question...we couldn't leave without one. We selected one about the size of a newborn baby's fist, and handed it carefully to Monsieur Balmain, who put it on the electronic scale. We held our breath as the price was figured out. Fortunately it was under the amount of cash we had (though about twice the price of the small truffle we had bought in Richerenches. That one was just a bit more marbled than the all-black truffle, with a few white streaks.)

The Uzès truffle is now resting, as per Monsieur Balmains instructions, in a jar in our refrigerator, wrapped in a paper towel, waiting for its star turn.

Maison de la Truffe
27 place aux Herbes
30700 Uzès
Tel. 04 66 63 83 45 Open year round (Note: the main market day in Uzès is Saturday, and it's a treat)